Dylan McGough - Evaluation Questions 1 to 4

Question 1

Question 1 of Evaluation on Prezi

Question 2 - power point

Question 2 of Evaluation...

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Question 3 - prezi

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback? on Prezi

Question 4

Question 4 of evaluation...

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Problems

We have faced many problems and set back while trying to film the music video

First of all is organising ourself where we can meet up to film, plan and complete planning & research, this we difficult as all three of us have different times where we were free. However we eventually found a happy medium where we could all work together at the same time.

The weather has also had an affect on our filming because days when we wanted to meet up and film, buses weren't running and for some of us we were snowed in! The weather also stopped us filming in our original location for the band as it was first too wet and boggy to set up the equipment and then it was too icy & snowy. This however lead us to filming in the college studio which we now feel works and looks better then we planned.

Another set back we faced was organising the original band, H-Eyes, as again they all had busy schedules as well as attended different college. This eventually got worse when the band told us they'd split up and two of the band completely gave up on being part of our music video. We did manage to resolve this as a very good friend of ours, Ryan Townsend, was a member of the band and agreed to play all three roles of the band.

One big problem was finding a suitable time to film the music video as we found quite a few times Ryan was free to film and we weren't free or we were all free and able to film but the studio was booked out by other A level students who were also filming their music videos.

The latest set back we have faced has been equipment. We had planned on borrowing drums from the music department in college, however, due to lose of equipment by another pupil in college no one was allowed to borrow any musical instruments. This was now caused a major problem as getting Ryan's drums into college will prove extremely difficult as he lives over 10miles away. Although we are hoping organising my brother to collect the equipment before college for us the film during college. The date we want to finish off all the filming and get the stills we need is 16-12-10. This means we will have to put extra effort in Thursday night and work extremely hard on Friday in order to meet the deadline.

Update of production

In our original plans we did want to film the band - now solo artist, in a field. However, we have now decided against this as we believe the lighting will not be as effective as in the studio with a green screen behind. It would also be extremely hard to get the equipment up to the location we had planned due to the weather over the last few days.

Today we began the filming of the band/solo artist in front of the green screen.We filmed Ryan playing the base guitar first using mainly extreme close ups of the guitar and some medium shots where appropriate. We also filmed the whole song with a close up on Ryan's face where he sang it all. In addition to this we got medium shots and long shots of him singing as well as playing the guitar.

New Plans...

As we are only going to have one person in our music video we have been thinking how we could keep the same concept of a band but with only one artist. We have decided to use the one musician to play the role of lead singer, base guitarist and the drummer. We will use final cut express to edit it and assemble the music video as we planned. In order to make this work and look affective we will be filming our musician in front of the green screen which will allow us to put a background behind him. We are also going to try and experiment and have all three three (drummer, base guitarist and lead guitarist/vocals) in one shot. In order to do this we will either reposition each shot so that it will fit together by layers the shots we have taken. Another was to have all three roles in one shot would be to use split screen with each one. The narrative is going to appear as planned with it linking to the lyrics of the song.

Beginning of production

Today we filmed all of the narritve for the music video in the location we wanted to use (Padiham public toilets). However, we did face a problem while filming in the public toilets as we were kicked out of the toilets because they were being closed. Although we still managed to get the shots we needed for our music video. Next we will bring the footage into college, upload what we managed to capture and then begin the start of our editing.

Storyboard

*During shots 4 & 5 there will be more then just them two shots. For example we will have some extreme longs shots of the band, side angle shots and low angle shots etc...

** During the narrative we will use lots of POV shots and Canted angle shots to try and create the effect of the character being high off heroin.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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