‘In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?’

In our brief we were given the task to create a music video promo for a unsigned band. We also had to create a digipak design and a magazine advert, advertising an album. For this task we used a local unsigned metal/hardcore band called 'In Archives'. The song we used was called 'Step Down', which was fast, upbeat and generally a good song to do a music video for that genre.

The purpose of a music video is to entertain and entice the viewer into the band. But mainly, a music video is used to promote and publicize the band. It’s to show the band off, and compliment the song. It also gives you a representation of what the song is about and what the band are about. The purpose of a digipak, is to make the album sell. It is to attract people’s attention to the CD so they would purchase it. As distribution and the general selling of music is more about digital downloads these days, the album must look great to get the buyers attention. And finally, the purpose of a magazine advert, is to simply advertise the CD. It needs to provide specific information about the release, and look interesting so people take notice of it.

In a music video promo, there are many elements and conventions. We expect many different elements in a music video, but in some videos, the elements vary with the genre and the style of the video. Here are some that i analyzed from different texts.

-   Music track

-   Can see the artist

-   Different camera angles to show the song in an interesting way (close ups, mid shots, long shots, pans, zooms etc)

-   Lip/Instrument syncing

In music videos there are also conventions. To the genre we are looking at, here is a list of conventions i managed to pick out from various different texts.

-   Various shots types to show the energy in the songs

-   A Dark Mise-en-scene is used as the songs usually have connotations to dark thoughts

-   Camera movement again to show energy

-   Lots of cuts between different shot types, most of the time cut to the beat

-   Effects e.g. fades, slow-motion etc

-   Lots of lip and instrument syncing

-   Letterbox effect to ensure shots look tighter, this gives a nicer finish to the video

-   Primarily a performance based video

-   Narrative used little, or none

Going by theories, in the vast majority of music videos, the video amplifies or illustrates the lyrics. But in the 'metal' genre, the video is usually performance based. If narrative is added, then it is a confused and surreal narrative. For example, in the song ‘Always’ by ‘Architects’, the narrative is based around an architect who ends up finding a key to something. As you don’t know what, it makes the narrative confusing yet enticing. We analyzed the lyrics to get a feel for what the song was about, before basing our video around one line (amplifying a lyric).

The Deconstruction Of Song Lyrics

Also, before planning the video we researched similar genre's videos to see some conventions and to get influence. There were some videos that heavily influenced our final piece.

Similarities of videos. Side on face view of the guitarist/vocalist of them singing. (Above and below)

Full face view of the front man. As you can see below, its a similar shot. We took these shot types inspiration because they work really nicely in the video, and as they are the face of the band, they need to be seen.

We were influenced for the concept of a performance-based video which is a convention for a metalcore video. The 'While She Sleeps - Be(lie)ve' video, is mainly a performance video. We were heavily influenced by the overall look of the video, the shot types, and the editing. Specific shots of the front man, we took as inspiration. These shots were the filled frame shots of the front man face when he was screaming. These worked really well. The energy given off through the video also inspired us. We took that to use in our video. This is used to the show the bands live element. This will encourage people to come and see them live, therefore increasing there fan base, there for filling its purpose as a 'promotional video'. 

As you can see between both screen shots, they are similar. They are both mid shots of the people looking through the book case. This is so the picture is tight in the frame and you can see the action in the frame. If the shots were more of a close up, you would miss the action.

For the narrative section of the video, we took inspiration from the video 'Killswitch Engage - My Curse'. In the video, there’s a large bookcase, filled with books. This is a intertextual between our videos. This is because this links with the band name, as an archive is lots of historical books. If shot correctly, would suit the style of the genre. We found a very traditional bookcase that was about 80 years old. We then bought a few books from a charity shop, to then tea stain, rip, burn and anything else that made the books seem weathered. This was to replicate the look of the 'Killswitch Engage' video. I think this added a nice element to the video. It works really well with the story, and follows the whole weathered theme that has been used through out all different texts.

We thought, by adding a similar mirror scene in as thats in harry potter, that it would add to the conventional misunderstanding of the video.

 For the narrative we also took a scene from ‘Harry Potter’ into consideration. We liked the idea, and used it. This now is a intertextual link relating two different sources of texts together. The mirror scene when harry potter sees himself doing something completely different in his reflection, we thought was a really interesting and surreal idea. As this is conventional to the genre, we decided to use the idea. In our video, the man looks in the mirror, to find himself doing something completely different. We wanted a confusing element to the video to keep the viewers watching until the end when everything is justified. As the song lyrics are about a slightly confusing, this worked really nicely. I think this element in the video has worked really well, it has added confusion through out the narrative, then clarity at the end when it all becomes clear of our figure walking out of the frame.

We took some influence from 'Bury Tomorrows' 'Lionheart' video. The establishing atmospheric shots at the beginning of the video really help the audience have a sense of knowing where they are. These shots also help set the scene, mise-en-scene and location.

The first shot in our video is a establishing shot. This shot fades in from black before the song even starts. This is so the viewers become familiar with the videos style. They also have a second to 'prepare' for the video. In this video of 'Bury Tomorrow - Lionheart', they do exactly this. Using atmospheric shots of the location to introduce the video at the beginning. It is a really effective way of making sure your audience has a familiar location in mind before the video begins.

In this video of 'Architects - Follow The Water', I found the editing was outstanding. As the two songs are similar in tempo, similar editing would fit our track. After watching this video over and over, we found out many typical conventional techniques this specific editor uses. The main one, is that he edits to clips together, one after another, at different camera positions. He does this technique by using at least two camera when he shoots the video. This is so the person is doing exactly the same action in each camera, just from a different view. This then, can be edited together, to show the same shot from different positions. A very effective technique. We used this technique in our music video promo. We manage to get hold of two cannon cameras, so we could do this technique. We feel it worked really well and added to the songs speed and movement. 

After looking into the genres music videos, we found that the performance dominated over the narrative in our genre. This is to show of what the band can do, and encourage people to a live gig. This is a convention to the genre, as they almost always have more performance. We also found that most of the time, the narrative didn't make sense, and wasn't completely clear about what was going on. This is to keep the audience on the edge of there seat through out. Some times the narrative is justified at the end by a clear ending, others are left a mystery. The narrative is usually edited like a montage, to add to this confusing element. When we pitched the idea we had a strong image of what sort of scene the video would be taken place. For the performance shots we needs a dark room that would be lit by creative lighting. The other we needed a smaller room that looked like a more weathered room. After of few days of searching, we found these two different rooms.

We began then to look more into the genre and the conventional dress wear. We looked at the bigger names in the genre to see what they were wearing, as this would gives us more of an inside look of what fashion was about in the metal genre.  We found that bands tend to wear cloths that they are ether endorsed/sponsored by or bands they support. This is to show support toward there enforcement or band that they follow. Ether a tee shirt or vest. All wear ether skinny jeans or shorts, with skate shoes (most of the time vans). They also almost always have the front man stand out from the rest of the band, this being a different colour tee shirt, hat etc. Not to many bright colours, yet if bright colours worn, it usually is put with darker items. For example, bright blue tee shirt, black jeans, black shoes. We got in touch with the band and asked them to wear the conventional dress wear, and as they are already in that scene, they had all the necessary cloths. 

Conventional 'Metalcore' clothing. Hat, simple colour and large print tee's, skinny jeans, belt, lots of tattoos, long hair with fringe etc

The performance shots took place in a village hall in Morton. This was a cheap room that we had recently checked out at a local event. With only about a ten-minuet journey to the location, it was perfect for what we needed. When we arrived, we switch off all the lights, and pinpoint all areas that were leaking in light. These spots were then blacked out by material. The room was big enough for all the equipment and for us to walk around with the cameras. The dolly worked incredibly well as the floor was smooth wood, making sure that all camera movements had no judders. This room, after lighting, was a conventional location for a video within the metal genre, as it gave off a rehearsal room feel. Yet saying this, we also broke conventions by using the classic model three point lighting, which was very effective. This is because it managed to light the room well, yet gave a very dark back ground behind us.

Morton village hall

The narrative shots took place in a small room that was on the back of a garage at my house. The room was a storage room, and was due a paint job. This meant we found this room perfect for what we needed. We cleared out the room of all things, and started setting up. With this we used a mirror, sheet, bookcase and lots of books. We walked through the narrative and made sure that everything was in place for the video. After hours of preparation, we began shooting. We blacked out this rooms light leakage points and lit it using our powerful lights. We didn't use 3 point lighting for this, as the room was not big enough, but we were creative with the way the room was lit. 

A blank 'Premier Pro' project

When we got round to editing, we referred back to out pitch to see what we originally suggested and what was in conventional videos. We decided to have fast cuts between all members and the narrative. This is to keep viewers enticed. We also would use things we seen in other videos. For example, cuts between different angles on the same person. We cut together a variety of close up, pans, tracking shots, mid shots etc. And it came out quite nicely. We then added filters on the video to make the video look darker and grungy. This suited the song as it is a sort of 'muddy' song. We then added a 'letterbox' onto the video, which is used in almost every music video I've seen, regardless of the genre, and then is suitable for wide screen.

When we shot the narrative side, we had an idea of the mirror doing something different than the person on the other side. This was tricky, but we managed to do it. We used different editing software for both, premier pro for the whole thing, but for this specific thing, we needed to use after effects. When we shot, we took two shots. We then created a mask on after effects then layered the clip onto, creating a illusion. This worked really well in the piece and added the sense of confusion to the narrative that is so popular within the genre.

We also took inspiration from other digipaks and album covers, for our own digipak. Digipak is a cardboard version of a jewel case, with a few more panels etc. Although it may look like just a CD case, it actually serves a completely different purpose then just protecting the CD. Digipaks are used for promotional usage, this is due to the many panels it has. Bands fill them with information and pictures. There the best way to show off a band.

The Digipak

Conventions of a digipaks are:

-   Band logo

-   Band photo

-   All tracks on the back

-   Information on the band

-   There thankyou notes

-   A Barcode

-    Contact Information

As you can see, the wallpaper style in the background works effectively. We took this as inspiration because it runs through the whole of the digipak, it links the product together nicely and stylishly 

This album came out originally as a limited edition digipak. It was a conventional 6 panel digipak with two disks - One album, One DVD, and a sleeve. The digipak was a really nice design. They have a purple colour wallpaper style running through the whole thing. We thought this was a really nice idea, because it had a running theme that bled over most panels. We took this idea for our digipak, so the whole thing linked up and connecting it all up. This is important so the buyer, has a sense of awareness of the house style, therefore pleasing to the eye.

As you can see, the logo is centred in the frame. Its a simple artwork design, and the idea worked really well in our digipak.

This was an EP, and not a digipak. Yet the front cover inspired the look of ours. As it was just so simple, we liked that idea of having a clean cut front cover, as lots of bands are doing it at the moment - therefore being conventional. It was just the logo on the front cover, and then underneath it, it says the album name. I felt it was a simple but cool idea, and people would be attracted to buy it, due to its simplicity. 

We also took inspiration from other magazine adverts and album covers, for our own advert. The purpose of a magazine advert is to advertise something. In this case, we are trying to advertise a CD. This would be places in a music magazine to show off and inform people that the bands album is out and try and make it look at pleasing as possible!

The Advert

Conventions of a magazine adverts are:

-Photo of the band

-Big date on the front

-Where to purchase it

-Web Address

-Record Label

-Tour

- Critical Reviews/Quotes

‘How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?’

All my products work really well together. I believe this because all three products follow a conventional style towards our genre. This is because the band has acted as a brand, key for promotional methods. They use the same logo through out and there faces are on all three of the products. The weathered theme has ran through all three swell, linking all to the style of music (grungy). The wallpaper style on the magazine advert also matches the background wallpaper to the panels of the digital, and the mirror frame from the video. The products help promote each other because we made sure the brand of 'In Archives' has ran through all three product.

The three exhibit themselves and all promote the band in a different manner. The music video will portray and prove to people what they band are like live. This is due to the high performance ratio that is in the music video. This will encourage people to go to shows and as music festivals are forever interested in looking at bands videos before putting them on the bill, it will also help them in that aspect. It will also help them promote themselves as videos are easily seen and are rising in popularity. Videos can be posted on multiple if not all social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) via ‘YouTube’, therefore for others to see, for them to then get interested in the act. The video can also be viewed on TV stations, like leading stations ‘Scuzz’ and ‘Kerrang’. This is a massive publicity option. People watch TV everyday, and flick onto music channels. People will see the video, and if they like, they will follow the band also.

The final magazine advert we did. We kept it simple, as the name of the album is 'Simple Days'. This was an on going theme through the artworks. We kept the same wallpaper and weathered effect also. It was our house style, and a style that people could come familiar with, therefore linking all our product up together.  

The advert for the bands album is self explanatory. People see this in magazines like ‘Kerrang’, ‘Metal Hammer’, ‘Big Cheese’, and online in sites like ‘Facebook’, ‘Ultimate Guitar’, ‘Ticketmaster’. They will take notice and then get interested in the band. As the band looks the part as well, people in the scene will be more interested. This is due to the fact that they can relate to the band in a way, and immediately recognize what the band will be like. Stereotyping in huge in the music industry, and helps promote bands. The brand has continued through this product by the ‘weathered’ look from the narrative in the video. It also has a picture of the band in on the design, people recognize face and as this helps the audience know who they all are, they will know that all three texts are linked.

The final version on the digipak. We kept the design clean cut (straight, no wonky pictures, all in line etc) The design is simple, this goes along with the album name 'Simple Days'.  We thought that, seen as it is a digipak, that we would also add an extra CD holder. This is for a DVD. As digipaks can hold multiple disks, we thought this was a really nice idea. The DVD would include the music video that we have created as well. 

 The last one, the album digipak. As CD's are dying out, to keep people interested is to change the packaging of the CD, to therefore increase sales. Its also a collectors item. This would be distributed across all major record stores. For example ‘HMV’, ‘Virgin’, ‘Zavvi’. It would also be distributed online as well, on sites like ‘Amazon’, ‘Bigcartle’ and ‘iTunes’. The CD is well presented, simple but effective. People are draw to digipaks, and as the design is clean cut, people will be interested. As this is a traditional way of doing this, people will sill be interested in purchasing CD's. Again the digipak has stuck to the weathered look. It looks rough and battered. This is used to keep people knowing that the advert, music video, and digipak are all linked to the same artist.

‘What have you learned from your audience feedback?’

Whilst the making of our products, to ensure we were doing the correct things, we did some audience feedback. We did a video (above) on what people though was conventional to the genre. We asked people at the start of planning stage. They were a range of people in and out of the scene and genre of music we were doing. From this we found out what people would expect to be seen in a music video. This was taken at the early stages of our production, to get an idea of what people expected.

We took this information away to help us create on our texts. The people outside the scene gave most variety of answers, because they don't usually listen to the music that we are using. But there answers were inspiring to take away and work from. They were more conventional and sticking to music video theories.

We also did a questionnaire for the music video. We asked them: -

What they expected from a metal music video?

Would it be more of a performance-based video, or a narrative based video?

Would the cuts be fast, medium or slow paced?

Would the set be well lit, or slightly darkened?

What sort of location would you imagine the performance to be in?

What would the performers be wearing?

This was helpful to more of the shooting element of things. Shot types and editing. It also helped with where and what would be in the video. Having an outsiders view is always helpful as its someone else’s opinion on things, these could be different creatively in the way you think, which could add new elements to the video that you wouldn’t of thought of.

After doing the music video, we had some audience feedback from a questionnaire. Here is a screenshot of it.

A Screenshot of a questionnaire we undertook, after watching our music promo.

From this we were able to see people thought of the video. Its always good to have feedback, to then improve on it.

Audience research was important to us. With out feedback, we would of done a video that would not of suited as many people. Doing questionnaires, videos and charts, we were able to view our reposes to then fit other peoples criteria. This made the music video more complimentary to what people would expect. With adding other elements in, we found that we managed to make the video interesting, al the while sticking to conventional methods. Although we did break conventions, the video still stuck to many theories and expectations of others. Without audience feedback, we would not be able to be in touch with those who had expectations from music videos. This has made the video much better, in the aspect that it will help promote the band, due to its slight individuality yet normality. The feedback from the end product was also helpful. We could see what people thought and if it matched what they thought a conventional metal video would look like. We also could see if there was anything wrong with the video, to then take it into account to either improve on, or to take on the information for future purposes. 

‘How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?’

At the start we discussed what bands music we were going to use. We thought of using 'unsigned.com', but that way it would of been trickier to film. Instead we used my band 'In Archives'. We thought this was a better way of doing things, as we could use the real band, therefore then knew it and would fit the part best. We used their Facebook, twitter, tumblr and Myspace to gather information, history and media sources as well as my own knowledge. We found that these networking sites really helped us understand what the band like, within the genre and personal. As it was my band we were using, we could find out what they wanted as well. As 'In Archives' have lots of videos from live shows, we could see what there live show element was like, to include in our music video.

'In Archives' official Facebook page.

During our production, we used lots of technologies. This included both hardware and software.

For starters, we used video cameras. We didn't use the ones provided, we used our own Canon DSLR's, which shoot in 1080p. This is so our video could be the highest of quality. It would be this high quality because the cameras where set on the highest ever setting to shoot on (1080p). These were used for the actual shoot of the music video. We applied both cameras to hand held tripods, so when moving, the camera didn't shake or was exposed to any sort of interference. As the DSLR’s have manual focus, it was really good to get the defocused-focused shots done. These shots are conventional to the genre, and they help add variety to the video. As they use SD cards, it was easy to get our footage onto the editing software we used.

After the shoot, we then used a few different programs to edit out music video together. First we used 'Adobe Premier Pro'. This is rated one of the best editing software, and lots of big media companies edit music videos on this software. We then edited some of the footage in 'Adobe After Effects'. This was to use layers to do the strange narrative we had. This is a well-known software platform for doing amazing effects, and creative editing. I’ve learnt how to use both programs during this production. They both work in similar ways. They both have multiple layers, and are quite similar to digital audio workstations. They work on a timeline, so you can see where to position all the clips. and they both have a preview box. This makes editing much simpler to use, as you can see the clip as your editing it, and also that you can see the layout of the clips on the timeline.

A Screenshot of our project in 'Premier Pro'

In ‘Adobe Premier Pro’ we used colour curves to make the video have a cold and dark effect to the video. We did this by appling the ‘Curve’ effect. We then played around with each curve until we got the feel we were looking for. We then copied this effect and pasted it on every single clip. We then went through the video to make sure the colour was right on every clips. On some the clips weren’t right, so we edited them to make them correct.

In ‘Adobe After Effects’. We used a masking tool and technique. We used this for the illusion of the mirror being a completely separate person. We did this by filming what we happening in and out of the mirror separately. We then took it to the program and added to levels of video. We then began creating the mask. We did this be carefully cropping the layer that was on top on the other. After cropping we placed the clip over top of the other, on top of the mirror. We then ‘Glued’ it into place, rendered and exported.

This is us masking one of the clips. We did this by cropping the image around the frame of the mirror. This if used to give  the illusion of the 'man in the mirror' doing something different to the person outside of the mirror. 

This is what it looked like when it was finished.

For the digipak and advert, we used 'Adobe In Design'. This is because this program is specially built for designing things, using layers, templates and more organised design. Used in the magazine industry, it also suited to design the advert as well. As I've used this program before, it became simpler to use. Yet during this experience with the software, I've learnt who important layers are to graphics. We used many layers to build up the overall look of the artwork, including photographs, wallpapers and textures. 

This is the template we drew out before contracting the artwork.

We first played around with the text and the positioning of it.

We then added a wallpaper background, a picture, and one of the bands logos. We started thinking how we would go laying it all out, and playing around with ideas. We decided to use layers, there for we could play around with the different elements of the digipak, one by one. This was the easiest way we found of doing this.

When shooting the video, we used a laptop through a PA speaker to play the track really loud. We used a program on the laptop called 'Logic Pro 9' which is a digital audio workstation (DAW). This is so we could use a click track if need be. This would be used if the loud speakers failed, then a click track would be used via headphones to the drummer to keep the band completely in time. The other benefit to 'Logic Pro 9' is that we set markers up so if we needed a specific section of the song, we could just click where and hit play. This was incredibly helpful because it was so quick and easy to do and saved time searching through the song.

Our track in 'Logic 9', with a click track, and section out into section of the song. This made it easier to then  find places of songs we needed to shoot. 

The internet was also a massive help to our needs. Providing all information we needed to plan, shoot, and make all our products. Youtube was used to explore for inspiration, as all music videos are usually posted on there. This was a great help, because its so simple to use. Blogger, which logs all our work on a blog, was a help so all my work was together in one place. This helped Organisation.

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