Magazine Advertisment Research (JOSH)

This here is an example of an advert that an artist has put in Q magazine for their latest album. This is quite a simplistic approach to an advert as unlike most adverst it is in black and white.

I will take some inspiration for our own advert from this. Firstly I will have the name of the artist across the top of the page, so anyone who views it will know instantly what is being advertised. I will also ensure that the date of release is on the advert however I may place it in a different place so that there is more originality to the advert than there would be if I was to just change the font and size of the writing.

On this advert I think that by having a long road in the background of the image and Bruce Sprinsteen at the front the people promoting him are trying to illustrate the journey that he has been on throughout his long career. They don't need to concentrate on the image of the artist as much because he is well known by many people throughout the world.

I intend have an image of all of the band members on the advert as they are almost completely unheard of so it is important that we make sure that people are able to see them so that they quickly become recognisable. I am going to make a reference to time on the advert so that there is a level of consistency with the album cover. As this has a large amount of reference to time.

Analysis Of A CD Album (JONNY)

Construction of Stop Motion (JOSH)

Our music video has stop motion at the begining of it as this was the best and most creative way that we could think of to introduce who the band were and the name of the song which we felt was important with them being unsigned. This was also a requirement that the band wanted us to include when we asked for permission to use the song in the creating of a music video.

We did a trial run using only the classroom lights and took the photos without a tripod. Doing this meant that we realised that we needed to use proper lights as well as a tirpod to get the effect that we wanted and to ensure that it was of the best quality possible.

From the outset we knew that this was a process that would take a long time in order for us to get the effect that we intended the stop motion to create. In total we estimate that we took around about 400 photos over the course of 3 hours. It was a process that was well worth the time as the end product does look superb.

In order to make sure that all of the photos were in the same light conditions we used the lights that you can see in the picture. This was very successful as it meant that all of the images were taken in the same light and thus meaning that there weren't continuity errors.


We used a large white board and put it on the floor so that it was flat and we could make sure that it was in the same position for every photo that we took. The reason that we chose a whiteboard was because it meant that we could rub bits of the image out and change the position of it to create the impression that the image was moving.

Audience Feedback From 1st Draft Of Music Video (JONNY)

Josh and I received feedback for our music video today as part of a peer assessment in our class. Although our music video had not been completed, we were able to show our development and then collate some feedback in order to improve the video. A lot of the feedback focused on items which we were already aware needed improving, however certain suggestions did help us with methods of improvement. We have decided to work on 3 different improvements that were brought up repeatedly in the peer assessment.

Improvement 1- Lip Synching
The majority of video currently is 2 seconds in front of the song. This makes any singing in the video look very silly! It would be easy to fix this problem, if the whole of the video was 2 seconds in front. However as it is only part of the video we will have to find a way of only shifting that part, whilst keeping the rest in the same location. I feel that this will be the hardest challenge and will be difficult to fix.  

Improvement 2- Dream Sequence
A lot of feedback talked about how the audience were unaware that one of our sequences was intended to be a dream. I have started attempts at improving this by finding a fce tutorial explaining how to make a filtered dream sequence (View Here). I hope to have this fixed by the end of the week.

Improvement 3- Dream Bubble
This should be the easiest problem to fix, but I am having a real problem with it! We have a dream bubble in front of a white background. The original colour of the dream bubble is white, but in the video it turns purple. This was also noted in the feedback as it makes the quality of the video very poor. I am not sure why this has happened and have tried to change this. I think I will need to conduct some research to establish what the problem is and how I can go about fixing it.

Market Research Album Covers (JONNY)

	EXAMPLE ‘The evolution of man’	MAROON 5 ‘Overexposed’	ONE DIRECTION ‘Take me home’
Images	The albums show a person holding a picture of the artist example when he was young over an image of a crowd at a festival. The style is very retro and has a ‘home made’ feel to it. The image on the album is creative as it indirectly relates to the title ‘evolution of man’ as in a way the image shows the ‘evolution of example’.	The album comprises of a number of hand drawn unusual images with a pink/ purple colour scheme. The images and the colours are bright and so attract the eye but do not tell a story or have any other purpose on the album cover.	The band is clearly represented in the album cover. The fact that they are all round a telephone box gives a British representation in international markets.
Brand Identity	The iconic Example logo is placed on the top left of the album. This makes it easily identifiable for his fans, however it is not as easy to identify for consumers browsing in a shop.	The band name is placed along the middle of the album, however does not stand out as much as the same colours are used. The name of the album is crushed along the bottom of the album. Although the album cover is unusual it relates to their other albums in terms of design.	The brand identity is extremely strong with all of the band being placed in the image. The name of the band and album name are clearly presented. This makes the band easy to identify for consumers, even those who are not as familiar with the band.
Presentation of artist/ band	The album presents Example through his younger self. This portrays a sense of innocence. There is also the idea of achievement, that when the picture was taken he dreamt of being famous and the fact that it is placed over a massive crowd means that he has achieved this.	There are no images of the band, however arguably they are famous enough to get away with this. The creative album image may be used to indicate their creative music style.	The fact that they are jumping and climbing on the album cover connotes youthfulness, energy and fun. The fact that is a sunny day means that the songs are likely to be happy. These are all things that we relate to boy bands, especially One Direction.
Other information	This album cover is effective however suits artists/ bands that are already famous. Our album will need to promote ‘The Village Musicians’.	Although I like the design of the album as it would stand out amongst all those other CDs in HMV. It would be expensive and time consuming to produce the images. Similar to the Example album, it would not promote our band.	In my opinion the album cover is too cheesy. However in terms of concept and promotion of the band, something similar to this would be good for ‘TVM’. However it would be important to make sure that we didn’t alienate the male market.

Digipak Market Research In HMV (JONNY)

After being given our brief to create an album cover for ‘The Village Musicians’, I sought to conduct some market research in one of the UK’s largest music retailers ‘HMV’.

The first thing that struck me when walking in to the store were the vast amount of different sections ranging from band t-shirts to tablet computers (their product range is extremely diverse!) Looking around the shop, to the left a large purple sign caught my eye ‘Chart’ with a music sign next to it. I decided that this would be a good place to start!

The chart music was aesthetically well displayed with lines of the albums all in unison. In my opinion, this allowed the artwork of the album to stand out far greater than if there had just been one album per artist. 
An album that stood out for me was the new One Direction album which had different visual versions of the album, with the image of a band member on each. 
This gives the consumer more choice (or dare I say, for real fans, the opportunity to buy all 4!) I found this interesting due to the fact that we are also promoting a boy band, although arguably with much greater musical talent than 1D. 




Moving on from the chart music, the main section of the store is devoted to what seems like every album ever created, literally thousands! I payed specific attention to the Rock and Pop section as I felt that was the genre our song best fit in to. As you can see from the pictures, its not easy for an album to stand out when there are this many. The Rock and Pop section seemed to go on for ages!





 The albums are firstly categorized by music genre e.g Rock and Pop. They are then sub categorized by alphabetical order of the album name.  There are also other sections such as 'greatest hits' which contain compilation albums with a selection of an artists/ bands greatest hits. This methodology makes it very easy for browsers to allocate the album they may be interested in purchasing. 

 Along with looking at album designs and artwork, I spent some time analyzing the market for music DVDs  This is a much smaller market with the picture to the right showing the whole of HMVs selection. I wanted to compare different styles of music DVD such as; performances, documentaries and compilations.  

 Once again coming back to One Direction. I have found 2 examples of performance DVDs. The model of these specific DVDs is to film the band during their live concerts, possibly add some extra footage such as back stage interviews and package it all in to a DVD. A perfect item for fans who were unable to get tickets for the concert- the next best thing!
Alternatively I found this hybrid music DVD which consisted of a collection of Elvis Presley's greatest performances. This product was aimed more as a collectors item with a high quality box to encase the DVD with a small book including information on Elvis also included! 

 This music DVD is a documentary looking at the history of Rap music and its development throughout the years. It is called 'something from nothing the art of rap'. The purpose of this DVD is to educate the viewer about the music genre, teaching them to have a greater appreciation of the song. The video is directed by ICE- T who is a well known musician in this field of music. 

 Along with the conventional forms of music DVD that I mentioned above, during my market research I came across a 'fly on the wall' style documentary which follows the band around as if you are living the life that they have. The example that I took a picture of was called 'being... N-DUBZ'. The idea of this genre of music DVD is to allow the viewer in to the day to day lives of the band, something that is not normally shown.

After conducting my market research I stopped off at the listening post to see what styles of music were being played. Similar to the shop the selection of songs available to have a brief listen to (30 seconds) were in its thousands. These were all in a database with a search toolbar at the top of the screen, you could search by song name, song artist or even by genre. While I was very impressed by the vast amount of songs available, it was disappointing to see that 'The Village Musicians' were not one of them! 

From my market research I have conducted that CDs are much more viable then music DVDs. I believe this is due to the increased usage a CD can have over a DVD. A CD can be listened to passively (whilst driving a car, doing homework etc) a DVD needs your full attention. It is clear to me that a lot of effort goes in to designing the artwork for an album cover as when albums are faced with such competition against hundreds of other albums as shown in my images above and that many different tactics are used to do this (bright colors  quirkiness of the cover, no images/ no words). These all give USPs to the album covers, and increase the chances of a browser picking the album up! Having spent time in HMV my opinion is that the CD sector of their market is focused at the older demographic who would still rather listen to a CD then download the song online. This opinion was backed up having during my time viewed the majority of CD browsers as 40+. This market research will help me develop my own ideas for an album cover representing 'The Village Musicians',  

Editing Schedule (JONNY)

I created this editing schedule at the beginning of November after we had completed all of the filming  and had uploaded the footage on to the computer. I coordinated our availability through both of our school time tables. I then created a schedule on Excel placing hourly slots in line with our lessons at school.

I started by placing our media lessons in the schedule and then proceeded to place our own personal availability following that. Sections marked 'J+J' were when both of us were available to edit the music video. Along with using this time to edit the music video, we also re-shot our stop motion. The stop motion was shot on Wednesday the 14th and Monday the 19th where we were both available for 2 hours (it was a long process!). We stuck to the schedule most of the time, but when we were unable too, we made sure we found another hour where we were available. Overall we spent just under 30 hours editing our final music video, meeting checkpoints along the way e.g the rough cut which we set a deadline for Friday the 9th (this was achieved- just!). The use of a schedule allowed us to be efficient in our time management as we knew exactly when we were needed to edit. This allowed us to schedule our other plans around these times, thus avoiding conflicts which may have caused unavailability for editing.  

Mood Board Representing Our Music Video (Jonny)

This is a Glog that I created, which gives a brief representation of our music video through words and images. It represents ideas that we had and implemented in our music video. This mood board was created on an online software called Glogster EDU.

I have had a Glogster account for a while now as this was one of the technology's that I used for my AS portfolio, and so was familiar with the set up of the software. Glogster edu allows you to set up a simple account which is free, however you can upgrade to a premium account paying a monthly fee. I used the free version which allows you to import images, videos and music to create a mood board which they call a 'Glog'. It is a very simple product to use and is quick to use if you already have the images saved. Another great benefit is that similar to other online programs I have used, you are able to embed your final product on to your blog. which makes it look that bit more professional! 

The Decision To Place Stop Motion In Our Music Video (Jonny)

For our A Level Media project Josh and I really wanted to push the boat out and try as many filming techniques as possible, as to allow our music video to really stand out from the others. Something that we were both very interested in was the video effect of stop- motion. Our interest in creating a stop- motion sequence increased after both watching the following video on YouTube...


 

We came across this video when writing a blog post on similarities between our bands music video and that of Noah and the Whales. The girl that created this video was also doing A Level Media at the time. Knowing for sure that we now wanted part of our music video to contain a stop motion sequence, we then set about finding the best way to do this. A video that I found on YouTube gave us a good basic knowledge of how we should go about creating our stop motion...




This video was created by a group called 'storm the castle' who among other things educate people in different filming techniques. The advice given in this video- although quite simple made us aware of problems we did not anticipate occurring. The video also gave us one of the most important pieces of advice for our stop motion sequence, which was... USE A WHITEBOARD. I can not express how much time this saved us, as it allowed us to modify an image without having to draw it again from scratch (as in the Noah and The Whale stop motion). Haven taken on board the advice given, we set about creating our stop motion sequence.

http://youtu.be/uhrmCTcF7B8

This was our first attempt at our stop motion sequence. Although it was effective in terms of looking like a moving image, we were unhappy with the camera movement. This was due to the fact that images were taken holding the camera free hand, rather than using a tripod. Another error was lighting. By only using natural light our images were inconsistent, instead we should have used photography lights similar to the ones used in our green screen. Because of these errors we have decided to learn from our mistakes and reproduce the stop motion sequence, this time with tripods and lighting.

Construction of the Storyboard (Josh)

We made story board so that when we were out of set filming the music video we had something to look back at and were able to make the video as good as possible due the amount of planning.

We used one post-it notes for each different shot that we would take. The meant that we would easily be able to visualise what we would need to do at each different stage of the filming. Using Post-it notes meant that if we decided to change the order it which we were to have the scenes then we would be able to move them much easier than if we used storyboard paper like we did in year 12.

We took great care when drawing the scenes on the post-it notes so that when we changed the storyboard into an animatic to show to the actors they would have an even better idea as to what we wanted them to do as oppose to if the drawings lacked detail and we just spoke the instructions to them.

All of the drawings were originally done in pencil and then colour and outlining with a black pen was added after. This was so that if we made any mistakes with the drawings we could amend them much easier than we would be able to if we drew them in pen straight away. The pen made the drawings easier to see on the animatic as they were bold and colourful.

The storyboard to a number of weeks to perfect and we both feel that this was time well spent as without a brilliant storyboard it is impossible for anyone to create a brilliant end product. Here Jonny and myself are discussing the order in which we want the post-it notes to be. There were a lot of scenes that we weren't sure of the order and once we had put them in different orders on the animatic we were able to decide upon the perfect order for all of the scenes in order for us to make what we hope will be a really good music video.

Here we are comparing our original planning notes to the storyboard that we are in the process of creating. We wanted to make sure that we gave our self some guidance to how we would make the storyboard so that we didn't begin to come up with stupid ideas that seemed good at the time but once it came to filming them were impossible to actually pull of

Health and Safety Risk Assessment (Josh)

There are a nuber of risks that are involved in the construction of our music video. Most of these were during the narrative part of the filming.

The Tree
  There are always a number of safety issues surrounding putting a man up a tree with a guitar. Before sending Mike up the tree Jonny went up to ensure that it was safe and the ladder was footed by myself so that it didn't fall over whilst he was up the tree. Jonny checked that the branch could hold the weight both when we originally found the tree and then once agin on the day of shooting.
  To get Mike up the tree we used a ladder and ensured that he would wear shoes with a lot of grip in order to make sure that there was minimal chance of him slipping out of this tree. Once Mike got up the tree we made sure that he was comfortable before handing him his guitar. Once Mike was in position we made sure that the filming was done as quickly as possible so that mike didn't have to stay up the tree to long we did ensure that the film was to the highest quality.
  We used a ladder to get Mike out of the tree so that it was as safe a possible. There was one more thing that we needed Mike to do at the tree, hang off of a lower branch and then drop for one shot that will be used. Before doing this Jonny checked that the branch was able to hold the weight

The Field
  There is minimal risk here; the only that we found was rabbit holes along the down hill where the actors would run. For this reason before we started shooting the footage we walked up and down the hill to check for holes. We then found an area that there weren't any holes and began shooting the film.

The Bridge
  Once again there was minimal risk at this location. The only risk was that Mike could slip on the bridge. The prevent this we made sure that Mike had grippy shoes so there was minimal risk of him slipping.

Detailed Timeline Of Music Video For 'All This Time' (Jonny)

I created a detailed timeline of the footage that we will use in our music video as part of our planning. I chose to do this as I believe it will be extremely beneficial in the long run with both filming the footage and the editing of the music video. This timeline allows us to know exactly what footage we need and where it will go in relation to the other footage. I also have the timeline on a word document so that it is easier to consult when we are out filming.

I originally created this timeline on a power point presentation but then converted that to an online presentation using an online application called 'slideshare'. This was the first time that I had used 'slideshare' and so I was asked to create an account- this was fairly simple! However once I had created the account there were no instructions on how to use the application. I struggled at first on how to use the application, but I soon figured it out by simply uploading my power point at the click of a button. The application then processed the power point turned it in to an online presentation and gave me an embedding link. The program was very simple to use and is a clever idea for anyone who wants to share a presentation document online!   

Audience Expectations Of Our Music Video (Jonny)

This is a video that I made to represent our target audiences expectations of our music video. I created the video on Imovie with the experience I gained last year from our film openings. In our questionnaire we asked people to listen to our chosen song 'All This Time' and then asked them questions relating to the style of the song and what they would expect from the music video. This video will help us to understand what our target audience expect from our music video and will work as a guideline when story boarding our music video. We realized after editing the video that we had no female input shown on our video, this was a problem as our target audience is both male and female ages 13-21. However we have solved this problem by keeping the data response from our Music Video Interviews and our Questionaire which have both male and female responses!    

Synopsis Planning (Jonny)

We planned our Synopsis on a online brainstorm and mind map creator called bubbl.us. We started by splitting the music video in to 4 sections: 1st,2nd and 3rd verse and the chorus. We then followed these up with the locations, characters, the lyrics to that section and a brief synopsis of what would happen. This allowed us to create the mind map above.  

This was the first time that I used this program and I found it relatively easy to use! There was a small introduction to the program when I singed up which talked me through the basics, this was useful. There were also buttons which worked as short cuts which made things much quicker, for example ctrl+enter added another branch to the mind map. This mind map program was really effective in organizing all of our thoughts on our music video synopsis and displaying it in a format that is simple to follow. I will definitely be using this program again! 

Organizing Costumes For Our Music Video (JONNY)

I took on the role of organizing the costumes for both the band and the actors in our music video. 

When deciding on what the band should wear, I felt that it was right to represent the real village musicians style. I hoped that this would give an authentic relation between the band members and the song. For example; it would not have been effective if our band members wore baggy jeans, baseball caps and golden chains.
However, I felt that it was also important that our band members wore something true to themselves and that represent their unique style as a band. I found some pictures of the band and posted them on our group facebook page. I showed our band what the real village musicians wore, however explained to them that they had free reign over their own costume as long as it was similar and represented the genre of music. 




When shooting the narrative I ensured that Mike was wearing the same costume to avoid continuity errors. I worked with Ami (our actress) to co- ordinate a costume that represented her character
and that went well alongside Mikes costume.




I decided that it would also be important to start developing an 'image' for our lead singer Mike. Something that would distinct him from other artists. We decided that his leather jacket gave him a really nice nice image, and so you can see him wearing this jacket throughout the music video.