Final Post

This is my Last post on the blog.

I think that overall I achieved my aims during this coursework. I am very proud of the music video as a whole. I think the mise-en-scene is high quality, the footage and the editing are of a high standard and I think our narrative displays the themes clearly. Perhaps the actual clarity of the narrative could have been improved upon if we had spent more time planning individual shots. We had quite a spontaneous approach to the filming of our performance as well, all though this led to some creative shots; it perhaps caused some problems with editing as we did not always have the shots we needed. I am also happy with the way our Myspace and album cover turned out. I think the artwork on the album cover is very effective and helps to draw in our market and reflect the key themes in our music. Our Myspace has a clear layout on it and has all of the essential info, and also some blogs that are key to building up a report with fans. I think our group worked very well together and we each took an equal share of the work, this ensured there were no rifts between us and so we could work effectively and efficiently to produce a quality piece.

If we had to do this project again then I would hope to spend more time planning both the actual process of filming, for example the creation of our set took longer than anticipated and so wasted time, and we at some points struggled to find good locations for the narrative. It would also have helped to plan the actual shots better, although we planned key shots such as the spinning shot, a lot of the others were spontaneous and at points during editing we were left wanting footage.

thanks
xxxx

Our Music Video

This is our Final piece, I think its really effective and i like it. I had a lot of fun making it.

Album Cover

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• I really like the album cover we've made. i think it reflects the themes and concepts the album would put across. its quite minimalistic but i think that would help it stand out on a shelf and also appeal to a broad audience as it has a kind of urban feel as well as a rock theme.
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Myspace

Hello, This is a link to our myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/lockuptheyouth
I think its pretty rockin, which is good as its aimed at fans of rock music. its got a good clear layout and its easy to listen to our song on it.

Drawing to a Close

Our project is now drawing to a close. I feel I have worked hard throughout the project to acheive high quality practical produce and clear and efficient blogging. I am very pleased with our final video and here it is...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=azLOsFewux4

BLK feedback

good work nathan - can you post some clips from your footage so far?

shoot at the weekend

our shoot at the weekend went sort of ok. although it is doubtful we will use any of the footage we shot it did help both give us new ideas and ground our current ideas.
a big problem was that it was quite hard to find completely empty places, however we did find quite a derelict patch that may be usable.
i am greatly looking forwards to the band shoot this weekend, i am confident that the shots should work well and we have spent some time planning different shots and i am also sure we will find new things to do on the day aswell.

although the actual footage we shot at the weekend wasnt too great, it was a useful test shoot as we are now much better equipped to do our real shoot.

theory notes

the theory was all rather interesting and here are 5 key points that i have taken from it.
- Jump cuts: we can use jump cuts to help create a crazy and interesting feel to the video, this will probably be most useful when we are filming the band sequences. by jump zooming in and out we can also emphasize the actions such as a heavy strum on the guitar or an intense vocal sound.

- we will try and edit on the beat eg. if the music drops particularly heavily we will do some sort of aesthetically intense edit such as a jump to a closeup.

- we will use a variety of both distances and angles. we will use a lot of high angle and low angle shots and maybe even have a master shot that is high angle. we will cut from close ups to long distance shots etc. in film this would be strange but in a music video (especially a punky, rocky one) it should hopefully work well.

- we will use movement and tracking to help create an unbalanced feel that will both work well with the style of the music and create an interesting and rocky feel. we will use elaborate and curvacious tracks to create the illusion of space and to get in a lot of our well decorated (hopefully) location.

- we will use close-ups to show case the star. when exciting vocal passages are being sung the video emphasis will be on mike, when there is the drum solo the emphasis will be on the drummer and guitar bits on the guitarist.

-in the narrative we may use a montage of shots rather than a continous narrative, this will both work well with the story and will allow more frequent editing between the narrative and the and the band sequences.
-both the narrative and the performance will increase in intensity as the song draws towards its climax,this will be achieved by intense sweeps, pans and tracks as well as big movements within the frame.

when put into use this theory should help intensify and clarify our music video production.

feedback

hello,
I think i will go back to previous posts an try and apply more theory where possible. i will also ensure to include theory when posting in future and add some posts that are rich in theoretical matter. after the lesson today on theory i feel better equipped to embark on this task so the results will, hopefully, be fruitful.

BLK feedback

well done nathan, some very impressive progress on this blog, it's really starting to represent you and your thinking/ideas
I would like to see you use more media theory though, when exploring and analysing other music videos, album covers etc. On the main blog there are postings from June that will help you develop your Stage 1 and 2 posts further and in the folder you will find the analysis frameworks you need to help you explore texts more thoroughly and effectively.
Also your blog has limited visual links, your video and myspace links for example don't look quite right as all I can see is code when we should see imagery, this is something Miss T, myself or ryan can help you with, so please ask
please make sure your posts are regular, ideally a bit everyday. please don't let things pile up.

weird video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqi5F5MqqTQ

i found this video on Youtube and thought it was kinda relevent t o our music video because it is weird.
...

Band name

ive been thiniking about a band name for the band abf.....

CD cover

recently with the decison to use face paint in our music video and have a blakc handprint as a sort of symbol or logo i have researched using that as a theme for our cd cover.while looking around at images i saw a t shirt with a black hand print on it which put the idea of using it as a marketing tool into play.

Thoughts

hello, i think at the moment i am very pleased with the way the project is going, as a group we have a final idea which although is always developing, is definately complete enough to start filming.
my main priorities at the moment are ensuring that i have blogged all of my research on my individual blog and also on the group blog.
the main issue regarding the actual filming i think at the moment is the large number of people we will need however we have allready made several confirmations and have been able to limit the amount of time needed with them when filming to either one or two days over a weekend.
x

ive been doing some research...

ive been doing some research on cults relating to our idea with the group face painting. firstly there was a sort of serbian gang around the early 20th century called Црна рука / Crna Ruka, meaning black hand, or 'unification or death'. they were a violent group whos aims were nationalism. i think this is relevant perhaps to our music video as the idea of unification (although perhaps in a different context) opposes that of lonliness which is also a central theme of our video.

the idea of an easily identifiable mark on the body is one that is used by many modern gangs aswell. gangs such as the japanes yakuza have full body tatoos to show dedication. this adds a more sinister twist to our video and so i think it is important.
I found this quotation on a website about cults

"Tattoo Cult: Crazed cult members actually burn indelible ink on their bodies. Cult members are encouraged (usually after consuming alcohol to paint their bodies with permanent messages of various images and words. Cult members also pierce their bodies and put various body ornaments and metals in unusual unnatural places such as ears, nose, tongue, naval and genitalia. “A severely disturbing cult - these tattooists and body piercers - Clearly brainwashed…. Ross" (www.rosscult.biz/)

i thought that was quite creepy.

Finally i looked at tribal paint;

I think these were very relevant to ours as they often all have almost identical paint and it is often thick and covers large areas (ours will have a thick white background).

I discovered that often tribe members will only apply paint after reaching puberty, in a way showing they have reached adulthood. this reflects the sense of belonging that the main character does not have in the video but all the other people seem to have.

myspaace

there isnt an official Blink 182 Myspace however similar bands do have myspaces.
Sum 41:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=3091855
Their Myspace is quite Punky they have a blakc and purple background , they have videos on their site as well as links to shops were stuff can be bought. they also have songs on it,

+44
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=80407459
their myspace has similar stuff on it however it is laid out in a more structured way which perhaps reflects their slightly electronic sound. the colour otif is brighter and lighter and the page seems quite proffessional.
x

Hello

hello, ive been having a problem with blogger as it keeps saying something about cookies?
i think it might have stopped happening though. ive been doing a lot of planning and research and so will set about recording it from now.
xx

Here's your group work on Marketing!

BLK feedback

no progress on this blog for a while Nathan, please add to it regularly - gaps are to be avoided as this will have a negative impact on the marking of your individual work for this project

BLK feedback

great posts Nathan, now really keep this standard up, ok!

make sure you add your own comments/reflections on the group project to this blog as you go along

some further music video analysis would be good, using the framework we have covered in class

Marketing strategy evaluation

what did i miss out?

- Getting the material reviewed by suitable reviewers
- perhaps using the internet to hold forums in order to spark debate about the artist
- could maybe put adverts on mainstream TV, such as terresttreall or sky etc.
- using hte radio to advertise as well as just play the songs
- maybe doing smaller gigs before touring with the fastest selling artist of all time.

What did i learn!?
-the importance of a key marketing image
-that it is possible to think of marketing ideas other than normal ones, such as film appearences etc.
-advertising can be cheap and home produced
-accessories can help sell an artist
-it can be good to have a novelty item such as a pimp cane or tiny top hat.
-it is important to have an individuality to an artist without isolating them from an existing fan base.
-album covers are important to promote both the music and the mentality of the artist.

alum cover

this album cover, naturally shows both the name of the band and the name of the album. I think the fact that there is no 'star image' reflects the bands quite non commercial outlook. to my knowledge, none of their albums have them on the front, and only one of them has them on the back. perhaps this is conventional of their genre of alternative music, as a lot of their sound is electronic, especiallyy on this album it is perhaps conventional not to have an image of the band on the front.
the mountains reflect the environmental theme of the album, song lyrics say 'ice age coming' etc. and generally the album has a theme aginast global warming and other such environmental damages.

the album cover makes the audince think and the harsh edges and black white and red colour schemes would make the cd stand out on a shelf. the asraf

Blues

it may perhaps be interesting to do a video in the genre of Blues


I htink this song is simple but also powerful.

i think if the video was filmed to look old, with sepia or black and white , and our artist was marketed as 'bringing back blues' then it could work .
the video could be a narrative but with the artist playing solo in the background or something, they should wear hats...

inspirational video

Interesting album covers

possible song idea?

Perhaps the video could be set in the 70s, with a ghetto feel. wouldnt necessarily need a performance as it is talking about the rappers past so maybe have the 'teenage version' of slick rick in it. maybe get someone to playthe rapper in the chorus.

think the song would be good to make a video as it has 'storytelling' lyrics which could kind of be re inacted, also think it has a really good beat that would acompany a video well.