Final Ancillary - Magazine Advert

Final Ancillary - Digipak

It Matters Digipak

Changes to Poster - Ancillary

Poster 

We decided not to use this image on the front of our album cover and chose it as our poster. We adapted this because we felt it fit better and the image used for the poster had greater potential. As a group we thought it was more eye catching as a poster and would have a more positive affect on our audience as it is more informative.

Rough Edit Vox Pop

Rough Edit Music Promo - It Matters

Album Cover Analysis

Here I have created three different but similar album covers and have ask random members of the public to vote on their favourite. I have used Polleverywhere.com to calculate these results and I have included them in this post. The majority of the results show that album cover 1 is more popular and because of these results we will chose this as our final album cover.

Album 1

Album 2

Album 3

Poll of Results

Letter of Consent

 

This is the letter of consent that we all signed to state that we agree with the condition of the show home that we used when filming and that we are responsible for any damage caused. 

 

 

 

 

Risk Assessment

Permission Forms

Location Scouting

Location Scouting:

 

Peterborough:
We have decided to use Peterborough and its architectural hotspots as one of our main locations in our music video. We are hoping to use the shopping centre Queensgate as there reflective shop windows and mirrored doors to shoot some reflecting shots, which we have put into our shot list. We are also hoping to use Peterborough Cathedral as its beautiful architecture and grounds would look very appealing in our video and relates to some of our lyrical content within the song. Also we are going to be filming in some of Peterborough’s underpasses where we are going to shoot guitar and drum playing scenes. We wanted to give a simplistic and un-staged feel to our video so we feel the underpass setting will create this feel. Finally we will be looking at a café such as Costa to film our café scene in to show specific scenes from the shot list.

 

 

Stamford:

 

We have also decided to use Stamford as our second location as Stamford’s buildings and period features would set a quirky yet beautiful setting for our Bailey to film his solo vocal scenes in. We shall also be looking at a bridge setting within Stamford that we know of where we can position Bailey as said in our shot list holding a newspaper. We also want to look into long shots of the location itself as we feel that Stamford has some remarkable landscapes and scenery. This will hopefully create a warm and comfortable feel to our audience.
 

 

 

Bourne:

 

Finally we will be using a show home by Kier in Elsea Park in Bourne to set the bedroom scene that we want to shoot for our video. We want to use this to show the lack of intensity the couple have and how the relationship in the video is becoming damage. We shall represent this well in our video.

Music Video Audition Analysis

Music Video Auditions Analysis

Overall we feel that we have discovered some useful candidates to be in our music video. We have overlooked each performance in detail and have made a conclusive decision about each candidate and this is the feedback we have given them.

Ross Lee:

For Ross’s performance we felt that he had a great performance attitude and a confident posture. We also knew that Ross takes Performing Arts as his A Level subject. This gave us some confidence that he would be a high candidate for performing in our video. However we did notice that he wasn’t pronouncing some of the words correctly and we feel that he may struggle at times with remembering some of the words. Therefore we have decided not to use Ross as our main vocalist in our video however, we feel we are going to give him a role within the performance side of the video, perhaps playing one of our instruments for us.

Luke Crane:

At the beginning of the video, Luke showed signs that he was confident with the song however, this then began to change as the song progressed. Whilst auditioning Luke struggled a lot with the words in the song and he did not have a confident posture or attitude as, his head was down looking at the lyrics. Compared to Ross who had no lyrics in his hand we felt that Luke was not suitable for our vocalist in our video and unfortunately does not have the confidence we are looking for to perform another role.

Chandler Edwards:

Unfortunately for Chandler, he failed to show any confidence or performance in his audition. We felt that he struggled with the audition and was not comfortable performing the song. He had to refer to the lyrics multiple times and paused several times during the audition. Overall we felt it was best not to have Chandler as our vocalist in our video but we hope he learns to develop his skills for other auditions in the future.

 

Cameron Price:

Cameron showed a good performance stance throughout the song however there was one main paused through the middle of the song, which made us question his confidence. We felt that Cameron did not have enough practice with learning the song and although his posture and appearance was appealing, we felt that he would lack the emotion and passion we wanted to get from our vocalist in our video. Overall Cameron did a good job in the audition but he will not be playing our lead vocalist, but we hope he will develop more confidence in the future in other performances

Bailey Danahar:

Bailey showed great amounts of confidence throughout his video and did not have to use the lyrics once in the audition. We felt that he was prepared and focused for the audition and showed great talent. Bailey showed passion and emotion in his performance which the other two performances lacked slightly. We also know that Bailey also takes Performing Arts as one of his A Level subjects. Compared to all the other auditions, Bailey exceeded in being the better performer and showed a great deal of skill when performing his audition for us. Therefore we have decided to use Bailey in our video as our main vocalist and we believe that he will take the song and perform exceptionally in our video.

 

 

Video of Pitch

Pitch

Not My Day – It Matters PITCH

Shot List

Storyboard - Not My Day

Cutting to the beat - It Matters

I took the lyrics of our song and cut each shot where there was an appropriate beat. Then I created a key so that we could clearly see where the shots would change in our video. This is useful when creating the storyboard and shot list. We decided on what content we would want shots of and created a colour key.

 

Key:

Guitar

Bedroom

Bailey

Charlie

Drum

Stamford

Peterborough

Newspaper

/ = Shot Change

Theories to Rita Ora's Poison

Theories Rita Ora Poison

Deconstruction of Song

Deconstruction of Song

Analysis of Lyrics

Analysis of Lyrics

Job Roles

Props

Costume Design

Costume Design

Lighting

Initial Production Meeting - Notes

Genre

Genre is the way the media is constructed as well as what’s in the media text, as well as adapting the codes and conventions of other texts within that genre so the media lives up to those expectations. Media, such as music promos sometimes have a crossover of genres as they are showing similar conventions that fit genres, a ‘sub-genre’ or sometimes a hybrid.
Producers want to give a pattern for the construction of a music promo so the features are recognisable for the audience, e.g. Indie music promos are strange and differently set compared to pop which is all lively and exciting with lots of colours. The audience already have a set idea of what makes up different genres within music and film. For the music promo that I have chosen, the genre that I’m re-creating a music video to with my group is Indie. Indie music is a mixture of pop, jazz, rock, blues and some types of poetry. Indie is short for Independent as it is unique and has its own specific audience. Indie music was created in the 1950s-60s but wasn’t known by many. With its niche audience, indie bands weren’t usually signed therefore was ‘underground’ meaning they used to play in small venues and in their garages etc; unknown to many. Indie bands didn’t used to make a lot of money as they weren’t signed to a big producer therefore they would create their own music and sound and then make themselves the money. Indie bands usually prefer not to be known by lots, as they can keep themselves to themselves and then practice in their small locations to get better and then get known. With indie bands playing at small venues they used to have their own CD’s to gain the audience as then the independent band would get bigger.
Most indie bands when they have a hybrid will link with the Rock genre. Some of the most popular indie bands are the:

Artic Monkeys
The strokes
The Stone Roses
Oasis
Blur
Coldplay
The Killers
The Kooks
The Black Keys
Kaiser Chiefs (picture)

The general audience of the indie genre are males aged 15-24 year olds. This is because they have a similar costume and the indie bands lifestyles may relate to the male audience therefore the things the indie band will do, will be what the male would typically do. Indie tracks are mainly narrative based therefore they discuss relationships and how life works by in a male way therefore men will be able to relate more. An indie band will either have a narrative based video (typically) meaning the male audiences will be attracted to this video as they may be able to relate to the male breakdowns and life experiences as they are of a similar age etc. A performance based video will attract the audience’s attention as the artist may express how they are feeling about their situations etc, which the male could relate to easier than a woman singing as it would be more emotional compared to an indie band where the male would say it relating to men better. However in modern society anyone listen s to any type of music as there are so many unique people and that this genre of music fits into everyone’s life one way or another through the lyrics or the emotion that the band portrays.

Typically the lyrics in an indie song are very personal and can explain someone’s mainly the artists past experiences.  Although, it can go another way, for example can be upbeat and very unique. This genre can be very mixed therefore having large audiences which would have interests in very different types of music, e.g. to the heart or upbeat and unique.  The music style for an indie band is either very open or closed area, such as in a room or in a field. An indie track follows the structure of two verses and two choruses which is easy for their target audience to follow.

The indie genre tries to give an emotional feel to their songs for the audience to believe that it is important that they can be different to everyone else and that there is no normal, they portray this through their sense of style and their song lyrics. Although the indie genre wants to be different they still need to follow the conventions and give their audience something interesting to listen to with being honest.                                               

Music Video Vox Pops

Vox Pops Analysis

We had to make a vox pop video for our task so we can get some audience feedback from what they think about the music they listen to and what would interest them in watching our music video. We asked six questions overall and asked a range of different people, including their age, gender, their psychographics and demographics so we could get representative results.

The first question we asked was ‘What is your favourite genre of music?’ As we are doing an indie/alternative band we need to find out what others are attracted to so we could involve other genres into our conventions so the song would interest others, however will not change the genre we are doing as it would ruin the indie/alternative theme. The results we got from the six people we asked, the answers were:

Techno
Pop/Alternative
Jazz
Rock/Pop
Funk Rock
Alternative

Secondly, we asked what the audience expects to see in a music video. The answers from the vox pops were:
A performance that fits the narrative so it isn’t a disjuncture video. The video follows illustration as it is easier to understand and more interesting to watch.  Two other people stated that they like to see the band playing to see their passion for the music as well as the message that they are sending whilst singing the song. Others said they like the music to be fast paced; as we are covering an indie/ alternative band t is typically confusing which is a common convention of the music video therefore it keeps them interested. Finally, another person said they liked to follow a good performance/narrative, we spoke to them outside of the vox pop and they said it made the music promo feel more realistic to watch as well as follow.

Alternatively, we asked the audience what makes a music video enjoyable for them to watch. The answers were in the same group by it being good for them to see what they hear, again following a illustrative performance, also I helped if the people in the video were ‘easy on the eye’ to one person who answered and it makes it more interesting and keeps their attention more. An intriguing story or a passionate message is another answer that we had, so it makes the audience think and then they will have something to follow but also makes it more memorable; although it does need to be easily understood so it can benefit all ages of their audience. Another answer was for the audience to see the artist play as they can relate to them more and for the rhythm to be understood better, e.g. they can see their emotions etc.

Next, we asked a question about what would the audience’s most memorable video and why that was. We got the answers of:
-A cover of daft punk as the face painting made it interesting
- Club Tropicana -The music video gave her memories of holidays
- Radiohead, ‘Just -The storyline made them want to watch it repeatedly
-The Killers Mr Brightside as it was dramatic
-Red Hot Chilli Peppers music-Bastille’s videos as they are unique and interesting than other particular artists.   

Furthermore, we asked a fifth question ‘Do you look for performance or narrative in a music video?’ From this there was one person who answered performance as they feel they enjoy watching the artist more, compared to none who specifically said the narrative and the other five people stated they liked to see both in a music video as they could relate to what the artist was saying as well as seeing it being acted out. We will include both, narrative and performance in our music video as it keeps our target audience interested as well as fitting both categories by having an equal balance.

Finally, we asked where people find music videos and where do they watch them. Mainly everyone said YouTube as it can be easily accessed as well as being able to watch the music video as well as listen to it compared to some music so they can only listen to them. Another website we had recommended was called ‘Band Camp’. Spotify and the music channels on television were also popular so people could view them with easy access and see/listen to them again and again.

As a group we found doing the vox pop and interviews useful so we could get peoples opinion on things and see from the different types of people we asked; age, gender etc, what the same thing that they liked was and what was different.  In our music video we want to stick to the conventions of a typical indie/alternative video however include a 50/50 performance/narrative based music promo so we can see the emotions of the artist as well as see the meaning through the music video. From the song we are doing ‘It Matters’ by ‘Not My Day’ they are a lively band so we want to create something happy and joyful for our audience to watch but also something interesting and unexpected as this will make the video more memorable and fit our target audience of the indie/alternative range compared to focusing on the pop genre, although still making it entertaining for all types of people to watch.

'Not My Day' Audience Profile

Preliminary Task - Imagine Dragons Radioactive

Imagine Dragons - Poster

Band Biography - Not My Day

‘Not My Day’

Band Biography

‘Not My Day’ is an unsigned band from Oxford in the UK who I found on Unsigned.com. The indie band has four members:

Adam Cook - Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist

Ben Cook - Lead guitarist and backing vocalist

Dan Cahill - Drums

Jason 'JB' Grain - Bass

‘Not My Day’ are influenced by many popular artists and successful bands, such as ‘The Beatles’, ‘Muse’, ‘Radiohead’, ‘Embrace’ and ‘Oasis’. They find these bands influential as they like the style of their music and that they are popular bands as they are different from typical musicians. As they are an upcoming unsigned band, they only have a niche audience therefore the ones who follow them know about their social network where they tell people where they are going and where they are playing. 661 people follow them on Twitter as well as 178 people following them on Facebook. As they are a limited band they want to get as known as much as possible; MySpace is the first social network where I found them, on their posted are a few of their songs, covers as well as social updates of what they are doing. ‘Not My Day’ is being found by people daily, a new film that is being released called ‘The Butterfly Tattoo’ have asked the band if they can use two of their songs, of which songs hasn’t been released yet however this breakthrough could make the band twice as successful.

Genre
I found the band on Unsigned.com under the Indie/Rock heading. The song we are using is called ‘It Matters’. The reason behind choosing this song was because it is fast paced, upbeat and would be fun to make a music video to because the song has good energy. All of the band can be heard within this song, the lead and backing vocalists, bass, guitar and drums. I wanted to listen to the song in more depth to see if it follows the conventions of a typical song layout. ‘It Matters’ obeys the regular structure being chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, extended bridge and then the final chorus. Adam Cook has the lead vocals therefore he is heard for the majority of the track unless it is the beginning of the chorus when Ben Cook, the backing vocalist, is heard too.

Audience of ‘Not My Day’There was no specific audience mentioned on Unsigned.com or anything about the band on there, however researching through their social media pages ‘Not My Day’ are a middle aged band who mainly do live gigs/shows, features within other artists gigs as well as having live performances. From the picture, which is on their Facebook and most of their other social media pages, most of their followers are mainly females from the ages of 20 – 26 years of age as the lyrics in their songs relate more to the females than what they do males. Even though ‘It Matters’ is edged more to the female audience, males seem to follow them on their social networks and have an interest in them therefore they are a mixed gender audience, although some songs are aimed at one specific type of audience.

Why did we choose this band?This band have a unique style to their music that they produce therefore it will be a fun experience to use their music to complete our task. The songs that they do, especially ‘It Matters’ has a meaning to it so it would be good to turn that meaning into a narrative in our music promo; as well as the rhythm is cheerful and a good energy to themselves as a band.

We have emailed the band to see if it is possible to use their music and for their permission, a copy of the email is below:

 

 

 

 

History Through Time

Over time the conventions of the music video have become apparent in every video. There are many more conventions than in the lists shown above however all of these conventions are important for the music promo as they have continued in most videos from 1964 to 1986, playing a significant part in the promo. Over time, music videos have got a lot more expensive to make and most have a narrative that they will follow. Whilst the Male Gaze theory was portrayed in the later videos such as Duran Duran’s video ‘Rio’ it has continued but also shows the representation of women differently. A lot more technology and equipment is being used to create these videos, such as settings, locations, costumes etc, so the band can portray a narrative with their music promo so it becomes more memorable building a mass audience, such as ‘Thriller’ by Michal Jackson. Music videos today are released, mainly with a music video therefore seen to be a natural way of releasing a new song; in them being most of these conventions when the music promo started, present in videos showing how they have played a substantial part of creating a music video and how they haven’t changed through time.

Analysis of Imagine Dragons, Radioactive (Group Work)

Camerawork

Camera work is conventional because music promo's use a great variety of close-ups and mid shots. It is very typical for a music promo to use camerawork because they focus on the band or main characters so the audience knows who to focus on. Tracking shot is the main camera movement that is used throughout the music video as the character is followed through a wood, through a field and into the shack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Editing

The pace if the editing alternates between shots, it is firstly very slow because the start of the song is very slow which establishes the location and theme of the music promo.  But as the song starts to kick in, the editing pace increases. The editing is cut to the beat of the song and the lyrics which make I very effective because it breaks up the shots very well. There is more narrative than performance and I build up the pace from the start to the end.

Mise-en-Scene

The promo we are going to shoot will be set around school premises as we have the right surroundings around the site. We are also going to use the drama studio for the inside settings that can be seen within the selected video during the men in the barn scene. We have chosen this location because there are woods in these surroundings that look similar to the one in the actual video. Also the drama studio has been chosen because that is also something we have access too, which is convenient for us to film in. For this genre I would say that this is a typical setting for a music video as this genre tends to relate to the outdoors and the feel of outside surroundings. The female in the promo is just wearing a blue hoodie with jeans and converse trainers. The men in the barn however have a different western style which contradicts the genre. The lighting in the video is bright and luminous although it does seem to have a moody feel. In the barn the lighting is mainly spotlighted on the action occurring between the men in the scene. The use of actors in the video do not really have a specific meaning or purpose because they look out of place, considering what type of genre it is. However the female in the video seems to be carrying something of importance which could suggest that she is significant in the video. There is not make-up used in this first minute of the video. The props that have been used in our video are the bag used to conceal an unknown object inside that can also not be seen in the video. Also the use of money thrown by the boys suggests some sort of gambling game in within the video which could infer a meaning into the video.

Narrative and Performance

In the promo, there are parts of performance and narrative both split in half. By having 50% of the narrative it sets a storyline that the audience can understand as well as relate to. The performance part will portray the band with them singing so they are still part of the music promo. The narrative follows a young girl walking through an unknown place with a covered box making the audience want to know where she is going and why she is there. There are two narratives going on as well as the performance, between the girl and the men that are in the location where they are going to, cross cutting is used to show both sides of what is happening. The performance of the band is used through cut away shots, so they appear during the narrative scenes to split them up and remind the audience that they are watching a music promo and of who the band are. 

As well as there being actors to film the narrative part of the song, the band members of Imagine Dragons act too. For example, when the lyrics breathe in they do what the lyrics say, such as breathe in. However the narrative has nothing to do with the lyrics so this video would be classed as a disjuncture video.

This video is an untypical music video with the random scenes that sometimes would not make sense to the audience, however there is money portrayed as well as wanting to have control over something which most music videos have. There is a pink dancing old teddy bear that the males are betting on implying that it is worth value even when the audience don’t know why. Using disjuncture means having an abstract meaning which makes the music promo more interesting therefore more memorable for the audience making them want to watch it again. As well as it being a catchy, easy song to remember they will remember the video to the song but when the audience hear the song again they may feel that they understand the confusing video more as on first viewing of it, it can come across as confusing.

Storyboard

Imagine Dragons Analysis

 

Filming Schedule

Date	Scene	Details	Location	Props/Actors
02/07/15	Figure in the background	A shadowy figure will appear in the background walking towards the camera. They are unidentified and this creates confusion.	Back of school in a wood area.	Becky wearing a hoodie.
02/07/15	Unidentified box covered up	There is a box that the figure is carrying that is covered up by a cloth. The figure is delivering the box to someone.	Back of school in a wood area.	Becky holding a box walking through the woods.
02/07/15	Female wearing hoodie	We get a clear identification of the figure as the camera is now close up to her face.	Back of school in a wood area.	Becky wearing a hoodie walking in front of camera.
02/07/15	Person playing guitar	Guitar will be shown close up as someone is playing it. This will represent one of the band members.	Drama studio.	Ross with his guitar.
02/07/15	Flower	Close up of a flower on the ground as female figure walks by.	Outside on the field in school.	Becky. Flower in the ground.
02/07/15	People in the background	Group of multiple people in the background who look like they are behind bars.	Outside school gate.	Ross and Bailey. Gate.
02/07/15	Shed	Long shot of the shed before we enter it and see the men inside.	Greenhouse outside.	Greenhouse that is already within the property.
02/07/15	Gambling people	Multiple gambling people throwing cards and money will then cut into the shot.	Inside the greenhouse.	Luke Tierney Bailey Ross Chandler Edwards Money and Cards
02/07/15	Singer with drum	A shot of the singer in the band hitting the big drum.	Drama studio.	Large drum Bailey
02/07/15	Person smoking	The shot then cuts to a mid-close up of one of the characters smoking.	Inside the greenhouse.	Luke Tierney Cigarette