Poster development, Images

Original photos and the edits for our magazine advert:

Original photographs

Aisha was given the exciting task of taking the photographs while we were on set here is a link to her blog to see the original photographs pre-editing! Click here.

Research into indie genre music promotional posters

Now that we have obtained some general research on the magazine-music institution, we are now looking a little deeper into the area that is particularly important to us- the indie market. The reason we are doing this is although there are conventions in general concerning promotional magazine advert, there are also differences in the way that different genres are presented in order to reach their target audience. Firstly I have looked at a HMV advertisement for The Killers. I have briefly analysed this, identifying the main features that make this poster successful and make it have impact.




These two magazine adverts are both very similar and both come into our target market audience. Both use dark backgrounds, simple bold text and also simple images. These are elements which we feel work very well as they are simple yet have a big impact. We feel if we make our poster too busy it will look unrealistic and unprofessional as all the adverts we have seen so
far have been fairly simple.The first magazine advert only uses white and red text. The information is very simple and consists of; the album name, release date, one critic view and the band website. The second magazine advert only uses white text. The information is far more in this advert. The magazine advert includes; the album name, several critic reports, the singles on the album and the band website.

Filming day one TAKE TWO!

Cast

So these are our new and final characters for our music video. There are only two characters in the story which is our main actor, Harry who is tormented by his inner deamon the puppet:

Profile:

Name: Harry Painter
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Role: Schizophrenic teenager battling his inner "demons" which takes form through the puppet. He is not in control of his own life and the line between reality and nightmare begins to overlap.

Costume: Indie/shabby style, hoody needed

Profile

Name: Charlie the puppet

Role: Puppet must torment main actor and embodies the lack of control he has over his life. The clown must be ominous but also sutble. Something that looks normal to people in a normal state of mind which in taken out of context and made sinister by the exaggeration of the main characters mind

Poster research

In order to create a professional looking poster as part of our digi-pak we needed to do some brief research firstly on the overall conventions of music posters in the industry. After this we will then put some more extensive research into our target genre conventions concerning promotional posters. As we can see from the following images there is a huge variety of ways to present a promotional poster:


This is a fairly simplistic poster which would most probably be seen as an advert in a magazine or on a billboard. It is a clean fresh looking poster which is eye catching and the text is not over-whelming. The information is informative and on a need to know basis. it also shows a copy of the album as well as a photograph of the artist.
This poster promoting Oasis's album is a whole new way of presenting a promotional poster and features no picture at all of the band. It is simply based on the artwork of the album which is used to enable the viewer to identify the artwork, making it recognizable. Again the poster is simple and to the point with little text.
This is an example of one of the new JLS album promotion posters. The poster is very simple with minimal text with just the band name and album title. However this poster is used to promote the album after it's release therefore does not need as much text. This poster consists of just one of the band member which is slightly unconventional, however it works as the band is so famous and identifiable
This Girls Aloud poster although fairly old has been very useful as to me this is a traditional promotional poster. This is the same artwork used on the album cover which is being used to promote both the band and the new album.

Animatic

Untitled from Megan Painter on Vimeo.

Mise en scene

The Mise en scene of our video will be crucial in not only creating the house style of our brand but also to reflect the mood and feelings of our character. As titled "Shadowplay" we felt that it was important to incorporate the idea of shadows into a video, and is in fact central to our main vision of the video. This meant that darkness would have to be used to create the shadow, which also fits in well to reflect the torment of our character. Throughout our video we plan to use dark, forbidding imagery to convey his state of mind and a sense of being trapped. We also plan to use strobe light towards the end of our video to fit in with the fast and manic pace of the music which also reflects the madness and un-stability of our main character. Overall the darkness and horror-movie element gives a very dark and gothic style to our video which we feel not only reflects the lyric of the song but also the emotions in our story-line creating a strong image for our video.

Costume

It is important to our video that before we go out to film we put research into the type of clothes our actor should wear. His clothes not only must reflect our genre of music but also must look like they belong in a music video. In order to to this we have research the type of clothes worn by the killers themselves and also other similar artists in the indie genre.

The Kooks

Scouting for girls

Arctic Monkeys

Bombay Bicycle Club

Most use the term "indie" to describe any rock music produced by artists working within the network of independent record labels. However in modern society it is also used to describe the way a person dresses and the music they listen to. Stereotypically the type of clothes and style associated with this movement are skinny jeans, checked shirts, denim jackets, boat shoes, long messy hair, vintage/retro clothing and much more. As shows in the pictures above indie bands take all these elements to create a strong image for themselves. However as I have noticed for many of these bands often they are very normal looking, and seem relatable to their fans. They do not dress as if they are rich and famous which would make their image unattainable to many. This is something we to endeavour to achieve to conform to constraints of the music industry.

We have decided from our research that our main character will be wearing: Black skinny jeans, a checked shirt, a dark jacket and "Vans". We want him to appear like a ordinary person who our audience can feel empathy with and can relate to.

New locations

A slight glitch

Over the past few weeks we have had quite a few setbacks especially concerning the weather. However, we understand that we still must meet our deadlines and have tried to film when and where we can. Despite this we have now encountered a new problem; our main actor Lewis has been unable to attend much of the filming as he has been too busy due to school commitments, not only this but we have been filming and also our main location after getting our first lot of material back did not work as well as we have hoped. These have been huge setbacks but after much debating and panicking we finally over came these problems! As a group we decided that we needed to change actor in order to be able to get the crucial filming done as time was soon running out! Over the Christmas holidays we have taken out a camera and we have decided to use my brother Harry as our main character. As Harry is my brother it is much easier to grab him for filming etc. We have also changed our location so that it is nearer to mine and Hulya's house so we can film more often. Hulya cleared out her garage which had to plain white walls; just what we were looking for, and over all gives us a much better location that we had been hoping for. Although we have now had to pretty much start over again we are hopeful that now we will be able to make some steady progress despite our setbacks. Although it could be seen that our previous filming was a waste of time, we have learnt a lot from it and in a way this gives us an opportunity to create something better than we would have been able to the first time round!

second day of filimg- time lapse

First day of filming

On Sunday we began filming at our first location- the shed with the white walls. Unfortunately we had not received our puppet by this time and we were only able to shoot a small amount of the video, however something is better than nothing. The day went relatively successfully and we learnt a lot from it, especially to be more organized as it took us a long time to set up. We come across a few problems one of which was lighting as it was very dark on set. To try and resolve this problem we used torches to create a dim light as we wanted the location to look dark and ominous.

We used candles to create another dim lighting effect which I feel worked very effectively. After filming the opening sequence to the video we moved onto the strings in which we plan to show gradually growing and then attaching to Lewis establishing the main idea that he is not in control of his own life and he is trapped.

This took a very long time to set up and in hindsight we should have set it up before we were ready to film as it meant we all had to take a trip to ASDA as we had forgotten to buy string! After this we could finally set up but the overall effect ended up looking quite good

Then we were finally ready to get some footage. The first thing we decided to film was the "strings scene" this ran quite smoothly and we were quickly able to move on. We then began to film the opening sequence which involved Lewis striking a match then lighting the candle giving him light from below him giving an ominous horror-like look. This had to be filmed in two separate parts as the light below him on the candle was too weak. This meant that we had to film him striking the match, PAUSE the camera, followed with a close up of his hands lighting the candle the camera up PAUSE and then we placed a small torch underneath his face which was out of shot giving the appearance of candle light.

Locations

Location 1

Location 2

Location 3

digipak research

Digipak

While we had a bit of spare time we decided to use it constructively and began research on the digipak part of our coursework. So before we can even begin to think up ideas and designs we need to understand the conventions of a digipak and how they are targeted at their audiences. This required intensive research on the topic .

So what is a digipak?

A form of jewel case, for holding one or more CDs or DVDs, in which the outer cover is of card rather than plastic.Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.

Digipaks are not only used for CD covers but as mentioned also DVD's. However it is important that in order for our case to look professional we must use the correct sizing which is used normally. We found this information out from a website called www.4bmartinvest.co.uk which distributes the "Flexi trays" used in digipaks.

The information we found out was that the typical size of a CD tray is 135mm x 125 mm. Now that we know the correct size of the tray this enables us to make correct sizing of our images on photoshop etc.

The word digipak is really just a fancy way of saying what we would call a CD case. In modern society with an increasing competitive market in the music industry and the competition from downloading online, the digipak has become increasingly more important to the success of the single/album being sold. The CD cover is the thing which makes a CD stand out on the rack, it is the thing that makes you remember it on a TV advert or you simply see your favourite artist featured and you go out and buy it. This puts a huge importance on the design and layout of the digipak. However this also varies according to the market you are trying to appeal to. Here are some examples of a variety of genre digipaks:

Rhianna: Loud

Seen in the photograph above is Rhianna's latest album "loud", and is a particular favourite of mine. What I feel works really well about this digi-pak is its use of color and also its simplicity. The delicacy of the layout makes this a strong and powerful image and creates a very feminine look, which is the main target audience of Rhianna. This particular album also links to Rhianna's latest music video "only girl in the world" which makes it instantly identifiable to those who have watched this video. The images have clearly been manipulated and desaturated slightly which works well as it creates a softness to the photos which could otherwise be too bright and over powering. The CD itself also follows the style of the digi-pak and shows a great attention to detail. This digi-pak is not only designed for its purpose but it is also been designed for the user to enjoy is and be ascetically pleased by it.

Filming Schedule

Ebay

Finding the puppet

While the anamatic was being finished off by Hulya, myself and Aisha headed off to ebay and amazon scouring the net for a puppet to use in our video. This was very hard as the puppet is central to the plot and it had to look right or the whole video just would not work.We searched for ages for puppets, ventriloquists, string puppets- you name it we searched it! After days of looking we still could not find a puppet that looked the part....




Finally after about a week of endless searching we found exactly what we were looking for! However the auction had five days until it ended, We got into contact with the owner straight away to see if we could buy it outright if we offered him a fair price. However unfortunately he would not take it off, as it had already received bids so we had to hold tight and wait. Sunday came and we were all at the ready with our credit cards, and in the last two minutes we went bid crazy! Luckily we managed to win the item and received the puppet just a few short days later and we were finally able to film our video.

Animatic

So what is as animatic? Well wikipedia define is as:

A graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity.

As I earlier mentioned the purpose of creating an animatic of our music video is a means of planning and it will give a rough idea of what the video will look like. This allows us to see if certain elements of the video do not fit together allowing us to identify and solve the problem before filming it. It also allows us to fit the images in time with the music and to see if the cuts and images fit with the music.

We all created the anamatic as a group and carefully listened to the music making sure it was all in time.

We are using a website called www.vimeo.com which will host our animatic video. To do this we have saved the format of the video in quicktime in order to make it compatible with the website.

Storyboard and making the anamatic

Now that we have decided on a rough idea we need to begin to story board our ideas to give our video direction. After this we will use our story board to create an anamatic on final cut. This will enable us to have a clear view of how our video will/should look. This will allow us to be organised on set as we will be able to devise a filming schedule and what props we will need etc.
Firstly before drawing the final story board we did a rough draft so that we could fit what images we wanted to the timing of the music.After this Hulya went and drew the final storyboard at home. After she did this the pictures were scanned into the computer and we could edit them to fit in time with the music.

There were still a few blanks which we have not quite decided on yet but we are continuing to think of ideas and hope that once we begin filming we will have some inspiration. After the storyboard was scanned into the computer we uploaded it to the Apple Macs and imported the images and music to final cut where we began to create our anamatic.

Dragons Den Pitch

In order to get started on our video and filming we first had to obtain approval from our teacher that our idea would work. Each group had to individually pitch their ideas to her and if she did not think it was suitable it was back to the drawing board. However we felt that we now had a solid idea with reasoning behind it which suited the music and lyrics of our chosen song.
In our pitch we presented our moodboard to Mrs Mcluckie which gave an overall vision of what we had got from the song in the early stages; the things it made us feel and think and our reponse to certain lyrics. We also made a short powerpoint presenation explaining how we got to this point and how our ideas developed to give her a sense of what direction we were going in. (as seen below)

Presentation1 media

View more presentations from mpainter1.

After this we also presented our mood board and then proposed our main narrative storyline idea.Once we had finished our pitch, our teacher gave us the go ahead for our ideas but also gave us some advice concerning past examiners remarks etc. She then advised us to go and watch our favourite music video and idenitfy things which make them memorable and things that we want to achieve in our own video.

Developing ideas

After creating our huge mood board, we need to start developing a more directed idea for our story. Overall from our mood board the main theme we interpreted from the music were the ideas of being trapped, feeling isolated, not in control, torture.
After becoming clear that this was the theme we were going to be working with we began to jot down some inital ideas.

Idea 1: Our first idea centered around the main theme of fate. In this idea the main character of our story would have an event which will decide what happens in the rest of their life e.g missing or catching a train. In one story we would be showing if they catch the train the character will make it to their music gig and become famous and life will be good and he/she will be happy. If he misses the train he misses the gig and gets chucked out the band and becomes homeless with no money turning to drugs and his/her life begins to go in a downwards spiral. This idea was influenced by the film Sliding Doors (see video below:)

However after much group discussion we felt that this idea did not really suit our lyrics and we felt we were forcing some of the ideas to suit the music when in reality they did not fit. This would also be a very time comsuming idea as we would have to film both outcomes separately which would be extremely time consuming in such a limited time scale. We felt that overall this idea was not going to work and once again we were back to the drawing board.

Idea 2: Our second idea centralized around the theme of drug abuse as we felt some of the lyrics coincided with this theme. However we felt this was a sensitive, and hard subject to access and would be hard to make look realistic with a low budget. We therefore dropped this idea and went back to the drawing board

.

Idea 3: This time we focused on the chorus and title of our song "Shadowplay" as we felt this could be a central theme to our idea. So what does shadowplay exactly mean? Well there is not just one definative answer and this is ambiguous. This was an idea we felt we wanted to play on and we decided the idea of our video would be ambiguous and could be interpreted in many different ways to different people. However as a group we decided that shadowplay is like when you are a child and you make shadows on the wall. This then became the focus of our idea and then in conjunction with the emotions we had drawn from the other lyrics and music of the song we began to develop this idea.

Development: As we wanted to portray the ideas of isolation, pain, torture etc. We decided to add a horror element to the simple shadow idea. This then led us to the idea of a puppet which is a symbol of childhood, but make it "evil" or a symbol of horror. The idea was now that the puppet tortures our main character who feels trapped in a world he does not understand.

Our music video storyline

The basic concept of our video is to convey the idea of an individual who is tormented by a figment of his imagination which has a presence in every aspect of his life. We are using our clown puppet to convey this figment of his imagination as it is symbolic of horror. The storyline is fairly basic in the fact there is no real "story" it is just about how the person is tormented and feels trapped and how he tries to overcome this. At the end of our video we also hope to achieve a cliff hanger ending which will keep to viewer in suspense and will also reiterate the idea of horror to our video.
Overall to achieve this we have collectively decided that we will use low-key lighting to convey these feelings and also to give a nightmarish quality to the image of our video, which should contrast the end of the video which will become light symbolising freedom.

The Killers

Another crucial element of understanding the "indie rock" music market is also understanding the band we are creating our video from; The Killers. The Killers are an American rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada that was formed in 2001. The band consists of Brandon Flowers Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannucci Jr.As an alternative rock band, The Killers draw some of their influences from the music styles of the 1980s. They have been described as Sin City pretty boys with a new-romantic streak.

In order to get to know the band better and the way in which they perceive their own music and style I have included an interview with the band with Neil Howie from Left Lion.com. (see below)

How does it feel to be part of this tour?"It feels really great. It's so cool that we're on this tour and the fact we're the headlining band makes it even cooler. We're really looking forward to it and we're going to make it a show to remember!."

What should people expect from a Killers performance?"I think we are a whole different thing live than on record. We bring a whole load of energy and we definitely try to make every performance something special. We're getting better and better right now, we've had a year of touring and it gets really exciting playing these shows. We're more raw, more brutal on stage. When we connect with the audience and they connect with us amazing things happen."

How have you developed or changed as a band over the last twelve months?"In the live shows as much as anything. Through all the touring we've done we've learnt how to make a live show that really works. At first we were a little nervous and had to concentrate on what we were playing - now those songs are second nature and that means we can concentrate on making a great show. We've been thrown in front of huge crowds a few times now and it's always worked out so we're more able to relax on stage and that's made us a better live band. We've seen the ups and downs of this whole rock and roll thing too. The ups are really great, being able to do this as a career is fantastic, doing what one in a million want, what everyone who plays their guitar in a garage dream of. Being able to play your own music for people and meeting your heroes, we've met Bono, Elton John and David Bowie, is just awesome."
"That's surreal, two years ago these people were only in our fantasies! Now they actually know who we are and appreciate our music. But the downs can be bad - up until a couple of months ago we were still in a van. You hardly ever sleep, you hardly ever go home, in some way it's a mad way to live- most nights I sleep in a little coffin bunk on the floor of the bus - but it really is all worth it. I'm not complaining, you understand!"


What are the other bands on the tour like?"They're great, I'm really looking forward to seeing Bloc Party and I really like that Futureheads record. It's gonna be great."

Will there be lots of rock and roll action on this tour?"Not from us! Off stage we're one of the least rock and roll bands you could ever meet! We're right down to business, it's a bit of a cliché, but we really are about the music. It's such a hard thing to do and it's so much work that you need to rest or you'll get burnt out really fast."

Franz Ferdinand were in a similar position to you last year and they've gone on to be hugely successful, does that put the pressure on you?"Sort of. But in America we're pretty equal. They've been selling a lot of records in the States, but we're catching up. We're doing really well in the UK, so, independent of their success, we always thought we'd be successful anyway. But it's great to see bands even close to what we're doing being successful. It's a positive sign."

What do you want people to take away with them from a Killer's show?"We want them to come out of a show knowing they felt something and they were moved by the songs. We want them to feel good and to know they got something different than just what they would hear on the record. I guess it's a connection, a musical and personal one. But most of all, we want them to have a good night!"

You'll be stuck on a tourbus for almost a month, what will be the most difficult part?"Sleeping on the floor, the bus jerking around, nine other guys around you at all times, the lack of privacy, everytime you look up seeing someone's ass sticking out of a bunk, so many things. But you get used to it."

You're going to thirteen cities on the tour, do you have particular favourites?"I love London, of course! But that's easy. Nottingham is fantastic too, every time we go there it's amazing. All the audiences in Scotland are insane, Glasgow in particular, but we've not had a bad show in England yet, so we're really looking forward to this tour."

Do you have a secret, pre-gig ritual?"Kind of a little one. We have a huddle and sometimes we'll talk about things that might have gone wrong the night before. We talk about what to do, what not to do, how important the show is. Other than that we just hang out and do our thing!"

This interview has given us a real insight to what the band is like and how they feel and perceive their music and themselves as a band. It is important for us to discover this, as the song is targeted at the same audience as us.

Copyright Letter

As web definition from wikipedia copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by the law of a jurisdiction to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. As a result of this in order to be legally allowed to use the killers track for our music video we will need to obtain permission from the record label. The track "Shadow Play" is the second song from the album "sawdust" which was produced by Island Records. In order to gain permission we have written an email to Island Records requesting their permission. (see below)

As a group we constructed a letter which Aisha sent on behalf of the group.Below is a copy of what was written in this letter.

Dear Copyright Holder,

I am an A level student and I am writing to request your permission to use one track by the artist; The Killers, entitled ‘Shadow play’ (Joy Division cover). The track 'Shadow Play' is the second track in The Killers' album; 'Sawdust'

With your permission, this track would be used in my current A-level Media Studies project, which involves creating a music video for a popular music track, as well as producing an album and a magazine advert for the artist.

If I received your permission, this track would ONLY be used in an educational context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. It would NOT be released to a large audience or uploaded to any public video websites.

The artist and your company would of course be fully recognized throughout pre-production and the final video itself. A copyright notice, with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required, please send full details.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Aisha Adedeji

Inspiration editing

The Prodigy's song "Omen" has been a particular inspiration to us as it also tries to convey a similar message that we are also trying to. Not only this but the pace of the music is extremely fast and their video consists of a huge array of fast, snappy cuts and is edited also to suit this.

The idea of torment and horror is conveyed in a variety of ways including the editing and transitions. Elements from this video have proved a huge influence to us and have also displayed to us the importance of the editing and how this must reflect the pace of the music. This not only makes the video look like it belongs with the music but will also be particularly effective for us in conveying the mania of our character.

Controversial Videos

In response to our target audience to create a unique "off the wall" video which is different to the norm as a group we have opted for what at the moments seems like a challenge. We have decided to use our music video to highlight controversial issues through the visuals of our video in reponse to the lyrics. From our research we have deduced that many videos from this genre do this, which can be seen in the following examples. These videos have also been the videos which we haved viewed multiple times as they are interesting and take more than one sitting to be understood. We also aspire to achieve this in our video having many different layers to our video which will spark different interpretations and views.


- Highlighting the issue of adultry and the destruction it causes

- highlighting the issues of bullying

- contraverial from its explicit drug referneces and graphic imagery

- Living up to their reputation this video has a age limit on those who can view it! This video was at #1 on the countdown and therefore named the "Most Controversial Video" in MTV's history. The video portrays drinking and driving, snorting cocaine, violence, vandalism, nudity and sex. The unedited version also includes a scene of heroin use and a hit and run incident.

Target Audience

Now that we have decided the genre and song it is important to identify our target audience. It is necessary to find the right balance when defining your target market in a way that causes your audience to recognize that you are talking specifically to them. It also creates a sense of a brand and gives its members a sense of belonging to a certain community. During our research a website which has been particularly useful is

UK Tribes.com.

The website is a project which looks at youth culture and offered a tribal breakdown based on the social glues (music, sport, fashion, technology etc) around which young people gather. This has been vital to our research as one of these "tribes" labelled indie scenesters is the market we will be aiming at, the website has provided us with invaluable information concerning this audience such as their fashion, favourite brands, favourite hangout places and up and coming bands. This information allows us to reach out to this target audience and know what type of people they are and how to attract them which is fundamental to our planning. Not only must our music be relevant to its genre but as this website has shown us young people take themselves very seriously. It is important to them to feel like they "belong" and we must therefore cater to what it is they are familiar with.

This is a short clip from the website summarizing our target audience:

However as seen in the description of "Indie Scensesters"

"like to be ahead of the game when it comes to discovering new music."

So conversely while it is important to adhere to the conventions of the genre it is also important to keep it new, fresh and trendy.We can also see that the media consumption of this audience is very large:

So from this we can tell that it is important to our audience to have a video to their music as they clearly enjoy the visual side of media as their main areas of consumption are the internet, magazines and newspapers all of which are predominantly visual.

Getting to know our target audience

In order to get to know our audience better we have carried out a few short video clip interviews with our peers who we feel fit into this genre/target audience. We have asked them a few questions in order to get a first hand account of what our target audience likes and wants which is important in understanding the conventions which apply to this genre which will subsequently allow us to create a well targeted music video. I have asked one student Jemma Cook, who I feel fits the stereo type "indie" and asked her some questions which we constructed as a group. We all interviewed at least one person and the other interviews can be seen on Hulya's and Aisha's blog.

Question 1

How would you describe the genre "indie rock"?

Question 2&3

What music channel do you watch?

What radio station do you listen to?

Question 4

Who is your favourite musician/band?

Question 5

What is your favourite music video and why?

Question 6&7

Do you prefer performance or narrative videos?

What hobbies to you enjoy?

Question 8

Define yourself in five words

Mood board

We have created a mood board in response to both the lyrics and music to our chosen song "Shadowplay". In this mood board we have used images and words which we feel best represent how the song makes us think and feel. We have also jotted down some initial ideas that these images have given us for our video.