Planning - Practice Filming

I filmed for my 30 second music video opening yesterday. I filmed the drumming section and my singing section and I think that both sessions went quite well. The drumming section was quite simple, I did a birds eye view shot looking down on the drums being played for the intro of the song. As it was quite a simple beat, my drummer picked it up quite quickly and I think that when it comes to editing I will be able to sync this with the music fairly easily. I filmed an extra shot looking at the drums from the side as extra/spare footage incase I needed it to fill some of the time if I didn't shoot enough. I could also use this to change the angle and make the intro more interesting rather than just having one shot all the way through.
For the singing session, I filmed the 4 different shots I planned out on my story board. I had a mid shot of the singers feet tapping to the beat, another of him clicking and a close up of him singing. I found that the singing was the hardest part to film correctly. This may have been because my singer didn't have much time to learn lyrics or timing thoroughly enough which is something I will have to consider when filming my real music video. I also did a mid shot of him singing to change the angles after the other shots were shown.


Overall, I think that it all went well and according to plan and look forward to editing it all together.

Planning - Practice Music Video

Today I will be filming both the drumming and singing for my 30 second music video opening. I have booked a music room with a drum kit so that it is free for when I need it and when my drummer is free. I have also moved my studio filming to this lunchtime as my singer was unable to do the original date. However this has not turned out to be a problem as I have talked and rebooked the photography studio for today with no fuss or stress.


Andrei - Drums - 12:00 - Music Room 3
Ben - Singing - 1:00 - Photography Studio


Hopefully all will go to plan and everything will get filmed as planned. I will then be able to get on with editing it all together and making sure that, in editing, everything will sync up nicely with the music.

Planning - Timing

I have listened to my chosen song and broken it down into separate sections to give me a more detailed time scale of the song as a whole. It shows me where there is singing and where there are instrumental parts. I have broken down the timings to show me exactly how much time each section is for. By doing this, it will help me plan out my video and help me plan out where to put narrative in and where performance could be put in. 

0:00 - 0:25 Intro (Instrumental)

0:25 - 0:49 Verse 1

0:49 - 0:56 Instumental

0:56 - 1:24 Chorus

1:25 - 1:35 Instrumental

1:35 - 2:00 Verse 2

2:00 - 2:46 Instrumental

2:46 - 3:09 Verse 3

3:09 - 3:13 Instrumental

3:13 - 3: 42 Chorus

3:42 - 4:11 Outro (Sung)

Research - Poster & Digipak

You Me At Six: Sinners Never Sleep Posters
These posters are advertising You Me At Six, a band with a similar genre to the band and song I am working with for this project. The first poster is advertising their October UK tour whilst the second is advertising the release of their new album, 'Sinners Never Sleep'.


There are many similarities between the two. One would be the typography used in both, the name of the band is in the same font. On the second poster the text underneath the image of the album cover is in the same font as the title of the album. The first poster, the same font is used as the font for the title of the band but much smaller. This gives a sense of continuity which is something I should be aware of when designing my own poster.
The style of the images is quite similar too. They both use a monotone colour scheme and both have quite a strong contrast between black and white. The first poster uses a simple band shot against a white background but with an interesting border to stylise the image further. They are all wearing similar clothes so one member doesn't look odd or stands out. However, they have put the lead singer central and slightly larger that the rest, something that most band shots tend to do.
The album poster is quite simple which is effective as it doesn't distract the user from what it's message and purpose of advertising is. It gets the point and information across clearly and simply meaning as soon as the audience see's it they know what it's about.

You Me At Six: Sinners Never Sleep Digipak

The digipak for the album also has a consistent theme throughout, relating back to the cover of the album. The album cover shows someone holding up a mugshot plate. The digipak includes a photo of each member holding up their own plate, each in the same style as each other. The background of the inner album has images of finger prints that police would take of each criminal, in this case each band member. The band shot included in the digipak is a black and white shot, much like the image on the tour poster. It is a simple shot with a plain background allowing the audience to see the band without any distractions in the shot. The CD's themselves are very plain and fit with the monochrome colour scheme. They have contrasting text in the same style as each other.


Over all, the posters and digipak advertising 'Sinners Never Sleep' are all very consistent and aware of one another, making it quite clever and thought out. The similarities between them allow the audience to really remember and relate back quickly to what is being advertised.

Research - CD Covers

Young Guns - All Our Kings Are Dead

For this project, I will have to look into CD covers and 'Digipaks' for one of my ancillary tasks. Now that I have chosen what song I want to do, I am able to go look further into that specific genre of music to see what they have done for their own covers and digipaks. 

The first CD cover I will look at is 'All Our Kings Are Dead' as it is the debut album of the band who I am using for my final music video project.

The imagery on the cover much relates to the tiles of the album, 'All Our Kings Our Dead'. We see a lion wearing a crown of thorns. This depicts the king of the jungle, the lion. The crown of thorns relates back to Jesus' crown of thorns when he died on the cross. The album cover depicts the title well as it shows the king of the jungle dying the way one of the most important figures of the world died. 

The typography on the cover is bold and powerful, looking quite majestic and with curled, vine like illustration, much like what is surrounding the lions head. In contrast to this, the title of the album is much smaller and in a plain font, making it less obvious. This can connote the contrast in power, showing one side of being all powerful like a king and the other, small with no power at all. The lack of colour on the cover suggests again that power has faded away.

Overall, the album depicts the title, not so much the songs on it. The song I have chosen has quite a strong and clear meaning title which means it could be easy to follow in this literal path for my over cover and digipak. However, I will look further into similar genres and see what other conventions and similarities there are.

Research - Barthes' Codes

CODES & CONVENTIONS:

Music videos also follow codes and conventions. In class we have looked at Barthes' five codes: Enigma, Action, Semic, Symbolic and Cultural. The majority of music videos will follow at least one of these codes.

Enigma:

The enigma code is used to keep the audience guessing by holding back information. It makes the audience question what is going on, adding a sense of mystery. The enigma code can be presented in 5 different ways: a 'snare' is when information misleads the audience; 'equivocation' is a snare followed by the truth; 'partial answer' makes the audience want to know the whole truth; 'suspended answer' almost gives the truth (like a cliffhanger) and 'jamming' doesn't explain what has happened in a text at all.

An example of enigma in a music video would be: Tyler The Creator - 'Yonkers' giving a jamming enigma as the video does not tells us why he kills himself at the end or eats the cockroach.

Action:

The action code consists of a series of events that lead into one another with logical consequences. It allows the audiences to follow the narrative and sometimes be able to predict what may happen next. This makes the audience want to watch on and find out what happens next. 

An example of action code in a music video would be: Katy Perry - 'Hot N Cold' with the wedding and chasing the groom through the streets as a result of his response suggesting he doesn't want to marry her.

Semic: 

The semic code is where the text connotes something. Whether is be a prop or setting it allows the audience to make assumptions about the narrative such as where it is set or what will happen between two characters. It can also give the audience hints as to what type of genre or narrative structure will be. 

An example of semic code in a music video is Kanye West - 'Power'. This video put him in the center, surrounded by angles and women. There is a halo above him and he appears to be in the clouds. This video is representing him as a God like figure and connotes he is all powerful.

Symbolic:

Symbolic code is a bit like binary opposition. A narrative may use a character or object that may not be the expected or typical first thought. It allows the audience to question why it has been used instead of something else. It breaks the expectations and gets the audience interested and actively thinking throughout the text. 

An example of symbolic code in a music video can be seen in Kanye West - 'Monster' as women are shown to be the 'monsters' or evil whereas usually we associate bad, evil characters to be primarily male. 

Cultural:

The cultural code is where the audience viewing the text must know of a previous event/person/text in order to understand the new text they are viewing. An example of this would be having seen a film the watching a spoof film of that film. It can also refer to specific people or eras in time and even events in the real world. It requires background knowledge from the audience in order to fully understand the text.

And example of cultural code in music video would be: All Time Low - 'I Feel Like Dancing' as it refers back to famous music videos already made at the end (Katy Perry, Lady Gaga etc). It also refers to the music video for Cobra Starship's 'Guilty Pleasure' by having the desk and board coming up with music video ideas however this video is lesser known.

Final Song Choice

I have found a song that I would quite like to use for my music video project this year. The song is called 'There Will Be Rain' by the band Young Guns. Currently, there is no music video for this song so it gives me completely fresh start and no influences that I might otherwise have if there were a video for this song. I have chosen to do the acoustic version of this song as I think that I could work with more experimental ideas and my creativity as the original song is quite fast paced and my ideas for it would be more generic and maybe less interesting and engaging to my audience.
I will now beging to research further into similar bands and genres and find out typical styles, codes and convetions they use which will give me a better idea on how to make my own video appeal to the audience I am targetting (teenagers interested in this genre).