Evaluation

The task for our A2 Media was to create a music video for a song by an unsigned artist, and then create a Digi-Pack and Magazine Advertisement for this single.

I was to work in a pair for this project however, finding my partner unreliable; I instead chose to work alone at the last minute. I intially found working in a group difficult, having worked alone for the Charity website tak the year previous, and to work alone again was a bit of a sigh of relief because I knew I could rely upon myself.
The first task we had to do was to find a song by an unsigned artist, who would grant us permission to use their single. I was lucky there was a band I had encountered when visiting Sheffield who had never been singed, and had since split. However, three of the four members were now in a new band and very active on social networking sites, so I gained a reply to initial e-mail asking for permission rather quickly. Proof of this can be seen on my blog.

After this, I decided upon the kind of image I wanted my band to portray, and this would remain relevant to all of my products. I decided that the band would have a new feel to them, and with the music sounding similar to bands like the Arctic Monkeys because of growing up in the same area, I wanted my band to be seen in the same light as them.
The song itself was about living in backstreets and pubs when they were young and growing up, so I also wanted to incorporate this into my products where possible.

Having already planned, filmed and edited the majority of one music video. It was my decision that to achieve the top grades which I aimed for, I had to do a music video that was entirely my own idea. I had my song, which was an acoustic song because I didn’t have the time to book a performance area, instruments or find a band. Instead I decided that I would play the guitar myself and my Teacher would film me with the shots I had chosen.
To begin the planning, I drew a storyboard of what I hoped the video would look like but, predictably, there has been changes made from that in the final video. One major difference I wish hadn’t occurred was the fact that in my planning, the singer sat on a beer keg, relating to the name of the song, however finding one of these at short notice, as well as moving it to school, was too difficult to do.
Another change I made was the fact that in my story board, the singer had longer hair than I have. The image I was trying to present usually involved people having longer hair, however it wasn’t possible to find a wig that fitted the description I was looking for.
Another problem I encountered when trying to edit the video according to my story board was that I had been very vague in the shots I had selected, and if I had simply put these shots in, the video in my opinion, would have been slow moving and made it boring. I had already elected to do my video in black and white to relate to the backstreets where the band grew up, and if I had used a few long lasting shots to make up the video, I wouldn’t watch it, and so the audience definitely wouldn’t watch it in its entirety.
When filming, to make it easier to edit later on, I connected an iPod to the speakers in the room where we was filming, so I could match up the music in the video, to the actual track and therefore make the lip syncing easier to achieve.
Because I would now be in the video, I needed someone else to film it, and I chose my teacher, for a number of reasons. Obviously he has knowledge around the subject and would give constant feedback on the camera shots, and how they went with my acting.
Another problem we encountered was because we were filming in a classroom in front of the green screen, children kept coming in which sometimes disturbed the lighting which had been set up, as well as me. It also turned very warm in the room because of the spot lights that were focused on me, and I was wearing a t-shirt, jumper and jacket, which didn’t help the conditions, so I had to made sure I didn’t use close ups with a drop of sweat sliding down my forehead.
But apart from that, everything went according to plan. I made sure we filmed the entire song for each shot, so if I needed more when it came to editing, I had plenty to choose from. I learnt this lesson from the website I made the previous year, when I took a camera out to take images for the website. But I didn’t have a clear idea of what images I wanted and ended up not having anything that I needed, or anything usable and relative to the website, so I ended up going out three times in order to take pictures for the website before being finally happy with the ones I had taken.
For editing, we used the Final Cut Pro software on Apple Mac’s, which were very different to the PC’s I was used to using, especially with the saving arrangements enforced upon us by our teacher. If we were to save something outside our own personal folder, it would be deleted at the end of the week, so I had to be very careful not to save anything anywhere but in my folder. Although there are a few differences in the interfaces of the computers I was used to using, and the Mac’s, I found it fairly easy to get used to the major differences that would hinder my progress.
The super impose effect was one I found fitted my video very well. Instead of cutting to a frame solely for the picture I wanted to show, I could super impose it over the video, to make it seem as if the singer is thinking about the image, remembering it from the past.


For the advertising poster, I wanted it to relate loosely to the video, but still be unique. Sticking with the theme of urban back streets, I sketched a couple of simple designs out for me to model the final product on. The first design involved an actor rested against a JCB digger on a building site, with the picture being taken from behind a fence. The aim of this was to use the building site as a way of representing the youth of today breaking in to places, they shouldn’t be, represented by the bars. The purpose of the building site is to show the backstreets of the city, in juxtaposition to the built up areas commonly associated with big cities. When made in Adobe’s Photoshop, I was able to near enough recreate my design exactly how I wanted it due to the school I attend currently undergoing building works. I asked permission of the head teacher if I was allowed to use the sight as a location and he was okay for me to take pictures on there, as long as we didn’t touch or move anything on the site. I also downloaded a font from www.dafont.com, which I thought fitted the urban look more than the preset fonts on the program. The feedback I received for this product was very positive, with many people saying “the look fitted the sound of the band,” and it was “eye catching” which is always essential when trying to shout out to viewers to buy the single. Some people however thought there was a bit “too much going on” for it to be a advertisement, and that the focus was on the picture rather than the band name and their song title.
The second design involved a typical bandit machine in a stereotypical English pub. I wanted to use this to relate to the alcohol obsessed youth Britain is now known for across the world. I wanted to include an empty beer glass on top of the bandit, to show people had been drinking and gambling there. The bandit, associated with bars also relates to the title of the song, which links to beer.
Initially the feedback for this wasn’t as positive as it was for the first design. I was told there was too much empty space that could be put to better use, and the font had no real placing and looked like I had put it where it was without any thought.
To combat this, I took a close up of the buttons on the bandit and decided that instead of using the entire machine. The bright colours that contrast each other make it easily recognisable as a bandit, and I chose to take pictures of the buttons to again make it easy for the reader to recognise what it was. By only using a small proportion of the machine, there was no empty space around the edges and the bright colours made it more eye catching. I chose to use the same font I had used for the first design, because I wanted to emphasize the urban look of the band, and the font presents this well. I had learned from the website I made in my AS course that it was essential to use a font that linked to what you was trying to say, rather than settling for one that isn’t really what you want.
The feedback I received for this final design was more positive, with people saying it was eye catching and that the bandit showed what the British youth of today had become.
To offer an alternative from the urban look, I decided my final poster would offer a different image of the band. I used beige and blue stripes, which I thought were fairly nice colours to show the band don’t make unfriendly music. It also relates to popular colours of clothing worn by the genre the music is aimed at. I made the image in the bottom of the poster white, to match the white font I had elected to use in the top half of the advert. The aim of the image was just to show that the band were like any other people, and I chose to get an image of some friends just sat around enjoying themselves in an attempt to link the audience to the band. I didn’t want to use black on the advert at all, because although it may stand out more, I thought it would contrast with the beige and blue too much and make it look dirty. I found the white, a lot more neutral with the colours, but the feedback I received didn’t match this opinion. They thought the white font “blended in too much and made it hard to read from a glance.” Despite this, I chose to stick to what I thought because I was certain if I was to change my font to a darker colour, the advert would look worse.
After viewing all of the feedback, I came to the conclusion that my first design was the one I wanted to use as the band’s advertising poster. I thought the feedback I received from this was very preferential to this design, and it was a personal favourite, mainly because it was the one I had modelled on my opinion of the bands look and sound. Instead of having the bands name across the whole of the bottom half of the poster, I chose to put it in one corner, mainly because I thought this made it a little less ‘in your face’ and a bit more professional.I also opted to use the rule of thirds, because making picture's agree with this rule make them look more proffesional.

For my digi-packs, I was keen to keep a theme running through with the advertising poster. To plan out the designs, I near enough used the same images as I did for the advertising poster. To start of with, I needed to know how it would all piece together, and for this I used a template from the internet, just to show me where I should put the front, back and tray sides. These were just really rough sketches because I knew what pictures I wanted to use.
The second task was getting the images, and this again was a tough task because the previous year, I had obtained a lot of images I thought were no good, where as this time, I got less pictures, but took more care that they were ones I could use. These were the same images I took to use for the advertising poster.
I also used the same font I downloaded to keep continuity throughout the theme.
I am happy with how my product turned out because I think it looks like a professional digi-pack that wouldn’t look out of place on the shelves of record stores. I also used specific shots like mid-shots and close ups, to emphasize different subjects in the images; these rules were also learnt in the planning stages of my charity website.

In conclusion, I am happy with all of my products as I think they resemble products from the genre of music, and image of band I’m trying to promote. I also think by using an actor rather than the singer resembles work done by the Arctic Monkeys and Reverend and the Makers, both who come from the same city and area as my band. The style of music as well relates back to the images used on the products, and the black and white of the video, adds to the effect of grungy city streets.

Final Advertising Poster

Here is my final advertising Poster. It is made to fit half a page in a typical magazine such as "Q" or "NME."

I have kept the theme with the final digi-pack by using the same picture and font. I thought that if i kept the same theme, someone who had seen the poster would immediately recognise the CD case if they went into a shop looking for it. However, i changed the size of my font because I felt that when the font stretched all the way across the screen, it looked a bit too big, and took a lot of attention away from the image. The boy, in both the poster and on the front cover of the digi-pack represents the singer, who also feels alone, and the bars are there to represent his personality locked away inside him, for fear of upsetting other people.

Final Digi-Pack

Here is my final design for my digi-pack.

As you can see, it is very similar to the design, and this is due to mostly positive feedback being received. However there were a few things I decided to change, one of these being the angle of which the photo of the bin was taken. I found that if I took a picture of it straight on, the sun's glare off the metal made it difficult to distinguish it as a bin. Where as by taking the picture from above, it is easily seen as a bin, and the cigarette tray on the top also adds to the dirtiness. I also chose to take an angled shot of the beer pumps, simply because a shot straight on wasted a lot of room in the picture and looked very boring. I have however, kept the big lettering, the JCB and the names of the band because they were the good points picked out in the feedback i received.

Schedule Sheet

Setting

• Media Room, booked for after school Tuesday 2^nd March, 3pm – 4:45pm

Camera/Lighting Equipment

• Spotlights x3
• Camera, booked for Tuesday 2^nd March, 3pm – 4:45pm

Cameramen

• Media teacher to film the performance, Tuesday 2^nd Mark, 3pm – 4:45pm

Props and Miscellaneous

• Guitar, brought from home on the day of the performance
• iPod brought from home on the day of the performance
• iPod connection to speaker system
• Clothing worn to match the genre of the song

As well as this, I had to arrange to take some still images which I could watermark on top of the video. These were:

• People Dancing
• Face of an attractive girl
• Face with mascara running down it from the eyes

Editing then took place in the two lessons I had which were given for video editing. I also used the media facilities in various lunchtimes and after school sessions to ensure the video would be finished in the two weeks I allocated for editing the video.

The two weeks stretched from the 4/3/2010 until 18/3/2010.

Advertising Poster Planning

To begin the planning for my advertising poster, I sketched up some initial designs of what my posters could look like. I wanted to keep a very visible link with the digi-packs, but also make the design unique.

Design 1

For the first design, I used to same slot machine that I had used on the cover of one of my digi-packs. The aim of this really was to keep the same theme running through the two products. I hoped the colours of the slot machine would help the advert jump of the page and catch reader's eyes.

Feedback

• Colours would be good when coloured in
• Too much wasted space
• Theme links well
• Clear link to Digi-pack

Design 2

I decided to venture away from the digi-pack design for my next product, just to freshen it up, and make sure people know it is two separate products. When conducting research into links between the two, I found that although bands liked a theme running through, the products very rarely were identical. This poster is of a sign previously saying keep of the grass, however I chose to change the words to the band name, song title an release date.

Feedback

• A bit bare
• No direct link to digi-pack
• Doesn't fit the image of the band
• Too basic, doesn't look professional.

Design 3

My third and final design involved using the same theme as one of my digi-pack designs, through the use of the same setting and props; i.e. the JCB. I made the writing big at the bottom, to stand out, especially the name of the band so grab peoples attention. All the writing is in the bottom half of the page, so no attention is drawn away from the image.

Feedback

• Good link back to digi-pack
• A little too much going on
• Big writing stands out
• Eye catching
• Song title needs to line up with band name.

Music Video Brainstorm

To begin the initial planning for my music video, I created a spider diagram just listing my ideas and some details about what they would need/involve.

Here are the three ideas I came up with for my Music Video:

Idea 1 Narrative

The first idea was to do a video without any performance by the band at all. The narrative would tell the story of a man who feels he is being messed around by a girl he likes. I would want her wearing too much make up and not enough clothes, to show her low class. The man would look constantly fed up, as she drags him around and then dances with every other bloke she sees. The locations for this would be on streets and in night clubs, however, I would have to film at night when there are people out, to make it believable that she has gone out. I would also need a lot of actors to be the men she flirts with, as a girl randomly flirting with strangers could lead to complications. The meaning of this video is to show what the song is about clearly to the audience.

Idea 2 Narrative and Performance

This video would follow a similar storyline to the first one however be more simple as there would be less time to fill. For the narrative half of the story, I would shoot it from the mans point of view, so the audience can relate to him more, and show the woman for what she really is. It would all take place in one bar where the band would be performing in an "open-mike" night, to show they are not the global superstars they crave to be yet. The fact that they're performing in a bar shows that they are still in the early days of their careers, trying to spread their name.

Idea 3 Performance

For my final idea, I wanted to just do a performance video. These have worked well for many bands throughout the years, by using the band to connect with the audience. By just having the singer in the video, it would be as if he is singing to the audience, making the song sound personal to him. The video would either be filmed out in the streets with drunken happenings going on in the background, or in front of a green screen. To link the performance to the song, I would cut to short shots of what the singer is singing about, for example someone crying and mascara running when the lyrics "mascara runs down her cheeks" is sung.

As part of my planning for my digi-pack, i drew up some very basic designs of ideas. These can be seen below.

The first design is of a man stood up against a JCB on a building site. The back has the band members names to show who the song is by with a picture of a bin, to show the dirty environment they have grown up in. When opened up, there is a picture of a t-bar of beer's, used in bars to save space rather than having individual pumps. This is to link to the meaning of the song.

Feedback

• Lots going on and very eye catching
• Images fit the image of the band
• Names introduce the band to the public
• Would like to see more done with the band name and song title on front cover

For my second design, I wanted a professional looking album cover, and so there wasn't a phot used, rather an image of the lead singer, in front of a blue and beige background, with the name of the band and song wrote in big letters behind him. When opened up, the theme is continued with the disk tray and inside cover, which is all beige and blue apart from the band name and song title in small letters.

Feedback

• Colours contrast well to give an old style effect
• Lead singer maybe should be left out or the whole band should be used
• inside looks a little bare

For my final design, I really wanted to emphasize the pub nature described in the song. For the front cover, i chose to design a bandit typically found in English pubs, with a beer pump on the back cover. On the inside, there is the disk tray and a close up of a packet of crisps, which is a common pub snack. The design on the tray hasn't scanned well because I didn't make the pencil lines bold enough.

Feedback

• Theme relates to band and song well
• Too much empty space on the front cover
• Band and song name don't stand out enough
• Get rid of the empty space around the crisp packet

Storyboard

As part of my music video planning, I created a storyboard for the music video. Due to a fault with blogger, the storyboard is in reverse order, so you have to read it from bottom to top. Apologies for the inconvenience

The Song

Italics denotes shot.

Singer appears and begins to play guitar.
Bitches and glances - Midshot of singer
Rough romances
I'm sorry if I caught your eye
What is she wearing? - Close up
That's a bit daring!
Oh please put away those thunderous thighs...

Do you see what I see? - Longshot of
He's looking straight at me as if I've done something wrong
And I looked at his missus - Cut to shot of tarted up woman
High heels, pink lipstick
Won't be for very long
Oh I won't be for very long - Cut back to singer, midshot.
- Shot of guitar
But I'm alright they all cried - Longshot of singer
As they stumble down the stairs
I'm just finding no inhibitions - Close up of singer
No rhythm worries or cares
And you're unstoppable now - Cut to shot of people dancing
Moving on the dance floor
You're unstoppable the world is at your feet if only for tonight
- Shot of guitar frets and fingers of the singer.
I was just passing you dancing - Longshot of singer
You asked me to walk to the floor
Where are we going?
Stop tooing and frowing - Close up
Don't ask me cos I don't know
You tried to control her
I can't control her
Mascara runs down her cheek - Cut to shot of girl crying
Call 'em a bastards - Close up of singer
Oh when plastered they'll be back together next week
By the end of next week - Midshot

But I'm alright they all cried - Longshot
As they stumble down the stairs
I'm just finding no inhibitions - Close up
No rhythm worries or cares
And you're unstoppable now - Cut to dancers
Moving on the dance floor
You're unstoppable the world is at your feet if only for tonight - Close up of singer
If only for tonight

Ooh no - Shot of guitar
When they've had too much - Close up
Everybody wants her
Everybody wants him
Oh just a faintest touch
The bouncers shout to the screams on top of the bar - Longshot
And the crowd disappears as the police arrive
And throw the thugs in the back of the car - Close up
Yea it all comes part of the package - Midshot
Front row viewing at no extra cost
Just fill 'em up with the barrel
Now you've lit the fuse so watch the fireworks go off

Roll out the barrel
Bring out the barrel
Roll out the barrel
Don't bring out the barrel now
- shot of guitar for the solo
Roll out the barrel - close up
Bring out the barrel
Roll out the barrel - longshot
Don't bring out the barrel now
- fade to black

Whats the song about?

The song was written by Milburn to show the atompshere in modern day clubs. In the opening verses, the typical English ladette is described with the "thunderous thighs," "high heels," and "pink lipstick." They also describe how after a drink or two, most lads will agree to anything involving a girl, as they describe the fact that "everybody wants her" despite her appearance. Tom Carnall, Milburn's lead singer who wrote this song, also describes the hostility show by many men who catch people looking at their girlfriends, who may well be going around flirting with almost every bloke in the club, but the boyfriend turns a blind eye to that. This song tells the tale of Carnall, who once in a club found himself caught in a vicious love circle, and this song shows his point of view, as well as what he imagines the other people in the club to be thinking as fights break out of girls who wind lads up as a hobby.

Permission

To gain permission to use the song I wanted, I emailed ex-lead singer of Milburn, Tom Carnall, to ask for permission.


This was the E-mail I sent to Tom Carnall:

Dear Tom,

My name is also Tom, and I'm writing to you to ask for permission to use one of Milburn's songs; "Roll of the Barrel" for my A-Level Media Coursework.
I know you have since split with the rest of the band, and am unsure as to who has the rights to give permission of the use of the song out, but as you wrote it, I thought it would be best to ask you.
Our task is to make a video, digi-pack and advertising poster for our chosen song, and this will only be used for exam purposes.

Regards, Tom O'Brien.


To which he replied:

Dear Tom,

Im honoured you would choose Milburn's song to use, and after consulting the other members of Milburn who I remain on good terms with; we are more than happy for you to use our song.
All the best for your exams.

TC

Representation

Laura Mulvey - The "Gaze Theory"

Shows the way different people are represented in videos. For feminists, this can be seen in 3 different ways:
How men look at women
How women look at themselves
How women look at other women

Features of this theory include the camera lingering on the curves of a woman's body, and the events which occur to women are usually presented from a male's point of view. This shows women more as objects than people.

Some of the effects on the media of this theory could be:
Hypodermic syringe – women are changed by ideas given to them
Cultivation theory – slower effect –Passive audience
Two step flow – passing information from people
Use of gratification - active audience – one of the four reasons
Servalience
Identification
Socialisation
Entertainment or escapism


Some video's which show this are:
· Sexy chick – David Guetta
o Women in swim suits
o Close ups of there curves
o Up shots of them
o Girls dancing seductivly in the back ground
o Cuts to shots of girls in bakini's
o Photos of the girls
o Shows him controlling you
o Men looking at women

· Hotel room - Pitbull
o Stars straight way focusing on women curves
o Low cut, tight or skimpy outfits
o Has women going for him
o Has lots of women pawing at him
o He has the power
o Girl brakes in to confront him but he pushes her out showing his power.

Research: Existing Music Videos

The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement

­The video begins with images of a stereotypical ice skater, who is sat preparing to take to the ice in silence, almost as if she is sat in preparation for the start of the song.

When the music begins, we see the ice skater in action, with slowed down shots to emphasize the elegance and grace in her movements, and the movements in turn could also emphasize the elegance of the orchestral sound we hear.

The video then shifts to a shot of a snowy Russian landscape, with tanks and two figures dressed all in black, in complete juxtaposition to the ice skater dressed all in white. The contrast between light and dark becomes immediately clear, making the lyrics sound all the more sinister in comparison with the flowing orchestral music.

The video moves on to “our heroes” (as they are described by Domino Records) in a town in Russia, filled with blue lights, giving a chilling feeling of coldness.

The camera shots are slow initially however as the song goes on, and the tempo picks up to create a sense of urgency, the shots become quicker and quicker. This is mirrored in the movements of the singers, who at the start are stood or are walking at a slow pace, but being to march with prominent power as well as riding on top of the tanks.

The faces become more and more aggressive, with the lyrics being sung with a certain degree of anger in the tone. When the video contains the singers, it is always lip synced to create the illusion that the singers were singing the words at the time of filming.

Contextuality is clear throughout the video, as the tanks and war outfits worn by actors are frequently seen in war films and games for example “Saving Private Ryan” or the “Call of Duty” series. The big hats worn by the actors wanting to look Russian are also commonly associated with Russian culture.

Blur – Song 2

The video starts with drummer, Dave Rowntree, playing drums in what appears to be an empty room, as the drum-only introduction is synced with the drummer playing in the video.

As the guitar comes in, we have a long shot of the guitarist, Graham Coxon, again playing in what seems to be an empty room just like the previous shot.

Just before the vocals come In, we switch to a shot of singer Damon Albarn right up close. And as the lyrics begin, the camera suddenly shows the entire band in the room who in turn just start to rock out as if on stage.

The room itself is decorated in a 1930’s fashion, with the carpet and wallpaper both carrying an old, authentic look to it, in complete juxtaposition to the genre of music it is hosting.

During the verses, when the tempo of the music is slower, there are longer camera shots which focus more on the band’s music playing abilities and match the slower pace of the music.

The chorus’ throughout the song progress in power. The second finds the band being blown around, crashing into walls, by the power of their own music however the final again increases in power. Dust and dirt also occupies the room, as the band are hurled around the room, as the power of their music gets stronger and stronger.

The darkness in the room prevents the audience from fully seeing the band clearly despite close ups, and this adds to the mysteriousness of the band and their music.

Above all, the band show they are enjoying their music, and this enjoyment is passed from the band to the audience.

The end of the song suddenly cuts off, as does the video, which just goes black without any kind of out-ro.

The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done

The Killers kick off this black and white video not performing as they have in previous videos; however they have become part of the story, with the 4 band members taking up the roles as the 4 leading men to counter the 4 leading women in perfect equilibrium.

The video, set in what appears to be a Nevada desert town, could show the Killers going back to their roots, as they grew up around Vegas. The title “All These Things That I’ve Done” suggests regret in the tone, and the fact it is set close to home could show regret in earlier years.

The black and white of the video also suggests it is set in the past, as an old fashioned car again reiterates this as it crawls around the old fashioned Nevada street corner in a fashion that could resemble “Grease” when the men would sit in the back of a convertible, relaxed and with their feet on the back of the seat in front.

The band are all dressed in black with large black hats on, another contextual reference, this time to Zorro from the “Zorro” films.

The men are all covered up, as if concealing something behind their long cloaks, and we never find out why the women are attacking the men. Where as the women obviously have nothing to hide, as they don mini skirts and revealing shirts. They wear denim and chequered shirts which would have been around in the time the video is set rather than modern day materials.

Brandon Flowers is seen in the showers, seemingly cleansing his regrets, or trying to as cutaways break up the video again showing scenes from the past. Flowers’ struggles and slips in the shower, his attempts of cleansing have failed.

Flowers walks around the old style town, with a plank of wood and numerous light bulbs attached to it. He tries to smash the bulbs with the heel of his Cuban heeled winkle pickers, but fails to smash them all.

He is seen with the other 3 members of the band, approaching the camera as if approaching war. Flowers mounts a donkey, a sign of humbleness in the bible, again trying to show he’s not the big man he thought he was.

The enemies of the men come into view. They line up directly facing opposite each other, both singing the same lyrics. “I got soul but I’m not a soldier” as the men take a step back for each one the women advance.

Again breaking the conventions, the men turn and run from the women, who appear quite angry at the men maybe for the reason, the men seem to regret something. The men claiming not to be soldiers would normally be seen as the more powerful sex and the women shouldn’t even dare look at the men in the wrong way, let alone commence in an all out onslaught.

The men, after running seem to escape with minor wounds from the attacks of the women; however, one by one are picked off. The last to go, ironically as he’s the front man is Flowers, the most integral part of the video. He falls with his face flat in a pool of water like what is seen at the start of the video, completing the circle of the video.

The plank of wood, after being nailed up right into the ground explodes leaving the remaining lights lit up, spelling out the word “Killers”, the band marking the video as theirs, adding to how personal the regrets are to them.

Research: Music Video - History of the Music Video beginning with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody

BBC’s “Top of the Pops” started to show music videos in the late 70’s, even with the strict limits on outsourced videos they were allowed to show imposed upon them by the BBC.

In 1975, rock band “Queen” employed Bruce Gowers to make a promotional video for their upcoming single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a video these days considered ground breaking, as it paved the way for the modern music video to take centre stage. The song written by Freddie Mercury surprisingly remained at the top of the charts for 9 weeks, despite its unusual format, and this is believed to be down to the promotional video.

Bohemian Rhapsody took about 4 hours to record, and cost about £45,000 which the band no doubt recouped from the sales of the record. By putting the video onto Top of the Pops, Queen were able to broadcast their song to a wide audience and because of the video, people would continue to tune in hoping to see it.

In 1981, U.S music channel MTV (Music Television) launched; the start of 24-hour music broadcasting. By the mid 80’s, music videos were essential in the marketing of band’s singles. Popular acts such as Madonna owed much of their fame and popularity to their creative and seductive videos.

However, when MTV started, it had less than 1 million viewers. Word soon spread between its target audience of 12 – 14 year olds, and 2 years on, the expansion of cable TV took MTV to more than 10 million homes.

The first VJ (video jockey) was New Romantic, Adam Ant, of Adam and appeared on the channel before a video was about to be played, introducing the video which was about to be played. The high profile gusts like Adam Ant showed the channels affect and influence on the sales of records.

On the second of December, 1983, Michael Jackson released the best selling single of all time, Thriller, accompanied with a nearly 14minute long music video. Jackson spent $500,000 of his own money on this video, which is listed in the Guinness book of records as being the most successful video of all time, sifting over 9 million units.

“Thriller” was not a conventional music video however, mainly because of the duration of it; it was seen as more of a short film, a homage to horror films with the inclusion of science fiction favourites, zombies, choreographed to dance alongside a werewolf Jackson in the iconic dance sequence that is till admired for its striking moves and complexity in modern times.

“Music fans began to expect songs to have images – glossy ones too – otherwise they would not succeed” said Simon Warner, pop music lecturer at Leeds University. “So record companies had to start adding at least £50,000 to an artist’s marketing budget to make that essential video” he added.

In the 80’s, a wave of new romantics hit Britain, who benefitted most from MTV. Bands such as Adam and the Ants and Duran Duran made creative and catchy videos, a legacy of their art college backgrounds. However American acts soon caught up, Madonna, for example, can to this day be known as one of MTV’s biggest success stories. And in latter years, Eminem, Britney Spears and the Spice Girls have all become global superstars through the constant airing of their videos.

MTV also held an annual awards ceremony for the videos and music they broadcast, as well as broadcasting all of Live Aid, which was held to raise money for famine in Ethiopia.

MTV has a number of Spin of channels like MTV2 and MTV Dance, in order to show videos of specific genres to an ever growing community of diversity.

Music Videos now days can present a public image that the band want to promote. Nirvana’s dingy videos could be seen to represent the darkness in their personalities. The Spice Girls each had a band name e.g. Sporty Spice, Posh Spic, leaving young girls all over the UK aspiring to be who their favourite was.

The internet has challenged the traditional music channel, as well as creating a number of “internet sensations” like Lilly Allen and the Arctic Monkeys. YouTube is the most popular place for young artists to upload their videos, in the hope someone will see their talent, as well as spreading the word on social networking sites.

Videos can now be downloaded from iTunes and also illegally via sites like Limewire and the Pirate Bay. This is more convenient than sitting by your TV all day waiting in hope of your favourite video coming on. This has led to the closure of a number of channels and shows, most notably Top of the Pops who was unable to compete with the 24-hour service provided by channels like MTV.

Sources

• wikipedia.org
• bbc.co.uk
• NYPress.com (New York Press)
• MTV.com

Research: Digi Pack

What is a Digi-Pack?

A Digi-book is a little attachment that comes within the album covers. There are no specified measurements or layouts for a Digi-book, allowing artists to experiment and show their personality more through how they choose to present their ideas.


Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

On opening “Favourite Worst Nightmare,” I found it opened out with an image on either side of the CD, both showing back windows of a house at night, with the rooms of the house illuminated and decorated with bright, vivid colours, matching the inside of the house on the front cover. By putting the picture on the other side of the card, it makes the house seem 3D with the front on one side of the case and the back of the house on the other.
The Arctic Monkeys chose to give buyers a 12 page booklet in their second album. The booklet is simply 11 pages of photography using vivid colours like green, orange and pink. This relates back to the album cover which is a picture of a dark, grim street, showing three windows looking into rooms with bright decor, like something from the 60’s.
The pictures themselves match the dark nature of the music and the album cover by being extreme close-ups of general everyday things for example a fork, whilst being dimly lit.
On the final page of the booklet, the band use a green font on a black background which relates back to the green logo on the black background on the front of the album and to the find used on the back page.
They include a carbon copy of the track listing found on the back of the album and then in smaller print in the second half of the page, they include all of their acknowledgements to each song (i.e. who wrote it e.g. “track 5: Words by Turner/Bennett, Music by the Arctic Monkeys”)
Throughout the entire album the band use the same font and the same colour scheme, which is dark and green.

Favourite Worst Nightmare Front Cover

Example of Favourite Worst Nightmare Artwork

The Killers - Sawdust

The Killers have chosen to use an autumnal scene with the main colours being used browns, oranges and greens. The name of the band is written in white to make it stand out from the background, along with its position in the middle of the cover.
However the book included inside the covers shows the Killer’s thinking outside the box. All appears to be a normal booklet on first glance however when you open up the first page, the booklet takes up a more “wardrobe style effect,” with pictures of brass handles on wood making it seem like a door to Narnia.
When you open up the two doors, there is a wall style effect there, with a wooden style background and lots of pictures of the band with frames on them as if they are hung up on the wall.
The fact this album is dedicated to the fans makes the pictures all the more meaningful, because the fans who have purchased the album can look at pictures of the band and not have to put the pictures up on their own wall.
The pictures show the band in a variety of different places at a number of different stages in their careers, which not only reminds fans why they fell in love with the band in the first place, and also reminds fans of where the band are now.
The fact the pictures show the band in places such as under the Eifel Tower and jet-skiing makes them look like holiday pictures which makes the wall look more authentic.
On the back of the booklet is a bright green background with the words “this album dedicated to our fans” wrote in the same font as the album name on the front cover.
The CD itself also matches the colour scheme throughout the album, with the CD design made completely of brown and dark yellow.

Sawdust Front Cover

Sawdust Digi-pack half and fully opened

Hellogoodbye - Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!

It seems America’s most successful export of geeks have simply chosen to use a conventional CD case with a front cover which consists of a drawn monster who is painted in as if a child drew and coloured the picture in with wax crayons.
When you open up the case, you find the same style of art on the CD itself, but when you take out the front cover and unfold it, it becomes a poster with two sides.
The first side is a picture, mostly black and white which builds on the front cover, perhaps the buyer can finish off the colouring for him or herself? Or maybe the band just want to promote the artwork of the artist “Le Deux” who designed all the artwork for the band around the time of their first album’s release.
On the second side of the poster, we see familiar drawings but this time there are boxes built into the artwork containing the lyrics to all the songs on the album. This has become a lot more common in recent times, with bands releasing albums with lyrics in booklets found in the album case, but rarely are the lyrics presented in poster style as is found here.
Hellogoodbye’s bare and blank style really draws attention to the small bits of bright colour that are found, and in a strange way, less seems to be more with the absence of colour catching the eye and diverting attention to the artwork itself rather than the colours.

Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! Fron Cover

Research: Advertising Poster

Lost Prophets – The Betrayed

The Lost Prophets use a half page spread which is all black to match their album cover. The writing is white to stand out and with their band name plastered across the top of the advert so everyone knows who the advert is about. To stick to the theme, the bands pictures are also in black and white, with their skin made whiter and their hair made darker to blend in to the background adding an air of mysteriousness. The album name is also made big and wrote in block capitals as is the rest of the advert; however this is in bigger font and put right in the middle of the advert to make it stand out more.
The date of the release of the album is wrote below the name of the album in a grey colour which is less shiny and stands out less, whilst still standing out, to let people know when they can get their hands on this piece of music.
The band also put their website address at the bottom for viewers wishing to find out more about the band in general, and the upcoming release.
The colours and theme used in the advert can relate to the type of music band is going to play in the album, a sort of angry fight back from their previous album, and can relate to their target audience who will listen to other bands with this sort of theme and colour scheme, a sort of Goth stereotype who wear dark colours and like dark make up.

Vampire Weekend – Contra

Vampire Weekend adopt a very light colour scheme for their advert. A simple white background contains one picture on this double page spread which is the album cover without the band and album name on it. The picture itself has been edited on the computer to make it look pinker, and this matches the colour scheme used on the rest of the advert.

A reason for there not being a picture of the band themselves could be the fact the band want to be known for their music and not for their looks, because of the genre they're aiming for, the band would just look the same as every other band at the minute, it also adds to the mysteriousness of the band, making people want to find out more.
As well as including no pictures of the band, the same font is kept the entire way through, and they only use two colours, a purple and baby blue. The band name which is at the top of the advert is written in purple which is the more vivid colour and immediately stands out from the white background. The band have kept the same font from the first album so fans can still relate and this could also act as a statement that unlike some bands, this band haven't changed, its more of the same stuff people fell in love with them for.
The album name which is wrote in the less stand out baby blue colour is wrote in the same size as the band name but doesn't stand out as much because of its colour.
Then the words "the new album" as are said many other adverts are written with the release date in numerical form which finishes off all the given information.
In very small print underneath you find a very small logo of their record label separating the bands website and the labels website address' again for people who want to find out more about the band and the label they're signed to.
The simplicity of this advert makes it look all the more modern and up to date, where adverts aren't really about cramming all the information on to the page, but rather pointing the reader in the direction of more information whilst still wanting to persuade them to go and find information.

DELPHIC

Delphic make their advert almost as weird as their name. As you can see the main focus of the advert is the enhanced picture of the three band members behind the band name.
The members themselves can't be seen clearly because they have been made darker and stand out more against the off-white background.
The name of the band, in big, white, bold lettering is right in the middle of the advert, across the three band members to make the white stand out more. It's helpful for a new band, such as Delphic to get their name big and clear for people to see because a lot of people reading the advert will never have heard of them before.
The final third of the advert is the name of the album; again an eye catching word simply because of how un-common it is and this has the release date and record label underneath it in near-enough small print.

I think by the look of this advert, the main priority for the band is not to advertise when the album is coming out, but to promote their name so people want to have a look about the band more, listen to their first few songs and then find out when the album is coming out, as would be the case with my band. Bands such as Lostprophets and Vampire Weekend who are already established on the scene and who have a following of fans will want to advertise the new material as well as the name.