Finished Music Video

After much difficulty, we finally managed to upload our finalised music video to youtube. Sadly, as we had to convert it many times to get it into the right format, the quality of the video has decreased dramatically to our disappointment.

Album artwork

We found it very difficult to pick which image we wanted to use for our album artwork as we had so many strong images to chose from. And we liked every single one of them. At first, we were going to use the same image for the poster and the album cover, but because we had so many good images we wanted to use as many as possible. We made sure that every image we picked were similar though, to keep everything within a similar theme and make the artist's work recognisable. Whilst deciding on the final images, we kept in mind our target audience and were always questioning whether they would like the images or not. It was decided that our target audience would enjoy the simplicity of the images chosen and the link between the album cover, poster and pull outs, which makes the artist recognisable. 

This is the image we decided to choose for our album cover, as the silhouetted image with the guitar looks very indie, and the photo has an atmospheric feel about it. We also thought that it represented the look and feel of the video, as well as the tone of the song.

We found that layout was a way for an artist to be recognisable, which is why we used the same font and colour writing as we used on the rest of the images we produced.

We also noticed that a lot of albums include the apple logo at the bottom as a trademark feature, so we decided to incorporate this into ours as it would make it look as genuine as possible.

We decided on using this image as the back cover, as the positioning of the artist made it easy to place the writing. It continues the motifs well as she is almost silhouetted, and has the sea in the background. It is clear that both images were taken in the same location at a similar time. This image continues the indie pop theme as the guitar is very prominant in this image, and typically, the instruments played are featured in artists promotional work.

At first, we were going to use this image from the beginning of the video as our back cover as we liked the simplicity of it. However, the colours and tones of this image don't fit in with the rest of the promotional images so that's why we decided to use another one. As well, the writing chosen is in a different font to the rest of the promotional images, which doesn't fit with the motif of our artist. We were a lot happier with the other image we chose, but still liked this one. So in the end, we decided to use this image without the writing as one of our pullouts. We included a small detail on this which we didn't on the other which is the writing at the bottom 'courtsey of Mass Media Productions Ltd' which we should have included in our final edit but didn't due to the amount of room there was on the image, and the fact that we liked the simplicity of it. 

 This is our finalised version of the poster. The image is strong yet simple, and in our research we found that this style was often most effective. It has a strong link with the album covers, and represents the artists music well.

The only difficulty we had with this image is that it becomes rather blurry if you increase it's size too much, so it may not work as a billboard poster. We decided that it would be best to use this in a magazine or as a smaller advert. This suited the artist.

This is our first pullout image that will be in the album. I love the way it features the setting in the background behind the guitar, whilst in a car. These are the three main aspects of the video, so to combine them all into one image was ideal.

The second image we chose doesn't fit into the theme as well as the other images previously chosen. However, it made us laugh a lot, and represents the lighthearted and jokey style of the video. We thought it gave a litle insight into the kind of person the artist is, which is often what fans are interested in.

Again, the guitar is featured prominently to keep up the theme our artist has, as well as to maintain it clear that this is part of the indie pop genre. This probably links best with the motif our of all our pull out images. We thought that our target audience would enjoy this image as it makes the artist look down to earth, friendly and like she could really be your friend, which is often what teenage girls of this age look for in an artist. The more likeable the artist is, the more likely people are to buy the album. 

This image is also good as it shows our location, and where most of the filming took place. It looks great as it was a sunny day and I like the atmosphere created with this image.

It is not the strongest of images, however, as the colours and tones don't really fit with the rest of images. However, as a pullout, I think it works well.



CD Cover analysis

Before editing, we decided it would be good analyse a variety of Cd Covers, so we can include conventions both pop and indie artists use to create a unique combination.

To properly analyse the different genre we are combining, I thought it would be useful to view CD covers of both genres together. You can see the CDs by pop artists on the top row, and indie artists along the bottom. As we have been using the UGT Theory of putting ourselves in our audiences shoes, I simply found some CDs that I had around the house, some which are popular and well known, and some which are not. I think it is very important to point out that all of the pop artists feature on the front of the album, whereas the indie artists have created a much more individual and original cover. 

Katy Perry and Cheryl Cole's album covers are very similar in the aspect that both females feature on the front, large and in the centre (with no clothes on). This is an aspect of the notion of looking, a theory by Goodwin, which is when women look seductive in videos or in their video promotion. Eye contact is often sustained between the camera and the artist to create a link between the artist and the audience. I think it is very interesting that both female artists are looking directly at the camera but the male artist, James Arthur, is looking away. This says a lot about women in the music industry, and the expectations they often have to abide by. Katy Perry's album cover has a clear motif which is continued from her most famous single 'California Gurls'. In fact, her album cover is taken directly from a shot in her video.

Cheryl Cole's album has less of a motif, but there are still signs of one being there. The image used is in black and white, and a majority of the videos released with this album are dark and/or in black and white as well. The writing used on the front cover is used throughout the inserts as the headings for the songs and the lyrics, as well as anecdotes in the back. This writing features on all her promotional products and is clearly associated with this artist. Katy Perry, on the other hand, changes the font she uses depending on which single she is promoting which may get confusing considering the amount of albums she has released now.



James Arthur's CD cover is a lot simpler than the female artists ones, as there is not much going on in the image. The writing is generic and would not be linked to him in anyway if it was seen outside this context. However, like the others, he is in the centre of the image and reflects the sound of the album. This is done through the mise-en-scene, as his tattoos and pierced ear are on show and he is wearing a simple denim shirt. This is generally how all male teenagers of my generation look, or aim to look like, so his target audience is clear. It is also clear that he wants to connect with them through this, though he is not doing it directly as he is looking away from the camera.

 The Script's album and The Killers album are similar in certain aspects, and very different in others. I really like that they have used a light blue background, as I think this colour represents their sound really well. In my mind, light colours and shades like this are used for popular indie bands, so we should definitely look into using this aspect.

Both albums use white writing against this background, which I think is what keeps the look of the images so light. It also looks quite simple in that aspect, and often simple is best.

However, the rest of The Script's album is not all that simple. In fact, it's incredibly difficult to work out what's going on. To me, they've done this so each listener can interpret it differently - just like their music. Often, indie artists don't want any preconceptions about their music, and I think this is what they're partly trying to show through this cover.

The Killers album is a lot calmer. In fact, the writing is so faint, nothing really stands out at all on this cover. If you have listened to any of their music, you will understand how this is a complete contradiction to the music they make.
Again, I'm not sure why they did this, but in my opinion, it is to get rid of any preconceptions listeners might have, and to try and get their audience to listen to their album without having assumed the type of music they'll listen to.

I think it's also important to mention the urban presence in both images. This contradicts the light hearted feelings associated with the background colour, and may represent the combination of genres they have created - especially The Killers who are an indie-rock band.

There is a huge difference between the Script and The Killers album covers compared to Nizlopi and Jack Johnson's album covers, simply through the bright use of colours. As both these artists make very chilled out indie music, this surprised me quite a lot. As well, it surprised me that two of the very few albums I possess are bright yellow. I'm assuming they've used this as a background colour to catch their audiences attention. These were both released when albums were physically bought rather than bought online or through iTunes, so this was a more relevant aspect they needed to consider.

Nizlopi's album cover follows a motif from his most famous song/video, JCB, which is all animated. As this is generally the only song people know of his, I'm not surprised the animation of the digger is on the front as this is the most likely way people will recognise his album.

Jack Johnson's album seems very stereotypical for the indie genre, as nature is centre of the image, yet he still features in the corner, of course with his guitar. This is a very typical convention so I am not surprised it is on the front. As we plan for our song to feature a guitar, I'm sure we will do the same thing.
Johnson's name features very small in the top corner, and follows the rule of three, having the text in the right, the main image in the centre and the smaller image of the artist at the bottom left corner. His name may appear small as the bright colour of the album is not associated with many other artists so he may have thought it wasn't as important to have as it obviously as Katy Perry does.

Editing

It was important for us to take photos of our progress during editing, to keep track of what we are doing and to show the changes that we we applied to our video throughout editing. 

We knew straight away that we wanted a fade out to black at the end of the video and played around with the different effects that we could put at the end once we knew which clip we would have at the end of the video. You can see this above. 

 

To show off our skills in the editing room, we decided to time lapse part of our footage that we took in the car of the guitar. This worked really well as it meant we could include the whole clip but keep it within the theme of the video, which was short and snappy clips one after another. Time lapsing this clip created variety, and showed off the landscape which we were in. It was also an interesting shot as you could see the guitar in the main shot, but also the reflection of the artist in the wing mirror. It was hard for me to stay out of shot in the mirror, but I managed it and was very pleased with the result. 

We liked the time lapse shots so much that we decided we wanted to use one of them frames as one of our pullouts in the album. To the left you can see the original shot, which we then edited to enhance it's appeal. We wanted to use this shot straight from the video as we liked the link between the album and the video to be as close as possible.

The picture above shows our development of the narrative part of our video. You can see we wanted several different clips of the clips to open up with, however this came with some difficulties as the wind in each clip was very loud and different in each clip. To fix this, and create some continuity, we separated the sound from the footage, and changed the settings to decrease the wind noise, but keep the sound of the waves which we wanted to have. For continuity, we lengthened the sound of the middle clip so that the wave noises sounded like they carried on continuously from one clip to another.

 

Promotional Poster

 

This was our original layout for our poster promoting our video. We had everything lined in the centre to begin with as it was automatic for us to do that. We had also included the android and itunes logos as posters often have these to show that the single is available on these devices, and we wanted ours to look as realistic as possible.  This photo was chosen as our poster as it links with the video. We liked the way that Alina was mid air, as it represents the lighthearted tone of the song. It works well as the background of the photo is Weston Pier, which is the setting of the video. As well, the lighting on this photolooks amazing and makes the sea look very magical, which is what we tried to portray throughout the video.

 

Once we considered the poster further, we learnt about the Rule Of Three, which starts with the title to the left, the inage in the centre and release date at the bottom right. This, apparently, is the standard layout for promotional posters, and we really liked the way the image was the centre of the poster. It's a simple layout, which is what we wanted.

We put the release date in white at the bottom of the poster, rather than black, as the background was too dark to have it in black. This ended up working out really well as I think that it makes the date stand out even more, and it's what you want the reader to remember.

We used the same font of writing in our posters, front cover and back cover as this makes it a continuous, recognisable theme for our artist.

At the bottom right hand corner, we included the android and itunes logos. We made them as small as we could but made sure they were still recognisable as it's important for the reader of the poster to know where the song is available to download and on which devices. We moved the iTunes logo to be undernath the Android one as it was longer, and they fitted in nicely on top of each toher, and don't take up too much space or take the reader's attentionaway from the main aspects of the poster.

Storyboard

After we decided we wanted to do a narrative and had agreed our location would be Weston - Super - Mare, we knew we needed to draw up a storyboard as quickly as possible. Luckily both me and Amy know Weston very well, so we could write up the storyboard in very accurate detail. As a typical convention of indie-pop videos are the use of short quick clips we knew it wasn't going to be an easy task. It ended up being 10 pages long, and we didn't have time to illustrate it until after we got back. However this proved to be quite useful as it gave us the opportunity to recruit a local Bristol artist, Jonny Wilkinson, to illustrate it for us, as sadly mine and Amy's drawing skills are not really up to scratch. This means that it looks amazingly similar to our video and is a great end result. 

We took the storyboard with us on the day of filming for reference, so we knew the locations we had to definitely go to film. We will also have it with us through the editing stage, so we can match it as accurately as possible, and keep the style of the short, quick cut clips.

Storyboards are the best planning tool to use, as they simply go into as much detail as possible. Once the storyboard is created, the media product starts to come to life. They are essential for any media product, and all directors use them. Alfred Hitchcock was apparently  the first director to start heavily relying on storyboards, he was enthusiastic and consistent with his use of them. Since then, they have become a vital part of any media product's creation. 

Below is an example of his infamous movie Psycho and the storyboard he created before he began filming in 1960.

Photos from the day

When we arrived, as the weather was so good, we decided to film an establishing shot straight away, which is what you can see us doing here. Since analysing narratives at the beginning of other famous music videos, we decided that we needed an atmospheric establishing shot as this was commonly seen in the openings of indie pop videos/

The first few shots I took were simply to include the equipment, to show that we filmed the whole thing ourselves, and that we haven't put any filter on the video as the lighting was so beautiful whilst we were there it didn't need it. You can see that we only used two tripods and the rest was filmed by hand. This was to create an authentic vintage and personal look, which is very popular and a common feature of the indie genre.

We continuously took photos whilst filming as we had another agenda that we needed to fulfil, which was to take photos that could be used as our album cover, back cover, album inserts and promotional poster. Some of these, such as the inserts, can be taken as stills from the video. But to get the best quality, we wanted to take stills not on a video camera for better quality, and also this was to maximise our chances of getting the right shot once we got back into the editing room.

The two shots above were taken as an option of one of our inserts or the cover of the CD case. The lighting, again, is beautiful here, and I love the silhouetted look, however it's not quite right and isn't exactly what we wanted.

To try and be more creative, I ask my sister to jump in the water and took as many consecutive photos as I could. The outcome was spectacular, here is the series of shots 

This is likely to be the photo we use for the front cover of our CD case as it doesn't need any extra editing and looks amazing. It also captures the mood and tone of the video, lively, fun and artistic.

We then tried to take some atmospheric shots of my sister in the sea with her guitar. After studying CD covers, adverts and promotions by indie artists, we came to the conclusion that a typical feature we must include is the guitar, as it seemed to be that the instrument played by the artist was always featured. The pier in the background of these photos also helped to set the scene, however, due to the incredibly beautiful sky, I think it looks best if we use a photo without it in as the simplicity makes the artist and the setting stand out even more.

This was our favourite as the lighting against the water was magical, and the silhouette of Alina with her guitar looks amazing. We also liked it as it captured the setting in a beautiful but subtle way, and the colours and tones looked typical of an indie pop promotional poster or album cover.

We spent most of the morning filming on the beach and we incredibly lucky with the weather, and apart from a few dogs running into shot, nothing really went wrong. 

I took some more photos whilst we were packing up.

We then went to the pier, and almost stumbled across this incredible view pictured below. We felt very lucky to have such a good view and such good weather, and filmed as much as we could here. As soon as we entered the pier we decided that this section of filming needed to be fun and upbeat, which is why you can see my sister in the car with her feet sticking out, pictured above. This compares dramatically to the pieces filmed in the sea as we're likely to be used for our narrative at the beginning of the video. Yet both settings still fit with our indie pop genre nicely.

We had no issues in the arcade or filming on the pier and were very happy at this point with what we had filmed. After we had filmed in the arcade as much as we could, we went to have lunch and found another arcade, a slightly smaller one, which we filmed in for a little while before going to get lunch. I kept filming Alina all day, even when we eating as we had an incredible view and I didn't want to miss a good and interesting shot. 

When we went back to the beach for the final time, we were hoping to film the sunset. Our plan was to time lapse it in the editing stage, however there were a few difficulties at this stage. We got to the beach about an hour before the sun was due to set and we were getting very cold very quickly. As well, two out of three of our cameras had died and by the time we got there, and sadly our last camera died just two minutes after we had set it up on the tripod. 

 It wasn't a disaster though as we still got many beautiful shots and also had the chance to take these beautiful pictures and capture the beach in a different way than in the morning. In my opinion, these photos are even more atmospheric than the ones taken in the morning. However, as Alina doesn't actually feature in any of them, it is likely that we won't use them as it won't fulfil the typical features of an indie pop artist.

Below is one of my favourite photos taken in the afternoon because I like the way Alina is holding the guitar to her side, rather than playing it like she is in all the other shots. I think it creates that tiny bit of originality that an indie artist needs, but still has all the typical features needed to be a stereotypical indie artist. The fact that Alina is present and clear in all the shots we are potentially going to use complies with the pop part of the genre, as even though it is indie, it is still all about the artist and making the artist sellable. 

Apart from being very windswept and tired, we had a very fun and productive day of filming and are very excited to get in the editing room to create this music video to the best of our ability.