Evaluation

The brief I chose for my A2 Media Advanced Portfolio was 'to produce a Promotion Package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with, a cover for its release on DVD (digipak), a Magazine Advertisement for the promo DVD.

In order to create my brief I had to research and plan I looked at what the medium of the music video was. I learnt that it was the recorded performance in order to promote a single or album release and that it consist of one of three employments; Dance, Live Footage or Fragmented story. The length of the contempary music video is between five to three minutes long and follow conventions and codes which determine the viewer’s response and the texts meaning being split into three areas, Symbolic, Technical, Written and audio. Looking into the History of the music video had a clear understanding of what is expected from a music video and due to digitalization and the technology of today I have a better understanding of how digitalization has affected the music video. If we look at Youtube for example this technology is fairly new and one of the most visited sites daily for the use of web 2.0 which allows multimedia texts on the screen at once Youtube primarily focuses on videos and small time bands aswell as label bands use this in order to promote themselves with a music video Youtube allows wider audiences then music television and allows you to watch what you want. When comparing this to the AS task I was able to look at time constraints aswell as different ways in order to create it with available equipment. The way a music video is really constructed would be over a different amount of time with a budget in order to buy certain equipment such as lighting these considerations where the ideology from the production means. Use of new skills, research methods and software allowed me to create what looks like a music video, what looks like a digipak and what looks like a magazine advertisement. Compared to AS with different resources available as well as ones used before with more skills known, The magazine from last year was the three products instead of one and for the music magazine all that was required form the brief was a front cover, a double page spread and a contents page. I was able to use prior knowledge about the music industry for my products.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I believe that my Media Texts use conventions of the specific medium chosen. the music promotion package. By researching other texts, looking at the standard conventions of the music video and I had a strong ideology of what was needed to be produced and how I would build and structure the texts. Before looking into the history of the music video I looked at the Key Features of the music video by Andrew Goodwin, what I learnt was that genre characteristics were demonstrated, use of intertextual referencing and the demands of the specific record label will mean that certain motifs will be produced such as close ups of the artist/band and then reoccur throughout the text. This gave a huge impact on what my text was going to be like.I believe the development of my music video has definitely challenged what is expected of real media products. I chose to use a real hull band and the song I had chosen to do wasn’t even recorded, I received the song just before the editing process. Before the filming started I had researched into conventions and history of music videos and specifics to genre. Unlike most music videos the narrative is the struggle of a small time band and how hard it is to make them big and this contrasts the lyrics which are conventional of the Indie genre and about love. The video is a montage of the band busking and then performing I used rhythmic editing and depending on tempo depended on the speed of the clip and where it was shown in the text. Time constraints on a real music video would take a couple of days and the cast will all be there my video was shot in one day and edited from an hours worth of footage. As the band where playing live I couldn’t reshoot certain shots instead I took a range of different shots.

Ancillary Text: Magazine Advert

The second text i chose to do was the magazine advert seeing as i had knowledge of magazine conventions from lats years course i felt this would be a good thing to do aand i could contrast this. The audinece is the same but the purpose and context have changed as its there to sell the product. As i have already created the digipak i decided to use the same resource materials so the texts convey a certain image and link towards each other.

In respect to this i used photos i did not use on the digipak but kept certain images

the poster looks like this

Ancillary Text : Digipak

I decided for my first ancillary text that i would create a digipak, below are slides of the first deisgns and how i came up with the concept.


I decided i wanted a pop-art look after researching my casestudy of the candle thieves i decided i wanted to use an iconic looking sun , something that would stand out but just a sun wouldnt be enough so i drew a cityscape in the stylistic of a new york city then scanned it in and then went over it on paint.net and coloured it in one colour grey, i then chaged the contrast so it was white and put it over a blue backgorund of some variations of the image you can see blow aswell as disc labels, and examples of what the front and back covers would look like.

I created the band logo by editing the century gothic font in bold on Paint.net ( a free program similar to adobe photoshop) i put each letter onto a different layer putting them so they overlap each other and by selecting with the magic wand tool i then deleted that part of the image on the layer above. I moved the text slightly so the letter were not connected and then a century gothic regular font underneath. This is the result:

When deciding on the record labels look i decided that it must be iconogrpahic of music so i decided i would use a plectrum shape. with the name inside it. I used a logo i had created for myself on the inside of the plectrum this saved time and suited the design with the round curves
Next i created some other logos to represent the recording studio.

The front panel first started out with the idea of a city i wanted a landscape photo of a city i then decided i wanted it to be expressed with an influence of pop art. I drew an Image of a New York city scanned the image in then using Paint.net I traced it using a new layer then deletd that image and the coloured it all in grey so no black lines where visible. I then added a blue background this looked to simple there need to be more going on on the page. I decided a sun but how would i suggest the design should it be just a yellow circle or include more or should it have lines coming off it, where should it be postitioned in the image. i decided the best place to put it was as a sunset behind the city and i was going to have a half circle sun with orange and yellow strips.
I then added diagonal stripes in different shades of blue.

I decided to redesign with more influneces from modern a post modern culture such as patterns and iconogrpahic images such as the no signal screen and checkerboard pattern. this became the flow of the rest of this text. by combining these with the images i already had i was able to create my final product . heres all the pieces including pages of the booklet, all six panels and the cd and dvd discs.

I constructed an actual digipak, by using the panels from some of digipak singles and by creating a card template by drawing round an existing digipak i then assmebles it together witht he printed images scaled to fit.

Main Product

Main Product
I created my music video using adobe premiere pro and filming the locations within the space of a day collecting and hour worth of footage for the 5 minute song i have chosen. i selected the clips which used more clear shots then i slowed down each clip to 40% in order to fit it in with the slow parts of the song, the shots speed up and are cut more frequently when the music speeds up creating a dynamic flow of editing with the persistance of the song.

Requirements

Locations
I will be filming in the City Centre a Flat and finally the gig at the Pub.

Cast
The casting of the music video was the actual band as i chose a local band with the rest being various people walking past.

Props
There is no use of props in the music video as its a representation of the struggle of a small time band, although there will be 2 acoustic guitars, an elecetric bass guitar and a drum kit as well as the use of background imagery for example if the background in the city centre was of offer posters.

Health & Safety
I recognise that as i am filming in busy public places will have to have considerations with the set up of the camcorder and tripod so that its not in the way to cause anyone to trip up or damge the camcorder.

Research Into Genre

After my inital idea i decided to research the genre. the first thing i found was that animation was not really used in Acoustic music Videos. So i decided not to go with the animtion idea but what are the stylistics of the Acoustic Music Video?

I decided to look at videos by popular Acoustic artists.

Jack Johnson - If I Had Eyes


The first video I looked at was by Jack Johnson with the early 2008 single "If I Had Eyes" the video was directed by Emmett Malloy. The Video is mainly black and white with colours edited in a certain parts of the video and a wide range of photographs are used to transist between scenes.

Lightspeed Champion - Tell Me what It's Worth

Mike Mogis’s video for “Tell Me What It’s Worth” by Lightspeed Champion is interesting as it only uses one shot and the only edit is the song over the video and sound effects to resemble the area at the beginning and ending of the video. It shows the artist walking getting off the ground and walking around and people follow him around . the mise en scene shows words creating a narrative specifically at the end with a group of different sign posts representing brand logos we have in our world saying “ I Don’t Love You Anymore” drawing a conclusion to the story which the music video is representing.

James Morrison - You Make It Real

What My Music Video Will Be Like

After looking at these three videos i found i had a good idea of lighting camera stylistics and other major conventions of the music genre. I liked the idea of a narrative that there would be a story there but inbetween live playing so i have decided to base it on James Morrisons - You Make it Real.

Case Study: The Candle Thieves - Sunshine Song Music Video
As a little bit more research I decided to look at a band who are not signed up to major labels and what they have been able to produce with small production companies. This would give me a better idea of what I would be able to produce as this video was made on small budget and from what I have seen created a better representation about what the bands and music are about.

“The Sunshine Song” by Peterborough band “The candle Thieves”.The band are signed to Alcopop Records and the video was commissioned through Radar Music Videos

Analysis of Music Video

The music video has a great use of cut out effects as well as bold pastel colours to express the colourfullness of the music. we switch between to scenes one inside a box area with film showing at the back and cut outs of the band infront and the other being a reference to the e.p cover and having elements from the ep cover to create a short story representing a woman travelling with balloons until the end of the night where as this is very basic it blends with the music greatly in order to create a surreal world where everythings perfect contrasting with the song lyrics while sung cheerfully have more serious notations "you are beautiful but you are going to die some day".

Further Research

I contacted the band the Candle thieves on the topic of themusic video they replied to me with this:

“The Sunshine Song video was done by a guy called Richard Cullen from a company called Pixelfing. He's a lovely guy and amazingly talented. He contacted us to do it coz he said he loved the song. It was mostly done to blue screen, we wanted to create this other world for this song and he made it happen! We just started filming our parts for the next video a couple of days with him once again.”
Scott McEwan

I then contacted the website Pixelfing and sent this message:
hello I am doing some research into music videos for my A2 mediaStudies coursework and one of the videos I was looking at was \"TheSunshine Song\" by the Candle thieves. I contacted the band forinformation on the music video and they said it was created byRichard Cullen. I was just wondering if you could send me someinformation on the production of the video, what programs whereused for editing, how ideas for the videos style and what itsymbolises came to be.
Thank you very much for your time and hopeto hear from you soon

update 12/02/2010
Hi AdamThanks for your email. I'm away at the moment so have only just pickedit up!
In terms of the software used on that video - after effects was usedfor all of the 'internal' shots, using photographed elements, scannedimages and footage of the band that was shot on blue screen. The'external' shots were created in Maya - the outlines of the shapeshaving been drawn freehand in Illustrator and then imported. Variouspasses were rendered from maya - colour passes, shadow, texture,ambient occlusion etc. And then they were composited in after effects.The edit was done in Premiere.
The idea for the video came from several places. The band had quite astrong visual identity which informed the look of the video, and thebudget for the project steered me towards something that was mostlyanimated. And they'd never made a video before, so we didn't know howthey'd be on camera. So we veered towards something that had anarrative thread to it - which also allowed us to do something thathad the same emotional shape as the song.
I'd had an idea about a house carried on balloons (before 'up' wasreleased!), and I wanted to do something that was a combination of 2dand 3d.The basic outline of the story was implied by the song, although Ididn't want to do something that was just a literal take, so I wentwith something that was essentially a metaphor - the idea of a girlbeing taken away.
Anyway - I hope that helps. Sorry if that jumps around a bit!
CheersRichard

Links
http://www.myspace.com/thecandlethieves
http://alcopop.wordpress.com/
http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/
http://www.pixelfing.com/
http://www.biglifemanagement.com/

Update - 20/04/2010

Since researching into this, the band were signed to downtown records popular for acts such as Gnarls Barkley and have an album out in the shops.

Update - 27/01/2010 Change In Project

I recently had to change my music video project due to filming issues. I had to change the band i was using due to time contraints and no recorded songs. I decided to ask other bands from the local area and soon after the Hull band "Infamous Radio" were willing to do it. The band of course are a different genre from acoustic thought they are Indie so here i have researched three indie music videos.

The Kooks - She Moves In Her Own Way

This video shows the folloiwng of the band on a trip showing a variety of different parts through different camera shots it creates a sense of realism about the band creating an ideology that this how the band really are altough this is to a large degree scripted to the driectors wants and needs.

Ideas & Concepts

Ideas are what build what we expect to achieve without them, the media text will never be, whether these ideas are original concepts or similar in the following of codes and conventions or other media texts, we still can have a flow of creativity through these ideas.

My Initial Idea
My first idea was to create an animated music video and I researched early into this, I wanted to create something that could be seen as original but yet follow the codes and conventions I looked at other music videos which are animated examples of these are:

Peter Gabriel - Sledge Hammer – this is a fantastic music video and although it would be a great experience to achieve something like this I have to think about time limitations


Kasabian - Shoot the Runner - another interesting music video by director although this technically isn’t an animation its still gives that fell of animation with high contrast and bold Stative colours it is actually an edited video and not an animation.

Jet – Are You Gonna Be My Girl – This video uses parts of both video and animation in order to create what is seen on the album cover giving it a creative link between products, I didn’t have any basic knowledge to do this and I was restricted with tools

So what software would I be using?
I looked into what software I could use I could have just used adobe premiere pro and a freeware application Paint.net and draw each individually. But I decided to look into more professional software and came across a product called ToonBoom Studio. ToonBoom Studio has been used by professionals in media texts we can view in the cinema and the television, having had Disney use it to create the trailer to the upcoming animated movie “The Princess and The Frog.

After purchasing this software i created a little test called test A after i had learnt how to use the program by using online tutorials and ones created by users on youtube. This is "Test A":

After analysing my lyrics I decided this wouldn’t be appropriate to the music genre and I realised that I didn’t have the tools and equipment needed in order to create the quality of animation I wanted so I chose not to use this.

Audience Research
The target audience for my video was between the ages of 16 and 25 due to the genre, acoustic

This changed when my genre changed to Indie it now has a wider audience starting younger mainly because indie is a popular genre featured in the charts frequently where as acoustic isn’t. The new target audience is between the ages of 12 and 30.

Storyboard

When creating the storyboard this was very different to how I expected to make it but because of time restraints and limitations of resources, I looked at locations and decided to use one more then the other. My storyboard isn’t exactly a storyboard in a linear pattern but it is the shots I will take when shooting tomorrow.