Wednesday 28 November 2012

Production Booklet

We filled out a production booklet which had information on our shotlist, locations, contact details and health and safety information. This booklet was used at the set so that we were clear on everything we needed to do whilst filming our music video. This production booklet was scanned and uploaded to flicker. The images of all the pages are below.


photo (4)

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This is our music video set-up, this is where we decided what shots we were going to be using in our music video, we also decided what roles people in our group would be allocated to as well as pro[s and location.

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These are the health and safety sheets, we used these sheets to list possible hazards that we might come up against whilst filming in the woods.

PRODUCTION BOOKLET SCANS

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56223899@N06/sets/72157632122615152/

Friday 23 November 2012

 i have looked at Goodwin's six points in two music videos that are both by the same artist.

ALL TIME LOW - WEIGHTLESS                                                       ALL TIME LOW - TIME BOMB









GENRE CHARACTERISTICS

pop punk                                                                                                   pop punk

this music video has a lot of characteristics towards                       this video doesnt have as many
punk such as they playing as a band with all the                            characteristics as the other video
instruments.                                                                                   because it is more of a narrative then
                                                performance and most pop-punk are
                                                 performance.
                                               






both these music videos have some performance video which is a big characteritics to that genre of music but timebomb also has a bit of narrative.

VISUAL AND LYRICS

wieghtess doesnt have a video that fits with the                      The song is about two people torn apart               
lyrics, the lyrics  are about something not                  by their own infatuation with one another
 being brilliant now but in the long run will be                    It’s one of those things I think a lot of 
 where as the video is about what bands are                       people have felt, that kind of relationship
being made into when they get really famous                      where everything is so strong, but the
and big.                                                                            relationship itself becomes volatile. It’s
                                                                                        about the struggle to hold a relationship like                                                                                                     hh                                                                              that together, and the fight and the desire to make it







Monday 19 November 2012

What is a Digipak?

A digipak is a style of packaging that is used for CD's and DVD's. Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums.

Examples of Digipaks include:

 This is a 4 panel Digipak. These would be easier to produce but can have less information and less representations of the star.
This is a 6 panel Digipak. This can have a lot of information displayed of the star and the songs. The downside is that these kinds of Digipaks will take longer to produce.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Magazine Advertising

Most artists use magazines as a form of Promotion for either albums, tours, video releases etc. Magazines such as Kerrang and NME specialize in promoting musical artists in different forms. One form of magazine advertising is featuring an artist on the front cover of the magazine using big pictures that stand out from the rest of the magazine with the use of image size and colour contrast. The reason that magazines use this method is because it stands out compared to the rest of the magazines on the shelf which would appeal audiences into buying the magazine.

Artists will want to use magazine advertising because it is an easy way for them to be able to promote to their target audience. It also allows them to be able to get across a lot of information into a small place. Artists are able to use images for people to be able to relate to and recognize, which then means that when they use any other kind of promotion then their target audience will see these and want to look at this other promotion. They also try and promote other featured artist by using bold text to alert the viewer of what other artists are featured in the magazine.

Magazines will also use reviews of live performances to promote artists. The reason why magazines use this is because it provides the target audience with reasons to go and see the band and it also makes the audience feel that it is worth them seeing the band. Along with this magazines also incorporate album reviews which give critic reviews on what they thought of the band's album and if it is worth buying or not.

Monday 12 November 2012

Feedback and the Reshoot

During lesson on Monday the 6th of November, we gained some audience feedback from our peers. We had people look at our music video and then fill in a sheet to let us know what they liked, what they disliked and what they thought we could improve on. Most of this feedback was positive of constructive. This helped us to be able to come up with new ideas to use when we did our reshoot. Some of the positive comments were that the style of our editing looked good and related to the music. Other comments were that our shot types were good and we had produced a good relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The constructive feedback was that the lip syncing was out in a couple of places and this would need highlighting and fixing. Our feedback also showed that we needed more of a variety of different angles and shot types, specifically of the singer, bassist and guitarist.

With this feedback in mind, we decided that on Wednesday the 7th of November, we would go out during lesson and try and think of some test shots and see what looked effective and what didnt. Unfortunately we could not go back to the original location because all of the filming had to be done during lesson time. This meant that we had to find a secondary location in which to film these shots. We decided on a small woodland area just by the college because this seemed to have everything we were looking for in a location linked to our original one. Whilst taking this test footage, it was clear that we needed more movement from the camera as all of our original shots were still and from the same angle and distance. We took test footage of high angle shots, long shots, tracking shots and mid shots to see what would look effective for our music video. With this footage, we decided on the shots to do for our reshoot and we were almost prepared to film.

During the lesson on Wednesday 7th, we decided that Friday the 9th of November would be the best day for us to reshoot. With this in mind, it was decided that all the band members had to come with the same clothes they had during the initial filming to provide continuety, they also needed to bring any equipment that they had during the first shoot and that they needed to be on time so that we could get all the shots we needed during the lesson.

On Friday the 9th of November, everyone involved in the filming had arrived at the lesson and we went to the location to film. Unfortunately the drummer could not be at the reshoot because he works during the week, but that was not a problem because we had enough coverage of him through a variety of different angles and shot types. At the reshoot, we began initially by getting more coverage of the bassist as there was not much of him. We gained two or three shots which we thought would be effective and we could pick and choose between them for the editing process. Wethen decided to gain more shots of the guitarist so we also took two or three different shots of him in a varity of different angles. We then decided that it would look effective to have shots of both the bassist and guitarist together showing a lot of passion to make it look more realistic. We decided to encorperate camera movement into these shots. These shots looked really good and the group as a whole were happy with them. Finally, it was time to gain the all important coverage of the singer. With this in mind, we decided that a variety of different angles would look good. We decided that we wanted a high angle shot on the singer showing a lot of passion. To do this, we needed to use the wheelchair provided to gain the hight we needed. To comply to health and safety, we mande sure that the brakes on the wheelchair were filmly placed on and that two other group members held the camera person to make sure they didnt fall at any point. We decided to use a canted angle for this shot because it made it look a bit more abstract which is what we were trying to achieve with our music video. We also took a shot of the camera following up to the singer and then showing his face singing. We would then speed up the walking process to make it look abstract and then have it slowed down to original speed where we see the singer. We also got a few more shots of the singer to make sure we had a lot of coverage.

Overall, the reshoot was effective because it allowed us to be able to use our feedback in relation to making our music video more appealing to the target audience as well as making it more interesting. We managed to gain a lot of coverage which was our aim and we used our test footage in mind to gain this footage.

Friday 9 November 2012

our reshoot

we decided as a group that we needed more footage of the band and different shot types because the shots we had were all basically the same, the shoot went really well we managed to get some more of the lead singer, bassist and guitarist. we came across some problems such as we couldnt get the drummer to come and film more takes because he had work, another problem we faced was that we only had time to film during a lesson and didnt have enough time to get over to wicken fen again, so we used the forest at the back of the college to film some more shots. to gain more shot types we used a wheel chair to get a tracking shot, it didnt work so well so we used it to get higher shots by carefully standing on the wheelchair with the brakes firmly on holding on to each other, i managed to get a shot of jake when he turns around to go at the beginning of the video and swoops in on his face, we then decided with this clip that we can reverse it to go at the end of the music video.  as a group we had decided before the reshoot that we wanted to get more shots with movement  because many of our shots are standing still in the forest or of the notes so there werent much movement. especally as the song sped up towards the end the clips were still the same speed. we got more clips or the guitarist and bassists interactions so that not all clips in the music video are of them singley or of them as a whole band

Thursday 8 November 2012

The set up of our music video part 2

For the second part of our music video, the slenderman subplot, we had to get prepared with out slender notes and having our actor (Adam S) dressed up as slenderman. We prepared 8 slender notes which shows intertextuality between the game and our music video because there are 8 "pages" in the game. We decided to use the slender notes as a chance to relate to one of Goodwins points which is to show a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. We decided to take lyrics from the song and have them on the slender notes so that we could have these at certain points in the song to relate the visuals back to the lyrics. After we have prepared all of these elements, we decided to go out and film the sub plot to our music video. Below are some images of us out filming:
 





 


 

Wednesday 7 November 2012

The set up of our music video part 1

Whilst we set up for our music video, we decided to take images as evidence of what we had to do. We took images using a seperate camera to get an idea of the effort and amount we put in to produce our music video. The images below are of us setting up for the performance half of our music video:






 


 


The main part of the setting up for our music video was to put the drum kit together. This process went quite quickly because we had four of us setting up the drum kit. We also had Dan S there who was able to tell us what to do in terms of setting up the drum kit.

Reshoot After Feedback

Based on  our feedback that we received yesterday, we decided that we need to re-shoot certain shot types of our music video and add more variety to the shots that we should use for our video. One of the main problems with this is that we can not get hold of the drummer as he is busy at his job so we can't use him for drums, but luckily we dont need to film anymore drumming angles. The second problem that we have is that non of us are free to go back to our original filming location so we will have to use the woodland area outside the college. we also need to re film so that the lip syncing will be more accurate.

Other than them short comings most of our feedback was mostly positive with appraisal for the current editing style and use of camera shots with shots matching the lyrics (Slender notes) and as for the reshoot there should be no problems with reshooting, the props we will need will be:


  • Guitars (Bass and Electric)
  • The same clothing that we used for the original shoot for the sake of continuity.


Tuesday 6 November 2012

Promotion of Music Video's

Promotion of Music Video's

Promotion of products has always been around in a variety of different methods. It has become more apparernt in recent years that social networking has provided a platform for promotion. Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become huge areas where bands and artists will be able to produce promotion for their products, such as tours, merchandise and music video's. These social networking sites allow bands and artists to post status updates, provide fans with information and communicate on a social level with their fans. This form of promotion has become a huge hit with band and artists over recent years due to the ease of being able to display information across to a wide audience.

Our song is performed by You Me At Six. They have their own facebook page where they have all of the abilities listed above. They are able to display information across to their traget audience easily just with the click of a button.


The band are able to promote their products over Facebook just by posting a small bit of information and providing links for the target audience to click. This allows them to be able to also communicate their star persona to the fans because they can add personal touches to their Facebook page and communicate on a level which the target audience can relate to.


We could use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to increase the consumption of our music video and this will provide us with some audience feedback. It is possible for us to be able to post our rough cut and ask for feedback on the video, which could either be constructive or negative depending on the opinions of the video. I decided to post our video onto Facebook and ask for people opinions of the video. Below is a screenshot of the video on Facebook, but their are no comments so far as the post has not been up for long.




i set up a post on a social networking site asking for criticism for our rough cut. as i didn't get any responses in text i did get 4 'likes'. the few people i asked about the video in person said that the video strangely suited the song. one thing that people kept noticing was our lack of microphone. this was a continity error by us and its too late in production to do anything about it now. another criticism was that some cuts were too long. to fix this i will fill the long cuts with more cuts, if extremes happen we will take out the cameras out one last time to record.

Monday 5 November 2012

Different Editing Techniques


We are using Final Cut Pro for the editing of our music video.

We are planning to use different editing techniques in our music video. we are planning to keep each shot in our music video 5 seconds each at the most, the reason why we think this will be effective is because it will match the pace of the music tempo and it will also keep the viewer interested in our video because  no shots will drag out to an extent where the viewer won't get bored watching it.

In terms of transitions between shots, we will not use fades or slide transitions for our music video because they would out of place with the music because the genre is a sort of indie rock/pop. We will most likely use straight jump cuts between shots to help keep the pace of the video. We will also keep true to the game and use a static transition when we show Slenderman.

Filters wise we are planning to use a variety of camera filters for our msuic video as this is the look we are trying to achieve. This will also tie in well with our genre.

Rough Cut Appraisal

Rough Cut Appraisal

After looking over our music video, I have come up with some good points, some bad points and ways in which we can improve the negative points.

Negatives:
I dont like to be nit picky, but there are a few different parts to the music video that I think do not work and need to be changed or improved.
Firstly, I have an issue with the begining, which is that I am not a fan of the whole small set up part before the music actually starts. I, unfortunatly, do not think this is affective as it shows the whole band before they are shown through the music. I also feel that the shot of the singer (Jake) and guitarist (Adam W) is a little long and could do with one extra shot, possibly of Jake singing individually, to be included within this sequence.
I do not like this shotmainly because of the positioning of it.

Secondly, I feel that the pace of the music video is very slow up until the end, which doesnt show a link between the music and the visuals (Goodwins Analysis). I feel that the music video should have a build up of the pace which is relected in the music, which increases with pace throughout the song. This could be done by using a variety of shots to make an emphasis of the song building in pace, and this will also show a relationship between the music and the visuals.
I also feel that the master shot is being used far too much. The video goes back to the master shot in a variety of different places and it doesnt show a great deal of coverage or variety. This will make the video seem boring and will lose the interest of the viewer. We want to be abke to keep the interest of the viewer throughout the video.

We are too reliant on this master shot and need more variety of shots.
 

There is also a problem with the fact that there are no kinds of filters on the shots which makes everything look a little bland in my opinion. There could be some filters on specific shots to make them look a little more abstract which is the look we are trying to achieve from the video.
There are no filters on these kinds of shots which we need to achoeve the look to relate to our genre of music.

The final issue is that there are a few shots where the lip syncing is out of place. This may be due to the fact that the video needs a bit of a tighten up or that the singer is unsure of the lyrics. This is a problem because it makes the video look unproffesional and it can easily be picked out by a viewer.

Positives:
The video has many positives to it, and I am very happy so far wioth how the video is coming together and how the editing process is going.
Firstly, I am very pleased with the editing at the end of the video. I am pleased with this because the pace of the editing increases and it provided a good relationship between the music and the visuals. This will be able to keep the interest of the viewer and provides good emphasis on the music and the cutting on the beat.
Secondly, I am very happy with the coverage that we got because there is a lot of it which we can chop and change between to provide a varoety of different shots. This will provide us with the ability to have many different shots that can keep the interest of the viewer which is essential when editing a music video. It also allows us to be able to choose the shots that we feel are the most effective for the music video.
I am also very happy with the editing so far as it is providing a good representation of the genre which we are going by. The pop punk genre is a genre that envolves fast paced editing with many different filters on top to provide a dark outlook. We are achieving this because our editing is becoming fast paced and we are also trying different techniques for filters and seeing what looks effective.
The editing at this position is fast paced which is what we want to achieve.

I am very happy with how we managed to provide a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. We managed to achieve this by having the lyrics included in the slender notes which are a key part to the sub plot of envolving the "Slenderman". We were able top produce our own slender notes which we used within our filming of the sub plot to then include within the video where it matched the lyrics to provide this relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
This shot is where the lyrics are "Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na." This is represented in the visuals above.

Finally, I was happy with the proffesionalism shown by all group members in the production of our video. Every member of the group took the video seriously and wanted to produce the best video we possibly could. Each member took the liberty of turning up on costume if they were being filmed and they all provided ideas and bounced of each others ideas to end up with shots that have been pictured together in a fantastic editing process to provide us with the most effective video that we could hope for so far.

Ideas for improvements
A few ideas have been passed around as improvements for after half term. One idea that has been mentioned various times is to use a shot of a handheld camera walking up to the singer (Jake) and then this could be sped up to provide an abstract shot of a fast paced camera movement slowing down to picture the singer. This is a technique that is used in a veriety of different genres but would be affective with our genre because it would provide good display of the setting as well as providing us with another different shot to add to our variety.
Another idea that I have come up with is that we could have more individual shots of the singer and bass guitarist as these two members are not shown in as many variety of shots as the drummer and guitarist. For this idea to become a reality then the sinegr and bassist (Jake and Adam S) would need to be wearing the same clothes as they did in the video and then they can be filmed again with any props required (Bass guitar).