Branding


Bands use branding as promotional material. Bands brand themselves to give themselves an unique identity to sell themselves on. Small bands often support successful stable bands of the same genre at gigs, in order to get their sound heard. At the gig the band would hand out promotional material such as badges and leaflets printed with their band identity to raise awareness of their music. The badges would be printed with album names or the bands logo. The leaflets would provide general information on the band and promote upcoming gigs.

Bands also sell promotional material to raise money and awareness. They might sell clothes or posters. This could be sold at concerts or in stores such as HMV. an example of this could be the popular range of JLS hoodies that became available last year. At this time the band were still growning and gaining fans. By selling these jumpers to fans, the fans were able to promote the band by wearing there merchandise.

CD Cover Analysis

Our task is to produce a CD cover to promote our artist and video. I have researched and analysed cd covers of artist in order to create mine. I have looked at typography, colours, images and house styles.

This is the cover for The Kooks' 'Inside in Inside out' album. The house style colours of this band are red black and white. The titles are placed well as the band name in place inside the album title, corresponding with the meaning of the name. The typography is bold and clear. This remains the same on all albums created by the band, but differs in colours. On the kooks next album 'Konk' the house colours still dominate in black and white, but differ with the new album name in blue.

The image is of the whole band. It is a relaxed image of the band practising. It does not look staged, it looks like an action shot of three members playing with the four member cleverly caught in a mirror. This shows them in relaxed positions and makes a more natural shot. This portrays the relaxed music and mood of an indie band.

There is a lot of white space on this cover, highlighting the titles and focusing on the band image.

CD Cover Analysis

This is the album cover for Mcfly's Motion in the Ocean album.
This cover is an image of the band members underwater, corresponding with the title 'in the ocean'. The band members are all captured in individual motions. The band's name appears in a bold contrasting yellow in the centre of the cover. The name is used as the bands logo and this typography appears the same on a few of their albums, but in several colours. The title of the album appears in smaller font at the bottom of the cover. It provides information but is not the main focus on the page. For this cover the band have played on the words of the title but have sold themselves on their own image and logo. The audience are quickly pulled in and the bold colours and creative images catch the eye.

CD Cover Analysis


This is Amy Winehouse's Album cover for her album 'Back to Black'. The house style colours of this album are black and white. This cover portrays back to basics, it is very simple, relying on the artists image. Amy is very unique and sells herself on her image. The title of this album is shown in several ways in this covers. One I have previously mention about back to basics. And the second where Amy literally has her back to black. Amy is sitting in front of a black board. Suggesting Amy has gone back to the start, started with the raw basics and produced new material.


The typography is bold and clear. This remains the same on single releases by Amy. Both title and Amy stand out on this cover. The covers does not need other images nor patterns, as amy sells herself on image and pure talent. Amy has a big enough fan base, that she does not rely on promoting her self on her album cover. Fans simply buy it because they like her sound.

CD Cover Analysis

This is the cover for Paloma Faith's Album 'New York'.

The typography on the album is very unique to the artist. It is in white and presents her name in large font then her album name in a smaller font. This typography remains the same on all her albums.

Paloma appears dressed glamorously in the centre of the cover with no direct eye contact as she gazes out the window. She appears to be in a run down flat but very dressed out. The covers suggests her dream of something better as she gazes out over new York. Rather than a picture of her in new York, this images portrays something out of reach, something she aspires to.
The picture relates to the albums name of 'New York'

CD Cover Analysis

This is the album cover for Scouting for girls' 'This ain't a love song'. This cover is very bold in colours of red, yellow, blue and white. The cover is quite old fashion, and I think it could be portrayed as a price or postage stamp.

The band never follow a house style through their albums. They change drastically in colour and style. However on this cover appears an aeroplane and on their last appeared a rowing boat, maybe signifying a journey, which always brings changes, bringing their change in house style.

Both the title and band name appear on this cover. An image of the band however does not. The band never sell themselves on their image and a picture never appears on their album. The band are purely interested in music and rather than a huge publicity campaign, the band simply provide their sound and passion.

Camerawork and Editing

Camera work and editing are two major aspects we need to focus on when creating our music video. Both of these aspects correlates with features of goodwins theory, and can affect the whole meaning of the film. The camera work and editing can portray the feeling and meaning of the lyrics in our chosen song. Boths aspects present and promote the arist in a syle that correlates with his or hers genre.

Camera work
Camera work is heavily focused on in the story boarding process. We need to consider camera angles, movements and shots. All shots need to analysed and thought about in order to portray the right image for the song. We need to really think about the close up of the artist. The close is very important to the record label, some artists sell themselves against their image. A close up gives them an unique identity and selling point. The close up predominates to fill the screen because it creates an intimacy with the audience. This works with goodwins theory, the notion of looking, it creates a relationship with the viewer. The close up emphasises on the arist in shot. At this point in the video, we no longer focus on the song or lyrics, but the artist and their voice. This creates a base of promotion for selling both the song and future work. For camera work we are considering using a 360 degree viewing for our close up. We are considering using both far and close shots.

Editing
Editing works with the theorys of editing visuals and music to lyrics. Editing affects the mood of the film, to relate to the genre of music. The slower the music and tone of lyrics, the more slow paced the video would be and gentler transistions would be used to establish the mood. With a faster song and more upbeat music, their would be quicker cuts on beat, This would be matching visuals to music.

Editors are able to use fast cut montage in fast paced songs. Fast cut montages use several cuts from footage. The montage cuts from different angles and shot fast, images are almost impossible to see on first viewing. This is a very clever technique to use on a qucik beat. This is a technique I would be quick to use on a fast paced song. An effect I would like to use would be a split screen affect showing different shots for the same lyrics. I think this creates interest for the viewer.

Our Chosen Artist and Music



Our chosen artist is James Christie. He is a local songwriter. He is 17 and currently unsigned. He plays piano and the guitar. His piece of music we have chosen is called 'Adrifting in an endless ocean'. It is an acoustic piece in which he sings and plays the guitar. He is a solo artist and features at gigs in the local area.
Our chosen song can be played below;




PLAY

Story Board Explained


Our music video tells the story of a boy being left alone and not being able to understand the thoughts of a girl. We have chosen the beach as our location, running with the theme of the ocean
in the lyrics and matching them to visuals. This will tick off one of Goodwin's principles in our music Video. The video starts with a close of the guitar being played with the shot zooming out. We have found several photos that from we have gained inspiration for angles.

A pan of the beach follows, however we could have a problem filming this. We have the picture of a empty beach in our minds, we would like to portray the feeling of being alone and deserted but the beach could be busy.

The Artist James is the first person the audience see, he is seen strumming on a beach. He is then placed at a crossroads as the lyrics begin. This shot we would like to film twice. Once with just traffic. The second with James standing in the middle. We would then layer these shots so we could have James in normal motion while the traffic is fast motion.
The audience then see our male character, this is the narrative based section of our video. The boy is seen at the top of a building. Our next shot matches lyrics to visuals once again. It captures a close up of a hand holding sand, portraying the lyrics 'In the palms of my hand are the grains of sand'. The next shot shows our female character. It is a shot of the girl with a friend. We plan to add a slow motion effect. The 8th shot is an over the shoulder shot, the boy is in the sea while the girl walks past on the beach, showing the notion of looking.

The next four shots see a mixture of both mid shots and close up. We also plan to change the speed to. For example in the first shot of the photo falling, we wish to make that slow motion. We could have issues with these shots as the sea could be rough.

The music video would then show shots cutting in between scenes of the artist performing, the girl and the boy. We hope to be able to split the screen in order to show all three in one shot.
We Have concerns with these shots, we are worries about the lighting in them, about whether it will be too dark to film at night.
These scenes are intimate shots of the couple. We would use a mix of medium and close shots. we also want to shoot a scene with an over the shoulder shot.

These four shot would be a reel of creative editing. We wish to change the speed in both the first and last shots, in the last we want to make it slow motion, and in the first we want to make the people around the artist seem fast paced. We also wish to film a beach flag, in the wind, then when editing reverse it. We think this would give a great effect in the video.


Our music video finishes with closure of a door, the door of the boys bedroom we see earlier in the video. The last shot is the same shot we see at the beginning, of the artist standing at the cross roads. This shot would once again be in different speeds. We like the idea of a circling plot in our video, starting at one point and finishing there. We hope that it will work well. We also thinks its important to close with the last person to be seen being the artist. We think this should end and predominate the video, matching the song with the artists identity. This is another important aspect of Goodwin's theory where record labels like to create a unique selling point with their artist and create them an identity. With this last shot, the audience would be left with a clear and strong image of the artist.

Locations

For our music video we have chosen the beach as our main location. This runs with the theme of the ocean in the lyrics. this will help us match visuals to lyrics by shooting scenes on and around the beach. we plan to have shots of our actors both on the beach and in the sea.

We are also going to shoot film around the beach, on pathways, near amusements, to gain a busy atmosphere for our female charater. This is to represent and show the differences between the female and male actors.

We plan to film the male character in scenes within his room. These shots will show him helpless and confused. They will also match to the lyrics 'lying on my bed' in the middle of the song. This is a simple idea of matching the lyrics to visuals, but will hopefully portray the meaning of the song and story well.




Video Pitches - Audience Feedback

As part of communicating with an audience, and gaining feedback, we have conducted pitches for our music video. We made a pitches to present our ideas for our music video, this was then filmed. The audience watching our pitch were able to give us their opinions on our ideas. These opinions help us make changes to our video in order to give our audience what they want.


The pitch;


The Feedback;
The audience filled in sheets and commented on what worked well and what could be improved on.

What works well?
  • "Good use of editing"
  • "A good variance of shots - the video could be great if the right ones are chosen"
  • "Good relations between music and lyrics"
  • "Good location"
  • "good use of transitions and keeping with the beat"
  • "Narrative theme is good"

What could improve these ideas?
  • "Do not use to much slow motion"
  • "Try colourisation"
  • "Keep editing quick and creative to keep the audiences' attention"
Overall opinions show that the audience like the matching of lyrics to visuals and the choice of locations. In our plan we have a good variance of shots and transitions. For improvements we need to consider more digital effects such as colourisation, and make sure our editing is quick.




* An Audience Feedback Sheet*


Project update

My partner Hannah Taylor has now decided to drop A2 Media Studies. Therefore I will be carrying on the coursework project myself. I am still carrying on with the same artist and the current ideas. I will now be creating and evaluating alone.

Ancillary Tasks

For the next few weeks i will begin to design and create my ancillary tasks. I will be creating a digipak for my artist, james christie's, album and an advert to promote it. These ancillary tasks will follow the video i have created. I will create them using Serif Page Plus, a creative design programme. I will have to create a brand identity for my artist and this will run consistantly throughout the promotional material i will design.

Filming Diary - Day 1

Day 1 - 26/10/10

Today was the day I arranged to film my music video. This was not my original day to film, this date was added as my previous one was unsuccessful. The filming on this day went very well. I managed to film all of the narrative sections of the Video.

I had to travel to brighton for filming with my actors so that i could capture shots on the beach - my location. I had to change some shots that i had planned to have. The weather was quite bad, it was very windy therefore the sea was rough. I had to change the shot of my actor in the sea, however with clever placing of the camera i have captured a shot that makes it look as thought he is walking in to the sea.

I also has to change the shot of the boy dropping a photo into the sea. The wind was strong, so every time he dropped it, it would fly away. I only changed the clip slightly, instead he placed the photo in the water, the shot still works effectively.

A big problem for this day was that my artist never told me this was the day he was returning from holiday. So the day before, expecting him to be there, i got this news and had to plan around the problem. I managed to reschedule a day with him, with a slight change of location.

Issues With Filming

I was planned to film most of my music video this weekend. I had planned to go to Clacton beach with two actors. But at the end of last week my actor ended up on crutches. With so late notice i was unable to find another actor who could spend the day filming with me. Therfore i have rescheduled to film during half term.