Story Board

Treatment

My music video will contain numerous different settings and events; the first of these I wish to include is a small room. The scene in the confined room will contain 1 man, initially you only see the head, this will then progress to a long shot which reveals his body, his body will have the bottom half removed, and this will be unusual and abstract. As well as this I want to include band scenes, where the band are either live or in session and in a recording studio or a similar room, the surrounding will be vibrant colours and the cuts will be quick between the band scene and the abstract scene.

As well as these scenes there will be a narrative, which will include a woman receiving a text from a lover and her boyfriend seeing it, this will hopefully fit in time with the lyrics ‘What’s his name and where’s he from?’. The aim of the narrative scene is to break up the other aspects.

I hope to use various different editing techniques to create effects, for example I would like to use split screen for the narrative and band scenes to mix up each feature of my video. The man which has only half a body will be created using a masking tool on adobe after effects. If the masking tool looks good I would also like to move my editing skills forward into creating a scene in which the man’s legs are running round without his top half.

Website mock up 1



Website mock up 2

Mock up of CD covers

Outside cover

Inside Cover

Website analysis

The killers’ website is a simple design using the bands logo as the main focus, the entire layout of the page is similar to a motel road sign on route 66, the sign with the killers’ logo at the peak uses an L.E.D style to spell out the letters.

The additional information on the sign includes tour dates which are under the title, ‘upcoming pre-sales’ the bands layout may be reflective of their current American tour. Each of the menu options at the top are unusual and do not follow the conventional menu options, they use ‘the road’ instead of ‘tour dates’, this helps with the American related semantic field. Other menu options which follow this feature are ‘sweet talk’ and ‘the victims’ both referring to their online chat and fan club.

The background image follows the ‘route 66’ style that they are trying to portray, they use various terrain and which is plain and dull, the mountains blend into the background as closer to the camera are closed off fields, the sand covers most of the image and the plain colours help the main image stand out (the sign).

This website, design, for the 'All-american rejects' is alot more conventional, it uses a normal banner which includes an image of the band and their name, the image of them is of the band in session recording a single - this creates connotations of creativity. The website includes all of the usual information that you expect on a bands website but there are some differences, there is a feature called 'rejects TV' which is a youtube style feature, there are various videos of the band on tour, this may be a good idea for my website as there are videos about, the only issue with this would be copyright.
Down the left hand side of the screen it includes all of their tour dates, normal menu tabs are also used, for example; news, tours, music and photos.
Additional news is posted down the centre of the page with the additional features to the left, the page scrolls down for about 4 screens due to the amount on it. The mainly interactive website is plain with a simple image in the background, the sentence 'the world comes down', the title of one of their albums and the bands tagline, this is also repeated in the banner.

Album cover analysis

This is typical of traditional album covers, it uses detailed album artwork which when vinyl records were used the larger covers would allow for this. The Darkness use the artwork as the focus of the cover to attract, the title of the album is tucked away at the bottom of the screen.

The Darkness logo is adapted to suit the semantic field surrounding the album, the devil tail serif adds to the meaning through the use of graphology. The vibrant colours and individuality of the cover will help customers in record stores spot the album. The cover, unusually has no band relation - by this I mean that there are no images of the band itself.



This album cover is very simple in its design, also it a huge contrast to the first album, the images of the band is used with a plane black and white colour scheme. The black and white image is used as the album name, 'inside in, inside out' is accentuated with the use of red. The band name, 'the kooks' is embedded in the album name in the large blank white space allowing browsers to see it clearly.

Genre research

Indie/pop/rock

Indie pop is according to various sources is a form of alternative rock, the bands tend to have an appeal to a younger audience with the odd one or two breaking off and appealing to an older audience, they generally aren’t synthetic and adopt an organic fresh approach to music. It is only since the 80’s that these type of bands have been snapped up by record labels.

The genre has aspects of punk, giving the bands a slight edge. The punk factor is evident in the band I have chosen, 1984s band image is modern and has features of punk. The genre has mainly originated in the UK and USA but has influences in Australia and Newzealand.

Razorlight are a good example of a similar modern band around currently.

Industry research

My chosen band – 1984

Indie/ rock/ pop band according to their own classification of themselves

Unsigned and organic

3 sources of information for this band –

http://www.myspace.com/thebandis1984

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4055048473?area=1

http://www.unsigned.com/1984

Here’s an old video of the band live to give an idea of the type of gigs they perform

Bands similar to mine make their way through social networking sites, the most famous and biggest in recent times to make their way into the industry independently is probably Lily Allen. The accessability to new and modern bands over social networking allows for more interaction with fans and a can open up new forms of communication with audiences. The free nature of the social networking sites also allows for new genres to break through that are neither mainstream or for the masses. The ‘myspace’ era of music has helped increase sales of music despite an increase in illegal downloads, most bands similar to my own tend to use online downloading of songs as a key tool for promotion, even often giving away tracks for free to promote. One statistic from ‘http://gizmodo.com/5133065/95-of-music-downloads-are-pirated’ states that 95% of music downloads are pirated and only 5% of them are actuallt bought, though the statistic may not be trusted as there is no real way to judge this, the music buisness itself, from downloads made $3.7 billion in 2008.

The industry has tried to move forward with the times by adapting to the market, for example sites like napster have boomed and the recent forming of the online site ‘spotify’ creates most of its revenue through advertising products and promoting bands music. Other ways in which the bands in this industry have promoted themselves is through youtube, the availability of media creation tools has allowed bands to self produce music videos and promotional devices over the internet, sites like youtube have become increasingly important to independent bands due to large record labels in the UK not renewing the contract with youtube due to complications in finance. The breakdown of this contract has allowed independent bands to take centre stage.

Shot by shot analysis

Click to enlarge image



This has allowed me to understand how proffessional videos use shots and editing to produce a good quality video. It has also opened my eyes to the fact that the cuts can be extremely quick between shots.

Brainstorm

Music Video Analysis

The first music video I have chosen to analyse is that which accompanies the track ‘Gives you hell’ by ‘The All-American Rejects’, this music video uses a mixture of narrative and performance elements. The video content uses a suburban mise-en-scene and employs the bands rebellious image into a quiet neighbourhood, the video’s use of numerous different characters accentuates their band image due to the band’s contrast to the behaviour of the neighbouring ‘middle class’ couple. Richard Dyer’s ‘Star image’ may be applied as this video creates a youthful image of the band which clearly aims to engage a younger male or female, possibly aged between 13-19. It attracts males as it is a desired ‘rock band’ look which they may aspire to and attracts women through the voyeuristic aspects.

The codes and conventions stated by Pete Fraser are conformed to, the camerawork and editing is quick and snappy, switching between shots fast making it hard to take in all of the images placed on screen, which may force people to repeatedly watch the video and possibly allow channels such as Kerrang or MTV to place a it on a heavy rotation. Pete Fraser’s theory that voyeurism is used is also conformed to, from the origin of Freud’s belief that men think in a mainly sexual manner, Pete Fraser took this and applied it to music videos, this would appear to be true with this video. However, this video does not only use voyeurism directed towards women, it uses aspects of voyeurism which may appeal to women to.

Andrew Goodwin outlined conventions for music videos which are visible within this video, the relationship between the video and lyrics is clear, for example when the line ‘I wake up every evening, with a big smile on my face’ arises there is an image of a character literally waking up in the evening, this is evident as outside the window is dark and the alarm clock has a late time on. The song lyrics do however cater for a good narrative which is rare as most song lyrics only allow for parts of a story and force the audience to fill in the blanks. One way which this video may not conform to Goodwin’s approach to music video analysis is that their video does not include much which is typically associated with their genre, though there are various aspects of rock e.g. the drum kit in the house, it rather ironically sets off in the opposite direction and uses a different, calmer style to add humour.

Pork and Beans by Weezer

The second video I have chosen to analyse is ‘Pork and beans’ by Weezer, this video to be understood properly relies on pragmatical understanding due to a large amount of intertextual references. The video is a result of the ‘youtube generation’ including most of the people out of the top viewed internet videos, the inclusion of these instantly creates a lighter tone as they are amateur. However, by using these particular people the audience gain a sense of familiarity. The use of intertextuality is one of the codes and conventions pointed out by Pete Fraser, he however outlines the fact that some would not understand the references which would take away from the general enjoyment of the video, this would be a problem in the ‘Pork and Beans’ video.

Through using these people the star image of the band is less obvious, they appear randomly at different parts of the video but do not conform to what the theorist Goodwin stated, he said that the record company would want to use a large amount of close ups on the band members to create a star image, it is clear that this is not done. This relates to the idea that music videos are primarily acting as a commercial for the track and the band.

It is clear that there is no narrative, just a series of random character additions, this could’ve been done to prompt further viewings of the video as each time it is watched people may see more familiar faces, the largely performance based piece demonstrates large amounts of lip-synching by others apart from the band, but this is done for a reason; the ones chosen to lip-synching are well-known for their ‘youtube voice’ which means they are famous for using an unusual voice. Here is one example of an inclusion in the pork and beans video...

The video uses various camera motions to take in the variety of performers but uses only straight cuts, the lack of transitions is possibly because the straight cuts stay with the beat of the song where as fades would fit neither the tone or register.

Director Research

I have decided to research a diverse range of directors; this is due to my broad taste in music and music videos.

Pete Candeland
After watching a variety of music videos from the last 15 years or so there are various director’s productions which have caught my eye, the work of Pete Candeland in particular as it diverts away from the typical popular culture videos created on a regular basis. He directed many music videos for the band ‘Gorrilaz’, these videos consisted mostly of cartoon type images.

Pete Candeland also developed and directed other types of media, he helped produce ‘The Beatles: Rock Band’, a popular music video game. Pete began producing hit videos in approximately 1993, starting out doing various TV shows in Australia, he then got scouted to direct and produce the music videos for the ‘Gorrilaz’ in 2002. My sources for this information arrived predominantly from imdb.com, however, information can also be found around the company passion pictures of which he plays a major what.

Eran Creevy

The 2nd director that has caught my eye was Eran "Rani" Creevy who directed "Let The Beats Roll" by Tim Deluxe.

He has had a major part in producing other media types too, for example; he was a production assistant in the popular 2004 film, 'Layer Cake'. He has spent a large amount of time progressing through the ranks in recnt years, he has held jobs from 'floor runner' to director. He has also directed the music video 'Destination Calabria'

Here is the link to the Destination Calabria video-

This particular video uses voyeurism to attract its audience. I like this directors work as he has created a video to suit the high tempo nature of the track. He maintains the conventional style associated with dance music.