Final Music Video

Album Cover

Evaluation

Reflective Analysis Media

My brief was to create a promotion package for the release of an album; we had to include a music promo video together with a cover for its release as part of a digi-pak and a magazine advertisement for the digi-pak. I chose a song of the indie/rock genre by Scottish band called 'Glasvegas - Daddy's gone'. To do so I had to look into the indie/rock genre and research into the conventions which apply within it. I also had to research into the history of music videos and the theory's surrounding them. As the song I chose to do is called 'Daddy’s gone' and the lyrics are from the point of view of someone whose dad has walked out on them, I decided to use a child as the main character in my narrative style of music video. I then looked for three video's (which ultimately were the ones that influenced me to begin with), that had children as the main part. 'White Lies - Bigger than Us', 'Temper Trap - Love Lost' and 'Foals - Blue Blood', I analysed all three of the video's and took elements of each and put them in my video.
The target audience for my music video is people aged 16-24 and mainly male. This is because the indie/rock genre is more appealing to people of that age range due to its low-budget appeal which goes alongside the income that these people actually get a month, which is next to nothing as most will have only part-time jobs or will be still in education. In order to get exactly what my target audience expected from my music video I composed a poll via Blogger and asked demographic questions such as 'How old are you?' and 'What is your gender'. I also asked Psycho-graphic questions such as the audiences likes or dislikes. This information helped me to come to a conclusion of what style of music video I was to create - Narrative.
By looking into the indie/rock scene and the ideology surrounding it, I was able to see how I could express messages about the culture, society and beliefs in which the audience I am targeting my video at follow. In this day and age it is the norm for a family to have only one parent after one has walked out on them. The song I chose explores this issue from the point of view of a child that has been through it so in this sense I think that the majority of my audience will be able to empathise, sympathies and develop recognition, alignment and allegiance with the character of the young boy. Music videos are a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres. They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist. Music Videos are postmodern texts with a main purpose to promote a star persona. David Bardwell (1989) stated that ‘any theme may appear in any genre’. These are some themes for a more youthful audience: Teen angst, rebellion, romance, sex, nostalgia, belief of no future, coming of age rituals (prom), popularity or having none, bullying, juvenile delinquency, currency of ‘cool’, hedonism (living for pleasure) and friendship. Other themes may be war, crime, poverty, capitalism and racism. ‘Genres are not fixed; they reflect society at the time and are dynamic’ (David Buckingham 1993).There are a lot of strengths of genre. Its accessibility as a concept means that it can be applied across a range of texts. Christian Metz argued that genres go through a typical cycle of changes during their lifetime.  My style of music video is a narrative, however it does not conform to this as it does not have cause and effect, the audience already know what has gone on within the fictional world (verisimilitude) without the events even happening due to inferred and explicitly shown events where the audience excepts that certain things have already happened, although the lyrics of the song do help to drive the narrative.  Tim O'Sullivan et al argued that all media texts tell some story of us as a culture or set of cultures (society and values). They reflect the values of the people that construct them. They also have to reflect the ideology of that culture which is mentioned previously. 

In order to put all my work together and show the development of my video I created a Blog on 'www.blogger.com', where you are able to write, post image and videos. This helped me a lot and was useful when showing people what I had done as you are able to access it with ease. I also used a online site called 'Go Animate' (www.GoAnimate.com) where you are able to construct your own animations using characters they have already prepared. All you have to do is type in what you want the characters to say. It was very useful when I was not able to word things, as it is easier to construct things as a conversation. It is also more enjoyable to watch opposed to reading.

In order to conform to the indie genre aspect of low-budget productions, I decided to use a scene where there is a group of young male youths playing football outside a row of shops on a council estate. It looks run-down and due to the colour draining used on the editing suite it drives the narrative when the lyrics 'All I wanted was a kick about in that park, for you to race me home when it was nearly getting dark' are said over the scene because none of these boys are playing with their fathers, also the main character is not present and as it is taken from a high-angle it looks like a point-of-view shot of him watching them from his window, upset.  

My ancillary texts, poster and CD cover all look low-budget. The poster looks as if it has been thrown together in a few minutes as the font is made to look hand-drawn (purposefully), I got the font of a website called 'DaFont.com' where I print screened the font and put it onto Adobe Photoshop where I edited my ancillary texts. The album cover is very simple as it is just an image of the artist Jack McDonahugh and his band The Friday Night Avalanche.  The back of the album is the top of the image of the font cover, however I edited it and now it looks like it has been painted, continuing the lowbudget 'handmade' theme. Along with the text as well that looks hand written, however it looks like a child has written it, and reinforcing the music video to the song by the band 'Daddy's gone'. The images that I took for my ancillary texts where taken on a field nearby a college. It wasn't anything fancy; it was just a green playing field and a few trees. The images I had taken of the artists in the 'stages of evolution' where influenced by the album cover by Take That - Progress, however I didn't use them because they didn't look very good. The image I did chose to use was not one that I would have used, however, after giving out a questionnaire to people who fit into my target audience criteria, the majority said that image. The males that I asked said they preferred the black and white images, but I decided to go against that because even though the album would feature quite dark lyrics I want it to contradict that with the bright colours of the images.

 The poster I created only features Jack McDonahugh as he is the front man of the whole 'Band' (Jack McDonahugh and The Friday Night Avalanche). Again the font is made to look as if someone has drawn it themselves. I used a black and white theme for this advert as it reflects the opposing themes of happiness and sadness within the album. I also think it would suprise the audience when they expect to see a black and white album cover and they see colour, subverting audience expectations, which happens a lot within the indie genre as artists are allowed more artistic freedom. The image features Jack who is wearing a plain white shirt and and a hat, keeping it plain and simple in continuity with the theme.

When asking the audience about my music video and ancillary texts this is what they said:

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poster advertisement production

Overall idea for video.

The narrative for my music video is this:
The singer is telling a story and now a then we see a point of view shot of the singer looking out of a bus window. He is thinking about all the times he had as a young boy with his father who walked out on him at a young age. The video recordings symbolise and are the only memories the boy has of him and his father.

What I Have Done

Ultimately I wasn't going to have the 'recording title' on top of the 'home made video' scenes but after realising that the narrative would make more sense if I used that then I decided to go ahead with it and put it on some of the clips. I also changed the brightness and contrast on the indoor and outdoor scenes as some were darker than others and it didn't look as clear as it could. I am happy with the music video now as the narrative is more clear after taking the scenes out where I used 'the older version' of the young boy as I couldn't make it clear as to who he is was without actually saying, in addition it does look a lot better with it just focusing on the old man and the young boy. I decided to add the older man because it is a direct refrence from the lyrics ' a fifty year old reminising what I had'.

first draft music video

This is the first draft if my vudeo. After asking people who fit into my target audience

What they thought of it, I came to the conclusion to take the scenes out with the older version of the boy and some of the POV scenes on the bus as it weren’t clear enough to them what was going on without me telling them.  Currently I am taking them out on Adobe Premier Pro and adding a mask which looks like an actual homemade video is recording it as I have added the stereotypical red circle and the ‘rec’ sign.

What my feedback told me

2 females said they preferred this image to the rest.
This is because of the 'contrast between the green and grey works really well, the contrast
on the front mans shirt with the background is strong and the image is clear'
Another female said they preferred this one because 'the colours are contrasting and they stand out and it is aesthetically pleasing'

One female said they liked this one because it was in colour and it looks like the band are
having fun. I haven't edited this one, so I may see what it looks like with some minor edits.

The two males who took part in the questionnaire both said they prefer this image as they like the black
and white as it is more suited to the genre and the dark lyrics of the song. One also said it looks more like a 'proper band photo' by this I think they mean it looks more proffesional.

audience feeback for digi pak

Album Advertisements - Examples

All these album advertisements are ultimately bigger versions of the actual album artwork itself. The Pendulum
advertisement reflects the genre of music that the band do which is drum and bass due to the underwater mis-en-scene being slightly neon and reflecting that of a metaphorical club night scene but underwater. The font used is plain however it is metallic which immediately draws the target audience in as it is aesthetically pleasing and looks very good.
Lily Alans album advertisement is two-tone edited in cream and black which gives it that old vintage kind of look and is quite quirky reflecting her personality and star persona. The font is also a sort of vintage style and similar to the one called 'Elephant', it is a bold font also, this suggests she is making a bold statment in the songs she has written.
The Kasabian album poster is the same image that we see on front the album cover. The alum features songs such as 'Empire', 'Seek and Destroy' and 'British Legion' these all have connotations of war, Britain and they all contain some historical context. These are reflected in the illastration used for the advertisement as there is a man, possibly one from the roman times as he is dressed in roman armour and atire, the naked woman also suggests the roman theme/old art as naked woman are present in a lot of paintings around that time period. The actual image as a whole is that of a playing card and the man is the king of spades. The corners also suggests this with the spade icon and the K to go with it, also hinting at band name Kasabian. The band name font looks as if it has been carved as the edges are very to the point and strict, reinforcing that old time. The main feature is ultimatly the artwork and the writing at the bottom is not the focus feature however the artwork draws you into read it.

questionaire for digi pak images

digi-pak layout

This is a UK CD digi-pak template for my band Jack McDonahugh and Friday Night Avalanche

Audience FeedBack questionare plan

Go Animate/Interactive Analysis

GoAnimate.com: Q + A by s0011212

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more images

Editing

The music video so far is coming along well, however, I have a lot of blanks to fill.

I have so far decided to use a colour tint within the mise-en-scene. I have chosen a dark blue and white to drain the video of some colour as the song is melancholy and it reflects the message that the lyrics convey and the slow tempo pace.
The video tells a story, however, it may not be clear to everyone and I purposefully do not give too much information about how I view the story so the viewer/audience are left to tell their own story, it is very ambiguous without the lyrics of the song.
My story is that the young teenage male in the video is sat on the bus looking out the window on to the council estate where he lives. He is reminiscing about the times he had without his father when he was younger. The cinematography used is that of a hand-held camera when the younger version of him is on screen because it is made to look like a flashback/home made video.

Images Of Jack McDonahugh and FDA

This image I put into greyscale and edited the levels so there was a more definate contrast between the black and white.
I did this because the albums that Glasvegas have are similar. These are not definate I am just trying diffrerent techniques.
I chose for the band and Jack to pose like this because it's a well known image 'hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil', in a sense it is intertextual to the actual image, so to understand you would have to be a active audience to understand. Due to the audience that would listen to this band they would understand as they are a educated audience, ages 16-24, majority will have been to uni and enjoy low budget gigs and artists.

This one doesn't work as it is hard to read the writing, I asked a few people and they agreed that it does not work, I will have to look for a different font or something where it stands out more.

These are some images I have taken for my ancillary texts. They are just ideas. I am going to play about with different effects to see which onces look the best. I have put these two in black and white as the band Glasvegas have the same effect on their album covers.

Analysis of Ancillary Texts/Influences









Arctic Monkeys first album "Whatever people say i am that's what I'm not".
Arctic Monkeys are signed by independent label 'Domino' this means the band have artistic freedom
however they are not financially stable (however they are big now so they will be). The artwork on the cover
is a friend of the band which adds to fact being signed on an independent label things will have to be low budget.

It is a very simple image which some may say suggests the bands simplicity. The image has a slight blue tint in the grey scale, which makes the image more defined and you focus more on the image opposed to the colours. The fact that the man is smoking reinforces the stereotypical indie image of the front man in a band always being seen smoking a cigarette and drinking alcohol, it is a very 'rock 'n' roll' convention which mainly British artists have taken on. I also think it adds to the fact that these people in these bands are your average people and are very down to earth. The CD is meant to look like an ash tray which is keeping the 'cig' theme a continuous aspect of the CD Digi-Pak. The back of the CD is the same man as it was on the front keeping the continuity, he is still holding a cigerette, the list of song titles are also on the conventional side of the right.