Our brief was to create a music video promo with two ancillary tasks, a magazine advert and the digi-pak album to accompany the CD. We were also given the choice of creating a website for the band but chose against this. All three tasks were a way to advertise and promote the band and their upcoming album release; we had to target the prospective audience that would listen and buy that genre of music and researching the current market was the way to develop our understanding of this. During our research we found that there are a number of elements which are required to create a music video. For an effective video it should be split up into live performance, where the artist is seen playing the instruments or singing and a narrative that links to the lyrics of the song. This split depends on the genre of music, but universally the live performance would have the larger percentage, because fans watch music videos to see the artist more than to watch the storyline, this also gives the artist credibility and suggests that they are organic rather than manufactured. The way that music videos are filmed and edited is different to ordinary film making. You tend to get more of the same camera angles being cut together in a fast pace without any cross fades or special transition; they tend to be straight cuts as they link more with the tempo of the track. However, this again depends of the genre of music, for example a slower acoustic style song like ‘hallelujah’ by Rufus Wainwright will have more fades than a heavy rock song, and fades are used in this song to give a sense of reflection and to compliment to speed of the song and its lyrics.
The characters seen during the narrative section of a music video can be actors or the artist themselves. It can be more affective for the artist to act out the narrative because they can create more of a link as they can sing during those sections as well as making the song more personal to them and the audience for example ‘If I Were a Boy’ by Beyonce (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIkRiqxWcYU) is a full narrative video however the artist sings while acting out the story also the style of song allows them to have the video in black and white with slower paced fades. The mise-en-scene used during the video will link to the song in some way either just being background props to make the setting more believable or that it is used by the artists, like the instruments, or by the actors to emphasise a certain section of the lyrics. In the typical indie promo the cuts are usually straight so that they go with the pace of the music; the live performance is usually more dominant within the video and can include things that are considered popular with the audience of that genre such as alcohol and sex. There were two music videos in particular that influenced our video, mainly ‘All American Rejects’ video ‘Dirty Little Secret’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPDcwjJ8pLg). In this video we were inspired by the way they got members of the public to hold up postcards with things written on them such as “I feel ugly because im half white, half black” which they coupled with a live studio performance. We used a similar idea as the song we chose is also about body image and personality; we wanted to show that young people don’t need to feel self-conscious about themselves and we felt that is was an affective way of showing the message of the song. As well as this band we drew from Bob Dylan’s original video “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and used this in an updated manner so that it could relate to a modern audience. Some artist break the typical conventions of music videos like 30 Seconds to Mars' video 'Kings and Queens'. This video is a nine minute video as if a short film and is filmed in the same way as one, the style is very similar to Michael Jackson's way of filming music videos where he merged filmmaking and music together. For example Thriller was a fourteen minute music video directed John Landis, a film director and was premiered at a special theatrical screening. Michael Jackson was the first person to do this in the music industry. We also tried to break conventions in music videos to make our work original, we did this by having images and narrative that isn't usually seen in videos.
This picture is from the All American Rejects video, the one below is of Bob Dylan. with the version in our video.
Music videos generally have mid and close-ups as this allows the fans to be close to the artist and acts in a very similar way to how an advert works as it is a way to promote the artist. We used mid and close-ups more in the video than long or establishing shots as this allowed us to hide the background from the camera, therefore not giving away that it was filmed in school as we wanted to create a professional video as if filmed in a studio. Another way that we were able to disguise the set was by using magazine pages and sticking them to the wall behind the band this also gave the background an artistic and professional feel.
For the sections where we had the woman on the floor we laid her on a white blanket after writing the lyrics on her. This hid the carpet underneath and made it look similar to videos where they also have solid white backgrounds. To give the allusion that the woman was naked we simply covered certain parts of her body with a black blanket. As well as this we scattered the postcards that were held by members of the public on the blanket around her. Choosing an already established band to play and act out our live performance scenes we asked them to wear clothes that they would wear at a gig, this gave an authentic feel to the video when coupled with the set, props and the music as it all linked to the genre of the original band. 
These are shots from our video. They range from long to mid shots and close-ups. the top picture is of the drummer and the kit, we used shots like these to show that the band can play the instruments and for artist links between sections. below that is the singer, we used shots of him because the fans want to feel close to the leader of the band. The third is of the body writing and post card sections in the video this was to help show the message of the song. During editing we used our skills to cut scenes together in a way that mirrored that of real indie pop/rock videos already out on the market. We decided only to use straight cuts as the song was to fast a pace to have fades or any other transitions. On a couple of scenes were you see a band member dancing, we applied an effect called ‘cartoon’ this slightly blurred and softened the footage which complimented the comical and fun side of the video. Also at the beginning and end of the video we included animation, we did this by cutting together still photos at a speed when played gave the impression that it was a moving image these were affective parts of the video. We split our music video approximately sixty percent performance, forty percent narrative. We did this because researching music videos of the same genre we came to the conclusion that there was a similar ratio. The narrative of the video helped to emphasise the words in the song as we had the lyrics written on the body of a woman, this made the message of body image the focal point of the song. We had the live performance so that the audience could see the band play.
During our research we looked at music magazine adverts and CD covers of the same genre. On the magazine advert there was limited but important information; the band and album name, its release date and some included tour dates and record labels. We took this into account when creating our advert; we included those as well as the record label and a magazine rating. We put a single image of the guitar in the centre with the text scattered around it, the background was white so your eyes are drawn to the guitar then the text around it, and we put the text in different sizes so that the more important information was read first. I feel that it looks professional along with the CD cover that we designed; we linked the images on the cover to the images seen in the video and an image seen on the advert this created a recognisable motif between all three products and gives unity to the texts. For the CD digipak we took influence from 'The Wombats' album ' A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation'. We liked how on the front cover they had a number of items placed on the cover with the text dominant. We developed that idea so that we could use items seen in our video being scattered with the band name visible on the cover, the colours we have used are bright and would catch the eye. The back cover is simpler and links to the advert while all the images within the digipak relate to the video.
This is our music advert and CD front cover.
Media pop theorists who influenced our work include; Steve Archer, he believes that there must be a strong link between narrative and the performance; in our video the sections of live performance are emphasised by the images of the narrative sections, the narrative sections also exemplifies the lyrics. The narrative sections are also closely linked to John Stewart's theory that there are visual references to things like art photography; in our video being the images at the start that create a moving image animation. He also believed that a music video must contain close ups and needs to focus on the band members especially the lead singer which we have tried to do. Laura Mulvey's the third theorist that we took influence from, thought that as film makers are predominantly male, the presence of women are solely for display and for male attention. We chose to have a woman in our music video in this way however we wanted to use a female body in a more sophisticated manner to show the message about body image and that the media’s portrayal isn’t entirely true.
This is our animation section of the video where the fridge magnets appear to move to assemble to words Stereo Decade.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
Our whole promotional package consists of a music video on a CD, a magazine advert and album and represents the band well. They need to promote the band and their material. I feel we have done this successfully. They work well together as all the images, styles and fonts link, therefore audiences will be able to recognise that all three pieces are part of a package and this should hopefully generate more attention and sell more albums. The advert will be seen in a magazine similar to NME as this promotes bands of a similar genre and is brought by the same market we are targeting. The CD will be brought from music stores like HMV being a mainstream genre or will be available through digital download online from sites such as ‘itunes’ and ‘Amazon.com’ or could be seen on video sharing sites like ‘Youtube’, because digital distribution is becoming the more popular choice of getting music and other media. Music channels like NME, VIVA and MTV could also be a possibility as they have similar genre and style of videos showing, such as ‘The Killers’, ‘Scouting for Girls’ and ‘La Roux’. They all show the artist performing as well as having narrative about subjects like love and heartbreak, unlike channels like ‘Scuzz’ where they are more live performance orientated with lyrics about death, drugs and rebelliousness.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
To create a popular music video we began with an audience questionnaire so that we could take into account what the market wanted to see in the music video. We found out that they wanted to see both narrative and live performance along with the band; other comments made were that they wanted something original and fun within the video. To gain further support and feedback, Underdog management a professional music management company came in. They were able to offer advice on how to go around making a music video and offered feedback on our ideas. They liked our ideas and said it might be difficult to film what we wanted to do. They said one way we could film was to do the sections of the video together in one place and film them at the same time; this is so that you can see the band play and the woman with the lyrics on throughout the video. This was useful advice however trying out this idea we found that it became more and more difficult in the way of camera angles and framing the shot as the video progressed. After completing the video we gathered audience feedback again on the finished products. Eighty per cent believed that the video did represent the genre; the ones that disagreed said that the band should have been more dominant in the video. We were glad to know that everyone understood the message of the song and that it was an original video with interesting material. We also got feedback from the band they all really liked it and said we all did a really good job, they thought that "the magazine background wallpaper and the fridge magnet things were really cool."Other comments that we received on the video was that audience members liked how the “postcard” sections especially were in time with the tempo of the song. The feedback on the advert and digipak was also positive. They felt that they were both modern and contemporary and that it would attract their eye if they were to see them.
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the year we have used media technologies to create our promotional product, we also displayed our coursework in a digital format on Blogger.com. During the research stage we had to use a website like ‘www.unsigned.com’, we found our band on ‘www.myspace.com/music’ because this allowed us to contact the band to ask their permission to use their music in our video; we received their permission via email along with the lyrics of the song to help us during the storyboarding stage. And after completing the video this could be a place to exhibit the video, it would be beneficial to exhibit the video on a site like that because of the high volume of people that would be able to see it. Also during the research phase I used ‘Youtube’ and music channels like ‘VIVA’ to watch and study music videos to see how they are created and why they filmed it in that particular way.
This is a shot of imovie, the software we used during the editing stages.
For the filming stage of the project we filmed on a handheld video camcorder, we used two during this process so that we could capture different shots at the same time. We also used an SLR camera during filming so that we could use the photos taken for our album cover and magazine advert. It also allowed us to complete our stop motion sections at the beginning and end of the video. Once we filmed everything we could, we had to upload it all to an Apple Mac, the process was simple as it was plug in and play. We edited our footage on ‘imovie’. This editing software being more advanced than Adobe Premier Pro which we used last year meant we had to learn how to use it, once we became familiar with it, the way that I could cut a clip frame by frame was uncomplicated as was moving the clips around into an order as all I had to do was highlight and drag the sections to where I wanted them to be. I took what I learnt from last year both during the filming and editing stages and took it into consideration so that minor problems like jump cuts, low lighting and unsteady shots would not occur this time round, also my past experience has helped me with the timing and the syncing of clips to a piece of music. We encountered a couple of problems during the process. When we got round to piecing the music video together we found that for some shots we didn’t have enough material, especially the shots of the singer, we overcame this by only have quick shots of him and to reuse the same sections where we could. Another problem was that the video began to appear to repeat itself, so we took a decision to edit the song itself on ‘Garageband’. We cut out a one minute section out of the middle of the song and they joined the start and end together. This therefore made the video shorter but not to short and stopped the footage from repeating. To evaluate our products we burned the video onto CD and exhibited it in front of an audience, the ancillary tasks we made prototypes of so we could hand them to the audience while we showed the video.
This is a shot of Garageband, where we edited our music. Overall i feel that our music video and promotional package has been a success, we have managed to complete all areas of the task and tried to complete it to a high standard. I am happy how all three mediums are linked in some way. If i were to do it again i would look into filming a wider range of shots so that the video wouldn't seem to repeat.
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