My A2 Media Studies Evaluation

My music video

Website

Here is the link to my website

http://teamblackoutmusic.weebly.com/

Tour poster

Editing

I have started to edit my video, at this stage I have the majority of the footage for my video so there is no problem with starting the editing stage of my project. Using i movie to create my music video has made it quite simple to edit, it is simple to cut away at my video clips making sure to use professional standard shots for my video making sure they are not shaky or distorted in any way.

Tour Dates

All artists will have created a detailed tour plan, as I have stated in past posts that it is common for the tour dates to be displayed on a certain poster for the artist so the fans are very much aware and are furthermore encouraged to purchase tickets.

Such as this poster, this is a tour date poster for Nero's 'Second Reality Tour'. Im not sure if i'm a fan of the way they have decided to display the dates, I think i'd prefer to use some sort of a grid method. Even so I cant deny that it is eye catching which is what they want so you want to buy a ticket.

After looking at a few tour posters I have noticed that the fonts differ from each other for the mast heads and the fonts used for the actual tour dates. Using this poster as an example the heading is done in the artists set house style font, and they have used a second font for the dates and locations which seems to be a similar font to what you will find on the back of a DVD box used for the company descriptions.

October 2014

WED          1  
THU           2
SAT           4
SUN          5
MON         6
WED         8
THU          9
FRI           10
SUN         12
TUE          14
FRI           17
SAT         18
SUN        19

Using Characters & Symbols in the Music Industry

Characters and symbols are very common in the music industry, these make the artists work stick in the listeners minds making the artists stand out from the rest of the music industry.


Feed Me has been using this cartoon character since there music began, majority of album covers feature this little character. The merchandise for this artist revolves around this character, people find it cool therefore they remember it and keep listening the music and buying the merchandise.








Deadmou5 is another artist who relies on a character or persona to be successful across the board. His music is popular enough but the fact that he uses this mask to create a character makes him even more popular and again makes him stand out from the industry. This was also a huge marketing possibility which proved successful since you are able to purchase these masks.










I think this would be one of the older characters from the selection I have here but the Kanye West Bear was quite popular after seeing him featured in music videos such as the single graduation. This proved popular with fans so they began creating merchandise for this character from teddy bears clothing and personalised items. This character has died down now and hardly see anything concerning it in music stores or online.

Footage 3

Footage 2

After looking at some videos that included free running in my research I liked the idea of using low angle shots as the person in the video runs past the camera

Footage

These are the clips from my first day of filming on my first location, after looking around for best places to free run Michael Taylor the person performing in my video led me to a park he knew that e thought would be a good location to start the video. He was right, I thought this was perfect for the shots I wanted to get on the day.









 As this was my first day filming I wanted to make sure I got perfect shots so I took a good few takes to get them right.

There were also clips were Michael made some mistakes or didn't lad flips flips properly.









But the man reason I decided to take the same shot over again because I was not happy with how I held the camera. Some of the shots where shaky and for a couple I wasn't able to keep up with Michael while he was running across the shot.

























I like this shot, I thought that the video would look better if throughout it had all sorts of angles. I wanted some shots as he is running towards the camera. I didn't want this shot to be shaky so I placed the camera on one of the pillars on the bridge to be sure I wouldn't shake the camera. Unfortunately I didn't take into a count the movement of the bridge as Michael ran across it resulting in the camera shaking a little bit.

Storyline

I have stated that my video will be telling a story of someone searching for his girlfriend/ past girlfriend, I have made some changes to how I will be setting it out. It takes a while for the song to get started, I thought it would be a good idea to start the video with him getting ready. Maybe having footage of him looking in the mirror putting on gloves just getting ready to leave the house, I had an idea to arc the camera around him until the camera is facing him. I could then zoom into a shot of one of his eyes. Here i'd like to change the colour to a grey scale and zoom back out with him sitting opposite his girlfriend, the grey of the scene representing that it is a scene from his past. I had another idea for him to  pass her something like a scarf, at the end of this scene I plan on again zooming back into his eye going back into the normal colour. As it zooms back out he is in a different location, this will be where the lyrics start and he will mime the words while the camera is still zoomed into his face. This shot will fade out and show him walking by, then he'll see her then see her leave. This is where the beat will pick up and there will be shots of the character free running, I plan on including many jump shots in the video to fit the pattern of the beat in the song. Near the end of the video when the song is dying down I will have him completely loose her, thats when he looks to the ground and sees the scarf abandoned. The camera will zoom out slowly and will eventually fade out.  

Posters

 All artists will have at some point a variety of posters promoting them, wether it'll be to promote a new album or a future tour or even a normal poster that you could find in any music shop. 

To be a successful poster it must contain content that clearly belongs in the genre being promoted. For example the colours used in the poster and how you use them are very important, as well as the colours used I must be sure to use fitting fonts and text styles making them stand out and clear to the audience.  

This is an example of a good simple music poster, there is not a lot happening in this example witch is exactly why I think it works. The black fading into the pale blue works great as a background against the pencil and ink drawing used as the man image. Using their house style text makes sure that this product will fit into the rest of their merchandise.


Another one of Nero's posters, this is a poster poster promoting a concert. The only thing that these two posters have in common is the Nero heading, they use the same font as they should throughout their work wether it be on albums or merchandise. Also the text seems to be in around the same area as the last one, this could be a house style choice to do this. I could see why, placing the main text on the lower third of the poster leaves plenty of space above for photographs, other text or graphical images.

The layout to this poster is very good, the clean clear text  easy to read on the dark background. They have also been sure to use a good font, something easy to read and stands out. As for the background, the really dark colours help the text really jump of the page. How the photograph has been placed on the page is good, using the text in the centre of the page.


























Skrillex has a very recognisable logo and overall style for his posters and album covers, looking at the majority of his posters and covers it seems that he focuses on using graphics in the promotion of his albums/concerts. Looking at these posters its clear that the graphics are very important to his style, I don't think that this particular style will be best for my video.







This is a Deadmau5 poster, as you can see it has a strong difference compared to the Skrillex and Nero posters. It has a lot more comic based graphics and the colours used help make the poster fit right into the house style. I do like this style and I think that I could be very good at creating something like this. This will most probably be the sort of poster I will be using to form my own.

The Effects Debate

The media effects debate is a long standing question over how influential the media is towards the people exposed to it. An easy example is the question – does watching violent movies make the viewers violent?

The majority of music videos today have some sort of content that a high percentage of viewers may find to be inappropriate or offensive, this is normally the elder generation. The majority of elder viewers of these videos feel that they can give off the wrong example to younger viewers and make them want to copy the actions of the artist/artists in the videos. This has always been the case, from going back to the 50's and the birth of Rock n Roll. 

But going back to the purpose of this post it isn't just the content of the song that seems to bother people now, it is also the content of the videos. 
Marilyn Manson is a big example for the effects debate, his videos are inappropriate and I can clearly see how some people would be outraged with their children being exposed to him. But all the aggression towards him and his music from viewers come from the fear of their children thinking they should act like this.    

Website Analysis

This is a screen shot of the main page from Nero's official website. This site was completely empty much like their Facebook page, there has been no activity for a good few months I have put this blog post off for a while hoping that there maybe some sort of update on the website as well as their Facebook page.

So instead of using Nero's site I have decided to use a different site from a different artist like Skrilllex. As soon as I visited this website I could see that there was quite a lot going on. One of my favourite things about this site is that when you open the site you get a quick look at the sites home page and then the artists tour dates and locations. This is something that I think I could gain marks from, so I am considering making one of these and placing it on my own site as a pop up.


After closing the tour poster I am presented with the home page of the website, as you can see this is a basic layout. The navigation bar is quite simple but does keep  with the house style of the site witch seems to be white backgrounds and thin red lines to create borders between sections.







Here is some screen shots from the Skrilllex site, these pages display the albums that Skrilllex have created. I to plan to have a section in my site with some past albums that my group have created. I don't think I will display my albums as simply as it is done on this site, I could use a slide show to display my album cover.

















This is a screen shot of the online store for Skrilllex on their official site. It is always a great idea to have a store on your website, I think I could come up with some designs for products such as t-shirts, hats, jackets and shoes. There will also be the more predictable products such as copies of albums, posters and limited addition merchandise.

This is a shot from Skrilllex's Youtube channel, a link was provided in the navigation bar on the official site. There was also links to their Facebook, Twitter and Tumbler accounts.

Twitter Analysis

Just like all artists Nero's Twitter page pretty much has the exact same posts as their Facebook page. " Sorry to have left you in the dark for so long. The 2nd album is coming 2014." This is the exact same post as displayed on their Facebook page, This isn't surprising as it is important that their fans all receive updates from them across all forms of social networking so that they feel reassured.

Facebook Page Analysis

This is a shot of the official Nero Facebook page, there doesn't seem to be a lot of content. The last post was in November of last year apologising for the lack of updates and state that the new album will be coming in 2014. I shouldn't be surprised as their website was the same, there wasn't any updates relating to their music except one telling us that the new album will be released in 2014.




As  I entered the photo albums for their Facebook page there was large portfolio of images ranging from old album art to photographs from their concerts. This is nothing surprising as all artists collect photographs from their shows as well as using past album covers in their portfolio.






I could stage some photographs for my own portfolio but I doubt I will be able to get the same quality images as seen in Nero's images. I will have to use a hall or some sort of stage and have people pose, I will end up running these images through photoshop to attempt to create the same sort of light and lazer effect like on these images to the left.




This is one of the final sections of their Facebook page, this is almost like a little forum for the fans. So they can ask questions on such things as tour dates and releases of new albums. Again I believe that this is something I could do for my page, it should make it more interesting than just a normal Facebook page.

Risk Assessment

After looking back on my plan for this video I have realised that there are some things that could go wrong during the filming or prep. Hopefully nothing will go wrong but just in case I thought I could make a list on what can go wrong so I can be ready for it.

• Camera could die whilst filming
• May not be able to compromise a day all the actors in my video to be on location
• My main actor for video could back-out
• The location may be quiet busy when filming (HOPEFULLY NOT) 
• Bad weather, but may make my video better

These are quite minor issues that may happen, as I have stated in earlier posts there will be free running in my video. This can be a major issue if there are any problems, hopefully not but my actor could injure himself in the middle of filming. This is why I have spoken to him about if there are certain stunts that he is unable to do as I know that he has injured himself in the past with certain stunts. This will probably cause the most worry for me whilst filming but I don't expect him to do anything he  cant handle.

Worries

I am still yet to start filming my music video, this is worrying me as I am running out of time. I should have most of the shots for my music video by now but unfortunately I do not, My actor is still busy with other business and still tells me he wants to be i the video but I am not sure how much longer I can wait. I need to start filming within the next week, if not I may have to think of something else.

Music videos with free running

This may not be an official music video but it does link with my own work through the free running content. I decided to do this as I thought it would good idea to see what sort of shots and camera angles work with these types of videos. This example seems to show quite a few clips that  are slowed down creating more effect while they perform. It would probably do me well to do the same to some extent, to be honest i fell it would have been better if they slowed it down just a little bit more so I think I will slow it down even more.

I feel this is a more interesting video and a better example to use, as I stated before I would prefer the video to have much slower clips. This video has a lot slower clips as well as other effects that the other does not. For example there was a clip near the start of the video where a clip just paused for a couple of seconds, I thought this was interesting. Im not so sure that this effect would work in my video but I will look back and listen to my song again to see if there is somewhere I can fit this effect in I will.

Film Trouble

Unfortunately I am yet to begin filming on my music video, the actor I want has a rather packed schedule so therefore i have not had the chance to gather footage. I have spoken to this person and he has assured me that he will be free to work with me within the next few weeks, hopefully there wont be too big a gap between filming posts in the future.