Making an Advert

We have decided to use both photoshop and InDesign, photoshop to black out the photo of Mossy so that there is just him but use InDesign to piece together everything for the final product

Making an Advert

Our main influences for our advertisement are:

I loved this advertisement because it is very eye catching with the basic colours of black, white and gold but it is also clear and concise, getting across to the reader the exact information needed.

I think this is also a great advertisement as it is again clear and concise but it is also quite different, I specifically like the type being slanted in the black text boxes. 

We noticed that the most important information like the name of the artist, title of the album, and when the album is out is quite high up on the poster and is emboldened and then as you look down the poster the type is smaller and no longer emboldened. As it is selling and promoting the artist both use large photos of the artists which is effective and intriguing. 

Creating the advertisement for a magazine

Today we started work on our preliminary task of an advert meant for a magazine for our artist and song. We brainstormed what you would normally see in ads, so what kind of information they would put on there and how this information would be worded. I looked in different magazines to clarify, magazines that focused on music such as NME but also magazines that were more focused on other things like fashion, this meant that I got a true understanding of what would catch the readers attention and what would be best to include. We also started thinking about what software we would use to create it, maybe even a poster template if only for practise.

Changing the photos on the website

We have recently found out that we cannot use the photos we found on Mossy's social networking sites so we are using photos that are automatically taken by the cameras when we were filming but are also going to take some photos at the end of our next filming day (the 1st).

We are also going to change the background photo but as we loved the photo of a road and thought it encapsulated the narrative and theme of our video we are going to use a photo of a street we used as a location in the video.

Nine Frame Analysis:Bastille

Bastille- Pompeii

I think this is a great opening shot for the video because it epitomises how alone he is meant to be through out the video. This shot gets closer and closer towards him which allows the audience to realise the focus is on him. As the audience cannot see his facial expressions it makes the audience start to question who is he and why he is there, making them continue to watch the video. also o actually see him and see his face so that he isn't, as he is at the beginning of this shot, just lost amongst the crowd for the audience. They can see through his facial expressions the emotion and so become attached which perhaps makes them want to continue to watch the video more.

The shot is continually moving not just staying still. This contrasts the character and the city which are very definite, as if it is him versus the city. The movement of the shot keeps it interesting for the audience and keeps continuity as the following shots are also moving.

The audience finally get to see his face in the 3rd shot. To actually see him and see his face means that he isn't, as he is at the beginning of the first shot, just lost amongst the crowd for the audience. They can see through his facial expressions his emotions and so become attached which perhaps makes them want to continue to watch the video more. It also focus's the video more, as it is clear this is who we will be following through the video.

This shot changes its focal length so that, as in this print screen, the background is in focus and then it narrows to focus on him. This perhaps reinforces the idea of it being him versus the city as it seems to be his constantly watching the city.
I think this may be a good shot to use in our music video as it allows the audience to focus on one point and then the bigger picture.

The focus is continually on him which keeps continuity within the video.

The 7th shot is quite dramatic and because it is quite simple allows for the focus to turn to the lyrics of the song.

In the last two shots the movement from the camera and character seem to swap round as the camera does not move as much but the character does. The different shots in the same place suggests he is moving further than he actually is.

Nine Frame Analysis: Foo Fighters

Walk by The Foo Fighters: 

The first shot shows the main "character" of the music video and who's story we will be following throughout.  As this shot is so close up the audience can really feel his frustration immediately but it also lets the audience know that this is the main person. 

The second wider shot then allows the audience to see his situation, this being after the shot showing his frustration allows the audience to make the link of why he is frustrated and bored. 

The next four shots last for a shorter amount of time and therefore accurately show a build up in emotion paralleling the first shot. And when you take all shots from the first to the 6th it smoothly takes the audience from one point and one perspective going further out to see out that one point fits in to everything else, almost becoming consumed by the situation.  

After having taken the video further out seeing whats around the character and whats going on, the focus is brought back reinforcing that he is the centre of the video and that we are going to see his experiences and how things relate to him. This keeps the video clear to the audience and easily understandable.

The 8th shot brings in other characters to the music video setting the tone for the video, which is comic, and brings more interest to the video.

Risk Assessment

We have done a risk assessment to make sure we took all necessary safety precautions.

Website pages: About

Here is the about page for our website for our artist Mossy Mckenna. We thought that this would be a great page for the fans who this website is aimed at. To give old and new fans some background knowledge about him which may make them more attached to him as an musician and want to continue to follow him more. It also gives them a bit more of an understanding of who Mossy is an individual and therefore keep up the musician-fan relationship.

We have published the website!

We have finished our website for our artist Mossy Mckenna!

We researched many different artists websites such as Connor Maynard, JLS, One Republic, Ed Sheeran and many others. We have tried to include everything that you would normally see on a musicians website so have pages about tour dates and pictures from concerts.

We also tried to think of any information that fans may want to know or find out and allow them to write comments and communicate with each other.

Here is the link to the finished product- http://i07dhsim.wix.com/mossymckenna

Website inspiration

We are looking at making a website for our 'artist' so we thought we would do some research and look around to see how some artists have done it and what they have included. Here is what we have found and liked: Connor Maynard- OneRepublic- The Script- Lawson- The main things we liked about these were that they were all easy to navigate which would of course be something we wish to have in ours as well as there stylish backgrounds and settings.

The tour dates are something that is quite important for people to know about and is a good way for fans to know where to buy there tickets and where the band is playing. 

I really like the idea of having a photo gallery for the bands website as I think it is something fans would want to see as they may be unable to see them live but want to, this then gives a flavour for what the concert would be like. 

I also liked the merch page as then the fans know that this is their official merch and it makes the items a lot more easily accesable. 

Making a website

In order to make the website for Mossy we chose to use a website template that we found online. We looked at loads of different website but ended up using Wix.com because we felt it had the best template and a professional finish that allowed us to include everything we wanted to include.

Here is the link: http://www.wix.com

Collage

This is a collage I have made of different shots from different music videos from the pop and indie genre. The reason I have chosen these images is because they all encapsulate the main themes of the videos, the majority show dramatic eye catching images such as katy perry's fireworks and Vampire Weekends shot of a car on fire, even though these shots are quite simple they do grab the audiences attention and so is something we will be looking to replicating in our video. It can also be seen that throughout all the music videos many different locations are used adding interest and mystery to the video as it is constantly changing.

Audience Expectations

Inspiration/ typical synopsis 4

I think this video is quite unique and involves some relatable locations and scenarios which in itself can grab the audiences attention. I like how the video gives the audience a background and allows them to build up a picture of what his life is meant to be like and then creates a parallel with how it is changing. I think that this is one of the most interesting things that we could perhaps take to use for our video as there is initially a clear link in the slow motion of him going to the microphone and him walking down the stairs and leaving so the audience see the link between the two and maybe see how it was a gradual change which is then emphasised by the performance shots that are then matching the speed of the song which seems to show where he is now and where he wants to be.

Inspiration/ typical synopsis 3

I really like this music video as it succinctly goes through 3 or 4 different locations each containing very different content to the one before. It also contains some really interesting camera shots where the camera even goes up side down, I think these fluid shots allows for the content of the shots to be different whilst still making sense to the audience and adds another interest to the video. As well as this the lighting was very effective as it emphasised the changes that happened in the song and created different tones in the video. Both the shots and lights are definitely something I think we should take on board to use in our video.

I also noticed that he wears different costumes in each shot, each being suitable for the locations and the change in the songs tempo. I thought that this was a subtle element that again added more interest and emphasised the different changes in the song, connecting the visuals with the song.

Music Video Conventions

Different styles of music videos:

Performance- videos where the band/artist is playing the song.

Narrative- There is a story line in the video.

Mixture- A video containing both performance and narrative features.

Cameo- similar to narrative except the band features rather than actors.

Camera shots of a music video:

Most videos will use a variety of Long shots, close ups and mid shots, including such shots allows emphasis to be placed on instruments and shots of the band if its a performance video but may also help to show emotion.

The lyrics and the visuals presented in the song tend to have a connection. Normally for pop videos the lyrics and music are about love and relationships and so will show this in the video.

Sometimes the visuals may also match the beat of the song through editing, so perhaps the shiy changes by each beat of the drum or something similar.

The length of a music video ranges from around 3-5 minutes

Andrew Goodwin identified key features of music videos:

1. Music videos demonstrate certain characteristics for different genres.

2. There is a relationship between music and visuals.

3. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

4.The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist

5. the artist may develop motifs or iconography that recur across their work

6. There is frequent reference to the notion of 'looking' (screens within screens, filming, cameras) and particularly voyeuristic (pleasure through looking) treatment of the female body.

7. There are often intertextual references- mostly to film, television and popular culture.

I think that these key features will be particularly useful for our video, particularly features 1, 2, 3 and 4 as with 2 and 3 this should keep the song and video linked and will help us to make sure we accurately emphasise the meaning of the song whilst also making sure it fits with the tone of the song. I think we should bear in mind feature 1 when planning to make sure we do not stray from the audiences expectations, as we want the video to be a natural extension of the song not something that is random or particularly stands apart from the song. I feel the same towards feature 4 as it must also be remembered that a music video is mainly there to sell the band and song and so arguably one of the most important things to maintain is showing the audience the band.

inspiration/Typical Synopsis 2

This is Lawsons official music video for their song 'Standing in the dark' has shots that are quite similar to the shots in the official counting stars music video, I particularly like how the shots are continually moving because I think it adds interest to quite a simple shot. I also like how it really shows the emotions of the lead singer through the close up shots and pace and lighting of the video. The visuals match the lyrics well as the the number of shots increase as the pace and beat get faster in the song, this with addition of flashing lights is very effective and something I think we could use throughout our own music video.

Inspiration/ typical synopsis

As we are trying to figure out what content to have in the video and how we could shoot and edit it, we have looked around for some music videos to give us inspiration. Here is Scroobius Pip's official music video for Stunner, which we felt was very useful:

I think this music video is very clever and very well done. The shots move cleanly and keep a continuity throughout the video that may not have achieved before, I definitely think this something we could use in our video. I also think the lighting is very effective as it is quite dimly lit and so adds a sense of mystery and intrigue to the video. 

Lip Syncing Task

Here is our Lip Syncing Video! We chose Avril Lavigne Girlfriend because it is a fun and up beat song that as a group of five we all knew. It is also quite a catchy song, so we knew that even if our actors did not know the song they would be able to pick it up easily. We did struggle with the precision of the lip syncing but feel that this was because of editing and something we will rectify for our main coursework through multiple practise shots.


Here is the original Music video:

Essay on Lip Syncing exercise

In deciding what song we were going to do for our Lip- Syncing task we first decided that we wanted to choose a light and up beat song, something  in the Pop genre.  We chose this because we felt this genre would be quite fun to do and we knew it would be more likely that we would all know the song. After much research looking at different songs and music video's, we chose Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne because it fit the criteria we had set and had comedic elements.

 We also chose this song because we decided we could use our school setting as a good location to shoot and with this match the shots accurately. To help plan exactly what we were going to have in each shot we watched the video multiple times and did a storyboard pausing the video every time the shot changed and also, for more accuracy, did a screen shot of every shot in the music video.

For the actors in our video we used friends and volunteers from our sixth form, because it then meant we could create large groups of people for the shoot in which they walk in and we could use the same people for the main characters as we could fit when we shoot around times best for them.

During the production of this exercise we played the original video to all the actors to help them understand what they are aiming to recreate, we also broke it down in to the specific shots we would be shooting at that time and then whilst actually filming played the song so we could exactly time the actor mouthing the words to the singing of Avril on the recording.

To accurately match the content our shots to the shots of the video we varied camera angles and shots particularly in the fifth shot where the camera follows them round a corner but is at the same level as the previous shots. So we had to keep this in consideration and attempt some practise shots to get the accurate position of the camera that meant we could turn all the way round. For the same reason we created similar outfits to the outfits worn in the videos as well as finding wigs and using make up to make them as similar as possible.

To finish the task we used Imovie to import the clips from the camera onto the computer and then into Final Cut express which we used to precisely edit to form the final product we also unlinked and linked the audio to have the actual song with the clips. I feel this skill will be of particularly value when we  come to actually editing our coursework because we will be able to match the music and visuals very accurately. This is also the case with using final cut express as it meant we could change the speed of some clips and precisely cut clips to exactly match the singing.