Friday 30 September 2011

Feedback

Your response is sound and you have been creative with your blogs, I particularly like the use of layout and design.  You have a sound knowledge and understanding of who you want your artist to be signed to; perhaps you could link this further by stressing the advantages that your artist has signed to the particular record label.  Your clearly identify your target audience and have profiled them - this coul;d be linked to VALS.  Good research into CD covers and you have a wide range of examples, and this would be developed further if you can link the real product to how it will influence your own designs, by annotating the design.


Digipak covers research











These are the digipak covers of other similar artist with the same alternative image. These varies from Radio to Foals. You can see the similarity between them are that don't feature the artist on the front and are usually quite random. This makes that the artist seem more interested in there music and talent rather then there image they are giving off.

I took a lot of influence from these to produce two ideas for my artist. I took influence because these are various respected musicians who have all received commercial or critical success. This means they give a good idea of what artist will be influenced by. As you can see theres limited reprentaion and foreced star image but that in its self produces a star image of a unique band that is not pushing towards mainstream music and not comerical sucsess but critical sucsee to there fans. This is why there band or artists is not in any of the examples of the influence above that is why I have not included them below.






Below is the digipak template I found on the internet.


My artist

The record company my artist is attached to is EMI.  "EMI Music provides EMI’s roster of artists – as well as independent labels and artists – with a global menu of commercial services and seamless access to an expanding range of revenue streams and business models, including digital and physical distribution, sales, press and promotion, marketing, licensing, synch, brand partnerships, live recordings and merchandising."
- The website

This Record company is a global company so will have reach to to the USA and across Europe but they also accommodate to less mainstream and more niche market artists. Our artist does not completely appeal to the mainstream audience nor is it completely niche. That is why I think EMI will be good for our artist because of there slightly alternative look and sound. They also specialize in British music and seeing as our artist are British it would make a good fit.

There range accommodates artists from rap (snoop dog) to metal(Iron maiden) to pop(Katy Perry)


Target audience-
15-25 years old
Male and femail
Would probely appeal to B,C,D social class
(B- middle manegment, C-supervisory,skilled manual, D-Semi and unskilled mannual)
Tend to have a risk takeing life style
Trendies(Crave attention from peers)
Innovators(Wish to make ther mark)]#
Rebels(Remake the world in their own image)
groupies(Just want to be accepted)



Link to EMI

http://www.emimusic.com/

Friday 16 September 2011

Feedback

This is a concise and creative blog - the creativity and design is good. 
You have produced some concise work with your blog entries.  In order to develop the detail to your work you need to revise your class notes and add some detail to the comments you make, for example, look at the work on Dyer and Stars, Negus and the video as a promotional tool.  The detail in your written work will heklp  you reach a high notional grade for your research and planning - the concept is clearly there!

In the lesoon today

We analysed the lyrics to the song and have annotated them with what we could then in the song. This is a picture of our annotations.

Set backing for the artist performance

I have resherched into haveing a colourful backing made out of lights, for when the artist is playing into the camera.





Thursday 15 September 2011

Proposition of the artist

Name. Lanmou (meaning loved one in creole, this was thought of to portray the alternative modern hippy type persona )

Genre. Alternative rock

Star image. Counter mainstream, alternative, original, organic

Target audience. 16-30 year olds, men and woman





This is a example of the type of branding the artist would have. Ian make this in photoshop by coping a background of the mgmt website, where fans post there own ideas/graphics in which the band should have and editing over it with the band name. As you can see below it very alternatively styled and gives off the image of the artist we would like to produce.

An Idea of what the album artwork could look like

This is a link to a mood board that Niko made on the star image. https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AcuvPz7iPH4JZGZwM3EzanRfMTY4eHJidzVoZA&hl=en_US&pli=1

This is a link to a powerpoint which Nico produced but in more detail to what i have given. https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AcuvPz7iPH4JZGZwM3EzanRfMTJkc3hzbTZmMg&hl=en_US&pli=1


Initial ideas



Firstly my group and I looked at the resivour dogs opening scene as a concept or look for the video. We liked this as a concept because we agreed that we could produce some nice shots and produce a good narrative. As well as being able to flow freely with a variety of music styles.
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We then looked at a variety of different genres of music that would work with this style of feel to the video. We decided to look for some think alternative where the artist breaks convention at steps out of modern mainstream music.  These are some of  the songs that we looked at in our research
After browsing through our itunes we decided on 'electric feel' by MGMT.

Lyrics of electric feel.



Lyrics | MGMT lyrics - Electric Feel lyrics


Eletric feel original video.





Initially we struggled to think of a narrative for the video brainstorming ideas of the several men dressed in suits in pursuit of the artist, or the men in suits robbing a jewelry store(intertextual reference to resivour dogs)


  • band of horses- dilly
  • bliss n' esso- sea is rising
  • wax tailor arrange of videos
  • guns and roses
  • MGMT

We also looked at the shots and post productiobn used in a video promoting enviromental enrgy on the isle of wight.



Eco-Island Promo from Evo Films on Vimeo.

Research into real artists of a similar type

MGMT according to there wikipedia is an alternative rock band. . MGMT have a fairly unique style of music and star image or persona. So it is quite hard to find artists with the same look. We did research artist that may have had a different style of music but counter mainstream media conventions like MGMT do.


Radiohead offical website print screen







Above are examples of radioheads music videos. They are usually fairly abstract and not desperately try to portray a star image. The second video especially show how they do not need or what to share the same sort of promotion for them selfs that most mainstream artists do. They do this by one simple stationary shot of just the front man of the group.

In our research I did find a band with a similar style of music called ou est le swimming pool.
This os there video from there most popular song.


This music video solely feautres the artist. With no narrative just the artist performance, highlighting music talent rather star image.









Wednesday 14 September 2011

Introduction to Advanced Portfolio

This is a copy of the breif for this portfolio we were given by our teacher.




A2 Media –Advanced Production (G324)

The Brief

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
                       
a website homepage for the band;

a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);

a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).







All material for all tasks to be produced by the candidates with the exception of acknowledged non-original sound or image material used in a limited way in video/radio work. Further guidance will be available in the support materials. For music video, permission should be sought from the artist for use of the audio track.

The centre will be expected to allocate marks according to four levels for each of three categories:
Research and Planning

Construction

Evaluation

In arriving at a level for each category, teachers are advised to look for evidence of ‘best fit’. It is possible both for a candidate to be placed in different levels for each of the three categories and to receive quite different marks from other members of the same group responsible for producing an artefact, according to his/her contribution. Teachers are asked to support marks with written comments under the three categories on the assessment sheet

Friday 9 September 2011

Evaluation of preliem

For our prelim tasked we were asked to plan, shoot and edit a music video for a band called Acres of Life. We had thirty minutes to shoot about a minute of footage.

In the music video we tried to use a variety of different shots. The shots we used and why are:

Wide Shot.  This shot allowed us to shoot the hole band in one shot, it also gave us a establishing shot which was easy always to and from. This also show the band as a unit or team which makes them look good working together.

Mid Shot of band members. Having mid shots of the individual people allowed the audience to connect with each member individually instead of the usual unit a band is show in. This allows the band to seem more divese evan if they are all representing the same look or style, they can still individually build fan bases.

Close ups. We also used close ups of each of the respected band mebers skill or talen in the group. For example a extreme close up on the leed singer mouth and the microphone or the gutirist fingers struming the giutier. Thsi showed the skill of band as oposed to being a mainstream "boy band' who usaully just sing. This shows that the band are a more organic group make them more populer in there target niche audience.

High angle drummer shot. We used this shot because it was a differnt way to show the drummer playing on all the differnt drums and symbols.


I was happy with the shots we filmed on the day and I think in post-production editing my group and I got them to flow well together. I think our most interesting shot was the high angle on the drummer as it offers some contrast to the other styles of shot we were using

Preliem video

Research into the preliem video artists you I shot on the day


Acres of Life are the band we shot are preliem video are an alternative punk indie. Before planning the video we reserched the band and there genre of music. This helped us see what sort of style of music we should shoot and what sort of shots we should use.


The Band members


http://www.myspace.com/acresoflife

www.facebook.com/acresoflife
Thease are the websites we looked at in our research of Acre of life. This includes there myspace page where they can post there music, there facebook page wheare they can post information and promote them self and a merchadise store featureing the acres of life logo on clothing.



Acres of Life
Acres of Life branding

We also looked at there youtube page where they posted there music and video diaries, in an effort to promote them selfs.


These are example of the videos they had posted
All of our reshearch helped us get an idea of what the band star image was, once we new that we could start planninmg the viudeo to promate there image or unigue selling point.

This is a video diary trhe band made the day we shot there video

Reserch into performance shooting and editing for prelim video

Narrative analysis


In class we have been studing media theorists and theorys. For example Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov reinforces Aristle's original theory that everthing has to have a begining, a middle and an end. But in more detail.

This is a diagram of Tordov theory which I found whilst reserching on the internet. This shows and explains narrative.

We also looked at how Bordwell and Thompson in 1991 defined comman media terms.

"Plot- What we can see on screen. Includes extra narrative things
Story- All that we know about the narrative including seen and unseen
Diegesis- The total world of the story
Parallelism- Parrallel development of mul;tiple nstorylines
Cause and effect- causes can come formk a character" 




Thease are links to Aristotles and Todorov wikipidia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle

Music Video analysis

In Class we have studied the music video of Brittney Spears 'hit me bay'. Britney Speras is a well known pop star who appeals to a wide audience. Her star image works on two levels. The first being a incocent younge girl wich appeals to the younger generation as it is more relateable. This younger generation also tends to be attracted to music with catchy upbeat songs which Britney regulary records. The second level is being aimed at a more mature male audience who are likely to be attracted to Brittney and to her suggestive lyrics in her songs aswell as her videos.

This is the video of hit me baby.





In The above screen shot of Brittney in the video you can see the svhool girl relateabl image. It is very innocent and not suggest if in any way. This attracts the younger generation (mainley girls) to britneys music



This screenshot from the same video shows contrast between the two projected star images. As you can see thanks to the unbuttoned shirt and suggestive danceing this appeals to a older mal audiance.


On the orther hand a simalrity between the two screen shots and the whole video is that britney is allways in focus or at the front. This shows that she is a completly solo and adds to her super star image.