planning and drafts for the magazine advert

digipak planning

As a group we all had different ideas on how we wanted to design our digipak. We all design a individual mock up first to see what each of us thought our digipak should look. As a group we came up with the idea to design a digipak for a live DVD of the Maccabees, which included the official video of their most famous song ‘First Love’. After analysing various covers for digipaks, we found out that they were more focused on photos of the band and logos rather than album artwork. We thought it would be best if we created a logo, which we would use on the front cover. As the Maccabees are of the indie genre, which is associated with, artistic, abstract images, we decided we would use to relate within the theme and conform to the genre conventions. We also chose a colour scheme which is quite abstract, and that was black and white.

This is our original idea for the font/logo, which would be used, on our

Even though we really liked the font and thought it suited the ideology of the Maccabees, we though that it was simple and could do with adding more depth. We didn’t want to change the whole image so we just changed it slightly.

We came up with the idea to use this logo on the digipak and the advert so it would show a connection between the two and also create a link between the imagery and the band.

For the back cover of the digipak we wanted to use a live footage picture of the band since we couldn’t directly use a picture from the internet, Emily came up with the idea to take a photograph of her brother band and then put into black and white so it wasn’t too obvious that it wasn’t the actual band. The idea from using a picture of a live band was to give an insight into what the DVD would feature and want audiences expect to see from a live DVD. This is the photo we decided to use on our end product.

The next phases was to edited the picture into black and white, which fits in with the reoccurring theme of Black and white that is represented throughout our digipak.
For the inside panels, we decided to take pictures of the band members from the video and again using the idea of abstract themes we decided to silhouette the band members into black which contrasts with the white background again alluding the theme of abstract designs and matching the colour scheme.
Below are the original pictures we use before editing them.

we thought that adding the lyrics within the digipak would give a more realistic image as most albums and live DVDs have included lyrics from their songs, but it would also allow fans to see the lyrics if they wanted to sing-along with the song. We kept to the them of white and black because this is a iconography of what most indie genres represent.


These are the final digipak panels.

FRONT COVER

On the DVD spine we have added the name of the recording company as well as the logo to make the DVD seemed more authentic.

INSIDE PANEL 1

inside panel 2

inside panel 3

dvd disc

back cover of digipak

The Maccabees First love lyrics

'First Love' Lyrics
First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love

First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love

Do you miss home?
Do you miss home?
And are you cool?
Symmetrical?

Oh Oh Oh
Let's get married
And tick the boxes
Oh lets get married
And tick the boxes

Do you wanna be alone?
Do you wanna be alone?
And are you cool?
Symmetrical,
Analytical
Hypocritical
So critical
Nothing's perfect; I'm hoping I'll do

Oh nothing's perfect; I'm hoping I'll do

My mistake
And no mistake
And I would take it back if I could
So stay with me tonight

I'll make my bed, I'll lie in it
Enticing with its leopard print
I'll make my bed, I'll lie in it
Enticing with its leopard print
And matching velvet duvet

First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love

First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love
It's only love (x3)

we will used this lyrics for reading off cards as a part of the lip synching.

storyboards designs

here our storyboards desgins which will use for the next stage, filming.

Magazine Advert Planning

Instead of creating simply an advert we decided to create a page from a magazine that shows how the advert would be marketed and advertised to the mass audience of The Maccabees. Our idea was to incorporate a music magazine which would have a large target based audience to; we created a magazine page in the style of NMW, a renowned music magazine which promotes rock and indie bands. One of the reasons for choosing the magazine NME is the fact that they’ve been recently talking about the Maccabees and so we thought that the advert would fit and reach the right target audience. After researching the Maccabees we found lots of articles on the NME website so it would easy to access information about them and used this information within relation to our own product.
This is the magazine page we created

We also looked at some indie band adverts in the magazine and saw that they were simple and simplistic. So we decided to go we a simplistic look which would show the conventions and iconography of the indie genre but also show how the Maccabees use simple image to convey their message. For example, this is an advert that is promoting the Maccabee's new song 'Empty Vessels'

The advert for the Maccabees latest single is very simple, the main focus is the actual words and the photo used in the background isn’t overpowering and doesn’t over shadow the actual words which are promoting their latest single.
For our advert we decided to just focus on the text. This is our original idea for the advert which has been incorporated into the magazine page

However we decided to change the advert in order to match with the digipak so that is was more distinctive to the Maccabees and the indie genre. We used the front cover of the Maccabees digipak but inverted the colours so that there appear slightly different form the ones that we used on the digipak . the added abstract line patteren is a coherence theme throughout our digipak, again showing the link between the teo.
This is our final magazine advert

A Summary of Our Ideas

Before planning and creating and creating a storyboard out first task was to examine the original video by the Maccabees `First love` and decide what we could incorporate and identity key elements into our final product. Our overall goal is to produce a music video that audiences will be able to quickly distinguish and establish as being a Maccabees song. Next we create a list of key elements and features which we could use in our own version of the song without out directly copying the format of the video.

The list of feature/techniques we decided to include in our video are:
• Stop motion
• Random objects that have a hidden meaning
• The theme of love
• Subdued colours
• Fast paced movement which matches the tempo of the song
• Shots of the band
We thought that the video would best suit a combination between performance and narrative; however we decided that because of the confusing storyline/song we would make the majority of the video performance based with bits of a narrative structure that will empathise the relationship between the characters and the audience. The original video itself consist of quite a vague and random storyline and does follow a conventional music video in terms of performance and narrative structure.

We’re going to use a variety of camera angles however the majority of them will be close up shots and mid shots to focus on the detail but still hold the frame of the shot as well. As were are going to use a range of filming techniques such as stop motion, which is used a lot in videos by the Maccabees and indie bands in general, as well as fast motion to match the speed of tempo within the chorus region.

group meeting

re-filmed some scenes
work on blogs make sure all information is updated
divide tasks betweenm us in order to give everyone the opportunity to have ago

Progress over the last few days.

Progress over the last few days.
Since filming, we have now begun editing. We upload our footage on to final cut pro, this will be the software we will be using to edit the whole of our video. We have found that the lighting, quality and variety of shots have been improved since our first draft. The idea of using college as a location as a setting made it easy to re film any changes that arose in postproduction but it also gave that authentic look of studio rooms which was used in The Maccabees video. At this stage we have edited roughly around 1.38 minutes and we still have around 2minutes left to edit. Once all the clips are in order and in sync with the music, we will then edit the finer details such as lighting, contrast and the colours of each shot.

Conventions of the Indie Genre

Genre can be defined and explained in the following way:
The general feeling and emotion that a band/artist evokes in their audience and how they apply the conventions of their genre to their overall sound and appearance make them immediately distinctive and recognisable, instantly representing the genre their music fits into.

Conventions of a genre:
-typical instruments used
-typical sound/tempo/volume/style of singing
-context/themes of songs
-appearance of the band
My group - which consists of Steven, Sam, Emily and myself - have chosen a song which we will be using for our music video. We decided on 'First Love' by The Maccabees (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A1xu0BSs2s&ob=av2e).
The genre for our music video is indie. Indie music relatively comes from an independent scale incomparision to mainstream artist which are signed to major record labels such as universal records. The genre, subcultures, stylistic and cultural attributes, all relate the indie genre the genre completely operates through a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach.

The term “indie” is often used to mean a sound that relates to an individual interpreted, or the way that a sound is presented or made to fit in with those conventions. The term indie often relates to a band or artist that is not sign with any mainstream culture. The DIY approach gives the artist totally creative freedom such as Rough Trade Records does with their artists and bands.

The conventions of a music video vary depending on genre of music. However, some of the general conventions are:
• The artist is shown performing.
• Lyrics of the song influence the representation of the narrative and images shown within the video.
• The editing fits in with the pace of the song
• The clothing represents the genre
• Typical rock instruments e.g. guitars, and many indie bands use synthesizers and keyboards to add a psychedelic/weird tone to their music which makes it so distinctive from other music genres.
• Most dominated by males although there are a mixer of male to females for instance Florence and the machine.
For most indie music videos the conventions tends to follow a chronicle order of black and white, but not always. The use of close-ups, extremes close-ups and longshot are seen as a signature mark within the indie genre.

Key Artists of the Genre
The most iconic indie bands of today are:
• The Maccabees - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fs1wkwAMQc
• The Wombats - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlOVEMHLAMc
• Arctic Monkeys - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30w8DyEJ__0
• The Strokes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l09H-3zzgA
• British Sea Power - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2n-7K0Ef6Y
• The Fratellis - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Bs9_k3kVc
• Foals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaVE4WVlsDQ
• Editors - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO7tVypeYAo
• Foster the People - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ&ob=av2e
• Radiohead - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk
• Bloc Party - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdkmhquF60o

How to define a genre

Genre: anticipation and expectations of target audience.

MUSIC:
style of the band/artist - what makes them unique/different to others.
genre - what the band (and music) have in common with others

analysis of music videos:

MOTORHEAD - ACE OF SPADES
how would you describe the style of the band?
long hair, dark clothing, facial hair, messy, rough looking 'dont care attitude'

What genre is the song?
Rock/heavy metal - you can tell this because of the vocals which are loud and rough, and the heavy guitars

Nick Lacey believed that genre is split into three elements:

• Institution (record company)
• Text (video) created by artists and institution, using codes and conventions of the genre
• Audience: anticipate and expect certain things from a certain genre

Iconography work from September added

Iconography
"An icon is something that is really typical of that genre"
- Edwin Panoffsky - 1953

Paradigmatic - what we select from a genre to include in the music video
Syntagmatic - how you combine these selected elements in the video, and also how the video is edited and filmed.

Music videos represent the contexts and themes of the song and help to illustrate the meaning of it. They are a form of visual pleasure, especially to fans because they provide voyeurism/the pleasure of looking at the band or artist.

Location Report/Props and Costumes

Location
The majority of our scenes use generic backgrounds such as a white wall or a low wall by a bus stop. These backgrounds are easily accessible at college because they are so basic so we don't need to venture far to film. Because the backgrounds are so simple the video won't look like it was filmed in college and make the editing process easier to edit out .

Props and Costumes
Guitar

Paper cups/string

Photographs
Clothes typical of the 'indie' fashion for the band members

Average everyday clothes for the actors

Music Video Survey

Music Video Survey
We carried out a survey asking people what they like to see in a music video and these were the results.

skills i have learnt so far

Skills I have learnt
From the story of The Maccabees `first Love` video and creating the shot lists. I have learnt how important planning and prep is in terms of achieving successful end products. Teamwork is also vital when creating a music video I’ve learnt that as a team we can benefit each over singularly as well as haring our experience and ideas with one another. Co-operation is key when working as a team as our team has worked co-dependably as well as a group to ensure that tasks are completed before the deadline.
Watching other indie music video has allowed me to identity key aspects in terms of iconography and conventions. Its also taught me it helps to watch a video repeatedly in terms of analysing. Story boards are a fundamental aspect when planning a video, as it will help break up the narrative structure and use of different camera shots and angles when filming. The types of shots should also been taken into consideration so you know what needs to be done and in what time frame. Experimenting with different video camera helped me to learn different techniques that will help me with future projects. Having a go a lip-syncing was important to add the edge of realism to, but it was also a difficult task to get right because you needed to remember the timing of the music and how each shot would look when added to the music. Taking to many shots can be time consuming when in editing process so the key is to have more than the minimum but not to much. We ended up filming a number of times to make the video look as realistic as possible.

Wednesday 7th December 2011

Wednesday 7th December 2011
We managed to edit the video as a whole, but they are still a few tweaks to make the whole video run in time with the music. Also we need fill in gaps that are missing this means we have to go back to the footage we upload prior to editing and see if there is any feasible footage we can use to include, if not we will have to film again. Hopefully this is not the case as we have plenty of extra footage.
We showed our video to the rest of our class who gave us feedback on how we could improve our range of shots, included extra transitions, and fill in the gaps. We have taken in to consideration what needs to be done to improve our video as our aim is to produce a well-directed music video for our coursework. Getting feedback for further improvements and adjusting the visual aspects of the video in order to improve the quality of the video.
So far we feel as the video has been a significant improvement on our first draft but hopefully with our feedback we can make even further amendments to gain extra marks.

Progress over the last few days.

Progress over the last few days.
Since filming, we have no begun editing. We upload our footage on to final cut pro, this will be the software we will be using to edit the whole of our video. We have found that the lighting, quality and variety of shots have been improved since our first draft. The idea of using college as a location as a setting made it easy to re film any changes that arose in postproduction but it also gave that authentic look of studio rooms which was used in The Maccabees video. At this stage we have edited roughly around 1.38 minutes and we still have around 2minutes left to edit. Once all the clips are in order and in sync with the music, we will then edit the finer details such as lighting, contrast and the colours of each shot.

update on video

Update on Video
As planned in our schedule we begin the process of filming as of tomorrow. We have planed what will be need to film from last week in order to be fully prepared for the start of this week. Our list consistent of:
 Costume to be worn
 Various props
 Booking the camera and tripod
 What roles we would need to undertake
 Also make sure everyone knew why filming would commence

Filming:

Filming:
 The start of filming, we decided to film in chronicle order, we quickly realized that this would be impossible to accomplish as the video it self has no chronicle order/ structure within the Maccabees first love video.
 Next Stage of filming was to sort out want needed to be in each frame and shot and how we would incorporate this into our final product. But most importantly was can we used similar techniques to The Maccabees.
 One of the major problems that we had while filming was the inconsistency with the timing of the music and the lip-syncing not matching together at the exact time in unison. Re-filming and finding the right speed of music quickly and effectively resolved the problem.
 After resolving the issue with timing and music our next step was to form a mini narrative that could be included within our production, so that the narrative it self could tell a story but easily relate to the music video as well.

Planning stages:

Planning stages:
 First we had to decided was type of musical genre and conventions owe were going to pursue and the conventions
 Next stage was to research and analysis three music videos for our chosen genres, additionally I have added some other music genres what I was originally going to use until the departure of the person I was working with.
 After analyzing my three chosen music videos, I began to research digipaks and what connotations are linked in with the indie genre such as colours, images, fonts, and trademarks which are used me recognized bands that have a large fan based already. My three chosen digipaks conveys the themes and values used in music genres that makes them stand out and recognizable iconography. The analysis of the Nikki Minja album cover creates the connotations of the `Male Gaze Theory` by Laura Mulvey.

Individual responsibilities:

Individual responsibilities:
In terms of research and planning, the majority of the work was done as a group; we discussed our plans such as which type of music genre we wanted to do, if the music video was effective in terms of makings within our budget and resources. We held group meetings each week, setting our self targets what needed to be done and which task could be delegated between each of us. When it came to filming we shared time on the camera between Emily, Steven, Sam, and me. The majority of shots were down to Steven and Sam though we all shared individual input into how we were going to recreated The Maccabees Video. While one person was filming the rest of the group would be in charge of props, lighting and the music.

When it came to the post production stage, editing was divided between each of us although Sam took the reigns due to his previous knowledge of the software, however me, Steve and Emily all took parts in sharing our experience and ideas in helping out on the editing certain parts of the song.

While Steve and Sam worked on adding the finishing touches to editing me and Emily worked on creating the magazine advert and digipak, once again we swapped and delegated tasks between us to even the workload while working effectively as a group.

Tracking progress

How’s the project going so far:
So far the project has been going well, apart from a few hitches that arose in post production. We had a slight problem with the music and lip syncing not matching together in time. We decided that the best way of correcting this mistake was to re-film again in order to have a smooth running of the lip syncing and the music being in time.