Evaluation 4

How well does your main product combine with ancillary texts?

Evaluation 3

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Whilst researching music videos and the music marketing industry, I used the school's Apple Macs, as well as my own personal laptop (running Windows Vista.) The majority of research was conducted using the internet, such as viewing past examples of music videos through YouTube, or other video streaming sites, since YouTube is blocked on school computers. Had this been a professional video, YouTube would have definetely been used to upload the video to a much Wider audience. My animatic was shot using a Canon Legria FS200, and edited using Apple's iMovie software. Discovering my band first took place through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, but I could not find an apporopriate song. This led me to NME Breakthrough, a website set up by the music magazine NME to create a platform for unsigned bands to find an audience. This lead me to An Army Of Lights, who i contacted through Facebook for permittion to use their song and band name. Whilst they had agreed and offered to send me their song for free, I had already bought their EP from iTunes for personal listening.

When it comes to the actual filming of the video, I used the same Canon Legria FS200 Camcorder I used for taking the images of the animatic, and was used to shoot the final evaluation videos. This camera is Standard definition, which provides a low-fi feel of the overall video, adding realism to the possibility of a debut music video for a band, as well as the convention of indie-rock bands prefering the low-fi approach in production aspects of their videos and music. Throughout filming I used a tripod supplied by the school An issue with this type of mount, compared to a Steadycam for example, is that shots in which the camera is needed to track or follow is very difficult to film without the shot becoming shakey. Shots that were particularly bad for this needed to be edited through iMovie to make the image stable again. Other than the actual instruments used to mime the playing, there were no other media technologies used in the filming process.

Editing took place on the schools Apple Mac computers, again taking advantage of the iMovie software. I used the Black and White and the Heat Wave effects to differ between band clips and the teenagers, with no effects placed on the singing, connoting the lyrics are relevent for both groups, and that they apply to both. iMovie was particularly helpful, especially in the futher editing of clips that were ether too bright or two dark, so that the details were as clear as possible, without losing the effect.

My cover images were shot using a DSLR camera, experimenting with various effects. The band logo was created through experiments with the fonts given on the the version of Microsoft Powerpoint loaded onto the school's Macs. Unfortunatly nether I, nor the school, own a copy of photoshop, or any similar software, so I used Paint on my Windows laptop to insert the logo into my back cover image. This continued to the low-buget feel I continued throughout the video, as this is the debut album and single of an indie band. I did have difficulty fitting the logo in, as the logo seemed fake, but I tried blurring this with some of the program's effects at an attempt at easing this. Similarly, i used paint to create my poster, but this was far simpler, as inserting white writing onto a plain black background was much easier, as opposed to inserting a logo against the orange fade in the cover image. Again, there were issues in this also, as changing the size of the album image to fit into my poster forced the font of the logo to alter, making it jagged (as seen below). I believe that if I used a program more suited to changing the size of images, such as Photoshop, this would not have occured. But, as i have no access to this, this was not possible.

Evaluation 2

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation 1

In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Brand Identity

Throughout the 3 products i have created, I wished to keep the band image very simple, and have attempted to create a uniformity between them. For example, similar fonts are used in the logo to that of the information booklet and album poster. This is continued with the contrast of light and dark, seen in the white font against black background, streetlights in the dark and the black and white effect placed on the music video. Another way to keep a simple image was to create an anonymous band, not including an image of them in the booklet or promotional material, and not filming their faces in the video. This is to make the band almost seem humble, and not interested about fame or success, and only create music for the sake of good music. Bands that hold these views tend to be aimed at those who aim to be rebellious and reject pop sensibilities, such as the traditional Stars that Dyer notes in his theory. These individuals are usually aged in their late-teens/early-twenties, the central demographic for my target audience.

AAOL poster

This is the poster I have created for my AAOL EP. This has take heavy influence from the Weekend in the City poster, in placing my writers, and setting the original album cover on a black cover. Although this is designed for a magazine advert, I would design posters and billboard adverts in a similar fashion, to make the overall advertising campain more memorable, as the image would be seen in various places.

Poster Planning

From what I have seen in other posters, what seems to come across most frequently is that the cover art of the album, or at least a very similar image (usually found ether in the inside cover or book, or indeed on other promotional material such as the music video or band website.) For this I will also include the album cover as the central image, on a simple black background, so as to fit the night setting of the image. It will also include the band logo I have created, as well as the product information written underneath in the same, or similar font. Information generally included in album posters include :

• Name of band
• Name of album
• "Brand new album from..."/"Debut album from..."
• Any past or upcoming singles (release details?)
• Release date/"Out now"
• Release details - Format (Download, CD, 7"),
• Band website/Myspace/Facebook/Twitter
• Any additional information.

Poster inspiration

I have planned to create a simplistic poster for this album, in keeping with the simple CD art. Two examples of such are Bloc Party's A Weekend In The City and The Horrors' Primary Colours. I could only find an example of A Weekend In The City, but I did search for other recent examples of popular albums with posters of this kind. I will take inspiration from these.

Album posters

Album posters are usually found in a variety of places, most frequently in magazines (most music magazine such as NME, Kerrang, Smash Hits, Uncut, Q and Mixmag, depending on the genre of the music) bus stops, and general high traffic public areas, amongst others. They are also found on billboards for example, however, these are generally altered to fit their landscape shape, as the majority of posters are profile. Here are a few recent examples (please see above)

AAOL Booklet Art

This is the booklet art for my EP. The is a fold our piece, which is generally rarer than the traditional booklet format. However, this is just another way to connote the opposites I am demonstrating, to suggest the lighter folk and darker, heavier aspects as the bands music. The opposite side of this would include lyrics, as well as production information, set on alternating black and white background. This is fitting with the light dark feel of the front and back covers, and the overall theme of light, as well as the opposites I have explained previously.

Cut front, back and disc cover

Disc cover (with centre of disc at centre of streetlamp)
Front cover
Back cover

These are the three cut images for the disc, front and back covers respectively. The disc cover is a section of the front cover focused on the streetlamp. I wanted the very centre of the lamp to be in the centre of the disc, however, this would make the image much less clear than it is already.
I still want to do work on the front cover, to blend logo into the darkness, as I'm not totally happy with it (I have done this at home on paint, whereas school computers have photography software where I can blend the image.)
I am still questioning whether or not to include any song titles on the back cover, as many albums do not include them, such as, for example, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs.
If I do this, I will include song titles in the inner book, that I am still to complete.

Feedback on cover art.

When asking others which image they prefer as a front cover, and which would be more effective at attracting them to buy it, the decision was unanimous for the darker image.

"It just looks a bit more mysterious" Maddie

"It's creepy... It's like its the only light around" Jodie

"It sort of represents the consumer being curious about the album, whilst the back cover is them being enlightened to it" Hannah.

Although I'm not looking for a spooky or mysterious cover, this image was overall more popular, and could (theoretically) have an effect on sales, and attract new customers.

On futher contemplation...

In fact, whilst also using the example of Arcade Fire solely having their band's title on the back cover, maybe I could do this also with mine, and include an album cover with no band or album title, much in a similar fashion to The Horrors' Primary Colours.


This would still create the same mystery that I thought the dimly lit other image may create, whilst having a more crisp, sharp and professional feel. Having a darker back cover may connote the albums end, or an alternating side, similar to the band's lighter folky and heavier rock style.

Intergrated logo

This is the logo integrated into the image I have chosen as my cover. Although originally drawn to it as a back cover, this image is both more fitting for the logo, but also more intriguing to buyers, and is slightly more blury than the others, very similar to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs and Noah And The Whale's First Day Of Spring.

Cover Art Photography

These are my chosen photography pieces for my album cover. They all capture the beauty of the rural, as with the folky side of the band, whilst showing similarities to the work of Rut Blees Luxemburg. The images also include light as its focus, in keeping with the band and tracks title "An Army Of Lights." So far I'm not decided which will take each position, and I am yet to work the logo into them.

Band logo decision

This is my chosen logo idea. Now I will try to integrate this into my cover art.

Band logos

Here are a collection of particularly interesting and innovative band logos.

For An Army Of Lights, I feel a simple logo would be best suited. I am thinking of incorporating the use of different

size fonts as seen in the Noah And The Whale, The Killers, Coheed and Cambria and We Are Scientists, as well as

a simple font that is yet to be chosen. My plan is to experiment over the next few days and post the results.

A Perfect Example

In response to my ideas, I remembered this cover...

I like the strong lighting, so as the band member's faces are barely visible. It includes the grainy, blurry and retro feel

that is seen in Arcade Fire, The Horrors and Vampire Weekend covers. Unfortunately it isn't in an urban landscape,

but the nature aspect fits with the band's folk style.

Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire and my adventures on Google Images

Whilst looking for inspiration for a digi-pak cover, a friend drew me towards the beauty of curtain lighting, as a particularly literal approach to the title An Army Of Lights. I searched DIY sites, and google images for inspiration, and came across these...

(Note, i could not find a smaller equivalent or this rather large image below)

Unfortunately these could not be used, as they are not my own work, but they did remind me of covers of recent indie and folk albums.

(Note: although The Horrors are not particularly folk-y, I did see their cover impressive)

I do like the blurry, retro style of these images, and I would like to incorporate this style in my Digi-pak, if I were to combine this with ether images of curtain lighting, or a city/suburb scene in the style of Rut Blees Luxemburg.

Bloc Party, A Weekend In The City, and Rut Blees Luxemburg.

To this day, the artwork for Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City, and the singles released for it, remain to be a person favorite of album cover art. These were taken by German Photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg, who typically depicts the beauty of urban scenes and landscapes at night. She also contributed her piece "Towering Inferno" for The Street's debut album Original Pirate Material.

I am personally a big fan of this style of photography, and due to it's association with British music scene, as well as the connection between the often time-delayed artificial lighting and the aptly named title 'An Army Of Lights,' this style may be appropriate.

Initial inspiration for the digi-pack

Here is a collection of album covers of a similar musical style to An Army Of Lights. This ranges from folk and folk-rock to britpop and post-punk.

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Editing process

The overall editing process was fairly simple. From experience gained in AS level coursework, as well as this year’s animatic, I have a certain level of knowledge of using the iMovie software. The biggest difficulty I found was syncing the music to the mimed playing and singing, or the change of shot, that I tried to keep to the beat of the music. Whilst this was fairly simple, yet time consuming and intricate, during the editing of the rough cut, it was far more difficult to keep the lip-syncing in time. To remedy this, any replaced or edited shots were then cut to fit the original shot by the 0.1 of a second. However, this still made parts slightly out of time, so there was a certain amount of trial and error involved.
From the outset, I planned to include minimal transitions between shots. Although they can be a convention to music videos, this is mainly suited to pop music and r’n’b, not rock. I wanted to follow this convention, as I also planned for the video to be naturalistic, so flashy transitions would not fit the style at all. However, the effects supplied by iMovie proved very helpful to create a difference between the band clips and the teenagers. I was again inspired by the bleached band clips of the Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah,” to place a black and white effect on the clips of the band. However, to create a romantic, retrospective feel for the teenagers, I used the “Heat Wave” effect, which brightened the clips to almost a sepia effect. However, due to the bright sun of the original filming, this bleached out some of the details on the original shots, so I needed to change some of the settings. I could not seem to get this perfect however, so some of these editing shots I found noticeably darker. However, no one mentioned this during feedback, so this may be person over-analysis. No effects placed on the clips of singing, connoting the lyrics are a sentiment shared throughout both focuses of the video.
On the whole, the editing process I believe went a lot smoother and quicker due to not having to learn many more skills. However, if I were attempting to create a video of another genre, such as electronic or pop, this may have included further editing which would have been a much more difficult task.

Final Cut

This is the final cut of my music video. In response to the two main pieces of feedback I received, I have significantly slowed clips of the teenagers. However, through experimenting with speed at various points, I did not feel this was completely appropriate for most of the song. Instead, I only slowed clips at the very start of the video, before the rest of the band join at the first pre-chorus ("Just looking for a little light.") I also planned to slow the clips of the teenagers in the final verse, when the song returns to only the vocals guitar and bass drum being played. However, although in theory this should work, the unveiling of the stolen can and one being pushed over did not look at all as effective as it did originally, so I have kept this at the original speed. Although I do think the slow clips work, the effect I used on iMovie has made the clip jumpy, which is annoying to say the least. However I do not know a way to remedy this, and still keep the speed, which i think is perfect. Asking for feedback on what worked with my new cut, one topic that arose frequently was these new slow motion clips were much more suited at these points.

Another piece of feedback was that there is too much of the band too early in the video. I agreed with this, so I set about replacing clips of instruments with walking. However, I did not have enough clips of the group walking that was in keeping with the linear narrative. With very little opportunities to refilm, I worked with the little I had, inserting minimal extra clips of the teenagers. Some of these I eventually replaced with the original band shots, as they were noticeably recycled shots from other scenes, leaving only two replacement shots. I do believe this has still managed to balance the two focuses much better than I had before; equally introducing the veiled identity of the band, as well as the protagonists of the narrative.

Rough Cut

This is my rough cut from my music video. Overall feedback included too much footage of singing too early in the piece. Another is that, in order to make the clips of the lads on the street more idealistic and perfect, and less like a group of kids hanging around school, slow many of the shots down, except for during the robbery. An aspect of the video I was unsure about including was the unmuted audio during the very first shot, which includes the diegetic sound of the playing television and the guitar being picked up. This experiment seemed to pay off, as I didn't gain any negative feedback regarding it, and some mentioning they liked its inclusion, and that it added realism, suggesting the guitar, and the full band, are playing live.

Overall filming process.

The majority of the filming process took place over two hours during school. This was so as to use fellow pupils as actors in the piece. Much of what they did was improvised, such as one pushing another off the tree stump, which was particularly annoying, as I was not expecting to film it, and I missed the actual push, without having the time to re-shoot. I do wish to include this, as is it perfect to demonstrate teenage behaviour, so I may need to do something to tidy this up in the editing process. There were certain issues with continuity, as pedestrians frequently would cross in front of the camera due to this being filmed in a public place. A simple problem, but still and annoying one, meaning I needed to film certain shots several times. Another issue was that some shots were more shaky than I was pleased with. For most shots I used my tripod, to keep the camera static, but to create pans, tracking and follow shots I needed to pic up the camera. This annoyed me to no end, but however I had no other equipment of use to me, so I will use effects in the editing process to hopefully make this less noticeable I did make the actors run for most of the filming, in order to use many angles for a fast pace running scene, much to the annoyance of the actors, but they seemed more than happy to comply.

However, in that time I ran out of things to film, as the things I’d planned to film in my storyboard, such as short clips of football, we couldn’t film (due to not having a football) and I couldn’t hold enough interest with what I have written. It was here that I decided to include performance. This I filmed in an evening in my house. This allowed a much more relaxing filming process, as the only time constraint I had was of the lack of light at night. I could not include a full band, as the people I had approached were not available on that evening, and that was the only one available. Filming myself was fairly simple with the use of a tripod, and I used a nearby speaker to play the music for me to mime to. The only issue was that I did not know how to play the music, but I improvised as best as possible, to make it seem I was playing the correct note, which I will edit to the music in the editing process.

Plan to include performance - additional props and costume

Since I have decided to include a performance aspect into my video, here are images of two of the guitars I will be using. I have been given permission to use the school drum kit, which I do not yet have an image of. I will be filming in my house, in various spots for each instrument, connoting a very relaxed and homely recording process the band may have taken for recording their music, as well as keeping true to the folk aspect of their music. However, I cannot use other people in place of the band for personal reasons, so I must film all guitar and vocal parts myself (however, since I am filming the drums in school I will use someone else to play the drums. For this I will need various changes of clothing, to make it seem like there are multiple different band members. This should be possible, as I have already planned not to include the faces of band members, so this will hopefully be possible to achieve.

Changes in filming - the decision to include performance

Through filming, I have decided that it would be better to include filming of a band, as keeping the video interesting is difficult when only showing the teenagers. I will film these at home with my instruments, except the drum kit, which I will film in school, as I do not own one myself. The band may most likely be my friends who live locally, and not the actors I have as the teenagers. I would still like them to represent the teenagers, so I may obscure the faces of not include them at all, and leave the vocals to be sung through close ups so only to show the bottom of the face (similarly to the technique used in Plain White T‘s “Hey There Delilah“, to keep the ambiguity, and the prospect of them being the teenagers but at a different time.

Props

Similarly to costume, there are very little props needed for this video. There are very little props that are needed, other than a bag, such as a schoolbag maybe, and an object to be stolen, perhaps a can of drink or a bag of sweets; something that would seem easily stolen from a local shop. I will need filming equiptment, such as the camera itself and a tripod, but that is all that I will use.

Costume - edit again!

As I want the video to be authentic and modern, I am not going to dictate costume to my actors, and use whatever they are wearing on the day. If I were to choose, I would use clothing most associated with indie rock at present, which can vary from skinny jeans and jackets to chino shorts and flannel shirts.

Knowing my actors, this will probably include colourful hoodies and jeans, or possibly tracksuit trousers. There are no other planned characters, so this is all the costume that is needed However, if I need to re-shoot and scenes they must wear the same clothing, purely for continuity.