DVD Front Cover

Today I imported the rest of the photos that I had taken to use on my DVD cover in Photoshop. I had taken pictures of a guitar, speakers, a musical note and DJ Decks. Once i had imported them I put them in the correct place. The speakers and the DJ Decks went on the front page and are on top of the picture of the grass. I had adjusted the saturation and shadow of them to make them slightly darker so that they blend in better with the grass and so looks more believable and realistic. I then used the rest of my pictures on the back of the front cover and placed the guitar, decks, drumsticks, note and speakers around the tracklisting which was written in different contrasting colours. As well as this i have imported the DVD logo on the front of the cover with the record label "Sony BMG entertainment" logo. Also on the back i have added the barcode to add to the realism.

Inside DVD Cover

Today I carried on working on the inside of my DVD cover on Photoshop. I began importing the first lot of my photos that I had taken to use in my work. These pictures were of a gate, grass and of trees to use as the surroundings.I then arranged them on the front page and wrote the title of the band "South of the Drop" accross the picture of the gate that i had taken. I began using a tool that allows me to delete anything unnecessary around the picture, such as the background of the picture, so that I can use the best part of the image. I then managed to nearly finish the front page of the inside of my DVD cover and just need to import the rest of my photos tommorow.

Friday 11th Dec - Coursework

Today i managed to choose a suitable font that would look good for the title of the band. I am now close to finishing the inside cover of the DVD as i have done the title which is written from corner to corner across the page, the circle for the DVD and the stars that are going around the outside of the page. All i need to do now is to take some pictures for the two things on the inside cover, and then the pictures for the rest of my work and then i will be able to complete the dvd front cover and magazine advert by Friday the 18th December.

Photoshop

Yesterday i managed to get quite a lot of work done in progressing in my DVD front cover. I am learning more about using photoshop as well as becoming more confident with the program. Yesterday on photoshop i had created the circle of where the DVD disk will go and the title for the inside of the the DVD cover that goes across the page from corner to corner. With this i began finding the logo's for the DVD sign and the logo for PAL. I found these and have now put them on my DVD cover in the bottom corner of the page. Next i need to sort out the backgrounds for my DVD cover and then start adding some of my pictures to the DVD cover.

Progression So Far

I have now completed the drafts of my coursework tasks on paper and they have been coloured in. I have also scanned them and uploaded them to my blog as well as analysing them. Next I have to begin creating then drafts for real on photoshop and so far I have created the blank canvases for each of the pieces of coursework. I have measured them out on photoshop so soon I will be able to add my photo's that I have taken to the photoshop and begin editing with effects.

Magazine Advert Poster

The Magazine Advert is also quite simple in its colours but I think its quite effective. The title of the band is sideways accross the muiddle of the page in red and black, with rating reviews from real music magazines at the top of the poster. There are yellow/gold starts around the title of the band which helps it to stand out. The name of the album is next to the band name with a gold disfigured star around it to also make it stand out. Again there is a picture of DJ decks and a speaker which are red. There is writing below the title of the band which says "Including the smash hit Tarantula out December the 11th" in gold graffiti style writing.

DVD Inside Cover

The Inside cover of the DVD booklet is very simple compared to the poster and the front cover. The title of the band is wrote diagonally from the bottom left hand corner across to the top right hand corner. With this on the right hand side i have drawn the outline of where the CD will go which is coloured in red as well. Then on the left hand side I have a picture of the DJ decks and a speaker which also has the re-occuring colour of red.

DVD Front Cover

I created my DVD front cover with the intentions of using elements of our music video. I used bold colours including red that features in all of my work. In our film there is a lot of forest type shots with greenery and trees and i have managed to incorperate this into my work. The front cover has the fence from the film and also the trees either side of the band that are featured at the front of the cover. Also there is a moon in the sky that is creating a red spotlight on the main singer which i will create in photoshop. On the back of the front cover I have made the tracklistings fit all in a box that starts in one corner and goes around the edge. These are all in different colours and also there are pictures of instruments and objects that relate to the music video and the front of the front Cover.

Next Part of Coursework - Ancillary Tasks

We have now finished the main coursework task of creating a Music Video. We have finished the filming and editing and have added the finishing touches. We now have to create Ancillary tasks which include creating a DVD front and back cover for the promotion of the music video as well as an advertising poster.

I have now finished the drafts of the DVD front and back cover and also the magazine advert poster.

Re-Filming - Wednesday 4th

Today we re-filmed our band sequence which was also the last piece of filming we needed to do. We arranged to meet up afterschool on wednesday the 4th of november in the drama room PDH. This room is very useful for our band sequence as it is like a make shift stage which gives a similar effect of a live performance.

We filmed with the Fig Rig and the standard tripod. We filmed myself on my own playing the drums, then John on his own playing the guitar and then Andy on his own playing the bass guitar. Once we had footage of each of us playing on our own we then filmed some of us playing as a band. Also we filmed the two guitarists John and Andy coming down the stairs either side of the stage and walking down, to be used at the start of the song, as if it was the start of a performance.

Today's filming was very effective as we managed to get a lot of footage recorded from a variety of angles and with effective lighting. As I said before we have now finished all of our filming and for the last week before the deadline we can now focus completely on editing our footage and adding effects to it to make it look just like a professional music video.

Today's work and Overall Progression

Today me and my group did a lot of hard work editing our footage. I did quite a bit of editing of the DJ section of the film, mainly of the decks and generally cutting up and sorting out our footage. So far we are progressing very well with our editing and are on track to be finished in good time. Apart from editing, we just need to re-film our band section which we should be doing tommorow (4th November) after school and then that just needs organising and editing. Once this is completed we will be ready to put the finshing touches to our music video.

Props

When we re-film the band sequence, i am going to bring in a set of real drumsticks to use on the drums. At the moment, the band sequence we filmed was with a different set of sticks that looked ok but the real drumsticks would be much better. We should be re-filming this sequence sometime this week once our group has decided a date when we have gone back to school on the 3rd of November.

Filming

Unfortunatly we have not been able to film over the school half term. This was because we had already filmed the outdoor sequences, which we did first, and the rest of the filming that is left to do is of the band sequence which we need a room at school called PDH for. This room is a large sized drama room with lighting controls that make it seem like a stage for a concert or performance. This is very useful to us when filming this band sequence as it makes it very realistic and seem like it is a real stage and live performance. However we were not able to film in this room over half term and so we will need to book it for our use as soon as we are back to school on the 3rd of November.

Before the half term we also did a lot of editing and have the majority of it done. We now just need to re-film this band sequence and then we can begin editing it and then put the complete sequence together.

Editing

The last lesson of media I think was very successful. I took part in editing some of the clips that we had filmed and began reducing the clip overall into just the most important part. I cut some of the clips into effective short and snappy shots of the scenery and signs which said "Danger!" in yellow, which I think was effective for the mise-en-scene aspect of our film. I have also learnt how to use Final Cut quite effectively and will now be able to edit our film to a much greater extent.

Editing

Today as a group we opened our work in Final Cut Express and began editing what we could. However when we first opened our work, the film that we had uploaded before had not worked properly, therefore we had to re-upload the film from before. Once we had done this, we began putting together the opening sequence of our Music Video. This included some shots of the narrative part of our film, myself drumming in the band section and shots of surroundings which I think we put together quite effectively.
Overall I think we had quite a successful lesson, as well as editing, we discussed what needed to be re-filmed and when we were going to do this. So in the next couple of lessons and after school we will re-film some of our band section and then we will have all the footage we need and we can focus completely on editing.

Re-Filming

Today our group re-filmed the DJ section of our music video of John playing on the Decks. He used the desk and put a vinyl on and played it. We then filmed him from different angles as well as using a cut-out of a Tarantula and put it on top of the Vinyl as it spun round. Also as well as using the camera from different angles in a fixed position, we also moved the camera around and got some mobile shots.

Wednesday 14th Lesson

In toady's lesson we carried on uploading our footage to Final Cut Express. We uploaded more of our film including the story and some of the band section. Later on once the film had uploaded I started trying out some editing techniques and effects. Some looked quite effective but we have finalised what effects we are going to use yet.

Uploading

In toadys lesson we carried on uploading all of our footage. The software that we are using to edit our film with is called Final Cut Express which is a professional piece of software used in the media industry. We began to upload our footage but were having some problems with saving the work we had uploaded. Also we have misplaced a tape however we have already uploaded the footage from it so it is not as big of a problem as we first thought.

While uploading the footage we saw some things that we think needs to be re-filmed. Firstly we are going to re-film the band section as we are going to add another guitarist and a singer. Plus we are going to try and get a stensil of a tarantula and display it on the back wall of the stage.

Adjusting the film

At first we were going to have 3 different parts to our film. First a club/rave scene, then a scene of the band playing and then a story section to go along with it. However we have now decided to cut the Club/rave section and just integrate the band scene and story scene together. This way we can focus more on making the band scene much better and effective as I think we have more ideas and techniques to use and there is just much more we can do with it.

Uploading

Uploading our film is quite time consuming as we have filmed on four tapes so that when filming we used four cameras all at different angles. We started to upload the footage last Friday and have been carrying on uploading today. We would like to re-film some parts of the band scene and have adjusted parts of it to make it more affected. Instead of one guitarist we are going to have two, and they will come down each set of stairs at either side of the stage at the start of the song. Also we have an idea that we are going to try which is to project a Tarantula on to the black background at the back of the stage through a stensil.

Filming - Wednesday 7th - Afterschool

After a successful filming session during todays lesson, we also planned to film most of, or all of, our band section afterschool. We used our school's large drama room PDH which has a make-shift stage with stairs either side. We arrived at PDH and brought 4 cameras and 4 tapes with us so that we could leave the cameras filming constantly but from different angles. We also used a tool called the Fig Rig which we can put the camera on like a tripod and carry around to get mobile shots.

We set up all of the cameras and the Fig Rig with a camera and prepared to film. Georgina was working the lights for effect while filming, while me and Andy were acting as musicians in the film. I was playing the drums and Andy was on the Bass guitar while also singing. The main lights were dimmed and we decided to have a slight red and white lights showing while also having flashing lights, especially when the tempo of the music increased.

We managed to get quite a lot of footage on four different tapes as well as the camera on the Fig Rig and was a very successful filming session. After seeing the footage afterwards, in the room where we filmed there were stairs either side of the stage. We have now decided to have two guitarists instead of one and have them walking down the stairs either side at the beginning of the song, and then have a seperate singer.

Filming - Wednesday 7th

Today we filmed the story part of our film. In the lesson today we looked at our storyboards and focused on the narrative section. Then we set off to film this part, using myself and John as the actors showing drug use and the quite dangerous and strange environment we were in. We went behind our Sports hall where it is quite overgrown. We used props such as syringes, a coat to cover our indetity, shots of the environment such as CCTV cameras, danger sign, metal staircase and railings. We managed to get quite a lot of footage and it was quite a successful lesson and in just one lesson we managed to pretty much get all of the story part filmed.

Problems With Filming

Originally we had planned to film a band that would be in the video as if they were playing the song. However we have had a lot of problems with deciding a time to meet with the band as they are only free at certain times like we are. This has lead to us having to re-think what we are going to do and now have decided to just use ourselves in the band as we have used up a lot of time trying to get together and meet the band. We will still film the same sequence although we have just had a slight change of plan.

What we have left to film

• Band scene - 7th october - anything thats left on the 8th october
• Story in the forest -
• Club/ Dj part - 7th october - anything thats left on the 8th october

James there is a lot of good work here. Just make sure your analysis is detailed and really looks at the connotations of each element.

MCU

Storyboards

From this storyboard you can see that we had many ideas about the scenery of our shots and where we wanted to shoot the background of our shots. We thought that with the style of our video that woodland and forest type environments would be most effective and so we decided to design some shots as you can see below.

As you can see from the first storyboard we had quite a few ideas about what to include in our film. Firstly as you can see we wanted to include a Tarantula at some point but we were unsure on where to bring in this idea. In the end we decided to project a picture of the Tarantula on a screen behind the band.

From this storyboard it was mainly looking at just other ideas we had and drawing them out. We had sorted the other storyboards into sections such as chorus and opening sequences. However this storyboard was mainly just simple ideas we had, such as referencing the Tarantula on a persons hand and different style shots we could use.

This storyboard below was about the narrative in our story and how we would show this through shots in our video. The shot of the spray can wasnt actually included in our video, however, we did include the needle and the shot of the arm that was used with the needle. This helped to project our narrative as it was along the idea of drug abuse and a party style genre.

This storyboard was about our original idea to have a rave scene in our video, mimicking a club/party. However we decided not to include this and instead used a band scene as we thought it would be more effective to see the band as its what the audience would want to see and it stays with the conventions of music videos.

This storyboard was an addition to the previous one, as it carries on the rave scene.

This however is the storyboard for the band scene. This is what we decided to use instead of the rave scene and I think in the end turned out more effective. As you can see below, we included lots of close ups of the lead singer, which again is part of the conventions of music videos, and we used many dynamic shots of the other band members through the Fig Rig.

This storyboard was a continuation of the band scene. As you can see we have used many shots of the band and other members.

Again this was still the band scenes, however we decided to take some more shots of the band including the instruments they used.

These are the storyboards that me and my group created on paper. We have been able to put the storyboards on Blogger by drawing them on paper, then scanning them on a computer and uploading them to blogger. The storyboards took about a week and we all put an effort into making them. I worked on them by writing the shot numbers on each of the shots and helped putting them in order. Also I helped write some of the shot type, and the timing of the shots.

Audience Research

This is the planning of the research I was going to carry out on a selected audience to find out information to create an effective music video.

I first thought about the sort of things I was going to ask the audience, aims and what I wanted to find out.

I then decided how I would collect the information and results from this audience which would be a questionnaire.

Genre Analysis Table

This is a genre analysis table of three different types of genre, Indie, Grime and R n B. Within each of the three genre's i have analysed three different songs and wrote about what characteristics are in each of the genre's. The things that i have analysed about them include Locations, clothes, props, camera angles, narrative/abstract, effects, coninuity/montage and humour.

The Prodigy

This is another video that we looked at by a different band called The Prodigy.
This song Warrior's Dance that we studied which is similar to the band that we are using, Pendulum.
Their genre and style is quite similar to Pendulum's which is why we decided to study them as well.

They are similar through the editing styles as they cut to the beat, and the themes of the videos are quite dark and gloomy.

Pendulum - Granite

This is another video of a song by Pendulum called Granite. We looked at their other music video's to get ideas about their style and the type of genre of music it is.


Pendulum are an Australian band. Their style consists of Drum and Bass and electronic rock. They are quite a large band including 6 members. Pendulum use a variety of instruments including vocals, synthesizer, turntables, bass guitar, guitar, drums and an MC. Pendulum dress slightly differently compared to the Prodigy, they still have a rock background but are a more relaxed type of rock, mixing their pop/rock with drum and bass.

Pendulum - Tarantula

This is the song we chose for our music video production. This is the music video to our Song Tarantula, however we couldn't actually find the official version of the video so we are not sure that one was actually made. Although we have looked at Pendulum's other video's.

Shooting Schedule - 2

This is our new shooting schedule which has had to be updated because of having to change the times of filming.

Shooting Schedule 1

This was the first shooting schedule that we created. Together as a group we sorted out times to film. However we had to make changes to this shooting schedule and therefore updated it. To show how we updated it I have posted the new Shooting Schedule.

Madonna "Frozen" - Music Video Research

This is a powerpoint presentation that was created as part of the Music Video research. We looked at Madonna "Frozen" and what genre and conventions that the video uses. We also described who the music video would appeal to and how it connected with Goodwin's theory of editing. Another thing that we looked at was whether it was continuity or montage editing, temporal and graphic.

Faithless Band Research

This is the research that we did on the band Faithless. They are of a similar genre to the song we are doing Tarantula by Pendulum. I got a selection of screenshots of the band and analysed each picture looking at the things they include, their style etc.

Evaluation of presentations

These are the notes that I made about other people's presentations. These were the presentations that we all created on a music video where we had to analyse the videos editing and appeal. In the notes I have written WWW (what went well) and EBI (Even better if) about the presentations i saw and wrote how effective they were at describing the music video they were given to analyse.

Questionnaire Results Overall

These are the main results that i got from my questionnaire. It gives information about what the most popular music videos were and what people liked the most about music videos in general.

Questionnaire Results

These are my other results from my questionnaire. I put these results into a spreadsheet so you can see more clearly the results i got from my quetionnaire.

Questionnaire

This is the actual questionnaire that I created to give out to different demographics. It contains a mix of open and closed questions with tick boxes and written questions. There are 10 questions in total.

Low Budget Films

X-Ray

• Animation
• Colours (mise-en-scene)
• Close-ups
• Paint - Cheap Materials
• Effects, Multiple screens
• Different coloured screens
• Reverse
• Fast paced
• In time with the music

Trencher

• Editing
• Reverse, slow motion, repeat
• Cheap mise-en-scene, school girl in school uniform
• In time with the drum beat girl is swinging her hair
• Mise-en-scene - juxtaposition girl
• Cutting to the beat

Tunng - Jenny Again

• Peaceful
• Wildlife
• Countryside
• Camera - establishing, point of view, hidden identities
• mise-en-scene - very green and natural, countryside, natural light
• Sound - repetitive sound
• Narrative based

Hifana - Banzai Cooking

• Bright colours, blue
• Effects when fighting with swords
• Diegetic sound
• Variety of shots
• Funny humour
• Costumes
• Props
• Animation

When researching Music Video's, we watched a few low budget music video's to see the techniques that we could use on a low budget our selves as we have no money to spend. A lot of the skills and techniques we saw in the low budget films are very helpful to us as we can use them in our own work. These techniques included simple things that we can do when editing such as speeding up, slow motion, colours and effects.

Lyrics

[Chorus]
The tarantula, A tarantula
Time for the massive come Shot of singer
sing ya
Blad tarantula
Don't play with my style I
might sting ya
Blad tarantula
You want me inject me
bacteria
And if ya body goin’ stiff
And your spine
goin’ numb
Now come fi get some...

Massive! Time
to fix you up something here right now!

[Verse]
Shotter, hitter, serial killer
Go-a your funeral and all
drink out your liquor
When you are bury we a-stand next to
the vicar
Fling on some dirt and make your bury a little
quicker
Shouldn’t test the youth them in the Tommy
Hilfiger
Hug up ya mama, say sorry to ya poppa
All-a
get number for ya little sister
It true we cold lïke
alaska, freezer

[Chorus]

[Verse]

[Chorus]

[Verse]

[Chorus] x2

These are the lyrics to the song that we are making a music video for. Alongside a couple of the words i have wrote how we can link it to something in our video and the lyrics that are highlighted are also key words that can be represented in our video. The technique that I have used is Amplification.

Prodigy

This is a collage of the band The Prodigy that I created and wrote notes about the things they include in their video's. These things also include their style of music and style of fashion that are similar to the band we are doing, Pendulum.

Editing research

This is reasearch work that I did on editing types. These include detailed notes about classic continuity and montage. Also we were given a music video in groups to study. My group was given Madonna "Frozen" and I have wrote how there is some classic continuity and montage editing in her video.

Video Analysis

This is a table of video's that I have analysed that are of the same genre as the song we have chosen. The genre that we have chosen is Drum and Bass but has hints of reggae, dance and club. I have written detailed notes about the locations, clothes, props, camera angles, whether it is narrative or abstract, effects and whether it has continuity or montage editing in each video.

Collage of Pics - Pendulum, The Prodigy and Faithless

Pendulum are an Australian band. Their style consists of Drum and Bass and electronic rock. They are quite a large band including 6 members. Pendulum use a variety of instruments including vocals, synthesizer, turntables, bass guitar, guitar, drums and an MC. Pendulum dress slightly differently compared to the Prodigy, they still have a rock background but are a more relaxed type of rock, mixing their pop/rock with drum and bass.


The Prodigy are an Electronic rock/alternative dance band consisting of 3 band members, previously having 4. Their dress style seems to be quite rock/punk and have produced quite a few songs that move away from the typical dance and rock conventions. Their alternative style mixes both rock and dance. Their band members include a lead vocalist, and MC/vocalist and a keyboard player/programmer.

Faithless are a House/Electronic band consisting of 3 band members. Unlike other bands, Faithless includes a woman and a black man as the lead singer. Their dress is very much influenced by dance and house compared to Prodigy and Pendulum which have an element of rock. The female member Sister Bliss, constructs the music herself electronically but can also play the piano, violin, saxophone and bass. Maxi Jazz is the lead vocalist in mainly rap format.

Band Image

Band Image

Enter Shikari - Juggarnauts


The Band Enter Shikari in the video “Juggarnauts” that we studied shows the band in casual clothing and reflects their rock/indie style. They wear t-shirts and casual shirts and some ¾ length trousers and normal trousers. The surroundings are sandy and quite dull with lots of use of shadows. These things in the video help represent a rock style and genre and go with the conventions; they don’t really seem to challenge them.

Pendulum – Granite

Pendulum’s video “Granite” is a variety of random clips that don’t show the band at all. It consists of news reports from different news readers around the world and home video clips. The clips cut to the beat of the music and we could base this video on our own. We could use random video clips from different places that represent the lyrics, and don’t show the band. This is different to Enter Shikari’s video as it goes against the conventions of dance/indie music as you don’t see the band and the video consists of just random video clips.

The Prodigy – Warrior’s Dance

The video for Warrior’s Dance by The Prodigy consists of everyday materials that come to life through animation. At first the cigarette packets are swept onto the road and then they come to life and act as real people. Again like the video Granite you don’t see the band and this goes against the conventions of a dance video. However the clips do cut to the music and the video has a slight narrative. We could use this technique in our video of stop-animation however it is not widely used in music videos; it would go against the conventions of a dance/indie video.