Week beginning the 24th September

At the start of this week we have been finishing of the analysis on both digipacks and music videos. We also put the rest of the analysis's onto the blog. The links below here are for the music video analysis's and also the digipack analysis's:

Digipack analysis- The Killers- Sam's town

Digipack analysis-Kings of Leon- Only by the night

Digipack analysis- Snow Patrol- Up to now

Digipack analysis- Snow Patrol- Eyes Open

Music video analysis- The Killers- Human

Music video analysis- Snow Patrol- Open your eyes

Music video analysis- Foo Fighters- Best of you

Music video analysis- Kasabian- Fire

Music video analysis- 30 seconds to mars- The kill

We have been finishing making our storyboard for are music video, this week. Below here is a link to a post that includes our whole storyboard:

Story board.

We then started to make are animate of are music video, through using are story board. Before being able to make the animatic we had to crop all of the storyboards to the single frames, we then had to change the brightness and contrast. As when the storyboard was scanned in the colours wear not as bright as they were on the actual storyboard.

We have now finished are animate and we will be showing this to the class on Monday 1st October. We will also be seeing other groups animates in the class in Monday's lesson. We will be getting feedback on are animate and giving other people feedback on there's. Below here is a link to are animatic for our music video:

Animatic for our music video.

Storyboards

Shown below here is all of our storyboards. These storyboards show what we are planning to do for our music video. To see the storyboards bigger, click on then images and they will be made full screen. 

This storyboard will be used to made our animatic. The idea of the narrative part of are music video is that the main character Alex is lousing touch like the name of the song. There are being rumors spread about him, when people hear the rumors out him they turn grey like how in the lyrics it says "the truth is always grey". 

 

This part of the storyboard that is shown below here is the first part. This whole first storyboard is shown below here, there is no words to the song yet, just music.  

 

This first part of the storyboard, that is shown below here.This whole part of the storyboard that is shown below here, is before the words start, when the music is just playing. This shows part of the band performance. 

 

In this part of the story board we will have Alex punching the mirror. Here is another post that we have made that explains how we will be doing this part in the music video. Click here to see the Post 

To see are animatic click on this link.

Analysing Digipack Snow Patrol- Up to Now

Snow Patrol, Up to Now:

Immediately this digipack front cover looks very different to the earlier album by snow patrol; ‘Eyes Open’ which I analysed previously. The colour scheme of this album has altered in the way that more vibrant colour have been introduced, such as the red and blue shading. The break up in the dark background from the blue light suggests a more retro themed digipack and makes the front cover look more modern. This shows the greatest  hits aim of the album as to me it suggests that this is the band now, on the whole more modern yet they are still able to make their previous hits a modern success as well. The fact that the imagery used is of a snow flake, which manipulates the band’s name ‘Snow Patrol’ gives the digipack quiet a quirky, fun expression. A similarity to the front cover of their ‘Eyes Open’ digipack is the choice of a simple block font for the mastheads, which again makes a statement that as the band are very successful they can be this simple.

The inside portion of the digipack is very different to the ‘Eyes Open’ album in the way that all the information given is shown through images of previous experiences the band have has such as live concerts and photo shoots etc. This way of communicating is one I particularly like as it complements the journey of music which is produced on this greatest hits album, and this layout is one which I would consider when creating my own digipack. Also, this formation portrays the bands success to the audience, and at the same time maintains the dark background of the front cover and brings in some lighter tones like that of the ‘Eyes Open’ digipack. 

The back cover of the digipack shows reference to the front cover in the way that the pun of the snow flake image is shown again (only smaller) and the simple font of the written information and red, black and white colour scheme is still maintained. This, like the ‘Eyes Open’ album keeps continuity which will be recognised by the audience about the digipack. The smaller print on the back cover is a list of what records can be found on each CD of the greatest his album.

This album makes me think that my groups digipack needs to have a good colour scheme that is simple and stands out we. Another thing that it has made me think about is that the inside of the digipack should be different to the front and back covers of the digipack but still have the similar look to it.  

Music Video Analysis- 30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill

30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill 

The introduction scene of the video is them driving up to this hotel what they are staying in with a type of mysterious music being played in the background, this would be non-dietetic sound as it sounds as though it has been edited onto it to give it a more tense effect to what it would have if there was no music on. We like this idea as it sets the scene but we won’t be doing this because our song has a 34 second introduction of no singing where the scene will be set. The costumes which they are wearing are mainly black and also on the performance section they are wearing black tuxedos with black eye make up to show they’re unique as not many men wear make-up. The main story to this is about not going in a certain room and then once one person goes in it, things start to become a bit weird, as the main singer is walking through the hotel and sees a man running round a corner to he then catches up to and its actually himself  who he then starts shouting at. We think this is a killer shot as I have remembered it from the first time I watched the video, because you cant even tell it has been edited to have them both in the same shot. We have been thinking about doing something like this but we are not sure where it would fit in, so overall we think this video is very good and different because it has a very unique story line which we are trying to proceed with our video.

Music Video Analysis- Kasabian - Fire

Kasabian - Fire

The video for ‘Fire’ is set in the western times. Throughout these times bank robberies were very common and this is shown in the video as the main theme of it includes the band members robbing a bank. However, they change the factors of the robbery by replacing firearms with guitars and also show that they are stealing sheets of music instead of actual money. The band members are all dressed up in costume that relates to these times, balaclavas are a good example of this. The long hair style that they all have in the video is well related to the theme of the song as-well. Overall it is a very metaphorical video.

Music Video analysis- Foo Fighters – Best of You

Foo Fighters – Best of You 

The meaning for the song ‘Best of You’ is shown in the title. The song is basically asking is someone getting the best of you inside a relationship. However, you could argue that the video for the song doesn’t represent this as they choose to include lots of nature looking scenes away from the performance of the song. The main singer of the band dresses in dark colours as the band in our opinion is placed in the low area of the rock genre. The lead singer emphasises this due to him occasionally screaming in his songs putting the microphone right next to his mouth gripping the microphone stand tightly showing his anger when singing the song which can again relate to the theme of the song.

Analysing Digipack- Snow Patrol- Eyes Open

Snow Patrol, Eyes Open:

At first glance the front cover of the digipack looks quiet abstract from the way in which the image, which is of a man and women hugging, is blended into the background and set around the linear music wave's which are positioned across the cover. This style stereotypes a retro form of music which may be quiet heavy instrumentally based due to the sound wave assumption. 

The masthead of the album front cover is relatively simple in both colour and font, and is a contrast to the busyness of the rest of the image which means that it stands out as well as linking in with the light grey/black colour scheme which is enforced throughout the 'Eyes open' digipack. This chosen style for the front cover reinforces to the audience that they are a band of an indie genre as the colour scheme and laid back image reinterpretation the typical conventions of a band of this style. 

The back cover of the ‘Eyes open’ digipack follows a central format and again like all the other sections to the digipack uses the same font. As well as this, the abstract, textual looking background colouring and style is used again as well.

This album makes me thing that the front cover of are digipack needs to be very eye-catching and different. As this is the main part of the digipack. Another thing that this album has made me think about is the overall theme that will run through the digipack. This is something that we will try to do with are digipack, so that the whole design is consistent.  

Music Video Analysis- Snow Patrol- Open your eyes

Snow Patrol – Open Your Eyes

In the song Chasing Cars the lyrics illustrate a man talking about a girl explaining he wants her to lie with him and just forget everything else that is going on in the world. They show this in the video by making the lead singer lie down in random places such as hills next to motorways, tube trains and in the middle of quiet roads every time the song reaches the chorus and they are the lyrics he is singing. This happens on every chorus until the last one when he is simply just lying on his bed alone with no one beside him, by using a bed it shows that it is someone he has strong feelings for and wants to have a relationship with. During the main verses of the song the man is just walking around the streets singing with no one paying any attention to him, this could show that no one seems to care about him or pay attention to the way he feels. The theme of the video matches Snow Patrols way of them, we know this because we looked at the video for ‘Open Your Eyes’ by Snow Patrol which is just a simple car journey around the streets of Paris.

Music Video Analysis-The Killers – Human

The Killers – Human 

When watching this video we picked out the setting as something we liked. Most of the music videos by The Killers have a very peculiar setting which makes the videos stand out and also noticed by worldwide music fans. We watched the music video for ‘Human’ which is set in a derelict desert which contains tigers, just a small insight into how random the videos are! The band members are seen standing on a small section of rocks wearing smart clothing such as waistcoats and jackets. The clothes are black which also adds to the appearance by allowing the band members to stand out on the beiche coloured rocks. The video also contain a lot of fading transitions which adds to the professional nature of the video due to the size and popularity of the band.

Advert analysis - Kasabian

Kasabian: Empire-

We really liked this advert as it is a lot different to most because of how much is going on, for example on the Foo Fighters one is very simple but looks very effective, whereas this one you don't actually know where to look as everything on it seems to catch your eyes, so it doesn't let them settle.

We may use the idea of having a lot going on like this one, but it would be a lot harder to make it stand out as much as a simple design such as the Foo Fighters one. Something else that we may take from this advert is that it shows where you can buy the album from.

Analysing Digipack Kings of Leon- Only by the Night

Kings of Leon, Only by the Night:

This is the third digipack that I am looking at this one is the kings of Leon, for there CD only by the night. The CD cover for this digipack is very different to the two other digipacks that I have looked at some far. There is a colour scheme that can easily been seen for this CD which is different shades of green. The way that the front of the digipack has been done is it is made up of four different pictures. The kings of Leon is made up of four and members like the way that the killers are. The front cover has used a picture of each of the band members, each picture being of a different band member and a different part of their face. The pictures have then been put together to make up this one picture. The title for this CD and the band’s name are both very small on the cover so that the picture stands out more.

The inside of the digipack is made up of four different pictures; each side of the inside of the digipack includes a different band member. The same colour scheme of the different shades of green is used on these pictures. The clothing that has been chose here for the band to wear is all suits and jackets, that have been covered in green. There is then face paint on some of the band members. The green shades that has been used all most make this look like it has an army type theme to the outfits. The background of the pictures is black, which makes the band members stand out. The Cd is then this same type of colour scheme with the different greens.

This digipack has made me think again about make sure that there is a colour scheme, like with the killers. Another thing that this has made me think about is the clothing that the band will be wearing as these outfits are related to the colour scheme that has been used.  

Digipack analysis The Killer- Sam's Town

The Killers, Sam’s Town:

This is the second digipack that I will be looking at this is another killers digipack. This one is for their CD Sam’s town. The top left hand picture is of the front cover of the CD  This again has the same killers font for the band name. The is then a picture of a women and a yak. The picture is not in black and white this time but it is in greyscale. The colour of the title for the CD is again in red like with the last digipack that I looked at. This is something that the killers seem to do a lot.

The top right hand side picture is of the back of the CD  This as a picture of all four of the band. They are all wearing waist coats and smart trousers. This picture has the same type of colouring as the other sides of the digipack which is greyscale. There is then a bit of text below the picture which is the songs that are on the CD  This text is in white, with red numbers. There is also a bit of red text on the bottom line. Again red text has been used, but there is also some white this time as well.

The left hand side of the inside of the digipack is the next on that I will be taking about. There is just a picture of this part of the digipack. This picture again is greyscale. The right hand side of the inside of the digipack has a picture of the yak on that is the same on that is on the front of the CD. This is where the CD goes the CD is shown below the inside of the digipack. The CD has the same picture on the right hand side of the inside of the digipack. The cd is in black and white; unlike the rest of the digipack which is in greyscale. The most striking thing about this whole digipack is the yak that is printed on the disc, with the round horns following the curves of the disc.

Something that this digipack has made me think about is the digipack that we will be making and design. Something that we will be doing that the killers have done with both of these digipack’s that I have looked at is that they have a contestant theme to them. This is something that we will be doing like how they have the same type of font all the time for the band name. How they have a constant colour scheme and also how they have certain clothing that they wear constantly.

Analysing Digipack The Killers- Greatest Hits

For this section of our research, we will be analysing five different digipacks which fit the genre in which we will be working in for our music video, as well as making the video as a group we have to produce a digipack and an advert for the album as well.

The Killers, Greatest Hits:

This first digipack is for the killers, Greatest Hits. The front cover of the digipack is all in black and white. Only the Title of the CD is in colour, the title is in red. There is also a sticker which is on the front cover which is in colour. Through having the title of the CD in red this helps to make the title stand out from the rest of the CD cover. The killer is in the same font that the killers is normally in on their CD’s. There is then a picture off the four of the killers. Which is in black and white, they are all dressed in the same type of clothing.

The inside part of the digipack is similar to the front cover with all of the pictures being of all four of the band and also them being in black and white. The left hand side of the inside is a picture of the band which then has text cover the picture. The text is in red again like the title of the CD on the front cover of the digipack. The text is a introduction to the CD  There is then also two pictures which are of their CD’s.

The middle part of the inside of the digipack is where the CD is there is again another black and white picture of the band. The CD is made to look like a vinyl. This gives the CD a more vintage feel, along with having the black and white pictures. On the right hand side of the inside of the digipack is another picture of the band they are all in suits; they are also in suits in the left hand picture.

This whole digipack has a vintage feel to it with the pictures being black and white and the CD being made to look like a vinyl. This has made me think about what we will do with are digipack, as we are doing a killers song so the digipack needs to have a killers feel to it, but not a copy of something the killers would do. We may do a couple of pictures in black and white for are digipack. We will not be having the band in suits through as we are trying not to be too similar to the killers.

Advert analysis - The killers

The killers: Day & Age-

This is probably the advert which we like the least out of the five, mainly because it looks to boring it, yes it might have bright colours in pink and purple, but there's nothing interesting on it which really catches my aye unlike the Foo Fighters one. 

The only thing I think we can take from this is the how big they have made the band name compared to the name of the album. Which we think shows that the band is bigger than the album.  

Advert analysis - Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters: Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace-

We thought this advert looks the best out of the 5 which we have chosen to analyse  this advert is so simple yet so effective. The reason why it is so simple is because it only has one image on the front, of a bomb, which is black along with all the other important text, contrasting with the white background. The bomb is also a lightbulb, which we did not see when we first looked at the advert.

This advert also shows somewhere that you can buy the album from so play.com. We think that this is a good idea, as it helps to show somewhere that you can get it from, which may make people more likely yo buy the album.

The ideas we may take off this is, only having the one image in the centre of the page, which hopefully can be as effective as this one. They have also used the same font for all text except the band name which will have it's own unique one. We will probably be using only one type of font.

Advert analysis - Kaiser Chiefs

Kaiser Cheifs- Yours truly, Angry Mob-

This advert we have mixed opinions about it because it looks both eye catching and also a bit boring.The reasons why we find this advert boring is because most adverts tend to have a main focus, for example the foo fighters album has a bomb type thing on the front whereas this just has the band members heads rather small at the bottom of the page. Instead of there whole body's or from there waist up. Also the background colour doesn't make it look anymore interesting. As this background is just all one colour.

The thing that we do like though is how much the band name stands out because of how bold they have made it. We will most likely take the idea of having the band name in large bold writing but we will probably go for a larger focus point just like on the Foo Fighters advert.

Week beginning 17th September

At the start of this week we were making a PowerPoint which was our pitch. We had to do a pitch before we were allowed to do the song that we have chosen. In the pitch we had to include why we wanted to do the chosen song. Our narrative and performance ideas of the music video, the props that we will be using, the costume that will be worn in the video, the roles that everyone will have in the group and also our band name. We included all of this in our groups pitch, so we were allowed to do the song Lousing Touch by The Killers that we wanted to do.

Below here is a link to the our pitch, this post includes the working PowerPoint and also images of each slide that is explained in detail.

The Pitch

After doing the pitch we started to look at music videos from bands that are from the same genre as The killers, we also started to look at digipacks and adverts as well from the same genre. We put all five of the advert analysis's on to the blog this week and one of the digipack analysis's.  Here are links to this below:

Advert analysis- Kaiser Chiefs

Advert analysis- Foo Fighters

Advert analysis- The Killers

Advert analysis- Kasabian

Digipack analysis- The Killers, Greatest Hits

Next week we will be finishing of the rest of the digipack analysis's and the music video analysis's so that they can be put on the blog. We will also be starting to draw out our storyboard, for the performance and narrative for the music video.

Ten top tips

We were given ten top tips by our teachers, on filming to help us when it comes to filling our music video.

1. Diversity of shots
2. Looking room
3. Movement
4. Pans and tilts
5. Back-lighting
6. Lighting 
7. Zooming
8. Focus
9. Framing
10. Tripod  

Band name

We had to think of a name for our band, before the pitch. We as a group through of some different names that we could have for our band. We came up with the name The Influence for our band. After we had chosen this name for our band we had to do a Google search to see if there was a band that was already called The Influence. As if there was a band with this name already then we could have to chose a different name for our band. When we Google searched it, we found that there was a band that is called Under the influence, but not The Influence. So we were able to use the band name The Influence.

Below here is a link to our pitch on why we wanted to do the song that we have chosen:

The pitch

The Pitch

After we had chosen the song that we wanted to make the music video for, we had to do a pitch about why we wanted to use this song. We also had to include in the pitch want are idea was for are music video, what roles each person in the group would have, narrative ideas, performance ideas, an analysis of the lyrics, etc.

Here below is an actual working PowerPoint, to see the next slide click on the arrows. Below here is each of the slides explained, to see the slides bigger click on them.

This first slide of the pitch was a bit of background information on the group The killers.

The second slide in the pitch is the slide on the lyrics. Parts of the lyrics have been changed colours so that they are either green or orange. At the bottom of the slide it explains what the different colours means.

The next slide explains what the different narrative ideas that we have for the music video. About are ideas for the rumors being spread and how we are going to show this in the video, through using the grayscale effect.

This slide is about what we are thinking about doing for the performance parts of the music video. After presenting the pitch we chose that it would be better not to do a performance in the type of locations that are on this slide. As these locations are too much like The Killers locations that they use. So we have chosen that it would be better to do the performance on a pier. As this would not be too much like The Killers locations that they use for their performances.

 This next slide is on the costume that will be worn in the video, the props that will be used and the roles that each member of the group will have. In this slide we have said that for the performance the band members they will dress in formal clothing like The Killers. After the pitch we chose that we will not have the band dressed like The Killers, ass this would be too similar. So the band members will be wearing less formal clothes, they will be wearing jeans and t-shirts for the performance.

The props that will be used for the performance are shown here on the slide.

The roles are shown here below. With Cam, Jack and Michael in the band with Alex being the lead singer. I (Chloe) will be filming the band performance. Everyone will be sharing out the filming for the rest of the video for the narrative. I (Chloe) will also be the one how will be doing the blog so I will be doing all most all of the blog posts. We chose to have someone how will do the blog, to make sure that we have all the things on the blog that we need, so that we can gain a good mark on the planning stage which is what the blog is for. 

This slide shows how will be doing what in the band. Are band is called the influence. It will consist of four members; the slide shows how will be doing what in the band. There is the band logo here below. We changed the logo after the pitch; the new logo is shown here below the slide.

This slide below is the last slide, on are ideas for the killers shots in the video. We will not be doing the second killer shot, as we will not be using that location for the performance part of the video. So we will be having a killer shot of the band performing on the pier.  

Music genre and song choice

The first thing that we did was we decided on our music genre. The genre that we chose was rock, as we all decided that this would be a good genre. As rock songs have more of a beat to the songs and also we all like this type of music.

We then needed to choose our song; we started with a list of different songs. Some of the artists were Snow patrol, The killers, Kasabian, Foo Fighters and kings of Leon. We first chose our song Smile like you mean it by The Killers. We then realised that that The killers already had a video for this song. We are not allowed to use songs that already have music videos, so we had to change our songs.

We then had another look at the list of songs that we had, we chose that we wanted to do a Killers song. We had a look into a couple of The Killers songs. We found two songs Uncle Jonny, and Lousing Touch. We wanted to do one of these two songs. We had a look at the lyrics and chose that is would be best to do Lousing touch. As this was the song that had the best lyrics, as they have a lot of meanings to them which meant that we could make a good music video. 

Practice video, what we learnt

From making our practice videos we learned that the length of each clip is very important as it needs to fit in with the pace of the song. For example, when the symbols are being smashed, that is the signal for the clip to change, i.e a different angle or setting.

Another thing which we learned was that the costume the people are wearing has to fit in with genre of the band, for example, if its a rock bands, screamo song you don't want the band members wearing bright colour as that is what you associate with pop music.

We also learned that the location is very important, for example a scene that is meant to be in a hospital, was shot in a school, but everyone can tell it is in a school so it doesn't look very good. Having one or two killer shots in a video also makes it look very professional, as they are the stand out shots which people will remember.

The Killers – Losing Touch lyrics

These are the lyrics to the song that we are doing which is Losing Touch by The Killers.

Console me in my darkest hour

Convince me that the truth is always grey

Caress me in your velvet chair

Conceal me from the ghost you cast away

I'm in no hurry, you go run

And tell your friends I'm losing touch

Fill their heads with rumours of impending doom

It must be true

Console me in my darkest hour

And tell me that you always hear my cries

I wonder what you got conspired

I'm sure it was the consolation prize

I'm in no hurry, you go run

And tell your friends I'm losing touch

Fill the night with stories, the legend grows

Of how you got lost

But you made your way back home

You sold your soul, like a Roman vagabond yeah

I heard you found a wishing well

In the city

Console me in my darkest hour (in my darkest hour)

And you throw me down

I'm in no hurry, you go run

And tell your friends I'm losing touch

Fill your crown with rumours

Impending doom, it must be true

But you made your way back home

You sold your soul, like a Roman vagabond

And all that now you got lost, but you made your way back home

You went and sold your soul, an allegiance dead and gone

I'm losing touch

Welcome to A2 Media Music Video Blog

Welcome to this A2 media studies, music video blog. For this piece of coursework we have to make a music video, for a song that doesn’t already have a music video. Our group have chosen to do a song by The Killers called Losing Touch.  Are group consits of four people me (Chloe), Cam, Micheal and Jack. The  band that we have created is called The influence. This blog is the planning part of the music video coursework, so all of the planning work will be on this blog, I will be the one how will be in charge of the blog, to make sure that we get all of the things that we need on the blog.

Here is a link of the song that we are doing on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EieA3KIykjg

Here is a link to the lyrics of our song Lousing Touch by The Killers:

Lyrics