Textual Analysis of previous student work

This music viedo produced by A2 students is very different to the previous student work i analysed and of our music video, which is why i have found this one the most interesting.
Their use of black and white is more effective because the video is set at night time which helped emphasise on the atmosphere that the students wanted to create. the night setting fits well with the song choice, because chase and status music is known to be very high tempo because its techno based music, therfore a lot of connontations of booze, nightlife and drugs is related in their videos which the student has played with. the settings have been well thought through also because they have kept it rural, similar to the style of music which chase and status produce, therefore they have made the effort to film in rural areas to make the video dangerous and not simple.
the camera work is very good, they use alot of variation of shots to help keep the video fast paced in parts and to play with certain moods of the character in the video, for example when the character is drunk the shots are hand held to make it seem beleievable, when hes angry the shots are straight cuts to help pick up the pace. This clearly shows that they have thought about alot of stuff to fit in the video to make it work with the song and make it realistic.
editing in this video is noted because they use alot of transitions such as black to white to connote the charcters state of minds change, which was very effective. they keep the character stable at the beginning whilst the cars and buses were sped up which was also very effective, its quite similar to Michel Gondrys work because he is a huge influence on others who produce videos such as A2 level students by using objects and props to symbolise beats to a song which these students have used similarly. They similarly at one point split the screen into four parts gradually to also connote seperate beats which i found quite clever. Lastly another good element of editing i liked was the green effect when the character in the video pushes the kid at the cash machine, this clearly connotes that he is drunk, however the students have used something different to show hes drunk instead of repeating the handheld camera scene. this shows they have used great amounts of variation. overall alot of editing has been done which has successfully helped make their video very good.

the lip syncing was very good too especially as the lyrics are said very fast therefore alot of time and effort would have been done to get it precise. i thoroughly enjoyed this video and was very interesting to watch a differnt genre to indie style music. i found it very influential and well thought through.

Textual Analysis of previous student work

This music video was created by students who were also filming for their A2 media coursework, it was great to watch other students who have used similar resources as us and have produced a well panned narrative based music video. the song "Mardy Bum"found on the album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" a well known song by the Arctic Monkeys, which has probably a high influence on the students as the Arctic Monkeys are a very succesful band originated from sheffield.

i found the narrative fitted well with the song choice which fits well with the idea of comparing lyrics to narrative, a good analyse of one of goodwins 6. This helped the students make the music video make sense to their audience as alot of Arctic Monkeys songs have narrative and performance based videos such as "when the sun goes down" which is a brilliant example of one of the Arctic Mokeys best narrative music videos.
The students lip syncs are very precise to the music which always makes a A2 music video believeable because there is nothing worse when the music doesnt fit the performers lips movement. The imprevisors of the Arctic Monkeys in the students video are very good too because they share the same characteristics as do the Arctic Monkeys which shows they have clearly analysed the techniques to make their video fit the genre music the Arctic Monkeys produce.
they chose to keep their video basic by using black and white all the way through. This keeps the lighting minimalistic because i didnt find there was any diffence in the lighting by using it, however it was quite effective when the two boys are running down an alley way as the black and white helped make it look dindgy and dark, but i think they could of improved by using more lighting on the performace parts just to show emphasis on their significance to the video, similarly to other music videos that are produceded on the likes of MTV.
their camerawork was good especially when they used straight cuts of the performers playing the instruments, to fit with the beat i found that very effective. On the other hand i think they could of used more close up shots on parts such as the girl in the kitchen because she was obviously a lyric related part of the video, therefore as the audience we wanted a closer view, or they could of made it more effective by not seeing her face because it leads more to the imagination in my eye, because i did think it made the video too choreographed.
the setting was good especially in the alley way because the Arctic Monkeys are known to using very rural areas, this shows that their influence helped the students with their work. however where the students performed as a band i got the impression they were performing in a class room which spoilt the video because they kept it simple without going to any effort on finding somewhere out of their depths.

overall i found the video good because i know that it would have taken alot of practice by those who mined the lyrics and learning the instruments, therefore effort was visible in the video. There are though a few adjusments i would make just to help keep it realistic and believable. I have found this helpful because i have looked at our video from certain points at a different perspective to change parts that could help make it better, however i think the choice of song for our music video can get away with unrealism as our song choice is very enthusiastic whereas this particular song is very rustic.

Textual Analysis of "brainstorm" by Arctic Monkeys

This Muisc Video uses alot of elements for a successful music video for the audiences eye. The use of colours to make parts of the video to stand out is very similar to what our group wanted to create in our music video.

Mes en Scene: each member of the band looks the part of the genre music they're performing, Indie. This creates a good look to the music that they're playing to provide their target audience with an influential look, which is very modern in todays fashion. The women dancers are wearing very basic clothing which reveals alot within the movements they're doing in the dance routine which is a good use of goodwin 6, an eye for the female body, this is a big factor on most music videos, however what i found most interesting was that you dont see oftenly female bodies or even provogative dancing because its more seen in R'n'B music therfore by using it in a different genre it makes the video stand out to the other indie style music videos. The dancers represent the musics beats, because if you watch carefully you can see their movements respond to the musics rhytm which aids the movement of the music video by becoming fast paced. Another interesting part in this video is that the settings used are very strange and obscure which is very effective for the upbeat rhythm of the music, in my opinion i get this feel of an asylym as though wherever you go you cant escape the "brainstorm" that is being created by the bands music.
the Arctic Monkeys are a very popular band and the goodwin 6 element of high performance levels of the band playing, is very important. by the band performing in their video it provides a huge influence on the audience for those who look up to them and also the audience want that notion to see the performers play because it creates an atmosphere like a concert does.

camera work: there is a lot of close up shots especially on parts where the band is playing, this is effective so that the audience get some form of involvement in the music. at the beginning of the video there is a shot where parts of the picture is cut out into a hectagon shape, this creates an immediate edgy feel to the video straight away, indicating that the video is going to be an indie genre because all that the hectagon shape holds is the band waiting to perform.

editing: the edits used are very obvious, they use alot of straight cuts to keep the video fast paced, it also fits well with the music because its fast paced and every time a new beat is audible the cut changes to another. This helps makes the video flow, even though clips are chopped into sectors whilst being intwined with other clips. This appears strange however, it does work because it relates really well to the title of the song and for its conceptive factor. Another edit used in the video is the great use of animation, especially of the womans mouth, where you see the movement under neath the muscle and skin, this would have required alot of effort and work, which makes the video become one of them high technified succesful videos.

Lighting: the lighting changes drastically through out the video, similarly to the cuts. they use a great amount of colour when the women dancers are performing, this makes them stand out because they're significance is big in the video because 1) they are unusual for their style of music 2) they represent the beat and the colour change helps represent the beats importance to their movement and 3) the colour is a huge comparison to the light used when the band play which is a bright light. the white light connotes their power and significance in the video as they are the high performers the "stars" and therfore the white light is their stardom and success.

Evaluation

Last week we finished the rough cut of our evaluation. The main content of the evaluation, (answers to all of the questions) have been filmed, uploaded and edited, but a few design aspects will need to be changed before the piece can be called finished. We also need to add some outside material, such as a youtube video and various screenshots, that will be placed at the relevant places in the evaluation.
The final piece is somewhere between 5-6 minutes and goes into depth in answering questions about the production of our music video and ancillary tasks. It is formatted in the style of all the members of our group answering one of the questions, along with various clips from the music video and of the editing process, as well as pictures and screenshots layered over the top, much like a voice-over.
The evaluation also includes a backing track (Vampire Weekend's 'Giving Up The Gun'), which I think adds a slightly more atmospheric and professional quality, as well as sounding good and relating to the work we have already done.
After leaving ourselves with little time to produce the evaluation, I am pleased with what we have produced. I feel the style in which we have created the piece has worked very well, as it comes across as professional yet informal, while managing to avoid being dull and repetitive, which was an important objective.

The Final Touches

We are now in the process of finishing off our music video and evaluation. It wasn't long ago when we were filming our evaluation.

We all felt that the filming went well and all the answers (written by Stan) worked equally as well. During filming, every member of the group took up the challenge of answering a question on camera, and all were successful.

The editing of the evaluation and the music video have been the main focus over the last few days, as opposed to the digipak and website development. We really want to perfect the moving image side of our portfolio.

Now that we are coming to the final stages of the project, we are starting to look at our production from an audience's point of view and we feel it is very entertaining.

We are very excited about the final product.

Website

Here is a link to our website!

http://www.wix.com/stanevans93/vampire-weekend

I feel I have managed to create a website that directly promotes our own project without straying beyond the boudaries of a professional and authentic band website. I think the key to this was finding a balance between linking the website directly to our own work, while maintaining a realistic and believable feel within the website.
The website contains a mix between official band pictures (such as promotional photo shoot pictures and live performances) and some of our own work (digipak covers that we produced on Photoshop and screenshots from our music video).
While trying to stick to various conventions used in the official Vampire Weekend website, I tried to give the website it's own identity, in the sense that I moved away from the official fonts, and employed a plain black background (which is an effect that we have also used with out digipak).
I found Wix an extremely useful programme, and it made the whole process a lot easier than I had anticipated, and I feel that it has enabled me to produce a website that we are all very pleased with.

Audience Feedback (Editing)

A key way to producing a great/loveable music video is to take advice from people, especially those who fall into your target audience. On Tuesday we had 5 participants come in and want our (unfinished) video. After watching the video we had lots of positive comments. Particularly on the concept of out video which was really pleasing as we had received some critical feedback from others on this front before hand.

We also had some, constructive criticism which can help us, one recommendation that was all agreed on by the audience was that it needed more effects. (To go with the catchy beat of the song) Later on I managed to complete some editing and re-called the participants back to asked them what they thought of the new idea and they loved it!

Below are some screenshots of what I have created.

As you can see from careful observation I had to be perfect on getting the right amount of colour control on each dial, I chose that 0.5 and 0.54 were the magic numbers for me. I was basically reversing the colours each time the shot changed on the edit.

Using this audience feedback as given us a massive confidence boost as we now know that we are pleasing our target audiences!

Digipak (Back)

A back panel of a digipak or CD case will have certain features that we can also apply. Below is a copy from the back of Vampire Weekend's A-Punk CD case, when I create the back cover I will base my ideas on this template.

After a long day on Photoshop (PS) I have created the back cover that I wanted for the Digipak. Using the original copy of the Vampire Weekend CD back to inspire me I have created a similar and more, what I think is simplistic version.

This is the start of the back for our Digipak, similar to the original copy, I have created a black background with a grey rectangle covering the majority of the middle section of the back. Along the time I have label the Digipak with the artist's name and the song name. I will go on to fill each individual letter with colour, as I did on the front.

Here you can see me adding colour to each letter, it is quite a simple task once you know how. I had to be sure to get the same mix of colours that were on the front cover to maintain professionalism. This is just one of the MANY skills I have acquired throughout this production.

This is the back copy now having finished the lettering.

To add a finishing touch to the lettering I decided to spread out the A-PUNK letters to cover up more space and therefore match the VAMPIRE WEEKEND in length. I got this idea from a Radiohead album that I own, "In Rainbows" which uses this technique on the back and I think it's really cool.

After finishing the lettering I moved onto adding some extra information to the back, in the bottom right corner I add some details about the song which I got from Wikipedia. This gives it a more professional look. I also added a track listing to the back as this is a standard convention of any CD or Digipak. I added an extra song as singles will always have an extra song, even if it is a single about one song like it is for us.

Added a barcode to the back was the last thing I did today. This just gives it a more authentic and professional feeling. I copied the barcode of Google Images and pasted it into PS then re-scaled it.

One thing I may change... Is that I feel there is wasted space on the right hand side of the pack. I had an idea to add pictures of the actors in their costumes on here but I'm not convinced it would look good yet. So tomorrow I will do this and decide whether I will keep it on or not. Either way I will blog about my decision.

Ian

Evaluation

Today we filmed our evaluation which went really well. Firstly Stan wrote out the answers to the four set questions we were given, Stan then took the time to write everybodys input and efforts through out the making video process which we then explored the negatives and mostly positive moments when making our music video. we made sure that the questions we talked about in our evaluation were in great detail so that when people come to watch the video they can get involved and find out how we went about designing the digipak, the editing and the shots used in the video. we wanted to make sure that our target audience will get the most of our evaluation so that they enjoy our work equally to our enjoyment making it.

Digipak (Template)

After finalising the digipak cover all that was left to do is finishings of the rest of the digipak and deciding what contents we would include inside. I used the website (www.discwizards.com) to find a template. After looking through lots of potential templates that I could use I managed to pick one that I think is suitable for our design.

Above is the template that I have chosen to design without our covers on. In a previous post you will have seen the front cover we've chosen for our digipak, this leaves the three other panels to be completed.

Website

Using the website www.wix.com we have been able to create a website of our own for the purposes of promoting the release of the song we have chosen and the video that we are producing to accompany it.
Despite a few minor technical adjustments here and there I feel that the website is pretty much done. The website comprises of six pages:

HOME:
The page features a large picture of the cover of the new single (the one we designed for our digipak) accompanied by a release date for the single. This closely follows the style of the official Vampire Weekend website, which features a simple homepage with a large advertisement for the latest album 'Contra'.

MUSIC:
Features an mp3 of the song 'A-Punk' along with advertisements on where to buy various singles and both albums.

PHOTOS:
The page includes various pictures of the actual band, during live performances and from photo shoots, but also includes screen shots from our music video.

TOUR:
A list of various dates for ucoming live shows in the US, and details of how to access tickets.

CONTACT:
This includes a box in which you can email the band (although you can't actually email the band directly from our website) as well as details about following the band on twitter.

MERCHANDISE:
Advertising for band merchandise (this will of course be unofficial merchandise and you will not actually be able to purchase these items).

The only changes that need to be made are to do with tweaking design features (such as changing the font and updating the picture on the homepage).
These changes will be made as soon as possible and I will then be able to publish the website online.
Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of the website, and wix, despite throwing up some technical difficulties, has made this task a lot smoother than I had anticipated.

Digipak (Front)

Having worked on our digipak for the last couple of days I have now be able to draw up a final design which I will now design and produce a hard copy. (Aim to be completed by next week)

Above is the finished copy of out front cover. I used photoshop to produce this image, with the hard task of layering the images. (Ending up with 180!) With the expertise of Miss Hill, I managed to cut away certain lines of the letters as you can see from the images. I really like this idea and I feel that the end result was exactly what I was aiming to produce.

With the image of the fruit in the middle of the shot I think this gives a unique sense to the cover as it is quite random, and yet still relates to our project.

I will follow with another post in the next few days. Using the website: http://www.discwizards.com/cd-dvd-artwork-templates.htm I will work on a template that I have chosen and will decide how to structure our digipak and design it.

Ian

Effective Editing

The main aims throughout our whole editing process are to:

• Produce sleek and professional looking production
• Use quality footage and editing techniques effectively
• End up with a music video that entertains and impresses the audience

Now that we are currently in the editing process it would be appropriate to employ some effective editing in order to achieve our aims.

As you can see from previous posts, we have planned for a long time to draw in editing techniques used by professional music video directors into our own production. We are now starting to see some of this planning come to fruition. We are currently employing one of Michel Gondry's techniques as a main part of the video. This technique was used by Gondry during his video of the White Stripes - 'Hardest Button to Button'. It involves the tedius process of cutting multiple parts of the clip out in order to create the effect of unatural movement on the beat (it is hard to explain).

We hope to continue to use this effective editing in order to have a positive effective on the audience. We want to be different, but impressive.

Oli

Textual Analysis

The Dead Weather - Hang You From the Heavens



'Hang You from the Heavens' is the debut single by American alternative rock band The Dead Weather, released in March 2009. The single was accompanied with a low budget music video.
The video is shot entirely in black and white and uses only two camera angles and features the band members sitting inside of a photo booth in various sequences and combinations. Despite it's simplicity, the video successfully uses the technique of quick cutting in time with the music, which not only provides an effective link between the music and visuals, but also creates an awkward, unnatural atmosphere that matches the style of music. This is a technique that we have made significant use of in our music video, to again add a kind of quirky feel to the video.
Jack White, of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, is one of the founders of the band and also produced the record, and parallells can be drawn between this video and the video for The White Stripes' 'The Hardest Button to Button', directed by Michel Gondry. The video uses the cutting on the beat technique, while Jack and Meg White and their instruments move through various urban locations.

Division Of Labour (Post Filming)

Now that we have filmed all our footage we are in the process of editing. I have taken up the main role of editing for the time being and Stan is also dedicating a lot of his time to it to, together we are really aiming to get the work completed by the 17th of Feb!!

As I stated in a previous post, I had given each member certain task to complete, Oli and Nat tried to create a digipak design on Photoshop but this proved too much for them and I have now taken over and am now producing the digipak. Stan is still working away on the website and I'm sure he will be posting up some screenshots or links soon about the website which is looking great!

My main priority is now the digipak as this is behind schedule and I need to work hard to finish this in time for the deadline of the 10th of Feb. I have never used Photoshop before but with the help of Miss Hill and my existing knowledge on Macintosh computers I think I'll be fine.

Nat and Oli are now doing some editing on the other Mac computer which we are using, Stan and myself are still dedicating time after school and in our study periods to add to the editing.

We have found that our style of song as required us to complete LOTS of editing as we are cutting on nearly every drum beat!

Analysis Of Previous Student Work

When comparing productions of former students we can really appreciate their work. For the following video, I have chosen to analyse a production from a university student who chose to re-create the same video as us for his production.

We must bear in mind that he is at degree level and we can therefore assume that he will have better equipment and more spare time to have made his production but nevertheless we can still compare to his video.

This is a very nice, fluent video which really matches the song. I think that considering his situation he has produced a brilliant film. He is by himself and has managed to film all of his shots by himself in public areas. As you can see from the comments on his video, he spent 4 days filming this production and 3 days editing. We can relate to this as we are in a similar situation at the moment. Also with all the cutting on the beat which we are creating, he did a similar idea throughout his entire film.

Having watched this video before filming, I am glad that I could branch some ideas from his production and hope that our project will be as successful as his is in terms of the fluency and precise editing.

Ian

Textual Analysis

As we are now in the editing process our production we are incorporating many different ideas into our editing. One shot that we have used in particular is the reverse effect. As we have been focusing on our production using the cut on the beat technique we have chosen to replay clips which can be associated with different areas of the song.

I have found the following video which is a real inspiration for me personally, I feel that the use of reverse shooting in the film really emphasises the narrative and although we are not looking for the exact same affect I believe it still gives the video a unique appeal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxNJHuM0Js0

You can see the effect the reverse editing has on the video and how inflectional it is. Although we are using it for a different purpose I hope you can now understand how we will incorporate this effect to our production.

Ian

The Editing Process

After finishing our filming for our production on Saturday we have began on the editing process. I uploaded all our footage on Monday and have began editing our clips, we have made some good progress this week and the video is falling into place nicely.

I predict we will have finished our editing by next Friday (11th) and will then have one week drawing up our evaluation together using feedback from audiences and our entire production should be finished and burnt onto a disk by Friday the 18th of February.

As this is the first time I have used Final Cut it has been very challenging for me, learning everything from scratch and using only mine and my teachers' knowledge. We have come across many problems which we have struggled to cope with throughout editing, such as manipulating clips in new ways, reversing shots, speed shots up, rotating the frames and also how to display audio waves. I had to use external resources to figure out problems such as YouTube videos and Online Forums.

I have learnt a lot throughout this last week. I now feel a lot more comfortable on Final Cut Express, I will continue to edit the last parts of our production together next week until I am happy that it is up to standard.

Ian

Textual Analysis

Yolanda Be Cool Vs DCUP - We No Speak Americano

'We No Speak Americano is a song by Australian dance duo Yolanda Be Cool and producer DCUP, released on independent Australian label Sweat It Out in February 2010. The song samples 1956 song 'Tu vuo fa l'americano' by Renato Carosone.

The video is set out in the style of a Chaplinesque silent film, with the Italian protagonist trying to make some fast money in New York. One noticeable feature is the way the whole video has been sped up, creating more of a comedic atmosphere (similar to Charlie Chaplin films), while matching the style of the music as well. This is a technique that we will be using in the editing process of our video as we are looking to create the same effect. We feel that the 'fast forward' technique perfectly matches the fast paced tempo and the choppy, upbeat style of 'A-Punk', and we hope to utilise this technique as successfully as it was used here.

This image was our favourite. we decided to go with this image because of its unigue look and aspect of a typical fruit bowl. The fruitbowl looks ancient and old fashioned which was something we were all interested in creating into something a bit tasty. even though the clours looked abit washed out, we were able to change and alter the colours by using photoshop. It did take us nearly a lesson to figure out how to apply all the colour changes, contrasts and transformations, but we successfully found what we were looking for by creating a gold effect on the original image. we were definately happy with the results and will update when the final piece is done.

Here is an image of a fruit bowl which we first played around with. This image was a good first idea, because of its basic shapes and outstanding colours. however we found this to original to use as our final digipak idea and decided to explore futher with different images.

digipak progress

myself and oli have made progress with the design of our music video digipak.
we have used the image of a fruit bowl which we downloaded onto the mac to use in the software photoshop. We made the background black and cut around the fruit bowl and placed the cropped picture over our black background. We then played around with the colour of the fruit bowl to make it a bit wacky and fun, we changed the colour and contrast to make the fruit bowl gold. The gold effect has created a feel to the digipak because it makes the fruit bowl appear ancient but fresh at the same time. we wanted to make the cover look unique and different as we didnt want the average looking fruits in a bowl,otherwise the digipak and music video would clash.
lastly we designed a similar text to the "Vampire Weekend" style to keep some of its originallity.
Me and Oli definately had some fun creating our first draft of the digipak, however it did come along with some difficulties. We were fustrated with alot of the tools involved with photoshop, but we learnt by asking advice and exploring the software ourselves we would achieve the best for our digipak.

Filming

On Saturday we managed to film the large majority of our footage. We were able to capture a range of different shots, which has provided a more diverse selection of clips for our video. With the hired help of media film veteran Luke Pilkington-Amps (who made the role his own), we were able to lighten the burden of being in front of the camera ourselves, and gave us more opportunities to share the filming responsibilty.
The majority of the filming was done in Nowton Park in Bury st Edmunds, as it provided us with lots of space to put all of our ideas into fruition (no pun intended), as well as being a place with few distractions and interferences.
The setting worked very well, as we were able to use our surroundings to suit us (such as the 'corridor of trees' setting, which we used to frame one of our scenes).
All the footage has been uploaded today where we will decide of we need to re-film any shots, or if there are any other shots that will work in the video. However, overall I think that we have basically all the footage we need to make it into a great music video.