Filming Problems

Today we were meant to be filming the bass narrative in a building of heritage called Valentines Mansion House situated in Ilford. However there was a problem, that many real production companies have to face, that occurred in the lead up to the filming. The problem was to do with something called liability insurance, initially we just had to give the company that was helping us organise the filming the liability insurance that the school is covered by, however when we managed to get the documentation sent to the company it turned out that it was for the wrong thing. The insurance was covered by the borough and not the school so we wouldn't be able to film unless a woman called Rhian Sharpe, who was helping us sort out our filming at the Mansion, was able to get a hold of the person who issued the insurance to the school. In the end she wasn't able to get a hold of him in time so we weren't able to get a filming license and we weren't able to film at the mansion. She did however state that if we wished to film at the mansion again we would just have to ask her and she would try and sort it out for us. I think our short coming came because we didn't incorporate enough time to clear the legal side of the filming procedure as it was something that we were not used to, that being said I think it was a good experience that all of us can take away and apply to situations in the future and we should attempt to film at the mansion sometime in the new year. Below is the chain of emails that details the situation of our filming troubles:

Filming Day 2

Today we completed what was arguably the biggest section of our filming, the performance aspects of the video. Our original plan was to film in Drama Room 3 as it is a small venue that can be made to look like a small concert venue in very little time. However we incurred many problems throughout the evening that consequently led to us having to change location at the last minute. Earlier in the day I had acquired the permission from the head of the music department to borrow a drum kit, that belongs to me until the end of the year at least, and move it to Drama 3 after school once all the forms had been dismissed. However upon going up to music to collect the drum kit I was then informed that we wouldn't be able to move it, for reasons that are still unclear to me, and we then had to come with an alternative. Luckily one of the members of the group had an old drum kit stored in his loft and his parents were nice enough to bring it down to the school once we had gone back to his house and packed it up. Consequently this postponed filming by roughly two hours and by the time we got back with the drum kit our original venue that we wanted to film in was no longer available and we had to change the location of our shoot to Boothroyd stage which is a much large stage and as a result harder to film on. If we had been able to borrow the drum kit from the school we would have been done filming and packed up with everyone ready to leave at a time no later than half past five, which I found out was the time the last member of the music department was leaving when I went to set the lighting for the hall. As a result we left the school at twenty to eight.

When filming we had two cameras running at once to ensure that we would have more shots to use when editing the video. One of the cameras was stationary for the majority of the filming process whilst the other one was free hand and was used to get more free flowing interesting shots that may fit faster paced sections of the song. We took multiple takes throughout the evening and after a couple of static takes everyone started to perform more to the camera. When everyone started to get into the performance the freehand camera started to follow individual members around every take, so once everyone had a camera focus on them we decided we would do one more take where the band were fooling around on stage to use all the footage for incidental shots. Overall I feel the filming went well even after the problems that we incurred before the filming process went well, it also helped that everyone was willing to stay late to make the complicated situation easier for everyone.

Filming Day 1

Today was our first day of filming as a group, however there were only three of us opposed to four as Kayleigh had prior dedications. We filmed the drum narrative in the green room in a spontaneous fashion as we didn't storyboard any of the narrative and we were going to see how this section of narrative turned out, we used the spontaneous filming technique as a test to see if the results would be good enough to use the technique again for future filming sessions. 

The drum narrative consists of the lead singer walking into the green room, when edited it will look like he has walked straight out of an elevator into the room, and finding the drummer dancing with a mop. We took a single shot, from three different angles which gives us more leeway when it comes to the editing process, where the singer walks into the room and then reacts to the sudden change in his costume as he now fits in with his surrounding area. Another interesting shot we got was an over the shoulder shot, however it wasn't a conventional shot as the figurative shoulder that the camera was looking over was of the broom looking at the drummer, this shot personifies the broom and makes it appear to be a character in its own right that can be used throughout the rest of the video, most likely for some comedic value.

We didn't just film in the two hour period we also had the set up to make the green room look more hectic and also pack it away so that it was in the same state that we found it when we left. This meant we had to manage our time in the most efficient way possible, which I feel we did. Overall I think the first day of filming was a success and we got multiple interesting shots that we will be able to use to great effect in the video. We even managed to get the footage that we captured uploaded to a Mac on the same day, so all in all everything went smoothly.

Digipak practice

Today in lesson we focused on the creation of digipaks, more specifically editing the images for the front and back cover. We had to try and use existing images and edit them in the style of the Indie genre to help us when we actually go to create our digipak.  One of the criteria that we need to meet for the digipak is that a song list needs to be put on the back cover along with a bar code because that is how the digipak would look if it was created in the "real world." 

I originally started with the front cover and decided that the best image I could use was just a flat angle long shot of four men sitting at what appeared to be somewhere underground, most reminiscent of a London underground station which can be seen from the design of the tiles behind the men. When I thought about it I liked the idea of having the front and back cover underground as it adds a sense of recognition that most people living in big cities can relate to. When I have looked at other existing Indie digipaks and videos many of the texts have a modernised retro look so I tried to achieve this as well by adding an effect that makes images appear like they are being viewed in an old photo frame. This effect was applied to both the front and back cover so that synergy is created between the two, in addition I muted the colours on both images so that the images appear older and less vibrant. The last thing I added to the front cover was the name of the band "The Lost Boys" in green font, however I was unsure of where to put the name and in the end I put it in the centre of the cover which doesn't look particularly professional and  also breaks the natural illusion that the rest if the digipak conveys.

When it came to the back cover I thought that a tunnel would work really well as it fits the simplistic nature of the front cover and it also conveys the misé-en-scene very well. I added very few effects to the picture and the only extra effect that I added on top of those that I used on the front cover was burning the shadows cast from the lights to make those areas darker and stand out more. After finishing the way I wanted the back cover to look I then had to add the track list and bar code, I started with the track list so I would know how much space I would have to play with to incorporate the bar code on the cover. I thought that the idea of black and white alternating track names would look interesting on the text and once I done changed the colours of the track names I deduced that it looked better than just one colour all the way through. Originally I had the track names horizontally but it didn't fit the cover that well so I changed the angle that each one was positioned at so that they looked like they were running down the tunnel wall. Once I had finished adding the track names to the back of the cover I added the bar code, where I initially placed it was where it stayed in the bottom left hand corner of the cover.

Filming schedule

In lesson we came up with our filming schedule and outlined everything that will be needed for filming to be completed by the 19th of December. Our filmind schedule is as follows:

1. Wednesday 12th December, the drum narrative will be filmed
2. Thursday 13th December, all performance elements will be filmed
3. Friday 14th December , the guitar narrative will be filmed
4. Sunday 16th, the bass narrative will be filmed

Our filming days have all been broken up, which is not ideal, because members of the group have commitments that they need to take care of. It does however mean that more time can be spent on filming one section in particular as the time limit for filming doesn't have to be as long because the cast and film crew have spare time. We tried to make filming as easy as possible for each cast member involved, by working around there schedule. 

We also finalised our location ideas which are as follows:

1. The schools drama department green room - Drum narrative
2. Valentines Mansion House - Bass narrative (Pending)
3. A plain room with a giant chess board - Guitar narrative
4. Drama room three - Final performance 
5. The schools lift as it is the easiest to access

On top of sorting out the filming times and locations we also finalised the costumes and props that we will be needing for filming to run smoothly. The costume list is as follows:

1. Casual jeans and shirt for the singer before finding the drummer and for the final performance
2. Assortment of props for the drummer and the singer whilst in the green room
3. Suit or smart wear for the bassist, drummer and singer whilst at the mansion
4. A mixture of all black, all white or black and white clothes for all the band members whilst around the chess board.
5. All members will retain their original costume that relate to their respective scenes when they are at the final performance.

Prop List:

1. Mop
2. Chess board
3. Assortment of drama props that clash with each other
4. Drum Kit + Drum sticks
5. Bass Guitar
6. Electric guitar x 2
7. Microphone
8. Bass amp
9. Guitar amp x 2

Arranging to film at Valentines mansion

Before we are able to film at Valentines mansion we have to fill out a couple of forms that outline where, when and what we want to film when we are at the mansion. Below is a screenshot of one of the questions:

Other details that needed to be given out were contact details such as a phone number and an email address. 

Peer Assessment

Today we started a two column storyboard for the first 15 seconds of footage for our music video. We had it peer assessed by another group who gave us feedback on how we could improve the overall effect of our storyboard. They said that we had possibly gone into too much detail as it was 3/4 of the page but only 15 seconds of footage. They also said that we should try and include some shot types for the performance aspects of the video as it will structure the filming process better. It was also suggested that we try and use language that could be understood by everyone, as we had musical terminology in there that some people may not understand.

Initial Logo sketches

 Today I thought of two initial ideas for my logo that will be included in the digi pack. The first of my ideas is based around a sign post which corresponds to the name of the band that we picked, "The Lost Boys." I decided that a sign post not only fits the name of the band but also the philosophy that the band holds which is that they don't know what they are going to achieve in terms of their musical careers or how they are going to get there. When I create a version with software such as Gimp I will try to use bright saturated colours as these fit the ethos of the band.                              

My second design idea is having the bands initials on a vinyl record which is being played on an old gramophone or vinyl player, this idea is fairly simple and I chose it because it fits the image  we are trying to market the band as. I don't think this idea for a logo is as good as the sign post one, which was my initial idea, but I think that it is good to experiment with several different ideas as the first idea is not always necessarily the best.

Narrative Breakdown

We decided that from the information gathered from the focus group and questionnaire that our music video should be half performance and half narrative. We decided that the performance should be spontaneous and not planned out in any way as this is what we did when we filmed the year ten band last month. However whilst the performance aspect can be spontaneous the narrative needs to be planned out thoroughly so when we come to film it everyone knows what they are doing. Originally we had a few ideas with what we could do with the narrative and many of them included members of the band travelling, for example one of our first ideas that we mused upon was the idea of colour manipulation where the whole world was black and white and each member of the band was assigned a colour and every time they walked past something it restored colour to that area. This idea incorporated travelling as each band member would have been at a different place and then travelled to one final destination where a performance would take place and the destination would have its full colour restored, possibly even saturated. Another idea that we though about was the use of satire in the music industry and how it can be applied to the Indie music scene, we thought that the band could be stereotypically Indie whilst the singer would be presented as a mainstream Pop artist. You would be able to tell that the singer is a Pop artist because we would use stereotypical conventions that you expect to see from Pop music videos such as the common beauty shot. We eventually decided not to use this idea because we took preference to our final idea and we thought that more could be done with it.

Our final narrative that we are going to film involves the notion of travelling and links with many aspects of the performance. The basis of our idea is to have the lead singer travel in a lift, as this links with the songs title "Space Elevator," and then get off at different locations where different members of the band will be. Each member of the band will have a theme and it will be shown through the use of misé-en-scene, each band members theme will be incorporated into the final performance where each member will retain their original costume. As the lead singer picks up different band members their costumes will change to suit the environment that they will end up in. We initially came up with three locations, the first one being a prop room where the drummer resides and is wearing a variety of different props with many more scattered about on the floor, the drummer will also have a short comical romance with a mop which is also decorated in an assortment of props. When the singer stumbles into the room his costume will also change to match the assortment of props that the drummer is wearing. The hectic misé-en-scene relates to the musical stereotype of drummers being  insane, portrayed by many characters most notably the puppet "Animal" from the Muppets. The second location that we decided upon was somewhere sophisticated and classical such as a mansion, this location is where the bass player will be situated and we decided that he should be wearing a suit or something smart to fit in with the surrounding area. When the drummer and singer arrive out of the elevator they too will also be in suits or smart clothing to create synergy between all the band members. The sophisticated nature of the bassist' area completely contrasts  that of the drummers and they are at complete opposite ends of the class spectrum which means we would be appealing to a wider audience. The final location is the most interesting as we decided it should be themed around a chess board, this location is where the rest of the band meet up with the guitarist. We came up with the concept that the guitarist will be on a giant chess board playing a game of chess by himself or with another band member when they arrive. Once all the members of the band are collected they will then make their way to the performance location.

We plan on having a dynamic video that includes both performance and narrative in a non linear fashion to keep the audience engaged at all times whilst watching the video. We came up with the idea that we should reveal each member in the performance when they are revealed in the the narrative, however this contrasts our ideology of the band being represented as a unit rather than individuals as some members will get more screen time than others.

Data gathered from our questionnaires and focus group

We received eighteen completed questionnaires back and we decided that we would write out our basic findings before trying to put our results together to find out more useful information. However before writing out the results we decided we would get rid of the questionnaires that listed the person answering it as either thinking Indie music is bad, they hate it or they don't listened to it, we did this by simply looking at the first likert scale on the questionnaire. Out of the eighteen questionnaires we got back we only put aside two, leaving us with sixteen sets of results left.

Upon writing out the number of people from each gender who had answered our questionnaire we discovered that we had asked more females than males by quite a considerable amount, 11 of the 16 results we got were by females which in a percentage is 69%, this  meant that we had only asked 5 males to complete our questionnaire which is 31%.

Once we had recorded all the results from the data that we had collected we decided that it would be beneficial to put some of the quantitativeol data together in order to come to a conclusion of a more detailed analysis about the Indie genre and how audiences respond to it. Our first idea was to see the differences in popularity of the artists in the likert scale between the two genders and to see if certain artists were more popular amongst a certain genre. I created a graph, shown below, which shows the overall popularity of the artists when the two genders results are added together and also when the genders results separate.

We discovered that the artist with the overall highest average was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, however there is a reason why the results given were not completely accurate. Only 3 people out of the 16 we used knew who the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were and gave them a rating which consequently gave us false results. The next most popular artist overall was The Arctic Monkeys who scored an average of 2.4, and the lower the number the higher the score. They also proved to be the most popular amongst the females that replied to our questionnaire. However the same could not be said for the males who completed the questionnaire, as the most popular band amongst them was Arcade Fire who scored an average score of 2. From the data gathered we can deduce that, stylistically at least, our band should have similar aspects to Arcade fire and the Arctic Monkeys. One big feature that both of these bands hold is that they have an innocent sex appeal that is more passive opposed to the outlandish approach that many Hip-Hop videos have.

We only had two different age ranges complete our questionnaire, the most popular being 15-19 which was 94% of our responses, the other 6% of our responses came from the age range of 25-29. Being as many of the replies were from the 15-19 age range and many of them knew who the Indie bands were we can presume that the genre is popular among young audiences. This assumption means that we should base our music video more towards youthful audiences.

Lyric analysis

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my bones
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head
Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my mind

Well space elevator won’t you take me so far

Sun navigator won’t you take me to the stars

Take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

Can’t hear what you say, You’re so far away

Say you’ll see me later, Wanna ride my elevator

If it’s possible, I feel insufferable

I feel the talk of the towns and never come back down

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul

Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head

Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my bones

Sun spinning inside my bones, Inside my mind

Science is trying just to figure out the facts

And I’ll be lying if you’re crying, Coz nothing’s making sense

Space is calling out to be a friend

All the stars are falling, But this is not the end

Space elevator won’t you take me to Mars

Sun navigator won’t you take me so far

Well take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space, Are we lost in space

I've highlighted all the words that are repeated multiple times throughout the song and have a strong meaning when they are interpreted individually and not just in the context of the song. Due to the powerful nature of these words we should try and see if they can be incorporated into the music video in some way. I have also created something called a Wordle which is a visual aid and shows words that aren't that common in the English Language: 

iWeb website mock up

This is the way I want my website to be structured when it is created, currently I'm undecided on a house style so I'll have to experiment with different colours on this layout. Something else I'm undecided on is the negative space between the "Latest News" and "Social Network Feed," when the house style is applied I will  have more of an idea if the negative space works if it doesn't I will probably just extend the bottom half of the "Latest News" box outwards so it is closer to the "Social Network Feed" thus eradicating the negative space. Another slight critique that I have with my design is the exact positioning of the logo, I know I want it placed in the top left of the webpage but I'm not sure if I want it aligned with the title or navigation bar Once eveything is put in place it will be easier to make the decision as I can judge what looks best.

Iweb Software Practice

Today I used iWeb for the first time and played around with some of the features that it has to offer, in doing so it has showed me the limitations that the software has and I can now redesign and think over any of the design ideas that I initially had. First of all I started by seeing how easy it was to include a picture on the page, it is incredibly easy to get an image on the webpage and it can be done in two ways. The first way to get an image on the page is by simply copying and pasting it from a source such as the internet, the second way is just as simple and it would be used if you were trying to get an image that you have saved onto the product, you would just open up the location where the image is saved and then just drag and drop it into the webpage. The second thing I tried doing with the software was embedding a video which was also relatively simple to do, on the right side of the page is a tool bar with a selection of widgets that you can place on the webpage and there is one specifically for adding YouTube videos. All that has to be done to add a video is drag the widget where you want it and then copy and paste the URL code in a box that appears on screen, after that the video will load itself up and the size can be altered as well as where it is positioned on the page. Shortly after adding the video I added some text to the webpage to see how accessible the options were, the options are very easy to navigate, however I did not see an option for text alignment which means it could become problematic if certain chunks of text need centring. A feature that I have commonly seen on band websites is the incorporation of a media player of some sort, it will often play a few select songs from the bands repertoire. I first tried including something like that on this webpage by adding a music file to the webpage but the problem with it is that it doesn't look like a sophisticated media player, so the only way I can think to get what I'm looking for is using the HTML widget, which is the last thing I added to the webpage. The HTML widget allows you to embed any item with a HTML code on the webpage so in this Instance I used a game to see if it would run smoothly and when I published the webpage it ran perfectly.

From my initial use with the software I think I may have to change some design features as the options I would like to include on the website are not able to be implemented with the software available to me.

Freytags Theory

Today we learned about Freytags theory of dramatic narrative, Freytag believed that a text should be divided into five main and distinguishable parts, the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and either the resolution or catastrophe at the end. The exposition is basically the introduction to the text and sets the scene for the rest of the narrative to follow, straight after the narrative is the rising action which is when parts of the literary narrative build up and develop the plot. Immediately after the narrative had been built up is when one of the most important parts of the narrative happens, the climax, the easiest way to explain the climax is by saying that it is when the "plot thickens" and a problem occurs that the character must get past, each genre has its own stereotypical climax story. Following the climax is the falling action which is where a conflict will about to be resolved or there is a final moment of suspense which makes the outcome of the narrative unclear, if the narritive was not following the standard cliched rules. Finally is the resolution, otherwise known as the dénouement, which is where the plot is resolved and everything comes full circle leaving the characters with a sense of normality again. Freytags theory can be devised into a pyramid which shows the full completion of all the stages:

If you build further upon the idea of Freytags theory pyramid you can see that it almost looks like a simplified graph of the narrowing growing and them shrinking to fit with the narrative. I constructed a more detailed graph which shows the same five steps only applied to the music opposed to a literary text: 

Focus Group

This is the focus group we did in order to help us research the topic of Indie music videos in more depth. We compiled a questionnaire and then used the results that we found would be of use to us and then asked those people to attend a focus group where we got them to watch three Indie music videos. These music videos were ones that we thought best summarised the Indie genre and also videos that we could use for the basis of ideas for our own video.

We discovered that the second music video we showed the group, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand was the most popular amongst the individuals within the focus group. They said that they found it the most interesting because of the unique art style that was incorporated into it and also because of the heavy use of animation. In addition the group also mentioned that it was out of the ordinary and not something you see in every music video.

"I Predict a Riot" by the Kaiser Chiefs was also a popular video, although not as popular as the Franz Ferdinand video. The reasoning behind this the group gave was because it was fun to watch for the audience and there was very little narrative just fast jump cuts showing many different images. The group suggested that we try to incorporate something interesting, be it narrative or performance, in the video because it will attract peoples attention.

Creating a questionnaire

Below is the questionnaire that we created as a group, we intend to use the helpful feedback that is returned to us in order to see what type of person should be included in our focus group. The questions we have included in the questionnaire will help us understand in what age group Indie music is most popular with and also if the genre is preferred by one gender more than the other. Our questionnaire is also a good starting point to find out which Indie band is the most popular amongst the people answering it, after we have collected the data we can then research the band that was the most popular and see what it is that has made them so favoured.

Questionnaire

Initial Web Design Plan

1st hard copy website plan 

Final hard copy website plan 

1) Navigation bar + Drop down menu - I decided that the navigation bar would be positioned at the very top of the page as this is one of the first places the audience's eyes would be drawn to if they were to view the website. If iWeb is capable of the task I would like the first button, on the navigation bar entitled "Band Bio," to be an interactive drop down menu so that each member of the band is listed, this is because it would make the website seem more engaging for the user and thus more memorable, which in turn would mean the website is meeting its purpose.

2) Login section - If this plan was for a full working band website it would probably have a login section for a fan club of some sort, although the website isn't going to be fully operational I tried to imply the login section by adding a "Username" and "Password" text box where the respective fields would be filled in. I positioned the login section below the navigation bar as many websites have it at the top of the page and the users would therefore find it easier to get used to using.

3) Advertisement Banner - Adverts are commonly placed in two places on a website, at the top going horizontally across the screen or at the side of the page spanning vertically. I decided that the advert should be placed at the top of the page as this means that I have more room to manipulate the text and other features further down the page. In addition if its at the top of the page it won't distract the user when they scroll further down the page and as the advertisement will be advertising a product by the band it doesn't have to be big and flashy with loads of attention drawn to it.

4) Latest News with the band - This is where the main body of text will be placed on the page and will be filled with the latest information about the band. It is important that the main body of anchorage text is positioned centrally on the home page as this draws attention to it and makes the audience aware that it is one of the most important features on the page. The more important someone feels something is the more attention they pay to it so if the text is centred the audience will be more provoked to read it.

5) Social Network feed - Many Indie bands use social mediums to promote themselves so I thought it would be important to include a social network feed that will show the latest messages from websites such as Facebook and Twitter. However this may have to be changed when creating the webpage as there is a high probability that the social network feed would greatly slow the web page down. I haven't looked into that much yet but I think the easiest way to get a social network feed on iWeb is by using a HTML code.

6) Interactive Image gallery slide show - Near the bottom of the page there will be an interactive image gallery that automatically cycles through images in the gallery. Only selective images will be cycled through though as this feature would otherwise negate the point of having a gallery page. Having a feature like this makes the website appear more professional and sleek and therefore fulfils its purpose more as a greater amount of people would then want to visit the website again after they had used it once.

7) Bottom of the page hyperlinks - At the very bottom of the page there will be a secondary navigation bar that does the same task as the navigation bar at the top. However the text at the bottom will be less like a navigation bar and more along the lines of an obvious hyperlink, with the respective titles going to the respective pages. 

Web Page Mood Board

In my mood board I have focused on the idea of patriotism quite a bit with the central image being the Union  Jack flag and an image of a group of Mods from the 60's. Our group decided that the band should be portrayed as British and be styled the same way as their music is very similar to other British bands. We also decided that they should be fashioned the same way that other British Indie bands are looking like they're Mods from the 60's as it was a very iconic time in terms of both music, fashion and media. Other philosophies that I tried to get across in this mood board are the notions of peace and how the band believes that peace should always be the way, this shows their almost naive like nature of the world as they don't have the life experiences that older generations have. I also linked the band strongly to the idea that for them it is just about the music and not the lifestyle that is meant to come with it, this makes them appear more innocent and easier to market as people will instantly like them if they are considered to be just about the music an nothing else.

Representation of the Artist

This image is a visual representation of the way I would like the band to be marketed and shown in the music video.
Starting at the top left of the image is a music stave that twists and represents the path the band must take to achieve success in a profession they feel strongly about. On the stave is a selection of notes which someone could denote as all the problems they will have to face in their career.

Bellow the music stave is an image of the band called the "Arctic Monkeys"  we have modelled the apparel of our band off of them, which means our band would look similar to a 60's mod gang, however we may have to subvert something in their appearance as we don't want the band to seem like they share the same beliefs as the "Mods." The image also connotes that the band work as a unit and this is another way we want the band marketed.

Underneath the image of the "Arctic Monkeys" there is an image of  one of "Lady GaGa's" album covers with a saying on it called "The Fame Monster." This implies that many Pop musicians are in the business just for the fame. However her album cover is crossed out and which implies that the image is saying the opposite and that our band are there because its a profession they feel strongly about and they're willing to excel the honest way, through hard work.

To the right of the "Lady GaGa" image is a picture of a young child with the word "innocence" written on his arm, which connotes youthful innocence. This is another ideal that we want our band marketed as because they are young and we want them to appear naive about the music business, this naivety will make the band appear more friendly and as a result more likeable. 

Finally above that image is a picture that recreates the Greek myth of the king Sisyphus trying to push a rock up a hill. Whilst the story behind the image doesn't really convey the correct message about the band, the image does. It shows determination to succeed no matter how hard the task is to succeed at.

Music Video Idea Pitches

The Smiling Lies - Space Elevator:
As a group we discovered that the majority of Indie bands music videos heavily emphasise the performance aspect of music videos opposed to the narrative like many pop videos do.

Pitch 1: My first idea focuses on the idea of time as it is closely linked to the word space in the name of the song title "Space Elevator." The band members would be filmed individually and they would each play at a different speed, be it through their own personal judgement or through our editing. They would then meet up, most likely around the drummer, and they would begin to play together in time. However as the band members begin to play in time, it affects time around them and people in the background would either be interacting at a rate that is either slower or faster than normal. I think that the band should be in a public space and also go unnoticed by the public as they go about their business.

Pitch 2: An idea that often occurs in Indie music videos is the idea of juxtaposition where two things are compared with each other but yet they are complete opposites. I was thinking that we could satire the mainstream pop music industry and have stereotypical concepts appear in the video such as Beauty shots of the lead singer whilst the rest of the band act like you would expect an indie rock band to. This would cause conflict between the members in the band until the band gets fed up and they surround the singer whilst he is posing as a generic Pop artist. The singer would then go out of shot whilst surrounded by the band and then reappear dressed as so he fits in again with the rest of the band. This would all happen before and during a live performance of the song with an audience.

Pitch 3: This idea would take a very long time to edit and it would most likely prove to be very problematic to create, but it could still be doable. Each band member is assigned a colour, most likely a primary one such as red, blue or yellow, the world around them would be black and white and very dull, but as each band member passed an object it would light up as there colour. I was thinking that the band members could each take multiple different routes to get to an empty venue but on the way they would each light up their respected route with their own colour. Before the band get to venue it should be empty but when they get there it would fill up with an audience and the colours would be highly satirised.

Pitch 4: A fourth idea idea that I think we could use is the band are shown playing the last couple of seconds of a song at a live concert, in a small venue, they only have one fan there though and they get fed up and wished they could have more fans. A warp like effect would then appear on screen where they are playing at a bigger venue and they have a much larger audience. About halfway through the song the audience will change from the bands idea of an ideal audience to something hellish and out of their nightmares. The band get caught by the hellish audience but when all seems hopeless the bands one and only fan from their previous show turns up and saves them. The band and fan then attempts to escape in an elevator, relating to the name of the song, before managing to get back to their original gig where they play the remainder of the song.

Pitch 5: My final idea is more loosely based around the idea of interesting camera shots while the band performs, there would be a small acted narrative either in the background of the video or it would cut to it every so often. These camera shots wouldn't focus on the band members as people but rather as body pieces and instrument parts. The band members faces shouldn't be revealed until the end of the song and even then their faces wouldn't be seen as they would be wearing masks that make them appear faceless.

Filming a band

Today we filmed a year 10 band and had them perform along to a song that they had previously recorded in the studio, the song was a cover of "Slow Cheetah" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. As a class we were split into two groups and then alternated in the filming roles, both groups took two takes of the band with four separate cameras all filming at once. We had a static camera which got a shot of the whole band from a front view, then our second camera was on a wheel chair which we used as a make shift dolly, the dolly camera went behind the static camera and got shots from both the left and right hand sides of the stage. Our next two cameras were both roaming cameras, we had camera three which was being used to get more artistic and creative shots such as bits of instruments being played. Our final camera was positioned behind the stage and was another roaming camera that got interesting shots of the back of the band, this camera would have a heavy focus on the drummer. The camera set up we used is shown in the diagram above. We found that people who did music videos at GCSE compared the way they filmed to the way we did today they realised that filming with multiple cameras rolling at once gives you much more creative freedom and is also easier.

In this workshop we also learned how to direct the band as well as film them, it is important that when we direct and film them we are as energetic and positive as possible, this is so the band can feed off our energy and apply it to their performance. We also found out that the more takes the band did the more comfortable they got in front of the camera, however it is important to recognise when the bands performance is as good as they are going to get as otherwise their performance would start to decline and as a result the shots achieved would not be as useful as previous ones. 

Creativity and how we will use when we come to doing our own music videos was an important part of today's workshop and we found out that the filming of a music video is much more spontaneous than filming movie opening sequences, like we did for our AS coursework. Unusual shots of limbs and instruments are just as useful as standard shots, if not more so. From what I have learned today I will try to include more unique and artistic shots in our music video to broaden the interest of the video. 

There will be a few differences between the way we film the performance aspect of our music video to the way this one was filmed, this is because they are two different genres. This was in the style of a Rock performance which meant you could expect over the top actions and stereotypical camera shots like an establishing shot of the band at a flat angle. The main things that we need to change when filming for an Indie video is a slight change in the Mise-en-scene making the band appear a bit more formal than the average rock band, we should also consider using a smaller stage if we go for the whole live performance idea as the smaller stage would make the band seem more intimate with the audience. Another thing worth considering that could be changed is the use of the camera, much like the instrumentation in Rock the music videos are  much the same being very straight forward and very few have more than a handful of interesting shots, when filming we should be more creative and try obscure camera angles that wouldn't work when filming for something such as an opening sequence.

Music Industry - Arctic Monkeys - Web Design

Like the majority of Indie websites the Arctic Monkeys have a very simple website with two major contrasting colours which makes heading and text stand out from the background. The use of the two simplistic colours relates to the genre of Indie music because it's a genre that isn't heavily focused on by the mainstream. 

The design of the website is very simple and couldn't really be considered a sophisticated style by members of the audience. This is because everything is positioned in a very linear manner and a lot of negative space is left on the right hand side of the page. However just because the design isn't sophisticated it doesn't mean the website is necessarily bad, due to the very linear manner everything is laid out in a very organised way and all the information can be seen a read very clearly. 

An interesting feature of the website is that the navigation bar will always be at the top of the page even if you're looking at the information at the bottom of the page. This is something that is common amongst social networking websites as it allows easy navigation around the website, and very uncharacteristic for an Indie webpage as it "conforms" to the way other major websites are designed.

In terms of production value the website looks of a high quality and designed by professionals, not ammeters which connotes that the production values the studio have trusted with the band are high, which would make us assume that the band have a big existing fan base. 

Another feature of the website that provides evidence that the site is of a high level of professionalism is the small logo in the bottom right of the webpage. The logo represents the company that produced the website and when you click on it you are presented with all the other websites the company have created. They are a company that mainly focus on music artists and record labels which means they are specific to that area of website creation and as a result know a great deal about it, which explains why they have created so many high quality websites for so many artists.

An interesting feature about the website, when taken in context with the genre of the band, is the way the bands social networking details are presented, on the right hand side of the screen there are two small buttons that when clicked will either like the band on Facebook or Follow them on Twitter. Indie music is usually a genre that is quite "underground" and not considered as "mainstream" so the bands often have to find alternate means of publicity, these will often come in the form of social networking sites. So as an audience we would expect the website to put a heavier focus on the bands social networking sites and have more than just Twitter and Facebook.

There are several landing pages linked to the website that allow fans a chance to look at the shop, see new tour dates, find out about the members of the band, register with the fan forums and look at photos and videos of the band. These additional features of the website are likely to increase the fans interest in the band which links to the Blumler and Katz theory of surveillance for why people are more likely to consume media texts. 

Lickert scale and Indie charts

Today I composed the first of our two Licket scales that we plan to incorporate into our questionnaire, the Licket scale focuses on how popular the audience finds certain Indie artists. As a group we decided that we should add two other artists that do not fit into the category of "Indie" to see if they are, in general, more popular in the opinion of our audience when compared to the Indie artists. This will give us a general idea on who would be the most beneficial to include within our focus group and get the most helpful feedback possible.  

Whilst searching for the two placebo artists to include in the Lickert scale, I looked at the UK top 40 singles chart but then I looked at the UK top 40 Album charts and there is a drastic difference in the genres included in the different charts. Indie artists only appeared twice, within the top 18, of the singles chart which when compared to the album charts where at least four Indie artists appears, shows us that there is a difference in the buying habit of Indie music fans to Pop fans. This correlation tells us that Indie artists don't need to worry too much about selling their singles as the majority of the money they would make on the sales front comes from their album sales and not their singles sales.  

Music Iconography - Coldplay

Music Iconography Coldplay

Richard Dyers Star Theory on Stevie Wonder

Richard Dyers Star Theroy Stevie Wonder

Song Choice

Today we chose the song that we are going to create our music video for. We chose the song Space Elevator by a small underground Indie band in America called The Smiling Lies.

We registered with a social networking site for music called Reverbnation where we then asked if we would be able to use their song for the creation of our music video.

Lip Sync

Today I lip synced to the song "Dude Looks Like a Lady" by "Areosmith" in preparation for the creation of a music video that I am going to create with a group in the near future. The first process I went through was getting the lyrics to the song and making sure that I roughly knew how to mouth them. After I got the lyrics to the song I then took a shot of me lip syncing normally looking at the camera. Once I had completed my first take I then did an incidental take that could be cut up and inserted in the editing process to make the lip sync more enjoyable to watch.

After I had my two takes done it was time to move onto the editing process, the first thing I had to do was insert the music track into the time line, when the I had imported the track I then had to import my first take. When I finished importing my first take I had to line it up with the song and make sure that my mouth movements were in time with the singing in the song. The next process I went through was inserting my incidental take and also lining that up with the song on a second editing track. My original take was imported into a editing track that is automatically prioritised higher than the incidental track which means that when Final Cut plays it plays the first track opposed to both the first and second. To incorporate the incidental shots it means that I had to cut the first track so that the incidental track would automatically play when there was a break in the first track. Once I had everything editied the way I wanted I added a slow motion effect at then which helps signify the end of the song.

Audioslave - Show Me How to Live music video analysis

Show Me How to Live – Audioslave