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here is a video of me and eric discussing what thoughts we put into the video.

Toms Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For a music video to escape conventions of previous media products, is next to impossible, for music videos themselves are already a heavy product of the mainstream music industry, regardless of the content presented within it. Having said that I don’t believe that music videos can’t take on many of the conventional traits of previous media products, and push them in a way that is so unique it sets the trend for many videos to come. With our video, we tried to go against having a clear, black and white narrative, and instead create a visually interesting and exciting video, mainly editing based. The decision to leave out a form of narrative came after a few decisions, as at first we had a completely different idea and song to work with. We originally planned a much more dark and sinister video, filmed in an ideal location we found, an abandoned hospital block. Unfortunately we had difficulties coming up with interesting ideas and getting good shots, and the location became inaccessible. We were forced to rethink the whole project, which lead us to think “why do we even need a narrative?” and that’s how our final piece was first conceived as an idea. We also liked the fact that the viewer could take away what they wanted from the video, and give it their own interpretation of what it meant to them, which I felt gave it a lot more of a personal quality to it.

A media product we were very influenced by in the early stages of development was a video by rap group “The Pharcyde” called “The Drop.” The bizarre nature of the video lead us to aspire towards a similar tone, as the whole video is in reverse, yet set in a typical busy New York style area. I saw this as a contrast between the mundane and repetitive life of day to day work in a busy urban environment with excitement and something out of the ordinary. Originally we planned to have most, if not all of the video shot in reverse also, in tribute to the drop. This turned out to be a rather more tedious task than we first thought it would be, so we decided to mix it up with some fast paced editing, and various other effects, even though there are a fair few bits in the video that are in reverse, and are effective.

With the whole gas mask and suit theme, we were going with a creepy look, the dullness of an everyday suit, combined with the shocking image of a gas mask – something most people rarely see – is very visually striking, this is why we chose the opening shot to be the artist walking towards the camera from a distance, as at first the viewer doesn’t quite notice the gas mask, and from a distance the suit is more recognizable. We also used this contrast to replicate a meeting of two very different styles of music, one which the ‘artist’ combines in his song white light. The suit represents early 60’s pop bands, such as The Beatles or The Kinks, who would often perform in a matching wardrobe of just suits, and plain old mop hairstyles. The gas mask represents the new generation of electronic music, where the creative input towards making their products involves less instrumentation and more of a production element. An example of a musician who has taken on the gas mask as a suitable representation is dubstep heavyweight Caspa. This contrast directly mimics the tone of Gorillaz song white light – the song we chose for our music video. The song contains a lot of traditional instrumentation, yet at the same time it is heavily produced, and the strong pounding beat imitates that of modern day dance music.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our Main product and our ancillary texts go quite well together, we kept the theme of the gas mask strong through out both. The magazine advert was designed to be bold and striking, with the artists image barely coming out of the black background. The front cover of the digi pack has the same image as that on the magazine advert, so people can draw a familiarity between the two. With the magazine advert I tried to make it as realistic and believable as possible, and in the end this boiled down to the little details, such as shops you can buy the digi pack and the record label’s logo. One criticism I have is that we used a different logo for both the magazine advert and the digi pack cover, due to the digi pack cover being designed by someone other than me in the group. This detaches from the reality and the authenticity of the artist. If more time was given this is one of the things I would have spent more time looking over.

The Advert differs from the digi pack cover in the sense that its trying to get people to buy the digi pack, therefore it needs to be more attention grabbing and appealing to its target audience. I used a stark contrast between black and red to grab the readers focus, and the use of large font gives out all the vital information, i.e. artist name and release date, from only a glance.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Throughout production, audience feedback and research was very important to us, as it helped us connect with our audience more and improve our video to our target audiences liking. We made questionnaires and handed them out to a wide variety of people, to be able to get mixed opinions on music and music videos. Unfortunately we did not hand out the questionnaires equally between sexes, meaning we have more of a biased opinion from a male viewpoint. The majority of the people who filled out our questionnaire were between the ages of 19-21, as most of them were handed out in our college.

The most important research from our questionnaires was obviously what people liked in music videos, since we were going for a very abstract and non linier music video. We found that most people liked a narrative, but we also found out that a respectable minority enjoyed ones without a narrative. Since we were creating an artist that was meant to reach out to the minorities of the masses, we decided to continue with our original concept. We were very happy when we found out that most people like unique videos over conventional videos, as this obviously benefits our ideas. Another thing we learnt was that our audience liked variety in location, something I think we strived to achieve from very early on in development. And last but not least we learnt that people aren’t too fond of performance shots in videos, which also directly links to our video, as the nature of our artist doesn’t allow for many performance shots. Along with these questionnaires, the internet has also been great help, e.g. uploading the final video to youtube to get feedback from around the world.

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

New media technologies were obviously a very large and important part of what helped make our music video what it is, and even in the research planning and evaluation stages, we still took advantage of the tools at our fingertips to get the most out of what we could. Obviously the most important media technology we used, which goes without saying, was the camera. We used a standard digital filming camera, with a tripod for stability. Since it was a music video and no audio was required to be captured, we didn’t have to worry about audio quality, i.e. an external microphone. When we originally had the idea of the abandoned hospital location, we used a normal still image digital camera to take pictures of the location, to bring back and get some feedback on. Ultimately this helped us change our ideas and dismiss the location as unsuitable, as lighting would have been a key issue. A huge part of our tone and theme of the video, as has been mentioned before, was the amount of editing that went into the piece. To edit we were working on final cut pro on a mac, which was very effective and useful software. We used various techniques and effects with in final cut pro to replicate some almost animation inspired techniques, such as stop motion. We also used a lot of reverse effects, as said before.

The internet was a huge help throughout the production process, in creation, research and evaluation especially. Youtube is one of the best tools I could think of that we used throughout, tutorials on the video site taught me a lot about editing on mac computers, having come from a primarily PC based background. Youtube also helped us out a lot in later stages, i.e. uploading the finished product and getting feedback from around the globe, which is really invaluable. The vast database of music videos that are already online also was of tremendous help, as we researched many different styles and directors to find inspiration that we thought would benefit our piece. Another benefit of the internet in media is obviously this blog. Essentially a journal of how far we have come since birth of this idea, a blog like this is invaluable when looking at our piece and insights into how it was made and what ideas were put behind what you see on screen. New media technologies also helped in the evaluation stage, as we did a voice over over the original video, and that helped give any fans a further insight into what we did and why we did it. Overall we used various new media technologies throughout production

Completed Digipak

Record Label Research

Warner Brothers + Reprise Records

Warner Brothers is big and established mainstream company. They use known artists such as Green Day and Linkin Park. Warner Bros. has one of the most successful and well established record labels to date. Having over 39 years of experience and dealing with all mainstream music channels. Not only has it founded new time greats in its time it has also dealt with lengends such as Frank Sinatra and the Sex Pistols. We chose Warner Brothers as its a very mainstream and well established company. Most people in western society would recognise the logo that the company bears and also trust in the quality of the companies merchandise.

The Warner Brothers website has all the new technology such as using a blog to announce album releases and other major music events. Also they promote the music videos for free through their website. Also it allows you to subscribe to their website for free updates to either your mobile or email address and therefore is very young people friendly. Overall we chose this record label because of the opportunities that working with a well known mainstream record label offers.

Final Video

Magazine Advert

^Please click to make bigger^

This is our magazine advert to coincide with the digi-pack release, and as you can see i made the centre point of the advert to be the image of the artist in the iconic gas mask, a theme which both resonates throughout the video and is also the main image used on the front of the CD cover. I went for a high contrast between the black in the background and the reds in the foreground to create a very striking first impression, something that will catch the viewers attention. The original image of the artist in the gas mask was very dark when incorporated into the design, so to counteract this i duplicated the image and made it a lot brighter, then doubled it over the original with the opacity tool. the initial logo was constructed in adobe illustrator, and then i assembled the whole poster in adobe photoshop. I found a set of brushes i thought were suitable to make an interesting border, and i added in the little details that make the difference between unrealistic and realistic, i.e shops you can buy the digi-pack and the record label logo.

Example Digipak

We hope to make a digipak similar to this one. The design will have 6 covers (3 outer and 3 inner) that we will put images directly from our music video on. Also we will use a two disc digipak instead of the one. The second disc will be bonus materials and extra footage. Also we hope to possibly include an artbook however this may be a bit difficult due to time issues.

Example Album Covers

SMOKE & MIRRORS


This album cover uses smoke as the image whilst it is basic it is also effective. Although we are planning to use smoke in the image we are planning to have another image as well. Also we plan on using more smoke and a yellow light.



TAKE MY BREATH AWAY

This album uses a strong image that also is relevant to the title. The album is colorful and eye catching, also because of the powerful image it makes people look twice. The image is shows children in gas masks which is quite relevant to today's society where children are under threat from terrorism and war. Because the gas mask played a key role in our video we felt we should incorporate it into our CD cover. By combining the gas mask with the smoke we hope to create a foreboding image that catches the audiences eye.

Overall the two covers incorporate two major images we plan on using in our cover and we feel they would work effectively with each other by using smoke and a single image we hope to avoid an overfilled cover but also we sidestep the obstacle of having an isolated image that could make the album look unappealing to potential buyers of the album.

Similar Artist Research

SPACE MONKEYZ

Space Monkeyz was formed by Darren Galea coming together when he created a dub remix of "Tomorrow Comes Today". Once the Gorillaz founder Damon Albarn had listened to the song he subsequently asked the group to remix the entire album resulting in "Laika Come Home" its only single "Lil' Dub Chefin" only managing to hit number 73 in the singles chart.

Like the Gorillaz, they are a virtual band (though not to the degree that Gorillaz are). According to the fictional Gorillaz biography Rise of the Ogre the group is an actual team of monkeys used in space tests who had stolen the tracks from an unattended Kong Studios and remixed them without Gorillaz’ permission. Having actually been mentioned in the fictional Gorrilaz biography it shows that they are quite well affiliated with the band and also have a good relationship with them. This particular example also shows how bands can be successfully formed on a remix and then proceed to become (slightly) famous.

Music Video Equipment

Before we were able to begin shooting we had to ensure the smoke machine was warmed up and working and had to familiarize ourselves with the lighting control panel. Once we had learnt how to use the equipment we were able to utilize it to enhance the viewing experience of the music video. Having used this equipment it has helped us gain new skills and taught us how to effectively use the lighting for greater effect.

Inspiration & Themes

The person that inspired us was the well known music video director Spike Jonze, in particular his video "Drop" by rap group Pharcyde.



We found the reverse time effect very interesting, and decided we wanted to incorporate it into our own video. However one major difference is that we wont have any performance shots in our video, so we will not have to worry about lip syncing backwards. By doing it in reverse it will help add to the twist at the end of our video.

Another source of inspiration was the film Fight Club by director David Fincher

This film was particularly inspirational due to the exploration of the human mind, and an insight into schizophrenia, a theme we are portraying in our music video. By using 2 people to represent 1, we are shown an insight into the main characters alter ego, in the case of Fight Club portrayed by Brad Pitt.

Song Choices

At first we chose to use a song from the soundtrack to the game Quake 3 Arena



We first chose this song because it had lots of different sounds, and a nice build up to an intense beat, it also suited our original location. In the end we decided not to use the song as our location became in accessable and could not find a suitable replacement location that could fit the song.

We changed our idea and location and chose a new song, White Light by Gorillaz



We felt that this song has the intensity that we could build our ideas around, whilst still incorporating some of the original ideas we had in mind. The constant repition of "white light" allows for an opportunity to have many cutaway shots from the narrative, and the calm and mellow section in the middle is a good opportunity to have a drastic change of tone and pace to keep things interesting.

Location Shots

These are location shots we took of our original location, however the location has since become unaccessable and therefore we have to change it.

Introduction To The Group

Eric Elavia

Role: Director


Tom Bell

Role: Cameraman


Steven Dollman

Role: Editor