Our bands logo

These are a few or the fonts that i thought would fit and be appropriate for the bands logo.

This font is very bold and eye catching but it is not just block writing, i think that it has something about it and would be remembered as it is quite distinctive.

This font again is black bold font but with a slightly jagged look to it, i think it is quite similar to other bands indie logos and fits with the genre of music.

This font is slightly more subtle although it is still bold and eye catching.

This font is very simple although i think the use of the block capitals makes it bigger and look a lot better.

This is the type of style that i think would work for our bands logo as these fit with the style of most indie logos. The logo would definitely be black and white as they are the types of colours that we are going with.

Lily Conchie

Research of Indie band logos.

For our band we need to create a logo. Our band is called H-eyes and is an Indie band. The font, style and colour all need to be appropriate and also it needs to be something eye catching that people will remember when they hear the name of the band.  To give us ideas i decided that it would be a good idea to go and research bands of our style to help us decided what type of logo would be good.

The Kooks are an indie band, their logo is plain yet it is eye catching as it is large and big black bold writing on a white background.

The Artic Monkeys are also an indie band, their logo is quite quirky and different so captures you, although it is quite hard to read if you are not close up, however this could be an advantage as it makes you want to look at it properly in more detail. Again it is black and white colours used for their logo.

Oasis is also a very popular indie band. Their logo the same as the kooks is bold black on a white background, in italics. It is plain and not fussy.

Now that i have researched different types of indie logos it will give me more of an idea of what type of logo we need and what works best.

Lily Conchie

Colour Scheme

For our video we needed to find a colour scheme to work off which we would use for in our video.
The colours that we use have to reflect on the bands style and theme. To do this we went onto www.colourlovers.com.
These are the colours that i thought would work best for the video.

These type of colours fit well with the theme and the mood of the song for the video. It had quite a dark and deep mood to it and these colours represent that. Most of the colours that i have chosen are dark such as black and dark grey, although i have chosen the teal based colour pallete in the middle as i think that colour goes well with the indie style of the band and it could work with the others.

Album advertisements in magazines.

This is the Gwen Stefani album "love angel music baby" advertisement in NME magazine. The artist takes main focus and the actual album cover situated in the bottom left hand corner has the same photo of her as the advertisement. The writing is big bold and stands out against the background, the colours are royal and look expensive which is representative of the album itself which features the song "rich girl". The background looks authentic as its off-white which links to the videos of the song two songs mentioned (What you waiting for and rich girl) which are set in the past which creates a threat throughout all of the advertising.

Britney Spear's album Circus.

This advertisement has bright colours to represent the album name itself, she is the main focus of the advertisement. The album cover in the bottom left corner has a different picture on the front although both have the blue stars creating a border which is a thread between the two. The isn't any writing on this advertisement except for the artist's name which implies that she is the most important and also that the album is already out as it shows no dates for release. The font is also symbolic of a circus sign linking again with the theme of the whole album.

Typical features:

Artist as main focus

A picture of the album in the bottom left hand corner

A representation of the album name or theme throughout all the advertisements through use of colour font or photo.

Album name

Date its being released

Shops where its being retailed

Shots List

We will be having two main locations, The bathroom for the narrative and Pendle/Outside for the band performing. We will also have a few shots for the narrative wondering the streets (Padiham) which will be our third location. Our shots list is as follows:

The Bathroom

1. Extreme Close Up of characters eye
2. POV shot of character burning the heroin in a spoon
3. Medium shot of character putting belt around his arm
4. Long shot of character ''taking'' the heroin
5. Canted angle of character getting up
6. POV shot of character walking, looking at the ground - camera slightly shaky to create some blur
7. POV shot of character looking in a mirror/ might have to be a Close Up on the mirror
8. Tracking shot of character walking out of toilets -  possibly include Canted Angle Shots to created the effect of character on drugs
9. POV shot that ties in with the line - "feels like I'm falling down a black hole"
10. Medium shot of character holding himself up against  a walk
11. Long shot of character collapsing onto the ground against the wall
12. POV shot of hand holding a picture and crushing it or POV shot of character burning a picture of a girl just like he was burning the heroin in the first shot

Pendle/ Outside Location

1. Extreme Close up of guitarist hands playing the guitar 
2. Medium shot of guitarist
3. Long shot of guitarist
4. Long shot of drummer
5. Medium shot of the band
6. Long shot of the band
7. Silhoutte of the band - Long/medium shot
8. Medium shot of the guitarist again - keeping with the music
9. Close up of the lead singer
10. Medium shot of the lead singer
11. Low angle shot of the band playing
12. Tracking shot circling the band playing
13. Close up of the drummer
14. Medium shot of the lead singer

Padiham

1. Tracking shot of character 
2. Medium shot of the character
3. Long shot of the character walking away
4. Canted angle of the character walking down a street
5. POV shot of the character walking

**We will record all of these shots, however, not all of these shots will be used in the video as in editing we'll decide what shots are actually needed for the music video and what shots work best to create the music video.

Digipak Analysis

Digipaks are sustainable media packs with a cardboard base and one or more trays glued to the inside.
We have chosen to do a 6 page digipak, examples of other 6 page digipaks are as follows:

This digipak is from an indie band quite similar to ours. they have chosen to keep the front cover quite simple with the girl as a focal point and the title of the band and album also in a contrasting colour to stand out. The inner sleeves are a lot more detailed as you can see they are very "cartoon" as is the CD itself. One of the sleeves features closeup photos of each member of the band-an attribute we plan to use on our digipak. The colours contrast for two of the visible sleeves with the third as two are quite tranquil with a sunset/sky scene in the background and the third features quite a loud garish scene that has a mesh of different colours and intricate drawings that shows the band have two different brand identities which would enable them to appear to a larger target audience.

This digipak is of a different genre to ours but uses a similar idea with the colour scheme of black and white with flashes of colour to draw attention to the title for example which is in contrasting colours. The main focus of the digipak is the artists face which is repeated throughout and one of the sleeves is the same as the CD itself. There is no eye contact with the photo as he is always looking away and his face is painted almost like a mask creating mystery which links with the album title "myth". The title is repeated on most sleeves which reinforces it and the pattern only changes slightly depending on the amount of space allowed for it. This digipak has a list of the songs on the CD- another idea we are using. As a digipak is a more detailed CD cover so must follow the basic structure of one of them with the song list on the back cover.

This digipak has a loose colour scheme with black white red and yet again the main focus being the artist. The photo on the front implies the mood of the album may be quite relaxed as thats what impression the artist gives off, also as he is not looking directly at the camera on either this shot or the one on the actual CD, it creates intrigue and mystery. The costume is all white which gives off connotations of innocence which will sell well in that genre of music (chilled out RNB). The name of the artist and the album are in contrasting colours to the background making them stand out. All the sleeves follow the similar colour scheme linking each of them together. 

Planning of Digipak:

The Album cover/digipak is one of the most important advertisement for a artist or band. The reason for this is that it needs to have a lasting impression on people and stand out from the rest of the competition. However you should over complicate, keeping it simply yet interesting and instantly recognisable. Keeping this in mind here is what we planned for our Digipak...

For our Digipak we have decided that were going to use the 6 panel Digipak. Throughout the Digipak we're going to keep with our brand identity and keep with the theme of black & white which is running through the video. Therefore we'll have individual pictures of the band members and one main picture for the front cover of the band. All of these will be in black & white, however we don't want it to be boring therefore we're going to use Adobe Photoshop to highlight and colour all the instruments in the pictures. We are also going to colour the titles and the bands names to make them stand out.

After doing some research I found that on the back covers of Digipaks they all include the following;

• Copyright and Publishing Dates and Holders (Usually the band or label for indie releases)
• UPC/ Barcode (Usually placed on the bottom right)
• Label Name (We will have to create our own record label)
• Catalog Number (This is another unique identifier for your album that is often used by physical and online retailers to uniquely identify your album. Another reason to create a label name).
• MySpace or Website addresses
• Contact Information 
• Artwork. (Make sure it doesn't interfere with any of the information as thats most important compared to any artwork)
  

Digipac Research

"Digipak typically consist of a gateflod (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipak

Before we start creating our Digipak we first of all need to decide what type of Digipak we want to create as there is three different types to choose from. The three to choose from is a 4 panel Digipak, a 6 Panel Digipak and finally a 8 panel Digipak. Before is all three templates for each Digipak.

The first is a nice and easy small 4 panel Digipak which holds One CD:

Second is a template of a 6 panel Digipak to hold one CD on the right:



The final template is a 8 panel Digipak again holding One CD:

(all templates from http://www.danavideomedia.com/English/template-custom.htm)

After looking at the three examples we decided that the 6 panel Digipak would be the best for our task. The reason for this is that it will allow us have, a front, a back, a CD holder and three separate fold outs which will have a picture of each member of the band. Another reason we choose the 6 panel Digipak was there is three of each which allows each member of the group to complete two parts of the Digipak each.

Feedback 15.11.10

Guys, this is improving. You still need the storyboard and shot lists on here. If you have not filmed for this week's lessons then you should use lesson time to research and plan for the 2 ancillary tasks - a digipack for the album and a magazine advert for the album. You need one piece of research and one of planning minimum. You can get templates for digipacks online.

Lucy, yur contribution is much less than that of your group mates. You will all be marked individually on this work so you will need to produce much more to get your marks. The post on the Kooks video is far too brief and should be a detailed textual anlaysis of the video- the use of music video conventions, conventions of the indie genre and the sense of brand identity.

I'm not in tomorrow (tues), however,youshould still attend lesson. Mike will let you in the room and will be on hand to help. Use your time wisely!

Mrs A

The Kooks music video

This is a very popular Indie song and the video follows many of the typical indie conventions. For example the video doesn't link to the lyrics, the narrative is told through jump shots of the band touring and playing instruments. The mise-en-scene is different throughout as they are in many locations, they mostly feature the band members and instruments as they are the main focus of the genre and we intend to use instruments as stills for our album cover. The costume is typical of the genre and is what their fans would associate with them, the skinny jeans-converse laid back look which is slightly more relaxed than what we intend our actors to wear. The video makes the viewer feel as though they are on tour with the band which is effective as it will make them feel involved. The many different shots in different places creates interest and therefore keeps the viewers watching which in turn will increase the popularity of the song.

Risk Assesment form

Lily Risk Assesment Form

Location

For our music video we plan on having two locations. We are going to be filming our music video on Pendle hill to the left. Pendle hill we thought this would be something diffrent as indie is a diffrent quirky sort of genre and also the countryside would be a interesting idea,although this will of course depend on weather situations as it is winter, yet we do hope this will be our initial filming loaction. If we are unable to film our video on pendle hill then we will be doing it in the drama theatre and creating a gig sort of location for it. We also are using a bathroom as one of the locations for the filming.

The filming of the music video will commence from monday the 15th of November.

(Location shots to be uploaded asap)

Lily Conchie

Prop List

Our music video will not be containing many props, although the ones we will be using are:

Guitar
Drum Kit
Microphone
Microphone stand
Spoon
Brown sugar (act as heroin)
Photo

There may be some additional props used throughout the video but due to it being quite a basic story line they are only the main ones we will deffinatley need.

Lily Conchie

Institution...

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMI)

The institution we want to produce our media text is EMI. The main reason for this is that EMI is one of the 'big four' record companies, therefore we know that they are very successful in producing music. EMI have produced some of the greatest artist the world has ever seen, such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (who are both British). And they are still producing some amazing British acts such as, Coldplay, Lily Allen, Robbie Williams and Tinie Tempah In addition to this EMI is a British record company who would know everything about that market and how to sell well in the UK. We decided that we would want a British institution to produce our media text as we want to keep to the British brand image, and we would be targeting a British audience.

Target Audience

Our target audience would most likely be niche. Indie although it may be quite popular does not appeal to a wide scale audience and doesnt hold a large part in the music industry.
Although this is so we would base it on mainstream for our target audience as we would like to aim to promote the indie genre and bring it in more with the music viewers and itinitally get more recognition.

We will use the demographic profiling when indentifying our target audience. GRASS.
Demographic profiling is basing the grouping the target audience to make it smaller groups. You do this based on the age,gener, social economic status, class, race ect.

This is how i will indentify our target audience
GRASS stands for:
G: Gender - Male/Female
R: Race -White/Caucasion
A: Age - 16/25
S: social Economic status : Lower middle class/ Working class.

Our target audience would mainly be aimed at males although it could appeal to some females.
It could appeal more to the female audience for reasons such as the way the males look in the band as this will appeal to some females and they could become more well known for this reason. Although it will be more appealing to the guys as it could be an inspiration as it is a group filled with male singers/instrument players.
It is most likely to apply to the caucasian race because the music fits within this race and people of the same race are easier to relate to music wise.
I think that the target audience for age would be from 16/25, indie is quite a modern genre so for this reason i dont think it would be over popular with the older audience as they are not familiar with it. Also the members of the band are aged around 18-20 so they are more likely to appeal to people of a similar age as they have similar interests. Also when the band are creating their music they will be trying to make it appeal to a similar age.
Our social economic status would be mainly, unemployed,students, or lower working/middle class. The reasons for this is because i think that it is the younger aged poeple who fall into these catagories

Lily Conchie

Audience questionaire

To help us establish a suitable target audience for our music genre we decided to create an audience questionnaire. With our questionnaire (below) we will get 30 people to complete it so we can get a good understanding of our target audience.

1: How old are you?

15-17 —

18-20 —

21-23 —

24-26 —

2: What sex are you?

MALE —

FEMALE —

3: What type of music genre do you listen to?

Rock —

Rap —

Indie —

R‘n’B —

Folk —

Hip-Hop —

4: Next we let them listen to the song we choice for our final piece and asked did they like the song?

YES —

NO —

Unsure —

5: What genre would you say this song was?

Rock —

Indie —

Heavy Rock —

Alternative Indie —

6: Would you purchase this song?

YES —

NO —

7: Could you imagine buying an album of this genre?

YES —

NO —

8: What would you expect to see in a music video from a song like this?

See the artist a lot? —

The intruments? —

Sex? —

Drugs? —

Dancers? —

Night clubs scene? —

Other please state. _______________________________________________________________

9: How often do you watch music videos?      

Once a week —

Twice a week —

Everyday —

Never —

Thank you for completing our questionnaire. Dylan, Lucy and Lily.

Titles in music videos

Titles are used in many music videos, they are typically used in music videos help with the narrative and keep the video clear. It almost having a narrator in a film, the titles in a music video can show time moving fast, or highlight key characters in a video. They sometime just correspond with the lyrics of a music video allowing the artist to use another way to express their creativity.
Here is a few examples of titles used in a music video:

(http://tbohiphop.net/kanye-west-good-life-dvd/21/)
Above is a image from Kanye West's music video, 'Goodlife'. This is an example of titles corresponding to the lyrics. Throughout this video he uses titles to enhance his lyrics, not many people have done this but it works extremely well and it has an impact on you which means you'll never forget the video.


(http://www.antiquiet.com/news/2010/09/cee-lo-fuck-you-video/attachment/ceelo/)

(http://www.brusday.com/2010/09/fuck-you-by-cee-lo-green/)    

(http://www.promonews.tv/2010/09/03/cee-lo-green%E2%80%99s-fuck-you-by-matthew-stawski/)

Above is three examples from Cee Lo Greens song, 'Forget You' which shows how titles can show you the key characters of a music video, and help with the narrative of it.

Synopsis

After listening to the song several times we decided that a main theme that would run throughout our music video would be drugs. The reason for this is that the main lyric said in the chorus is ''can't afford to feed your addition'' which could easily be related to drugs (or possibly a girl/love). Therefore we came up with the following idea...

The focus of the video will be split into two parts, one will be the band playing on top of a hill and the second will be flashbacks of someone taking heroin. For the flashbacks to work and look effective we will be using the black and white affect which will allow the audience distinguish between the narrative and the band. In order for our band to play on top of the hill we will need a generator, lighting and the bands equipment.

At the beginning we will start with the band making there way up the top of the hill before they set up the equipment. This will be done in a montage of clips showing extreme close ups of the guitar being plugged into the amplifiers, the drums being set up etc.

Then we will have a flashback into a POV shot of someone burning heroin (brown sugar) on a spoon in a bath room. This will then change to a medium/ long shot of him tying tubing around his arm which fades into a close up of his injecting the heroin.

Then throughout the video we will have different shots of the story unfolding with him becoming enraged with anger, throwing bottles around, trashing the bath room...

While all this is happening we will be switching/cutting between the black and white shots of the narrative and the live shots of the band playing on top of a hill (possibly Pendle)

Finally the ending of the song will either be the actor getting ride of his drugs by burying them or going back to the same POV shot at the beginning, however this time instead of the spoon and drugs it's going to be him burning a picture of a girl which ties in with the connection with love and drugs.

Clothing/Costume

Within our video we aim to create a traditional indie look and make it as effective as possible to make it work with the genre.
For this reason we will dress the band members according to research on previous indie bands.
I have looked into the style of a popular indie band; THE KOOKS.

As you can see from the photos below band tend to wear quite plain coloured clothing, very bland and simple. This is the indie style. The hair is also quite ragged and slightly scruffed. The look is casual and plain and this is how we plan to dress and style of our actors in the music video in order for them to fit into indie style.

I also researched into the fashion of another indie band, the ARTIC MONKEYS.

The same indie fashion applied for this band as you can see from the picture below, they dress in plain colours, these tend to be black and white.

The actors all have long hair, this will be made to look quite rugged and scruffy, we will also dress them in black and white plain clothing.

Lily Conchie

Green Screening

Feedback 8.11.10

Lily, Lucy and Dylan,

You have not done much this week according to your blog. I am concerned by the inactivity here, especially in your own time. Why has no work been completed over the weekend? You only have 10 posts and by now should be twice or three times as much! The research and planning should be complete by now and I am worried that you will not have enough time to get the work cmplete by xmas.

The post on actors, in your case, the band members are the equivalent of this. You need to include images of them and discuss how you will style them in the video. In terms of sharing roles you should all ensure you contribute to the blogs equally - you are each marked individually!

Get a move on with this work! See me if there are any problems. I need to see copmpleted planning so you can get out filming later this week or beginning of next at latest!

Mrs Abell

Organised Actors.

For our music video we do not necessarily need set characters. As it is music based there will not be much acting.

We have managed to get the actual band to film the music video which should prove a major bonus to us.

We are going to style our band in an indie way, sort of in the style of bands such as artic monkeys, kings of leon. They are going to wear quite dark bland colours as it will fit with the mood of the music video.

The band members are as follows;

Jack Anwell : he will be the drummer

Nick Gizzi : he will be the guitarist

Ryan Townsend : he will be the singer

(PICTURES TO COME)


Lilyconchie

Indentified roles.

Throughout the production we are all going to have certain roles for our work. On a whole we will all be working togeteher mainly to create the production as a group although there will be certain areas in which we have our strengths and weaknesses.

For the filming we have come to a decision that we will all be doing parts of the filming although Dylan found that last year one of his strenghts was doing alot of the filming and he is the strongest at filming out of us in the group so for this reason he will do alot more than me and the other group member lucy.

Me and lucy will focus more on the editing side of the film as this is one of our strenghts and also something that we like more in comparison to Dylan. Also we will slightly focus more on the planning and the blog to make it as even as possible.

On a whole we will try as hard as we can to ensure that everything we do is made even and the work is shared out equally with the whole group.

Lily Conchie

TOP 20 ALBUM SALES

Here is a list of the Top 20 selling Albums from October 24th...

1. Kings Of Leon - Come Around Sundown

2. Robbie Williams - In And Out Of Consciousness Greatest

3. Tinie Tempah - Disc Overy

4. The Beatles - 1967 1970

5. Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

6. The Beatles - 1962 1966

7. Michael Buble - Crazy Love

8. The Script - Science & Faith

9. Pixie Lott - Turn It Up

10. Plan B - The Defamation Of Strickland Banks

11. Cliff Richard - Bold As Brass

12. Mumford & Sons - Sign No More

13. Lady Gaga - The Fame

14. Eminem - Recovery

15. Ali Campbell - Great British Songs

16. Brandon Flowers - Flamingo

17. The XX - XX

18. Bob Dylan - The Witmark Demos 1962 1964

19. Central Band Of The RAF - Reach For The Stars

20. Phil Collins - Going Back

(BBC Radio One's Website)

This chart is compiled every week from album sales as well as digital downloads. Over the years digital downloads have become increasingly popular mainly due to Web 2.0. Looking at the chart is it easy to see how versatile the music industry is with a wide range of genres and mix of artists, from new relatively unknown artist such as, Tinie Tempah and Pixie Lott, along with well established artist who have been around for year such as, Phil Collins and Cliff Richard.
In addition to this we can see that Indie music is part of mainstream music with acts such as The XX, The Beatles and Kings Of Leon, who all fit into the Indie/ Indie Rock genre. This also shows us how popular Indie music is now with the number one being Kings Of Leon.

Equipment

Here is a list of the equipment we will be using to make our music video:

• For the filming of the music video we will be using a  Digital Camcorder and Tripod which will enable us to capture all the camera angles we'll need
• We will be using a Digital Camera to take pictures of the band and it will also be used to help us produce the promotion part of the task
• For the editing part we will be using the following software, Photoshop, InDesign, and Final Cut Express
• For the smoke and lighting effects we will need a Smoke Machine and Lighting
• In order for us to have lighting on the top of a hill we will need a Generator to power the lights and smoke machine

We will also need the following props:

• Drums, Electric Guitar, Base Guitar and a Microphone with Stand.

Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin's theory on Conventions of a Music Video...
Goodwin said there was six main points a music video had to include, these were;

1. Genre characteristics
2. Visuals/lyrics
3. Visuals/music
4. Need to sell the artist 
5. Intertextuality 
6. Voyeurism

Goodwin said there were key feature which distinguished music...

• a relationship between the visual and the lyrics either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics 
• a relationship between the visuals and the music either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics 
• music genre have to have their own style and iconography
• there is a demand from the record company to have close ups of the artist/lead singer, creating a 'star image' that sells
• its likely to have voyeurism, mainly in the treatment of women, seeing them as something to look at, almost as sexual objects
• there is likely to be intertextual references either to other music videos, films or TV texts