Welcome to our blog..

So myself, Euan, Catherine and Vicki were placed into a group today. Our project is to create a music video. This involves planning, filming and post production such as editing. We all have different skills we can give to the group to compile a successful project! We have all had experience with editing software, and our project last year gave us the opportunity to work with photoshop. We also got the chance to create and organise our own blogs. Our skills in this group range from creative artistic abilities to having a photographic eye. We all hope to develop and improve on these existing skills as well as gaining new ones. We are all excited to get to know each other better and to hopefully make a great video!

Preliminary Task - CLC - Vicki and Catherine

For our preliminary task we spent a day at Longbenton CLC. The task consisted of us as a group to plan, story board, film and edit. The facilities at the CLC allowed us to try out different filming techniques as well as being able to learn more about editing a film in the software Adobe Premier - the software we will be using for the main video project.

This video was done by Me (Vicki) and Catherine. The concept of this video was to capture the essence of the day. For example other groups filming and what it is to film a music video and all the equipment and time that goes into the production. It involves footage from days of planning to the journey to actual filming. THe narrative part of the video is the filming from the day at the CLC of other groups and all the mistakes and laughs they put into their videos. This was to tie in with the song our class chose: 'Shine' by Take That. The performance part of our video was filmed at the CLC and then later edited on the computer. I sang the song at the CLC with a close up of my lips. Then later at school on Adobe Premier we edited the contrast of the shot with the lip and this took out the background and made only the lips visible in the shot. This was effective as it looked like the lips were floating. What we would need to improve on for the main video project would be timing of everything  especially lip sinking as in some parts of this video they are slightly out. However this task did allow us to see exactly what needed to be put into a music video.  It taught us the importance of editing on the beat making the video look and sound clean to the target audience. Also how the balance between narrative and perfomance is key to a good video and how the amount of planning and time it takes to put together a good video.

Preliminary Task - CLC - Vicki and Catherine

For the Preliminary task, Vicki and I decided to just use another 'Take That' song and use it as the band name (We knew we wouldn't be able to do this for the real project). Once we had made a decision on 'The Flood', we brainstormed many ideas to use for the design of the digipak and advert. All were water related, but we made sure to come up with realistic ideas. An alternative idea was to take a photo of a droplet hitting a water surface which could easily be captured with an SLR camera which we had access to at school. However, because I was experienced with digital art, I created the background that you can see on the both examples in my free time. The water obviously related to the band name, but also the light rays coming through the water linked to the album name too (We decided to just use the selected song that we had to make a music video to, 'Shine'). The rest of the design I tailored to a vintage/grunge style, which could suggest a more rock genre, but with the added flicks and vector swirls, I think I kept it away from looking rock.
From this project we've learnt that keeping to the genre style is important otherwise an audience can make be mistaken. Having links to the band name, album name, singles and even the video itself should be made, having something totally unrelated we thought would just look out of place and with this project, everything has to work together and have reason as to why elements were used. Things that would be done differently is the digipak design will be more complex. I think a digipak should look more impressive than just a CD, therefore at least one more panel will be added. Also, next time, we will have to remember to have not just songs listed, but the extra bonuses that would be on the digipak discs and also the digipak will have to have a barcode on it which was forgotten on this digipak. For the advert, more research will have to be done to see exactly what should be featured as, even though I kept the design related to the digipak, some of the features, like the list of what on the digipak, I don't think are normally shown on adverts.   

Preliminary Task - CLC - Jordan and Euan

For our preliminary task we spent a day at Longbenton CLC . The task consisted of  planning, story boarding, filming and editing.

The day at the CLC was spent videoing because we had already planned what we were going to film. The facilities at the CLC allowed us to adopt new filming techniques as well as being able to learn more about editing a film in the software Adobe Premier - the software we will be using for the main video project.

This video was done by Me (Euan) and Jordan. The main aim of the video was to gain knowledge and understanding about shooting a music video. The song our class chose was 'Shine' by Take That. The performance part of our video was filmed at the CLC on a green screen and then later edited on the computer at school. The best thing about this project would defiantly be the editing, Jordan and I spend lots of time on this trying out new techniques and see what worked well and what didn’t. Also we ran out of footage so we will make sure that we have too much footage rather than too little. What we would need to improve on for the main video project would be to have more confidence when singing because it doesn’t matter what it sounds like. However this task did allow us to see the amount of planning and time it takes to put together a good video.

Preliminary task - CLC - Jordan and Euan

Our class went to Longbenton CLC Learning Centre, to film a practise media video. We filmed 'Take That, Shine.' This helped us to learn filming, editing and designing techniques.
In Adobe Photoshop, Me and Euan made a digipak and advert, representing our song.  

This is the advert we made to represent our song. We took influence from the famous 'Abbey Road' by The Beatles.

 

This is front of our Digipak. It is similar to the advert, just with smaller dimensions.

This is the back of our digipak. From my research into other digipaks I seen that the back commonly it contained the song list, record label and barcode, which are all contained on the back our of digipak.



This is the spine of the digipak. I just used photoshop to take a selection of the sky. Then I simply added the text 'Take That' with some embelling tools.

Top 10 Music Videos

Top 10 music videos

View more presentations from catherinehopkins.

Diary Entry 1

Week 1, 5^th September

This was our first week of our video project. After the class was put into our project groups, our group set about discussing what song we felt would be the best for us and all our skills. This turned out to be a harder job than we first thought. This is because even though our group has the same music taste, we are all prefer something different within that genre. So we’ve decided to go away over the weekend and everyone comes back next week with two suggestions for songs that don’t already have official music videos. In the meantime Euan created a Facebook group that we could all join to disscuss matters outside of school. This enabled us to arrange times and dates of when we would film on locations. We also went with a Facebook group because it is something we all have access too as it Facebook a common thing for our age group.

Our first day as a team..

Today was our first lesson together as a group. We did some more class work and then decided what genre we wanted to do as a group. We decided on soft rock or indie, as we have access to a lot of musical facilities great for a band performance.

Posting my first team blog!

Ideas..

Facebook Group...

I created a facebook group called media music video. We decided to do this because it is an easy way of contacting everyone and is a very commmon application to our age range. This means we could reach our target audience through this software.  I added everyone to the group and allowed them to post things to it just like a blog, we use the blog for the teachers to look at and the facebook group to discuss filming and other possiblities for the music video. Here are some screen shots of the group.

This image illustrates our regular updates, planning of costumes, and the organistation of work.

This screenshot shows the storyboard for when molly (catherine) couldn't make the shoot so she posted these on the facebook group wall for us to follow them.

This shows the planning/ideas we had. Jordan has uploaded a song and I have also uploaded song idea. Also it shows the comments that the group thought about the song.

This last screenshot also shows the planning and ideas that we had.

Diary Entry 2

Week 2, 12^th September

After the weekend we all had two suggestions for songs to do our project on. We narrowed these suggestions down to 4. This is where it became hard as each of us wanted to do a different song. After doing research into these songs, we found that two of them already had official videos that weren’t on youtube (our source for official music videos). Eventually we settled on our song: Fallin’ Apart by All American Rejects. We decided that the best way to go forward from this point was to annotate the lyrics from the song and prepare for our presentation about our pitch to our teachers. We also made a mind map of the possible concepts and ideas we would want to put into our video. On this mind map our also possible names for our band. Near the end of this week we began our audience research. We first started asking people in our target audience what they thought of our band logo ideas. From this we got good information back and we have decided that one of our logos will be part of our digipak or advert and the other will be improved on based on the feedback we got. We also started our analysis of exsiting music videos, adverts and digipaks.

Our Song...

This is the song that we have decided on for our music video project. It is called Fallin' Apart and is by The All American Rejects. We have chosen this song because the upbeat rhythm, managable aray of instruments and a change in rhythm which gave an opportunity to have different structures of narrative and performance. We picked this song from the genre we had agreed to work with and because we all had an interest in the chosen genre.

Inital Ideas...

In this mind map, our group discuss the possible concept and narratives that we could do for our music video. It also includes the conventions of the genre that we have chosen for our song. We also discussed possible band names. Additionally we added our ideas for our peformance element of our video. We are considering doing this in a warehouse. The importance of doing a mind map is that we can arrange everyones ideas and see the possiblities of combaining several ideas to have a concept for our music video. Discussing connventions of our chosen genre also mention that we have a style in our minds that we are working towards meaning we can focus our ideas in that direction. Once we came up with our basic concept we annotated the lyrics of our chosen song. This allowed us to discuss would would happen at each point in the song. Whether it be a close up on an instrument or a straight cut in the narrative. We began to get a picture of how our video would pan out.

Analysis of existing Music Videos

This video has an unusual concept. It is filmed in colour but everything is black and white. This is a great effect and links in with the song title ‘skeleton boy’ because each band member is dressed as a skeleton. The way that the performance is filmed is an amazing contrast with the concept as the instruments start off black and with the white spray it slowly but constantly colours them in during the video. It is a great use of technology and computing because the people in the video are real but they editors have animated it so it looks like that is really happening. There is a wide variety of different shots and shot lengths, the longest shot length is a performance shot but throughout the video it is constant changing with shots of the band when a certain thing happens in the song such as when the drummer does a fill the camera gets a close up of him. In my opinion I don’t think that this video is what we are looking for when we shoot our video.




 

This video is a two sided story, with a cross between the band playing the characters but one family is a typical American family and the neighbour are an annoying rock band they have this constant civil war that is shown throughout the video.  We are tempted to use the pull focus in our video because it creates a good effect. The audio in the video has the effect of when they are standing in the garden shouting so it sounds like they are singing/shouting through loudspeakers. The constant battle ends up with each wife sleeping with the opposite male because they have had enough.  When the men are squaring up to each other the woman are trying to stop them but are unable to this represents the power that the men have over the woman. The band performance during this video starts off with the rock star singing in the band but ends with the typical American man signing. All in all this a really good video to help you gain knowledge and ideas for our music video.




 

We are thinking of using the concept of this video which is about the post cards but have red envelopes instead of post cards. In every shot of this video there is at least one post card. We were also planning on trying to get nitelites warehouse so we could possibly go for the effect of shooting in a warehouse. We are not copying this video we are taking ideas and concepts and changing them. The song is a very upbeat and very jumpy song therefore it has a lot of shots on most of the postcard shots they have quick establishing shots and then have a close up so we can clearly see what is says. The background of the post cards is an excellent idea because when it goes from the narrative to the performance it cuts to that specific post card and then the camera either moves or jumps to a new angle which is a good way to link the narrative to the performance. What we were think to do is use the envelopes to go from narrative to narrative.  The start and the ending are post cards in a very quick time lapse and then the end one shows all the post cards that have featured in the video. The song is called dirty little secret and on the post card is that persons biggest secret. Personally after watching the video I understand where the concept is and I think it is one of the best videos I have watched because if you really concentrate the lyrics link in with the narrative and then the performance links with that so in the end everything links together.

This video is very cleverly done because normally you would have normal people with a little bit of animation but this video is vice versa with all of the video animation and just little inserts of the performance. This video is mainly narrative based therefore the only performance that is in it is in the top left hand corner throughout the video and sometimes it cuts to the band for the main part of the song/ chorus.  The concept is basically the lead singer playing a game and he is progressing throughout the video and using the concept of the red hot chilli peppers emblem as the health booster in the game is a very good idea because it makes it more realistic in a way because he is jumping of cliffs and from a car onto a giant fly so with the health boosters makes it feel like he is dying but he survives by getting these health boosters.  The way they have started the video by using the ‘game loading’ is very good because just from that you can tell what the video is going to be like and then they end it by clicking next game to show that they are continuing to the next level/game.  The costume in the performance is just leather trousers and he is topless this is also what he is wearing in the game.




 

This song links in with our genre of soft rock. It is by the red hot chilli peppers who tend to do rock but have been known to do soft rock songs just like the all American rejects. This was a good video to watch because it starts off with just the guitarist playing the guitar and it has two shots blended into one so it looks like he is in the clouds but is standing on a rock. The guitarist plays the solo during the introduction and then the first cut is to the lead singer when he starts singing. The main concept of this video is that there are several things going on at once and therefore creates an illusion and it looks amazing because the whole video is like this so it links in and is very well executed. This video has a retro feel to it because the colour scheme background is blue and then has red and purple lights on his face. This is good because the red hot chilli peppers colours are blue, red and purple. The performance is not the usual performance because the band shots are always separate as in the guitarists buy themselves and then you only see the drummer and singer are alone as well and they have cuts but they aren’t jump cuts they are smooth and slow cuts because that won’t fit in with the song.

Analysis of existing Digipaks

Oasis - Acoustic Volume VI

All the pictures featured on this digipak are perfectly suited to the acoustic theme of the music, not only that the colour scheme of the browns and yellows match not only the acoustic guitar but also matches the calm atmosphere that that kind of music gives off. Following on from that, if this digipak were to have an illustrations rather than the photos it has, I think it wouldn't give off the same vibe as it does now. With our digipak, we will have to choose colours which would work with our genre and, if we use one, a chosen theme of the cover(s). I think the 3 panels look neat and fit well together, it's definitely a style to look into. 

Gorillaz

The style of this digipak looks minimilistic and modern, matching the band itself as the two members that created the Gorillaz made them a 'virtual band' consisting of 4 2D cartoon characters with the designs of them not being too complicated. Our group wouldn't be able to make up some characters as they wouldn't fit in at all as we are having real performence in our video, we could have cartoon versions of our band members, however, I don't think it would fit in with our genre as the idea would be more fitting with a hip-hop, electronic genre of music.

Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

I think the cool, toned down colours of this digipak would suit our band too since they are very close in musical genre. I feel like the off-colours (they have a greyish tone to them) give the whole look a grungy style which matches the rock genre. It's definitely something that will be used for our digipak. I think the layout of this digipak is simple, which does match the artwork that is printed on it, but I think ours should be a little more complicated as our band's music is that but more 'pop', so I think a more 'showy' design would suit it better.

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

This digipak has it's chosen theme throughout the whole of the digipak, making everything consistent and nothing looking out of place which is something that we would have to do with ours too. Again, the 3 panel design seems to be a popular choice and will definitely make a design around a 3 panel layout. I think the booklet is a great idea, however, I don't think it would be an easy task to design every page of a booklet and it would more than likely take up a lot of time. On the other hand, I like the idea of the box that would have everything slotted into it, I think it would make it look compact and just neat in general so that would make another design to look into.

Soulkast - Honoris Causa

Another 3 panel design, would definitely not be a good idea if I completely went against the idea since it's used with our genre music and it's used with 3 of the 5 examples here. I think the black and white scheme always makes and image look classy and old-school, and with the design of the CD having a Vinyl texture on it, it just fits in perfectly with the scheme. Having only one disc makes me think that the digipak isn't going to have a lot of content, and when I think of a digipak, I think it should have a lot more, it should have content than just a CD, it should have things which you may not see anywhere else, so for our digipak I'll make sure there are 2 discs and shows that it offers more than just 10 music tracks.

Analysis of existing Adverts

This advert by Kasabian is extremely similar to there album cover which helps the fan make a link between the two. However I feel this advert has many weak points. First of all you can't see the release date easily. So for anyone looking from a distance at the advert they would'nt know what the advert content was. It also doesn't promote the album it is trying to advertise as name of the album in a small script font which isn't easily recognisable by the naked eye. Although they have put their band name in capitals in a bold font. This does stand out so if you were a fan of this band you would want a closer look at the advert. The colour scheme is very simple and quite plan but the use of a yellow background allows the image and the band name to jump of the page. The image itself is quite unusual how it is mirrored in itself. This also draws a reader into the advert.

This advert is very similar to the album cover also: this means this is a very possible idea for our very own advert. Using the ablum cover image connets the two together showing the link. The name on the advert is bold and the colour;white stands out against the darker background. This is done so the reader notices the name straight away, and even if they didn't stop to look at the advert the name is in their mind. This promotes the band. The album title is then underneith this to allow fans and potential fans know what is the next move for this band. The most important part of the advert is the release date of the single/album. This again is in white to stand out so the date sticks in the readers mind. However I don't like the placement of the date. It is less noticable at the bottom of the advert therefore a lesser chance of the reader noticing the date even is it is bold. When designing our advert I would place the date either more central or at the top. The common place for people to first look when looking at a page. As the image on the advert is similar to the album cover image, tis allows fans to make the association with it when they see the album in the shop meaning they know this is the latest album by the band.

As we ar doing an All American Rejects song I decided it would be a good idea to research their adverts, to see what makes them so successful. The first I noticed is that they have a very minimal colour scheme. This colour scheme however ties in with that of the album cover, therefore making a link between the two. The image on both the advert and the poster are very similar, making another connection. It doesnt however express anything that the album might be based on or any hit of what the song is about. They have included a photo of the album cover. This gives the audience a chance to see what the album looks like and what they are looking for when buying the album. I however don't like this touch. It takes up a big amount of the advert; in this instance the lower quater of the advert. It is unessecary is the advert links to the album it is promoting. They have placed the date of the release date centre. This means it is more likely to be noticed and absorbed by the reader. The use of the white on the blue background also helps it to jump out at the reader. The image is in black and white and this has the biggest connetion to the album cover as most of that is in black and white including that image. As the image takes up a large portion of the advert it had to relate to the album cover.

I really like this advert as it is very modern and contempary. The use of an image of the band as a main focus really works. Hayley Williams who is the lead singer of Paramore and is a very iconic person that many people idolise. By having her in the foreground of the picture, people will immediatly associate her with the band and its reputation. The colour scheme is all very similar but this allows important features to jump out. I dont normally like adverts that display their album cover but in this instance it works. The advert had no real relation to the album cover apart from the butterfly on both. By displaying their cover people are able to see exactly what they are looking for when buying the CD. The noticeboard effect they have also gone for really works. It makes you read each bit of information instead of picking bits out of it. This really promotes the album. The use of the second person pronoun 'you' really helps the advert connect with its intended audience.

 

I really like this advert as it is very modern and eye catching meaning the reader is instantly draw to the advert because of its unusual design. This very much helps the promotion of the album if it's advert is eye catching. This is something we will take into when doing our own advert the a unusual modern design makes the advert grab the readers attention easily. The colour scheme allows the date of the release of the album to be the first thing you see. The yellow makes it jump off the page at you. Something very important on a advert trying to tell a new album. The unusual design at the top of the page takes this eye away from the band name. This isn't always a good thing as you want your audience to remeber your band name however because it is such a catchy advert the band will be remember for this, selling their advert. This advert doesn't relate much to the ablum cover or to the songs on that album meaning is maybe hard for the fans to make a connection between the two. Something to take away from this advert is that bright colours are appealing and would be something to add our designs.