Wednesday 30 November 2016

Gun Footage: Why we won't be using it

For our music video, we decided to film 2 different endings, and choose which one to use after filming both. 
We have decided to definitely not use this ending- Where the main character pulls a gun to his head and there is a fade to black- As we thought it would be too problematic. 

Violence in music videos is less more common and tolerated than it would be in Film. Because of this, we decided to decrease the amount of violence in our video. 
To add to that, a violent ending to the video would restrict where it would be shown, (For example, certain TV channels may not want to show it), therefore giving our video less views and opportunities, specifically with our young adult Target Audience.

Using Final Cut Pro X, I edited some of the gun footage together. We shot this on two separate occasions (once without tattoos, as a practice, and once with) 


Friday 25 November 2016

KO: DIGIPAK: Idea: Follow You

I have been thinking about the design for our digipak and will describe it in the post. This might not be what we end up using in the final but gives a ruff idea of my idea. The front cover of the digipak will feature the singer holding an umbrella as that is the album logo. The front will also have the tile of the album over it. The colour of the text or font used i haven't decided yet ill see what I think looks best.

The back of the digipak will have the back of the singer walking towards the sun with the sunlight blinding the camera. The back will also include the titles of the songs that are included in the album. As of yet I have not thought about where the barcode or colour the text will be, this is something I will experiment with.



When you open the digipak there will be a single picture of all the band members with a border on the pictures. On the picture there will also be the BMTH letters. The disk will be in-between the pages like Bring Me The Horizons "THATS THE SPIRIT" digipak. The CD will have its own art which we will discuses later on.

Podcast 8

Our Podcast for this week:



BV

Tuesday 22 November 2016

KO: DIGIPAK: Research

Digipak is a patented style of optical disc packaging. Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one ore more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.
To the left you see a template of what a digipak looks like.
The digipak was made to resemble a vinyl with the cardboard covers but instead of holding a vinyl it holds a CD.

The good thing about digipaks rather than a CD cover or a Vinyl is that it is smaller in size than the vinyl but lighter in weight then a CD this makes transport cheaper and will also mean that shops can hold more inventory of digipak.

Digipaks have become very popular, due to the artwork they appeal to collectors, because of the paper feel it targets the nostalgic fell of vinyl. Because of its popularity it has a target audience on youtube of unboxing videos.

To the right you can see an example of what a digipak looks like. In this example you can see that you can open it to have 3 sides rather than a CD which only has 2.
On one page you can see the main cover which has the title of the title of the cover. On another page you can see a list of the songs that are on the CD. On the last page that we can see you have a medium close up of the artist.

Depending on the digipak whats on the pages might change. Some have a bunch of text but the most common is photos of the band or artist.

Bring Me The Horizon do have a digipak for their album "THAT'S THE SPIRIT". I found an unboxing video for the digipak and their box set (the video is in Spanish and the unboxing doesn't start until 2:35). It is very simple with no photos used only a black background with either white font or a different colour black. On the back there is a list of the songs, a barcode, music label, parental advisory warning and trademark message. The inside of the pack has one painting which goes over both pages with bright colours. The disk is in-between the paper and you have to grab it by the top to get it or you have to slide it out. There is also a booklet with some information on.

Friday 18 November 2016

Wednesday 16 November 2016

Website Analysis EG8: ACDC

Branding is very strong = images/backgrounds

back to top button is very useful

clear string graphical content

Website Analysis EG7: Bullet For My Valentine

auto scrolling gallery= smart design feature

merch= abbriviated, slang
logo = easily recognisable

black, white, red colour theme

The colour scheme matches the sound of the music. 



Website Analysis EG6: Shawn Mendes

There is a variation of a splash screen which pops up when website is opened.
Immediate marketing for latest release


rsvp  is a good touch

The website is very plain, not very much content. However, it has a very consistent theme.



Website Analysis EG5: Charlie Puth

there is a larger photo of him- instantly recognisable as his website, clear branding.
links list at the bottom

charlie puth logo = home button

can listen to music on the website

I think the gallery on this website is really good and adds a personal touch, and link to fans. 








 

                             

Website Analysis EG4: You Me At Six

there is no links list at the top

there is a colour theme kept throughout

flashlight follows mouse

social media icons

however, i find the layout is confusing and difficult to navigate


Website Analysis EG3: The 1975


The website opens with a splash page direct advert to most recent album/ single


pale against pale arguably hard to read
lots of links lists
lots of bands have a symbol/ graphical logo perhaps in the banner
double up branding- two go's at being recognised

minimalist

I really like this website as i think it has a very clear theme, which links to their newest album. 

The pink colour is very important as they do not want to conform to gender stereotypes.

Website Analysis EG2: Alt-J


alt-J are an English indie rock band formed in 2007 in Leeds

Their website is very minimalist with some splashes of colour 

When clicking on news/live/music it just scrolls you down to the bottom of the page, which makes it quite difficult to use.

when hovering over the alt-j logo, becomes colourful, adds colour and interest, which is a nice touch.

concert poster/album sleeve keeps in theme with rest of page.

there is also an option to listen to and buy the music, as well as a link to YouTube where you can watch their music videos.  This is something that I think we should add to our own website.
 
same font throughout is good as it creates a sense of branding.



Website Analysis EG:1 Adam Ant

In order to create our own website for our band, we need to first look at examples of other websites from different artists, to both gain inspiration and understand what works/what does not work, and therefore what we will be including in our own website. 






Adam Ant 


There are 6 top links on the website. 
1 of these includes 'Home' however, it is possible to create a home button.

It is very important to be careful in the language used, as here, 'Features' is quite hard to understand what it includes, as it's a very broad term. 

There are many different ways in which something can be named. For example, Merchandise can be Merch/ Store/ Shop. 

BANNER should be link in to newest release, not effective, not eye-catching, doesn't stand out. font is not effective. 

Overall, the website is quite hard to navigate as many of the links are unclear. I also do not like the colour scheme very much as it isn't eyecatching and i don't think that the colors are very complimentary.

Saturday 5 November 2016

MISE-EN-SCENE 2: Narrative Costume

For our music video, we wanted the girl in our narrative to have a skull painted on half of her face. This is because in our narrative we have a male character (the lead singer) who is upset and fustrated at a girl. We want her makeup to represent the 'death' of their relationship. however, it will only cover half her face as she is not actually dead, just dead to him. 
I was inspired by a character called Tate in the show American Horror Story. 
I used white concealer for the base and then 2 different kind of eyeliners to create the shadows and details. 
I had to do this very quickly as we didn't have much time while filming. It was also raining so it didn't turn out as good as i'd hoped.

Friday 4 November 2016

SR: Production Schedule UPDATE 2

Today, I updated our production schedule (update 2) after we have filmed some footage. Unfortunately our female protagonist wasn't able to make it and so we weren't able to finish filming the entire narrative. We have also decided to choose another female protagonist, which we will be talking about in our 4th podcast. 


MISE-EN-SCENE 3: Tattoos

 

As tattoos are a very common feature of rock bands, and as we wanted to achieve verisimilitude, we decided to have tattoos on the band members.

When first designing the tattoos, I took a lot of inspiration from the lead singer of Bring Me The Horizon, Oli Sykes. There were a few tattoos that i saw very often on singers or band members such as: 
- Roses
- Crosses
- Skulls
- Instruments/something music themed.

I also took the lyrics of the song we are using (Follow You) and found some phrases that I could base a tattoo of. 

I immediately saw the word heart and was inspired by that to draw a realistic heart. I drew the designs in biro as it allows small detail and creates a similar effect to that of a tattoo.

After having designed all of these tattoos and drawn them out, i began testing the paper we had bought to make the tattoos temporary, as my previous attempts had not worked properly. 
I drew a very simple sun design on word, and then printed it out 5 times onto the paper. I tried a few different methods, the one I found on the internet, and one that was on the packet of the paper. 
This was moderately successful, although there was still a strange plastic texture to the tattoo. I tried again a couple of times and found that if i used hot water, and dampened the tattoo often it worked fine. 
I then took all of my designs and printed them out.

On the day of the shoot, i brought along hot water and tried to place the tattoos on our band members. 
However it didn't work and we had to go without. 
I ended up drawing the tattoos on with an eyeliner pen. 
 
  
I drew words such as 'hate' 'love' 'life 'death' on the knuckles of 2 band members and on the other 2 i drew crosses. 
I also drew a lightning bolt on anothers arm. 


 

Podcast 5

This weeks podcast was recorded by Kristian. We decided to share recording the podcasts among us, as it enabled the other members of the group to focus on another aspect of our coursework while someone was recording. (The title of the podcast should be Podcast 5)



KO

Wednesday 2 November 2016

INSTAGRAM

I decided to set up an instagram account for our band, as most bands and artists have instagram accounts, so that they can interact with fans and share news and new music.

I posted images that I took whilst we were filming and also some screenshots from our video. I also posted 2 boomerangs, but I will go into more detail on those in a separate post. 

I also posted some of our merchandise.

The theme that i decided to keep to is black and white. However i did post some in colour, but with very little saturation, so they still fit well. I think that the theme works well with the branding of our band and also the genre of music that they produce.