1. In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

To begin with, when we started this project we observed a variety of different genres and styles of music. When searching for our piece we created a collaboration of elements from different videos, some used in our final piece and some not. One video that particularly took Ethan’s interest was Eminem’s – Lose Yourself, he took the performance from Marshall and created his own interpretation of not only singing the lyrics, but showing the emotions applied to the words meanings through the dynamic motions and intense facial expressions.

Another piece that took our interest was ‘All of the Lights’ – Kanye West, this caught our attention through the graphics used. The shear amount of time and effort seen incorporated into this video is obvious, this design was considered too advanced for the amount of time we had to do our piece, also the concept wouldn’t add much in the way of marks as the piece is more about the shots and styles which graphics seem to be used as just some supportive roles.

We then decided on our piece being End Credits, with this knowledge our team narrowed the search for ideas and looked into the genre of Drum & Bass, and the types of videos seemed to relate to the narrative style. With this focus and information we had gained we decided to create our own narrative storyline, this was achieved fairly quickly after browsing through the lyrics as a group and realizing that the dark theme running through the words, we then had an ideas session where we used the lyrics creating a semantic field of dystopia. This then became the main design of our piece, using the idea of fast cutting and people disappearing in split shots we had the storyline of Matt hitting Keir, releasing the dystopian dream theme mentioned again in the lyrics.

Apart from the conventional attributes used we also had our own original ideas such as the genius and spontaneous decision to use three cameras inside the studio simultaneously, this then meant that when editing we had it from three different shot lengths and angles, but however the originality of this was through the editing as Matt incorporated the style and main attribute of the song by not only synchronising the lips with the songs vocals, but also the cuts, increasing the intense atmosphere by speeding up the cuts when the beat drops between the acoustic sections.

According to Goodwin’s Theory, there are six steps a music video should consider when being produced to get the most out of the piece.

GOODWIN’S THEORY

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. – The piece our group has produced is a clear demonstration of the first step, in drum and bass there is a strong element of a beat and the bass combined, this was applied in the piece by the syncing of the beat with the fast paced cuts. we have both Narrative as in the sense of there being a storyline clearly shown throughout the piece by Matt and Keir, and Performance portrayed successfully by Ethan by singing the song, acting the song and also playing the guitar parts of the piece.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. – The piece runs along the theme of dreams which is referred to in the lyrics, also the narrative is the feeling of death which is through lyrical interpretation.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals. – As I previously mentioned we synced the beats with the fast motion of cuts, also Ethan plays the guitar at the points you hear guitar and the strumming pattern has also been synchronized.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work. – There are 3 different camera positions on the performer showing lots of close ups and recognizable footage to promote his visual familiarity in connection to the music, also the use of the acoustic guitar which is a predominant feature in the piece and one of the main attributes to the artists sound.

5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. – Through the progression of the narrative Keir is walking around different settings that contain religious or dystopian qualities, looking for answers to why he’s there. However we do not use voyeuristic treatment of the female body as we have only male figures in this piece and the focus is mainly on finding answers, so the fast pace of the video doesn’t allow those kind of shots.

6.There is often intertextual reference. – Our piece only refers to its own lyrics and meaning, such as its themes of Dreams and Religion, but apart from them then our piece doesn’t use any other kind of incorporation of any other promotional views visually. It does however through the use of adding Plan B to be the singer of the track; this refers the link between Chase & Status and Plan B as artists, promoting not only their music but also the mash up of mainstream rap/pop and drum & bass.

2.How effective is the Combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

It is clear to see that the CD front cover and magazine advert compliment each other, and follow the same design and basic genre. They both however do not completely relate to the video itself, which has a dark, mysterious feel to it. We decided to create the artwork in a lighter, less sinister way because we wanted it to appeal to a wide age range and not jus a specific group within society as well as promote our single. Dull advertisements are often overlooked; in terms or catching the readers’ eye it works better when the page visibly stands out.

It is clear that the Gwen Stafani Album advert is a lot more likely to catch a reader’s eye than the Ice Cube one. This may be determined by the genre of music behind the actual album. The benefited us as out song, End Credits - Chase and Status, doesn’t fall in to a specific music category as easy as other songs might. It has elements such as Drum & Bass, but mixes them with Indie and throughout more softer singing and guitar. This was an advantage when creating both our Magazine Album Advert and CD case, as we only really had to take into consideration the video itself, and not really the Song as it could go down so many different routes.

We decided to keep the Album Advert and CD cover simple and easily digestible, as we thought this would be the most effective way of being recognised and selling records in reality. We used the font Cooper Black for the writing on both our ancillary texts’, we hope that people would notice this and then begin to relate the font with our CD cover/Advert, which would, in turn, connect to our song. Some CD designs and Magazine Album Adverts we had previously seen inspired this. Both the Razorlight and Green Day Texts are simply yet highly effective. As a group we especially liked the Razorlight, as it is a simple picture of the band with only the name of the band printed above them. It really show how some less is more.

We decided to use Ethan as the ‘Face of out Song’, Despite Keir, Matt and Ethan playing relatively equal roles as characters within the video. This was final choice as we only wanted to use one person in our ancillary texts, and Ethan was the main performer in the video, which is often the role of the artists themselves. As our video has a religious, fictional and dystopian theme running through it, Ethan may be seen as a sort of guidance or angel type character with in the music video. This seems strange as he is predominantly involved in the Performance side in the video, however that was his only role. He is also in some of the narrative scenes and shots of the video.

Here Ethan can be seen still playing and singing the song on the stage, as Keir and Matt cross through the Abandoned Theatre. This was effective as it meant the Performance and Narrative sides of our music video were combined. Also it meant Ethan had an even more principle role within the video, which was another factor in to why he should represent our video on both the CD case and Album Magazine Advert.

Although the Music Video may not at first seem to entirely relate to the ancillary texts’, it does in a more complex way. Overall we were all happy with the outcome of both our CD case and Album Magazine Advert, as we believe if we were an actual marketing agency or the artist themselves, both ancillary text’s would help sell the product.

3. What have we learned from audience feedback ?

We shown our music production to various people round the college and we found that similar feed back was repetitively positive and most people saw the same things they liked and the same things they thought could be improved. Our group created a questionnaire to keep a specific answer range. We wanted to find out technical/narrative/performance opinions, The video was shown to non media candidates to see if our video had obvious good or bad points to it that they could spot. Generally the feed back was positive. The questionnaire was made of 6 questions to keep a minimal yet effective response.

The people who answered the question all commented on the lighting of our piece. One person said " The lighting helps create a dystopian effect". This is positive as we were trying to create an environment to look uncomfortable. Visibility is an effect we used to dim and lighten our piece in places e.g. the theatre was dimmed but the street scene was lighten brightly for high visibility.
We chose not to return to the video for change once we had produced a final production piece. We chose not to return as our video was clear to portray accurate representations to students who had no media based back ground information commented on the parts of our piece we tried to make subtle representations: Costume, Lighting and narrative. This was encouraging to us as a group as it contributed into the satisfaction we had after finishing our piece. The feedback helped us reflect on our piece for the positive and negative analysis.

The feedback was much appreciated and although we chose not to change our video based on audience feedback it was not ignored in any shape or form. We have all took on board what was said, if we were to ever create a future production the comments we received would definitely be applied.

Positively talked about features in our video was the Narrative, Angles and Performance. A student interviewed said "The variety of camera shots (meaning angles) was good and it worked well creating a diversion to just focusing on one feature like the people on camera". We did hold a variety of angles and shots so having feedback like this would definitely motivate us to use a range of angles in future pieces.

However we also had negatively points about aspects. We were repeatedly told we should have used "one more place to film" (meaning location) This was heavily disappointing as we filmed in a set number of locations as we wanted the piece to flow smoothly and not be so diverse it couldn't be easily understood. Another negative comment we received was about the "editing transitions being repeated". Our song was at 160 beats per minute. Our editing transition was matched to the songs bpm through various parts of the film a good example is walking through the theatre the shots switch between angles to match the under lying drum beat throughout the song.
In light of the audience feed back we reflected over our piece and contemplated whether the feed back was honest and accurate or just there as other things were awkward to comment upon. We realized that the feedback given was honest but out of our own opinion we decided our piece went well and probably couldn't of portrayed differently if was to work in sync with our narrative.
The feedback was helpful and although hearing the criticized comments we took them constructively and negotiated between us which were the most eye opening and which were irrelevant to our piece. We presented our video to 8 people and the general over view of it was positive.

This is the questionnaire we used:

4. How did you use media technologies in the research, planning, filming and editing stages?

Throughout the process of making our music video we used a wide variety of technology from Google Earth to Final Cut Pro. This helped us produce the best, most realistic video we could. In the early stages when we were researching a track for our coursework we used YouTube to browse and listen to songs. YouTube is massively popular and has millions of songs instantly available for us to listen to. Obviously this proved very useful as within an hour we had narrowed it down to four of five songs and by the end of the lesson we had chosen our track. YouTube was also great as it allowed us to watch music videos which helped give us ideas on what kind of story and performance we’d like to create. The next step was the planning of our music video. Once we had a rough idea of what our video was going to be like, we used Google Earth to look for filming locations and take screenshots to add to our storyboard. This proved useful as we knew in advance where we were filming and what it would look like.
The filming of our music video is where we made the best use of the technology available. For the narrative elements of our video we used a handheld canon camera, which we found had pros and cons when filming. Because it is a cheaper college issued camera, the quality in some shots looks quite poor and grainy and especially in the chapel scene the shots are very dark and unclear. However in parts we felt this added to the vagueness and mystery of the narrative element. On the plus side, we found the camera’s battery life was longer than necessary which meant we didn’t have to worry about bringing spare batteries or memory cards. Also the size of the camera meant it wasn’t a hassle to transport as we could simply put it in one of our bags.
The performance element of our video also used a lot of technology which greatly benefitted our final piece. In the studio we had three professional standard cameras. This meant the quality of our footage was much better than the narrative side which helped it stand out in our final piece. We were able to move the cameras around to get three different, well framed shots. Then using the zoom and focus buttons we could make the shots more interesting and vary them throughout the song. We were also able to switch between cameras on the beat using the control system which in post-production gives the video a professional feel as it cuts between shots in time with the beat.
During the editing process we used Final Cut Pro. This is expert quality software which meant we could take our footage and make it into something which mirrors professional videos. The dual screens meant we could have one screen to preview where we were up to and the other was used solely for editing. Final Cut Pro allowed us to easily insert the track and lock it so it couldn’t accidently be changed. It also allowed us to layer clips so we could just have the whole performance with the narrative over it then easily cut between the two. One of the most useful features of Final Cut Pro was the “snap” ability, this meant when we added a new shot it automatically snapped onto the end of the least shot meaning there were no blank gaps or spaces in our video. Another useful feature was the marker button. With this we were able to place markers in time to the beat and then fit our shots around that.
By using the wide variety of technology available in our research, planning, filming and editing we were able to create a near-professional music video with a strong narrative and performance.

Directors Commentary

Magazine Advert

Magazine Analysis

This is the finished product of our Magazine Advertisment. We have included the artist who represents the performance and song attached. Also shown is the pricing for obvious reasons, the where abouts for the products major selling departments, and also the date of the singles release.
These are made prodominent as the main point of the advert is to jump out at the reader and supply easy, simple information with the intensity for the person to want to buy the single.We also use a rating shown by a top branded and respected company in the selected industry of music NME.
Using their influence and positivity towards the single will increase the number of people willing to give the song a chance and watch the music video for hits.

Progress of magazine article

Ideas for the magazine advert

We began ideas for the magazine advert by thinking about what we wanted to promote our artist and song like. We also realized there are standard images and content to a poster that needed to be added to create authenticity such as the price, places selling or promoting the single and a quote as evidence of the singles success.
When we had decided that Ethan would be the cover as he represented the performance element in the music video, we decided the fomality (for example his dress code being smart) of the shot, the style of shot (a slightly raised medium ranged front on body shot) if he was going to be holding an item of any kind (we decided against this due to a lack of inspirational ideas) and the background, which we chose a wall shot as it coincides with the album cover.
We then used Adobe Photoshop to design the text aroudn the picture, we kept the theme of using the font Cooper Black from the album cover so that when people see either of the two items they can relate the font to the artist.
We then switched the poster to Microsoft Powerpoint as the system was a lot simpler to use when adding graphics to the picture, Ethan then used the shapes tool in Powerpoint to find a landscape scroll shape and changed its transparancy layering it on the bottom half of the picture as a base for the selected stores. Then using logos from ASDA, Amazon.com and HMV.co.uk we created a supporting shopping element of promotion to the single.
We've tried to make this poster look as simple but effective as possible, we believe that filling it with a load unecessary information will only hinder the poster and take away the raw detail behind it, this in which relates to drum and bass and the beats they use, too many layers of tracking or too many different beats over each other and the pureness of the track is lost.

Back Cover CD Case

Back Cover Analysis

When creating the outside back cover we decided to differ from the outside front cover, from the artist style front cover, we thought the subtle transition of white to black fade gives the professional feel to the piece, also the white border gives a dynamic element to the graphics, such as the use of the continuation of the font Cooper Black keeps the theme going.

The design of the back cover is using the songs name in a literal sense, as its layout is in the style of the 'End Credits' of a movie. The addition of the patterns seen in movie credits and THE END placed underneath shows the commitment to the theme.

We also added the necessary information such as the small writing explaining the ownership and the label that the artist is related to, and the barcode creating the products into a merchandise and a source of income for the company.

Base Cover CD Case

Inside Cover

Media CD Front Cover

CD Front Cover

The front cover has been deisgned to capture the audience with a cold hard themed motion. The use of the dark colour themes against the black text gives a striking look so that when people walk past, they are made to second glance the cover and gain an interest to the design. This then results in an interest for the single.
The use of adding the artist to the front cover gives something for the audience to relate the vocals to when they are listening to the track. it also breaks the contact barrier between the music and the artist behind it.
The text is in Cooper Black for the band and artist, and then Stencil for the song name. These two fonts compliment each other and are also both neat and brushed to give a smoothness to the cover.
We have added a Parental Advisory so the cover as the necessity is needed as the song does include taboo language/explicit content. If this was not included the audience range would provide children listening to its lyrics and repeating them which no doubt the parents would be shocked and disapprove resulting in a large quanity of people suing the label decreasing the income and reputation.
There is also a website address in the bottom corner relating to the band to which merchandise and other possesions can be bought increasing profits, its a version of self promotion.

Location 4: Back Street

For the end of our film we decided to film a scene where Keir and Matt would finally meet but with a slight twist in the narrative. We wanted to base the final chapter to our narrative somewhere that could maybe seem closer to reality that the previous locations.

We used a simple wide shot, with Matt walking towards the camera, and Keir away from it. as they passed each other keir turned around to see Matt dissapear. In a way this scene resolves the whole narrative of our music video, as it is when the audience discovers Matt is just a figure of keir's imagination.

Location 3: Chapel

The Chapel in Hulme was ideal for out third location. We were denied access to the Abandoned Theatre when we were due to complete our filming there. This however turned out be a positive as it meant we included another location in our music video. The chapel is now a key aspect in our video.We changed the story slightly to help include our new location.

We came up with the idea that the Keir would enter a range of different dream/delusional memories, the chapel being one of these. In the chapel is where we filmed one of the most important scenes in the video itself. Keir finally confronts Matt, who is also a feature of his memory.

The light in the Chapel was dim, which suited the atmosphere of this particular scene. It was also extremely helpful as the light beaming through the stain glass windows made great images which we included in our film. Other images, such as statues in the chapel and the figures of biblical characters.

There was a higher level to the Chapel, which was a great to film from. The hight advantage meant we could pan Keir walking towards Matt. We filmed the same shot from a few different angles, but the basis of the scene was the shots we took from the higher level.

Song Lyrics In Relation To Our Piece

Peformance Elements

The performance element of our music video is the most important aspect because it features so heavily within our video. We wanted something to go in contrast with the narrative element of Keir's storyline helping it stand out. To achieve this we used the studio facilities within college to record Ethan performing the entire song. The studio equipment meant we could film once from three separate cameras, using the controls to flick between cameras in time to the beat. The other members of our group stood on the cameras making sure they were in focus and properly zoomed on Ethan. We decided to have one camera zoomed on the guitar, one zoomed on Ethan's face and the other as a wide shot showing the whole of Ethan against the black backdrop. We filmed the entire song several times so we had a good variety of shots to work with when editing later in the suite. The first take was of Ethan playing guitar and singing, we used this because it fits very well with the more mellow intro and outro. The next version was of Ethan singing with the guitar on his back. This was effective because it captures the anger and passion of Plan B's voice and looked great on screen during the fast paced parts of the song. The final version we shot was of Ethan's shadow singing and playing guitar. This provided us with extra variety and fitted perfectly with the outro when the drums had dropped out. When putting the music video together we used all three versions of the performance to give our video that extra layer, it looked great when we cut between performance and narrative quickly on the beat, with Ethan flashing up in time to the drums. We also decided to put the performance into black and white during post production, this improved our music video as viewers can clearly distinguish between the performance and narrative making it stand out and leaving an impression on the viewers. We are all pleased with how our performance element was done and how it turned out in our final version of the music video. We feel it looks crisp and clear agabinst the blurry haze of the narrative.

Error on Youtube

Adding our video to Youtube was unsuccessful, this was due to copywrite issues of the use of the Chase and Status music as its owned by UMG. As soon as we tried adding our video through Matt's account, within five second almost, it was removed by UMG, we tried many different codes and ways of publishing the video on there, but everytime we have been blocked. Matt even linked the video to their company as a contributor but still no such luck as they still blocked it. We will keep trying though....

Youtube Version of piece

Related Events

Our video had to be changed on the basis of my right wrist having soft tissue damage and my left one being broke in 2 places. During the half term I was attacked leaving both my wrists temporarily useless. This affected our group massively as it prevented our original story from being able to be put into place. I was assigned to be the role of Matt (the character that follows keir) but due to inconveniences our video had to be rapidly altered. This held our group back as to be a four we were restricted to locations we could use, distances we could travel and time length we could film for. How ever we were able to work around this. With the little time we had left our group managed to scrap a half finished production and start fresh with the little time we had left. With Ethan (guitar player/singer) taking complete controll of the situation he managed to lay out a plan for how this production would work. Leaving me in charge of the camera work. Having the tripod at hand we were able to film a production which in overall content has worked better than our original plan of a fast paced chase scene.

Challenges when filming

The troubles faced whilst filming.

We faced many challanges when filming as to the availibilty of our locations and one of group members (martin) during the half term period broke his left wrist and fractured his right one.
The locations we used were not always available as they were public comunity centres, chapels, studios and street paths. The hardest location we need to film was the african public community centre which held the most dystopian style abonned theatre this fit perfectly with our song of choice as we needed a grotty setting to try and make it obvious Keir (main performer) was in a place of hurt. However the theatre was not always available to our convenience as it was some times closed or unavailable to public use as it was heald for some events.

The public streets were dificult to film as we wern't able to section the streets we used leaving public members walking past shots etc so we filmed minimal in more publicly populated areas.

The chapel was always to our convenience either. As it was a place of worship, people were in there weather it was ceremony occasions or just quiet time to think. The chapel was only for a small part of our piece so we didn't need film loads in there but it took several times off going before we had the privellige of filming inside.

The wrists. When Martin (our forth member) Broke his wrists it made it incredibly dificult for us to film as we had to change the whole stroy line of our production. Leaving us with 3 consistant performers meant we had to shape a new piece with a similar narrative. The story line we used was similar however we had to change vocalist from martin to ethan leaving ethan with another task on his shoulders of learning the whole song vocally and acousticly. Martin was able to use the camera to film which did leave us with a benefit as we had a consistant camera man however the advantage of a camera man did not out weigh the advantage of a performer.

System Error update for photos

The 'Blogger' system has been under repair recently and has prevented us form applying photos to the blog this week, this has set us back a few sessions as the necessity of the photos is apparent when reading and browsing our blog. The system should soon be fixed and operational, when that has happened we will insert the photos where needed.

Equipment Used

Camera

Tripod

Camcorder

Computer systems - Final Cut Pro., Photoshop, Preview, Quicktime.

Studio - Cameras & Systems.

Camera

We have been using a cannon camera provided by the college, when filming the 'outside of studio' shots such as in the theatre, and the outdoor locations. The quality of the camera in pixalation and clarity is shown through our end results. The resolution isn't as high as we would of hoped for but as neither of the team had a better camera or the intention of obtaining a better camera, we had to work with what we were given. The qualities of the camera are seen in the scenes where the natural light is strong, such as the scenes outside. The camera also had a amazingly long battery life, so this was never a factor that occured when filming for various lengthy filming sessions. The elements where the camera let us down, is the poor quality of capture in a darker enviroment for example the use of the Chapel, the picture to be honest looks grainy and murky which if say a HD camera was used, the picture quality would be a lot clearer, creating a higher resoluted shot.

Computer Systems

we used apple mac computers to create our poster for our c-d cover, poster, blogging and editing. We used photoshop as our software for the c-d cover and poster as the layer formating for chopping and changing pictures made it flexible to our convenience as to how are pictures would look. Another reason we used photoshop is the ability to change resolution and colour was made easy using tools such as the magnetic lasso. Photo shop is one of the mot advanced picture editing software and we were able to apply our knowledge in creating the best pictures could using photoshop

The apple macs were also extremely useful for editing when we were editing our music video. Final cut pro is the software we used and managed to produce a video to the highest qaulity we could. Using final cut pro we were able to adjust our video in terms of shot lengths, grainy stock, colour, lip syncing, transitions and fading. This was all useful in contributing to our final piece and making it look as professional as possible. Final cut pro allowed us to be able to piece our video visually as we had created mentally. We have now learnt things from final cut pro which we can apply to future productions.

The studio.

In college we have had acces to a professional filming studio. In this were able to create a dark effect which worked in sync with the story basis of our video as our performer (keir) is meant to be dead. Our vocalist (Ethan) sings in the studio our whole song and we were able to switch between 3 very hightech cameras to beatmatch to our son. The studio allowed us to produce film the most professional part of our music video as it the cameras were of the highest qaulity and stability. The dark effect controlled by the lighting was created by strobes and external lighting. We managed to keep the lighting volume to minimum as the storbes had a control of how dim or bright you wanted. The studio played a major role in our film as we filmed whole sequences in there which we applied in brief clips but contributed heavily to our final product.

tripod

The tripod was used mearly to steady the camera how ever a steady cam was important for some features in our piece. Alot of our piece was hand held to give a shakey effect as our piece was meant to be switching between the reality of life and death.

Location 2: The Abandoned Theatre

For our second location we managed to strike gold and come across 'The African Centre' located just a five minute walk from college, unknown to most poeple, this location perfectly fit our criteria as it was dark, distopian and ruined. Inside the building is the ruins of a 1930s theatre, once used by the BBC this place is know abandoned except for a few locals who are tring to restore it.

We asked for permission to film inside and the people were more than happy as it acts as a way of self promotion to the theatre. The ruins of its stage are clear in the video, and acts to the theme of the dream-like distopia, it also works well as the is natural light coming through from the back of the stage where part of the roof is missing, this helps the camera quality as the picture becomes higher resoluted.

We returned to this location many times to get different types of shots and angles. The variety of locations inside the theatre was truely incredible, from costraphobic pitch black staircases to a wide open bright stage and ripped up seats.

If we had had more equipment and better quality camera we could of filmed the entire piece in there and had so many different location, the cameras lack of quality and light exposure meant that we could and so we varied to other locations such as the studio and the backstreets. This was also decided when we were denied re entry to the theatre for stability and renovation reasons.

Abandoned Theatre Location: Wilberforce Close, Manchester, England M15 5, Uk

Locations 1: Studio

We spent two sessions of filming inside of the Loreto studio, with this time we managed to achieve three successful versions of the song through the performance element, this was produced by Ethan on the first one playing guitar, the second him singing, and the third him doing both together. This in the long run will give a variety of shot mise en scene to play around with when editing. It will also prevent the feeling of repetition being used by the changing set ups.

When in the studio we had the oppotunity of using three cameras at one time to capture different angled and ranged shots. We took advantage of this by have one camera shoot a full body shot from straight on, one camera shooting from a close up side angle of Ethan's face using a focus pull to react to the bass of the music and blur at parts, the third camera we used was a mid-ranged half body shot showing Ethan's upper half of his body, this shot enabled to show the detail in the expression and hand gestures he used when performing the song, it also gave a closer view of the guitar from the full body long shot. Throughout the numerous takes of performing the piece, Martin who was controlling the recording system and the camera choice, switched between cameras 1-3 in syncronisation with the songs beat and top line to represent the link between song and performance. It also helped build the intensity of the songs unlining attitude.

Inside of the studio we took advantage of the professional standard backdrops by using the simplicity of a balck background, then combining it with the powerful spolights. This helped greatly as the dark atmospheric pressure emphasised the sinster attutide the performers gave, teamed with the sharpe beams of light from the raw spolights creating shadows and imagery on the backdrop which influenced the idea of the 'dream' part of our video, espcially for the part where Matt hits Keir with the baseball bat.

Locations

Due to an interesting discovery our original locations have been changed from a built up city to an abandonded theatre. On our first day of filming we were outside an old theatre in Hulme getting some opening shots. We thought we could also get some great shots of the abandonded theatre inside, so we asked someone who was working inside if it would be possible to film in the theatre. After a quick tour round he told us it would be fine but we needed a letter from college to prove we were A Level media students. We returned a few days later equipped with a letter, our camera and our tripod ready to film. The theatre had a great atmosphere and provided many great angles from dark corridors to wide long shots of the stage. We felt it would be better to keep the locations set within/around the theatre to give our video a strong story element. We plan on going back to the theatre to get some more footage to end our piece.

Locations

Mancunian Way
This is a wide area where we will film parts of the video. Its open space allows many different shots and angles, plus the rural elements fit in with our theme.
Car Park
This car park will give great arial and establishing shots. Its many floors means a variety of places to shoot, and also this location overlooks the previous location which can connect the narrative element if needed.
Local Streets
We are gonna use the local streets for when we are running/chasing after the protagonist. The smaller streets will intensify the the chase as its tighter and packed with cars etc. It will give a relation of the reality towards our video and human violence.

Album Advert Analysis

This is an advert for "The Vine’s" album titled "The Best of the Vine’s". The album features the artists name and the album title in the centre of the advert. This has been done to draw attention to the artists name. It is emphasised by the large bold font and the use of capital letters. This is typical of "The Vine's" merchandise. This is so that a continuous identity is given to the band, this means fans and audiences become a part of the brand identity and remain loyal. ‘The Vines’ are the number one selling point for the album as consumers recognise them as the main reason to buy the album, and are attracted to buy the album by them rather than the name of the album. This is especially the case for this particular album as it is a compilation of The Vine’s greatest hints. This means that fans will most probably already have heard, or own the songs which are on this CD, and so are buying it because it is ‘The Vines’ merchandise, rather than because it is new material or an album they are attracted to by its title.
The graphics and colour scheme that are used are simple, and reflect the band name rather than the intention of the album. This again has been done because "The Vines" are the most important thing about this album as the songs have already been heard by a large fan base. The designers of the advert know this, and so have aimed to attract audiences through the representation of the band itself as a brand rather than the album as a whole. However, the green used for the drawings is incredibly bold, giving the band an identity that stands out against the plain white background, and so it does reflect the music of the "The Vines" to be bold and stand out.
The practical information is separated from the vine graphics and is typed in a font that is distorted, making it look as if it has been scratched or worn away. This has been done to give "The Vines" an identity of a certain edgy-ness. It is also interesting to notice that the audience are made aware that there is an exclusive bonus track available on this CD. This is important as it pleases fans to know they are getting something exclusive for their money which aims to increase band loyalty. It also means that fans will be more inclined to buy the album as they won’t just be buying songs they have heard before, but be buying something completely new and unheard as well. Also, letting audiences know the song can be downloaded is important, as it means even if they buy this particular album because of the exclusive song available, it means they may be inclined to download it as a single song. This means that audiences are still being given new material to listen to, increasing fan base loyalty, and the band still have the opportunity to make money through download sales.

Costume layout

The costumes we have chosen are chose on purpose to fit in sync with the narrative. Each costume has been carefully selected to fit the role of each character.

Our costumes all relate to the characters image but also to the position the character is in, in the video. The colors of our costumes also relate to the characters. There is a heavy symbolic relation from character to costume.

We have all agreed individually who will wear what and the meaning behind it.

Matt: Matt will be wearing a black jacket as he is the chaser of Keir (main performer). Black being the colour of death and darkness it is quite clear as to why he is the one chasing . Matts image is not set out to be vicious but a subtle message. We wanted to make it clear that matt wasn't there for any friendly reason with out being extreme as to why he was following keir.

Ethan: Ethan will be wearing a white top with casual jeans and retro trainers. Ethan is the guitar player and the lead vocalist. He is wearing white as he is the watcher of Keir (the vocalist being chased). Ethan represents an angel who is over seeing the events of Kiers life. His white hoody is the main link to his metaphorical meaning. As it is an ‘underground’ music genre we wanted to keep it urban but still to stick to the narrative of our video.

Keir: Keir is wearing a grey tracksuit top as the grey clothing shows us he is stuck in limbo. His constant chase shows us he is running from matt but also that he is running from life and death. Grey being the neutral color of black and white should hopefully make the viewer realize he is a victim. Stuck in the transition of life and death leaving him left confused in a state of limbo.

Chipmunk ft Trey Songz

take off

This music video is a mix of both performance and narrative. The narrative is illustrative and doesn’t really involve any disjuncture. I believe this is typical in many modern RnB videos.

To begin with The performance side of the video is shot by the sea in Miami. High-rise, modern buildings are clearly visible in the background. This could refer to how new and modern the two artists are as well as the song itself. It especially highlights the success of Chipmunk who grew up on the streets in north London, which is juxtaposed to the high-rise jet-set lifestyle of Miami. It shows how far his career has come and could also symbolize his desire to keep moving up and reach the top.

The narrative relates to the song and lyrics by showing the two artists with different girls who have been in their lives but have been unable to handle the pressure of fame and fortune and therefore have been left behind. This relates to the main line of the chorus “You didn’t want me to take off.”

Star Image is used in the video from the very beginning; Chipmunk is stood alone with Miami buildings in the background. He is dressed all in white, which shows he is special and the star of the video. A close up is also used to highlight his importance. In relation to this, the weather is also important. It is very sunny and bright at that e start of the video when the mood is positive and upbeat. However by the end of the song it has become night that suggests the mood has changed. This is underlined by the artists’ facial expressions, which seem disappointed and sad.

Influential Features

This is a post to show the different video's for ideas towards our own finished product. We won't copy any of the videos exactly but each has influenced our own video in different specific elements. The first is 'All of the lights' by Kanye West. After passing through the lengthy introduction (first minute), the illustrative element we found is incredibly effective. It emphasises the lyrics from the song and builds up the hype of the music up to the chorus.
The way the illustrations differ from each other and and include many different motions and colours which are exciting for the audience and keep them focused on the song, I post this because I believe it will be a great asset in our own video if we need it. This is the best illustrative piece I've seen when researching.

Inspiration For CD Cover

CD Cover Analysis and search results

When looking for ideas and designs for our CD covers we came across many different interpretations of what a CD cover should look like and do, Some with famous monuments on them, some with real abstract qualities, and some with pictures of the performer in a pose. When deciding which route to go down we consider that as Ethan is the performer in this song, he will be the artist representation. With this in mind, we went down the route of having the artist on the front cover.

Next I researched what writing needed to be on the cover such as the company label, website address, franchise and funding labels etc. We have added our own to the cover to create authenticity to our product.

P-money – Ho riddim

LIGHTING.

The lighting behind this video is dimly light and in black and white. The music genre is an underground genre called grime, which has a dark vibe to it. The lighting works well as the music genre its self is quite dark.

EDITING.

The cut rate is to the beat of the track and fades consistently through the song. This is typical of underground genres e.g. grime as the videos due to little income funds videos to this genre need to impress an audience.

Although a simple effect having the camera angle changing to the beat takes an impressive level of editing skills and compliments the editor. The editing used in this particular video is simple but effective and focuses on the little adjustments to make the big differences. A big minor detail which is used through out is the start vehicle.

CAMERA.

The angles are mainly mid to long shit and focuses highly on the lead vocalist (P-Money). The camera uses him as a star vehicle to familiarize the audience with him. The focus on P-money using lip sync promotes his importance in the video this shows he is strong character to the genre he is promoting.

NARRITIVE.

There is no narrative to the music video. This affects the video very little. As the focus of this genre is focused on not needing help, being an independent genre.

THE GENRE.

The genre is called grime and in link with our main song end credits grime was the originating origin of plan B who P-money has been heavily influenced by. Drum ‘n’ Bass is the genre of our main track. Grime is where most Drum ‘n’ bass rappers originated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYBn7canZWg