Planning the Magazine Advert (JOSH)

This here is my planning for the magazine advert. I decided that we would keep with the idea of time by placing images of each of the band members dressed in clothes from particular seasons into a clock face that had the months instead of the numbers for the clock. The picture isn't completely clear so I will explain each of the different areas. The top right is a picture of our drummer Nicky, he would wear winter clothing and a christmas hat to represent the winter months. The image below is of the lead singer Mike with eggs, preferably easter eggs but the most likely would be kinder eggs as these are in my opinion the most suitable replacement. I decided that the most popular part of the spring months is probably easter so it is fitting to have easter eggs. The bottom left image is of Tom the keyboard player wearing swimming trunks, I thought that it could be a good idea to have him either topless or with a vest on, he would also be wearing sunglasses this was to represent the summer months and people going on holiday during these months.  The image above this is of Tom in warm clothing and a halloween mask with the other two band members this was to show that the band enjoy fun activities with each other. 

The writing at the bottom of the page is the album name and this would be in the same font as a digital clock, this is once again an idea that I had which meant that we could keep the album and song well linked together with the advert so that the target audience are able to understand the link and be able to find the album on display with ease thanks to the advert.

A short analysis of a CD (JOSH)

We felt that it was important to look at two different albums when reserching their conventions. We decided that I would take a look at an album by a band and Jonny of a solo artist. My version was to be quicker so that we could look at it with ease if we were struggling with the conventions  quickly and easily whilst Jonny's in more depth so that we could demonstrate that we had a full understanding of the conventions of a CD cover.

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.

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.

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.

Filming of the Narrative 29/11/12 (Josh)

Yesterday we went and filmed the narrative parts of the music video. This was a long day for all involved with us starting at 10:30 and not finishing until 19:00. We had a number of different locations which we needed to shoot in and wanted to make sure that we wouldn't have to re-film any sections so we took lots of footage.

Here is a photo of jonny at the first location capturing soem footage from the point of view that the main singer would have. This will be used in the early part of the song. Jonny made sure that he held the camera steady whilst taking this shot so that the video is of the highest quality.

Here Jonny is explaining to Mike what he needs to do for the next scene. We made sure we done this before every single scene that we filmed so as the actors would have 100% confidence that they knew what to do. This meant that the filming would not take to long and would be efficent for all involved and wouldn't mean that the actors would have to film each scene to many times.

 Here Ami (the girl in the narrative) and Mike are about to start acting one of the scenes and are just recieving a final brief on what they will need to do from myself and Jonny. This is another part of the film which will go during the part of the film where the main singer (Mike) is imagining that they are in a relationship.

Mike and Ami mid scene, this is another part of the footage for when the lead singer is imagining they are in a relationship. Mike and Ami were confident that they knew what they were doing and done a fantastic job of this scene. This was ine scene that we filmed not sure weather or not we would use it but after we had filmed it we decided that we would definately be using it as it look great.




To conclude this was a really enjoyable day for all involved and was very constructive for Jonny and myself. We managed to get all of the footage that we need for the film and hope to have it completely edited by the end of November.

Prop List (josh)

There are a number of props that we will be needing for our video, these will be essential in ensuring that the video will be successful and have the professional look that we intend to have once we have finished it. Through planning in advance the actors that we will be using will know what they need to bring. It also means that we will know what we will need to bring for the actors.

The props required are as follows:
Guitar for all scenes mike will be in
Drum kit for the performance scenes
Key board for the performance scenes
Coke can for the scene outside the shop
Mike clothes: white T-shirt, jacket and jeans
Nicky clothes: blue jumper and jeans
Tom clothes: Jeans, two jackets
Ami clothes: a number of different outfits so that it doesn't look like it was all filmed at the same time

Nine Frame Analysis (JOSH)

I am going to analyse the music video for the Noah and the Whale song 5 years time. I have chosen to do this particular video because they are from a similar music genre to our band as well as having used some the techniques that we intend to use for our music video.

 Firstly in the opening few seconds of the music video there is stop motion which is used to introduce both the band and the song which is an idea which we particularly liked as it is a reasonably unused method of making sure that the  audience definitely knows the name of the song and the name of the artists. This means that the audience is much more likely to buy the song as they won't have to go the effort of finding out the name of the artist from an outside agent e.g. an app on their smart phone.

Second the music video has close ups of the ukulele when this instrument is being played which means that the images are cohesive to the audio. Without this it is possible that the audience my get confused and not understand the meaning behind the video.

In a later frame there is an image of a chicken which adds some irony and humour to the video without having being too cheesy as it is unexpected for there to be a chicken at a zoo. This isn't something that is done for the entirety of video as this could mean that the video looks unprofessional.

The whole of the video appears to have been filmed in a low quality camera which adds authenticity to the video and is yet another way that video has some uniqueness to it without being to wild and rubbish thus creating a poor viewing experience for the audience.

We also liked the way that in the chorus when the words " Fun, Fun, Fun" were said these lyrics appeared on the screen along with some actions which appear to show some dancers having fun. This is one technique that we will be considering for our video as it is one way of complying with Andrew Goodwin's rules that is reasonably easy to do.

Sixth is an example of another techniques that we intend to use, close ups of instruments. This means that the audience will be able to create a cover of the song easier if they wish to as they will know exactly what instruments are being used.

At 2:56 there is a shot of some characters within the video creating a square with their feet, this is one shot that is especially effective as it shows clearly what the shot is intended to show. If this shot had been done with a long shot from a tripod it would have been impossible for the artist to covey entirely what they want to.

3:23 shows the band performing all together which is one of the conventions of most music videos and is something that as we know from our research is something that audiences have come to expect from a typical music video.

Lyrics

This here is a "wordle" of the lyrics to our song. This has enabled us to see which words are used the most in our song and which we should add more emphasis to whilst producing ideas for the video. We chose to use wordle as it meant that we were able to see exactly this which means that we are now able to produce the best possible music video focusing on ideas and words that we wouldn't have if we hadn't used this technology.

Original brainstorm (Josh)

We wanted to have ideas of what we were going to do before we started to make a storyboard for the film. This involved sitting down looking at the lyrics sheet and seeing which lyrics jumped out at us and seeing which ideas we had for the video. We decided the best way to plan was to write ideas next to lyrics and then see which ones by the end of the session we would use. By the end of the session we had enough ideas to build on to make the best video possible.

Jonny Cash: Hurt (Josh)

The song was originally by Nine inch nails their version was more of a rock song whereas Jonny Cash has changed it into an acoustic/folk song which means that its easier, with the slower pace for him to produce a video that looks fantastic and all of the images that are on display fit in with the lyrics of the song. This would have been harder had he made it a fast paced cover.
The first reference to his personal life is early on in the video where we see an image of a sign for this museum. Written on the sign are the words, closed to the public, the timing of this image highlight how badly this affected him as he is singing about hurt and pain as this image appears which converys that he really did have a strong passion for the museum and was geuinly deeply saddened by it having to be closed due to him going bankrupt.
 
The main focus of the whole video is Jonny Cash in a reflective mood about the mistake that he has made in life. There are references to his time in prison which due to the timing of it is clear that he has regret of. The reason for why he was in prison was due to his addictions to perscription drugs although he was never actually sentenced to any jail time. There is talk of how he remembers everything when an image of a younger happier him appears on the screen.

 

The what have I become lyric is accompined by an image of him performing the song. This shows the audience a literal interpretation of this and what he now looks like. This could however be interpretted as him showing regret for the wasted part of his life and how he wishes that he hadn't of made some of the mistakes that he did. This is followed by an image of him on stage perfroming to thousands of fans. This is accomponied by the lyric "you could have it all" which shows that he knows the mistakes that he made and that it was his fault for why he went bankrupt and for some of the other issuse that he had.

There are many images of his late wife when the lyrics talk of happiness and a sweetest friend. This conveys that the best and happiest part of his life was the time that he and his wife had together during their many happy years of marriage

To conclude the whole video takes the role of a narrative of him reflecting on his life and all of the regrets that he had.

 

 

Font analysis: DVD and magazine ad (Josh)

Most record labels have a particular font that is associated with them as well as individual bands having this as well. We want to find out how much the font really says about the band/product being sold. We don't we to misguide the audience about what our music genre is and what our product is by simply having the wrong font for what we are sell (The Village Musicians). This is why we are going to look at a couple of different products including DVD covers from bands as well as a magazine advert.

Firstly I am going to look at the font that is used on a DVD cover for the one direction tour DVD up all night. This DVD has three different fonts used one for the band name, another for the tour name and finally for what is actually on the DVD. The main writing on the DVD is the band name which is written in a much larger and more bold font than the rest of the text on the page. This helps to draw the attention to the name of the band and means that people that are going to buy the product are easiy able to find it. This means that we should have any writing of the band name large so that people have there attention drawn to it more easily than they would if it was the same size as the name of the tour. The name of the tour is in white making it easy to see on the black background and it also matches the colour of the band name. The final text on the page which says "The live tour" is in capitals this is so that people are fully aware that the tour was filmed in front of a live stadium audience and hasn't had anything changed on it this is important for the band so that they are able to maintain a positive image of being honest with fans.

This here is an example of a band advertisng a new album that they are about to release. Once again there are a number of different font types. This once again has the bands name written in the boldest and largest font on the page and shows that this is seen as the most important part of any publication that is advertising a band. This however has the album name in reasonablly large writting as this makes it easier for the audience know what they are looking for on itunes or other similar music websites. This is in a gothic font which fits with the genre of music that the band produces. The text at the bottom of the page is much smaller but does stick with the colour scheme that would be expected by a band of this genre.


To conclude the font that a text is written in is quite important but the most important is that the band name is the largest writing on the page so that the target audience is able to find the music when they go to a shop to buy it.

Contacting the band asking for permission (JOSH)

We decided to contact the band as a matter of courtesy as we didn't want to break any copyright laws. We felt that the artists would probably like to know that there is someone is creating a copy of their song through video as they could like some of our ideas and use them for a future video that they may make for the song.

Below is a copy of the message we sent:
Hello,

We are a group of students from England. We have a school project to make a music video for a song from a band. We have been fans of your music for a long time and would like to share your music with the rest of our class. We would just like to ask if it is ok for us to use your song "all this time". We have got some very exciting ideas for the video. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks

Josh Mugridge and Jonny Murray

And here is their response:

Hi Joshua - We really appreciate your asking permission. In this day and age it is a rare thing being respected in this way. We would be fine having you use the song with a couple requests: 

1. credit given to Village in or at end of video and on any print materials
2. We are Christians and would appreciate it if the video stayed "clean" in content. IE: no nudity, ludity etc...
3. A copy of the video sent to us upon completion.
Thanks for listening and we wish you well!
Blessings,
Cate Wilkinson (for Landon who is in India at the moment)

The response meant that we got the go ahead to complete the videos that we already have some exciting ideas for.

Record Labels

I have selected two different record labels to look at for my this post. I have chosen to look at syco and Virgin records. The reason that I have chosen these as they are both founded by individuals that are very well known within the UK. Both Simon Cowell (syco) and Richard Branson(virgin records) also have various other lines of work.


Virgin records have a number of different people signed to them with one of the biggest most popular names to have been signed to them being the spice girls. Others the Gorrilaz and the Rolling Stones. This particular record label seems to be aimed at bringing developing artists through as well as having some that are already very successful. I like that this record label doesn't seem to have a great deal of bands therefore it is able to focus on them all more so than labels like sony that have 100's or even 1000's of artists and therefore may not be able to put as much effort into them all. This is one reason for why Sony own many smaller labels in order to make sure that all of the artists still get enough attention so that the music doesn't begin to suffer.

As for Syco they tend to take on artists from talent show that Simon Cowell, the founder, is part of. Recent artists include Little mix and One direction. I like that the label takes these people on to ensure that they do get a chance and that the show finishing isn't the end of the road for them. However they have a reputation of dropping artists quickly if they begin to fail and dont have a good spell.

Case study of iconic music video directors (Josh)

For this I am going to look at how two different music video director and talk about how their careers have differed but also how they have remained the same. Also I will be looking at weather different director tend to produce the same genre of music video as well as working with artists that all produce the same genre of music.

The first director that I am going to look at is Ray Kay, born with the name Reinert K. Olsen. Olsen has been producing music videos since 1996 when he was 20 years old. He has collected numerous awards for the videos that he has produced including from MTV music. This just shows that he has been very successful with his work and has become very well known within the industry for his ability to create fantastic videos. This means that more artists are going to want to work with him as they all want to have the best video in order to gain more publicity for their song. The video that Olsen is probably most famous for is the video for the song Baby by Justin Bieber, this video has over 700 million views and is one of the most watch music videos of all time. In recent years Olsen has tend to stick the pop music genre another example with also directing videos for artists such as Cheryl Cole and Jessie J. This could be because he feels that they are more interesting to produce as there could be a number of different genre of video that he uses such as being able to create both a performance and a image video for the same song. However that he tends to make hybrids of these videos so as to not make them to repetitive but with the Cheryl Cole song - fight for this love Olsen has focused completely on the performance aspect the video almost entirely consisting of the artist singing in front of a green screen or dancing with other backing dancers.

The second director that I am going to look at is Joseph Kahn. Kahn has been directing music videos for 22 years and over that time has created some very iconic videos. Kahn has had a number of his videos nominated for best video and subsequently won quite a few awards for his work. One notable achievement was in 2002 when he won his first Grammy for Eminem's "Without Me" video which also won the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's) video of the year. Other videos that he has produced such as "Toxic"- Britney Spears also won the MTV VMA's video of the year award. This video covers a few genres the main of these is performance and image but there are some element which could be argued to be spectacle. However from looking at a number of Kahn's videos it appears that the main focus of them is the performance side and promoting the overall image of the artist. There are some which do consist of other genres with other prominent genres used being image and narrative. The main type of artist that Kahn works with is unclear as he doesn't have a particular genre that he sticks to. Due to the high quality of his work many artists re-use him one example is Britney Spears who after the Toxic video asked Kahn to direct the music video for her song womaniser. There have been instances where Kahn has directed a music video for a charity purpose with an example being Helping Haiti which is used to raise awareness of the struggle that the people of Haiti endured after the earthquake using a number of artists to sing different lines of the same song. This video is not really in a particular genre but there are elements of performance as when a new artist sings images of that artist recording their part appears on the screen.

To conclude it appears that directors tend to stick to creating the same genre of video. This could be so that they gain more and more experience at creating a particular genre and become the best they can be at that genre.

The Brief (Josh)

At the start of the year we were told that we were to produce a music video. This seemed very simple but there were two key rules which we had to adhere to; one the artist had to be unsigned and two we weren't allowed to take ideas from existing videos. We were shown the six different genre of music video; Performance, Image, Narrrative, Spectacle, Promotional and Personal. We decided that due to the fact that we have very little experience at creating music videos there wasn't really are need for us to make a personal music video as neither of us had any particular thing that we really wanted to do. With regards to creating a spectacular music video we established early on that this would be very difficult due to the lack of finance and technology we have avaliable to us in order to execute this perfectly. So we decided that we would be doing a hybrid video that overlapped; narrative, image, promotional and performance. The reason that we decided this was because the aim of any music video is to promote an artist so by showing lots of performance and close-ups the reputation of the band would be enhanced massively.