Poster Analysis 2 (Genre)

Social Distortion

Social Distortion is an American punk rock band formed in 1978 in Fullerton, California. The band currently consists of Mike Ness (vocals, guitars), Jonny Wickersham (guitars), Brent Harding (bass), and David Hidalgo, Jr. (drums).

Social Distortion temporarily disbanded in 1985 due to frontman Ness' drug addiction and troubles with the law which resulted in extended stints in various rehabilitation centers that lasted for two years. However, the band reformed around 1986 and have continued being active today, even after the death of longtime guitarist Dennis Danell, who succumbed to a brain aneurysm in 2000. Since its inception, the band lineup has been a virtual revolving-door of talent with many members coming and going – Ness has been the only constant member.
To date, Social Distortion has released seven full-length studio albums, two compilations, one live album, and two DVDs. The band released its debut album, Mommy's Little Monster, in 1983. Social Distortion did not release their second album, Prison Bound, until 1988 which attracted the attention of Epic Records who signed the band in 1989.
In 1990, Social Distortion released its highly successful self-titled third album which peaked at #128 on the US Billboard 200 and featured their well-known hit singles, "Ball and Chain", "Story of My Life", and the cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." The next three albums, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, White Light, White Heat, White Trash, and Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll as well as the Greatest Hits compilation album which spawned the previously unreleased hit, "Far Behind"), were also well-received.
Social Distortion's most recent studio album is 2011's Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes which entered the Billboard 200 at #4 marking the group's highest entry on that chart. According to Ness, an eighth studio album is currently in the works which will likely be released in 2013.

Digipak Analysis 2 (Genre)

Emarosa - Emarosa

Emarosa informed fans that they had begun recording material for their new album via their YouTube channel. and on January 2, 2010 Emarosa entered the studio to record their second full length album working with producer Brian McTernan who had contacted Emarosa previously with plans to record their second album. While recording the band posted updates for fans from the studio which can be seen on their Tumblr blog.

The album was released on June 29, 2010 through Rise Records and received a good amount of praise. In an interview with Punktastic, the band spoke about the overall sound of this album. "I remember during the recording process, ER and I talked a lot about wanting to do more folk/indie stuff for the next record. Really bare bones, mellow and raw." Shrednews said "Emarosa have taken this album to a higher level, with more complex and animated guitar riffs, and pounding drum beats that you will make you headbang without even realizing it."
Craig stated that the band would be traveling to Portland after his solo tour to record a B-side for the self-titled album. He also stated that a version of "The Game Played Right" featuring Modsun would be released in.

While on tour, the band is known to occasionally play "Casablanca" with a guest vocalist. So far Cody Anderson (formerly of In Fear and Faith), Chris Roetter (of Like Moths to Flames, formerly Emarosa and Agraceful, who actually wrote the song), Austin Carlile, Jon Mess (of Dance Gavin Dance), Kyle Tamosaitis (formerly of Burden of a Day), Chris Moore, and Jerry Roush have performed this song alongside the band.

During the summer of 2010 Jonny Craig and Jon Mess both rejoined Dance Gavin Dance (of which they were original members). Although Craig had not announced his plans for his relationship with Emarosa, he is currently concentrating on his work with Dance Gavin Dance whose new album Downtown Battle Mountain II was released March 8, 2011. In Craig's absence Emarosa picked up ex-Tides of Man touring vocalist, Tilian Pearson. On February 27, 2011 Alternative Press broke the news that Craig had turned himself into detox, stemming from reports of Twitter scams and from a longtime addiction.

On April 11, 2011, Alternative Press announced that Craig had been kicked out of Emarosa. The band stated that "as of today, Jonny Craig is no longer a member of Emarosa. This decision has been a hard one to make, but we feel it is in the best interest for the band going forward." Tides of Man vocalist, Tilian Pearson is currently a touring member for the band filling in for Craig. According to an Alternative Press interview with the band, their ideal vocalist would not be like Craig tone wise. "We’re not looking for Jonny Craig 2.0. We just want to find someone who can bring something unique to the band," states Stewart.

Film Equipment

When planning the shoot for our music video, carefull consideration into what equipment should be used at what parts of the video was taken. My approach was to bring as much as possible and if at the end of the day it was not needd it doesn't matter. Better to be safe than sorry. When planning which equipment to bring, I matched our list of planned shots and went through each section invisioning the shot in my head and thought very carefully about logistic problems such as obtaining a smooth trracking shot without being able to obtain a proper dolly. To overcome this I suggested the idea that was to use my skateboard along with my friends skateboard and place the tripod on top for a 'make-shift' trolley to roll the camera across. The results prooved effective, supplying us with a nice smooth shot!

Below is a list of proffessional equipment used within music videos as well as our own and alternates:

• 1080P Sony Digital Camera

The SonyHD-50 1080p Digital Camera, was supplied by our school and was able to capture high definition film, which when tested worked perfectly for our film which was inteded to be rendered at 480p high definition for the best quality with our back up camera. Clearly it was not within our budget for the music video to purchase a top quality film camera, but this was more than acceptable for our shoot giving decent quality despite some trouble with continuity due to lighting changes.

• Camera Tripod

For our camera tripod we once more stuck with the supplied equipment from our school's media department, which I poersonally was more than pleased with. I as the designa ted filmer for the band shoot quickly got the grasps with how to handle it and adjust its height, angle and loosenes for panning and other active shots. The main trick with this was how to use this in combination with other pieces of equipment such as a height drama stage box, allowing us to get a crane view over the band. This helped a lot when looking at the finished product as there were not hand-held produced shakes in places where there are not meant to be. 

• Backup Camera

We definitely need an alternative if the world of technology decided to fail on us during our shoot, as we only had one or two potential attempts at getting the shoot done due to our actor's schedules in the future. We kept a camera with the same definition to the previous used, relying on lighting and small tweaks to be performed on Adobe Premier after.

• External Microphone

An external microphone is something many people decide to bring for capturing sounds within the video itself, however within our planning of the video we had not decided to use any of these sounds as the sound is being played from a seperate track over our video and we had worked hard on ensuring clean syncing with it. Addiitonally an external microphone of sufficient quality was hard to pick up at our level, if we did decide to use extrnal recordings of sound, our current film camera was more than acceptable.

Digipak & Poster Planning 2 - Programs

When creating my Digipak, I will need to decide which programs to use when following certain parts of my plan. From my previous experience during my project last year at AS level I have learnt a lot about the decision of programs and your experience with them. Moreover I grew in confidence with Macromedia Fireworks and the image manipulation involved within the software. I do regret not purchasing adobe photoshop and using a more advanced and 'more suited' program, however this year at 'Poole Grammar School' we have purchased Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 and during the original decision stages of my project and the very beginning of the year, I have slowly been learning how to use the program, from experience and online tutorials, which have prooven very beneficial. I found practicing certain manipulation effects and use with other tools has really given me the confidence to be creative with this program and make my own. I would highly reccommend practicing with your program before use, untill you are at a comfortable level, to be creative and not worry about learning during the proccess of your preliminary task.

Adobe Photoshop CS5.1
Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop. The CS rebranding also resulted in Adobe offering numerous software packages containing multiple Adobe programs for a reduced price. Adobe Photoshop is released in two editions: Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Photoshop Extended, with the Extended having extra 3D image creation, motion graphics editing, and advanced image analysis features. Adobe Photoshop Extended is included in all of Adobe's Creative Suite offerings except Design Standard, which includes the Adobe Photoshop edition.
Alongside Photoshop and Photoshop Extended, Adobe also publishes Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Lightroom, collectively called "The Adobe Photoshop Family". In 2008, Adobe released Adobe Photoshop Express, a free web-based image editing tool to edit photos directly on blogs and social networking sites; in 2011 a version was released for the Android operating system and the iOS operating system.
Adobe only supports Windows and Macintosh versions of Photoshop, but using Wine, Photoshop CS5 can run well on Linux.

I found the benefits of this program came with the range of 'set' effects and tools allowing quick and easy manipulation at your picking, as well as custom manipulation when necessary. Within my Digipack the control of layers and reveal helped show multiple images to create a feeling of hardening and softening textures with light and dark lighting effects.

PaintDotNet
This program was great for small edits, such as copying and pasting images with need for small scale changes, it prooved much easier to do so on a much more limited and simpler program as I could import and export edited and images in the progress of being edited to and from Photoshop so that I could make slight transformations. With my poster this prooved very helpfull when cropping images taking from the set of our music video shoot, and arranging them before putting them back into photoshop as a new image and or layer. Additionally minor light effects and the 'blur' effect were interesting to play around with, as they differ from the custom effects from photoshop and provided an interesting dynamic in my method of production, which revolved around experemintal procedure, mixed with vague planning.

Poster Analysis (Preliminary)

I have decided to analyse a album advertisement in the form of a poster, to help me understand the conventions and hwo they can be applied in my own piece. The particullar poster I have chosen looks appealing from the 'get go' and I think is effective, upon analysis I will review its effectiveness in three key areas: Genre imagery (mise-en-scene), envoking and stimulation and colour scheme.

Elton John - Breaking Hearts

My first impressions of the poster show that the relatively low range of colours throughout, keeps a themed colour scheme, matching that of Elton John's English Rock style of music, and his portrayed character. The outfitt, and centred image of Elton himself, shows him looking looking mysteriously saddened, working perfectly and purposely with the message of the album and therefore the poster itself. The quotations "Sad Songs" reinforce this and the correlation between the two parts of the piece cohede excellently in this instance. Additionally the yellow 'decaying' tint on the whitespace of the image provides connotations of both the previous and the shining of light, doubled with  the cracking effect applied the distortion to the image does not disrupt the main focus, Elton John, and in fact provides two sides to the poster, light and dark providing obvious connotations of good and bad/heaven and hell, referencing once more the lyrical meanings of his songs, and the album in general.  His attire fits his perceived personality at this time, and fans can see him with similiar clothes in other scenarios, the hat being an almost trademark touch to his work as a musician.

In his four-decade career John has sold more than 250 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. His single "Candle in the Wind 1997" has sold over 33 million copies worldwide, and is the best selling single in Billboard history. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits. He has won six Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Tony Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.

This poster, displaying his earlier career, and at the time providing excellent imagery and connotations for the portrayal of the album. The colours, cohesion and envoking of emotions all come together, providing a surface stimulus aswell as a deeper meaning to the images.

Digipak Research (Preliminary)

Before beginning on the production of my Digipak, I thought it best to research thoroughly what makes a digipak an easy purchase and a little bit about why they are so popular and common in the first place, being a 'given' for all modern day CD and audios, even many DVDs now come with a variety of information, extras and 'goodies' to comfort the customer and show a little extra appreciation for their purchases. From personal experience I find a well presented digipack gives a great feeling about the purchase of my item, when I first open it up. It has prooven to be a great alternative to the previous jewel case. Although this can often be classified as a digipak istelf, although personally I prefer a more creative touch.

What is a Digipack?
Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Pak is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub or "Soft Spot" rather than a full plastic tray.

Historically, Digipak was only available in large quantities. However, AGI has recently introduced a new product called digipak i-create for the consumer market. Digipak i-create is a web-supported concept that is aimed at music, photo and creative markets. This new invention prooves highly beneficial for the music market and changes the access of these items, thus the target audience and therefore design of the packs themselves.

I thought it would be a good idea to look at some other digipacks in general and see what is commonly found so I can get an idea, and make my top 5 points about them, to aid my own product in the near future:

1. A list of tracks is necessary, along with all other vital information to the understanding of the album (tracklist) being purchased, such as artist, album name, artist e.t.c
2. Reviews from magazines or newspaper increasing sales and to promote marketing
3. Background information on the genre of music, influences, themes and ideas behind the track, possibly shown through the album title with font or other imagery
4. Scaled images and proportion with text is very important to keeping an image stimulus dominated piece
5. Colour scheme must convey with genre conventions and theme for the album to work for the artist and album itself

Poster Research (Preliminary)

For part of my preliminary task, I am obliged to produce a poster advertising the digipack I have created. Before diving right into the task itself, just like the digipack beforehand, detailed research is key to ensuring the end product cohedes with the conventions of the product itself. I have chosen a variety of different examples to look at and analyse. Additionally I have chosen to look at some of the different kinds of genres that are shown, where they are found and why they are designed in such a manner.

Just from looking at a dozen or so examples, it is clear that the described preliminary task can be tackled in various manners, as the way digipacks or (albums) are advertised do not always solely revolve around this particullar product. For instance the 'Cliff Richard 40th Anniversary Concert' advertisement shows an upcoming sow of his whilst at the same time announcing his venues, times and duration of his live show.

Digipack advertisements, do still appear within magazines such as 'Mojo' 'Kerrang' 'Word' and other mainstream music magazines, but the digipack itself is not shown to its full extent, this is left for the customer to see once they have purchased the album. Often the advertisement is published before the release date of the album itself to gather 'hype' and attraction to the album, depending on the scale and popularity of the artist.

A common trait within the previously analysed packs, is that the album artwork is shown, clearly. Often the advertisement itself revolves around the portrayal of the artwork, catching the readers eye or not. The attraction of the band is second to the visual stimulation.

This brings me to my second note, being that the background and surrounding space on the standard A4 page (or in many cases A5 spread) along with another similiar advertisement or article is very important in the attention of readers as well as the feel of the advert. Whitespace is thought of very carefully, along with all other aspects defying the genre of the piece.

Planning Tips (Ancillary)

When planning for a music video, there are certain things that I think are vital to a smooth production. The majority of these involve, good time management and detailed organisation of what and when.

Having a music video can help promote your band, through video sites such as YouTube and MySpace. As well as by getting exposure on national television. If you're a film maker making a music video is a good way of getting exposure and experience and bands are often happy to give you a creative free reign. A video doesn't need to cost a fortune what's important is having a good idea and working within your budget. Production companies charge a fortune for even the simplest promo video, but you can easily do it yourself. First things first, however. You have to choose your song.
While it might make sense to make a video for your upcoming single there are a few other factors to consider:

• It can take a lot longer than you think to make a video, so by the time it's finished your single might have come out. It might be an idea to think about making the video for a subsequent single.
• Having said that, in these days of internet downloads, any track can be seen as a single, so there might be a track on the album that you have a great idea for a video for, even if that track wasn't originally planned as a single.
• Remember that it can take a long time to shoot and edit each second of video so while you might have a good idea for a video for that 10 min epic that closes the album it might be more practical to shoot a video for the 3 min pop song.

The more planning you can do before hand the quicker you'll be able to shoot. If you're renting gear, the quicker you can shoot the less it will cost you, and if you're relying on favors, people will be more willing to help again if you keep the hanging around to a minimum. To plan, you should:

• Draw story boards showing each scene and shot
• List the crew, performers and props you'll need for each shot
• Try and brief the camera and lighting people beforehand so they know what you want from the shot.

On the day of the shoot be prepared and organised. Keep a record of shots you've made; it'll make editing much easier. Always allow plenty of time for shooting - the finished shot may only last 10 seconds, but could easily take several hours to set up and shoot. When you're happy with a shot, if you have time, shoot it again. You can never have too much footage, and the retake may capture something that you hadn't noticed first time round. You'll have your plan and storyboard to follow, but remember that some of the best moments in a video can be unplanned. Keep the camera rolling – these days tape is cheap. For me personally keeping a record of the amount of shots we take is really important.

Digipack Research 2 - Conventions

I thought it was important to do some further research into different digipacks, and focus more on the connotations colours and more subtle aspects of the creation, so I found a slideshare doing so, and took some key points from it!

Digipak

Narrative in Music Video

I recognize the importance of Narrative and aim to keep referencing back to this at later stages in production. Without narrative the story does not have meaning within the music video, which therefore removes value. Storyboards are a great tool also, below:

It is very important to form the Narrative within the Music Video, so me and my group have decided to follow the rules set from this slideshare to help us stick to a logical plana and pattern. 


 

Lyrical Analysis

So now i've chosen the song, I need to get sraight in and check out the lyrics so that during later stages of my music video production I can incorporate them. Within this genre, the linking of lyrics within the story is not the highest importance, however the syncing of them is. So together in our group we have decided initially it is very important that our actor/singer for our shoot knows the lyrics.(See "The Shoot")

"It's Monday morning
And I would kill for a chance to drive
Get so far away from here with you my dear
That I'll never leave your side
Nobody knows the troubles I've seen
In a van, on a soapbox for the world to see

Miles away, and I wish this didn't mean so much to me
To be a monument for the rest of them
Miles away, and I wish this didn't mean so much to me
To be a monument for the rest of them

We're getting older
I've started to fear for my life
is this the way that it should be?
this whole thing's riding on me
it's been a long road so far
with nowhere to turn
There's no looking back from here
no more dwelling on my fears

Miles away, and I wish this didn't mean so much to me
To be a monument for the rest of them
Miles away, and I wish this didn't mean so much to me
To be a monument for the rest of them

Twenty bucks says you'll remember me
When you see me on your TV screen
It may be the first time
But it won't be the last time
[x3]

And I'll scream
so loud that everyone in this place
Will hear every word I say
'cause this is my time, this is my time to shine
let nothing stand in our way
[x2]

Twenty bucks says you'll remember me
When you see me on your TV screen
It may be the first time
But it won't be the last time"

Song Selection

A very important decision for this course, is the choice of song. From past projects, ambitous and energetic music videos seemed very popular on the course, but the real importance seemed to lie in the understanding of the particullar genre's conventions. Different genres have different conventions and can limit the way in which you decide to produce music video entirely.


Below is a small list of popular genres and songs taken from the OCR's chief examiner's statement on last years coursework:


Pop - Katy Perry - Part of Me

The pop genre is very popular in terms of projects, my quantative research supports this, showing it as a very high percentage in popularity.

Music videos within this genre include lots of bright bold colours, clearly song and artist dependant, but Katy Perry represents this genre quite typically with sex appeal being clear from her advertisement campaign and music videos themselves. Even when the song is not relative to sex/love (which most songs within this genre are) she is shown as arguably as a sex object. Lots of effects and room for expansion appear when considering a Pop music video, and the choice is appealing for me personally. I think the focus of a solo artist would however limit certain choices in the production of our music video.

Rock - Foo Figthers - These Days

The rock genre is a much more diverse genre than pop and the example of Foo Figthers here is a good one. The majority of rock music videos (once more song and artist reliant) showcase the band and focus around action shots of the band and provide focus on all members, often more focus on the lead singer with sound syncing.

The song itself is to me and my colleauges taste, and the variety of paths we could take in terms of selecting a particullar song with reference to an interesting story to portray, much more so than pop. I think personally, it is of high importance to make sure the song reflects in the music videos telling of the story, but the band shots are completely seperate. This structure, diving the video into two logical easily understandable sections, leaves more focus on the editing, film taking and general quality of the video itself, which would be very good for my project.

Punk - The Casualties - For the Punx

My favourite out of the previously discussed genres is punk. Punk is generally a much more fast and upbeat form of music, reliant on dominant guitar and bass play, opposed to vocals and other forms. In terms of punk music videos themselves, action, lighting and band shots are very important, with less reference to story telling. On the other hand, many recent bands labelled as punk include less focus on intrumental play, and use more vocals, changing the way the genre is portrayed, and love benig shown in many storys in their music videos.





The true spirit of punk music, showcased by The Casualties, provides elements of rock and fast paced music raising the tempo for the audience and evoking different emotions than the previous genres. It is important for a music video for this genre to help these emotions be shown. So lighting and often the look of the characters involved and the band members is very important, much like the setting. Much more than other genres in my opinion.

Monument - A Day To Remember

After exploring punk a bit more the metalcore genre was a clear winner, enabling the elements of rock and punk with a clear vision for our prioject, fitting with our limited resources. The lighting for the band shots would work well with this song and the location (location link.) A Day To Remember are a fusion of heavy metal and hardcore punk, but many metalcore bands distinguish themselves from other punk metal fusions by its emphasis on breakdowns. Most vocals are screamed/growled. Depending on the band it can be high or low, or can have a mix of clean/growl vocals. The bands generally feature two guitarists who often play fast riffs with dual leads.The drummer usually performs using double-kick or double-bass drums. The metalcore genre is very broad. There can be many mixes with it, such as melodic metalcore (Anterior, ATR, Zao).

Storyline

Before jumping right into the filming of the video, another aspect to the planning of my music video is the storyline. I have been looking around for some solid theories on what you should aim to achieve in a music video story line. Tzvetan Todorov's theory of narratives appealed to me because it provides us with a very clear structure of what we need to do with the story. In Todorov's theory the protagonist within the music video should be seen to be affected by only five narrative changes.
The way we plan to approach our video is to have a structured idea of what shots, location and images protrayed will stands for each stage of the narrative change, but leave room for adapting and changing when filming on the set days. By this I mean we have decided upon set scenraios that occur within the storyline to represent certain narrative shifts, but the exact shot/acting may not work with other aspects of the film, so I will be constantly checking that the overall theme and look of the music video fits, and not get carried away with the storyline, although clearly the band shots and the storyline shots will display different images altogether.

The stages are listed below:

Stage 1 – A state of equilibrium is defined.

Stage 2 – Disruption to the equilibrium by some action or crisis.

Stage 3 – The character(s) recognition that there has been a disruption, setting goals to resolve the problem.

Stage 4 – The characters attempt to repair the disruption, obstacles need to be overcome to restore order.

Stage 5 – Reinstatement to the equilibrium. Situation is resolved, conclusion is announced.

Digipak Analysis (Preliminary)

A Day To Remember - What Seperates Me From You

Digipack Analysis

What seperates me from you, is ADTR (A Day To Remember)'s fourth metalcore album, targeted at heavy metal fans. In terms of first impressions on this particullar digipack, I notice  that a similiar coloue scheme is used throughout all sides of the pack, the cartoon/comic style has been adopted and the images clearly tell a story, representative of the album's title, "What Seperate's Me From You" The band's name is titled across the top middle of the cover, not distracting the attention from the image itself, whilst at the same time making the necessary information clear to the eye (something I think is very important and many bands often do not do, as they try to make eye catching images instead.

Personally the structure of the digipack is very clever, showing four different sections of the 'comic' which explains the album title and what the album is about, it creates a style for the cover whilst fitting with ADTR's previous album designs and genre, with blood and violent images depicted additionally.

Lighting within the cartoonized images, is very good, making certain images stand out for instances the suited man centred on the cover and the man's head on the back cover, whilst letting the background blend, but show noticeable characteristics when looked at.  This works well with the rounded text on the cover, lack of text elsewhere lets the images take the forefront of the cover, telling the story of the album throughout the entire digipack.

For me the way the entire digipack has been structured cohedes extremely well with the images, and clearly has been planned in such a manner. Thus it fulfills everything a digipack is intended to accomplish whilst portraying the musics genre vaguely.

Things to keep in mind!

Before actually generating any set ideas for my groups music video I decided to search around for a list of aspects that are important to consider when planning. From Music Video Theory's blog I have taken an evaluative questionare and analyzed what questions apply to a project of my degree and the stage I am currently at, and just to get a general idea on the response of a real music video producer's opinion about music videos.

Questionnare

"Q. What inspired you for your idea on the video?

A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum, no no actually, the very simple idea of making out with your hand.

This then manifested into a surreal narrative about a colony of girls, a little Lord of the Flies but from a female stand point with a good dose of Dionysiac energy.

Q. How were you approached for the job?

Through a friend who was friends of a friend of the band.

Q. What was the budget?

It was pretty small. I had to add a few hundred dollars to help get lift off.

Q. What were the limitations you faced with the production?

Pretty much time and budget covers most of the limitations.

Restrictions with locations. Getting that amount of cast together and clothing for budget.

Going for a high production look for the budget.

Q. Who were your key collaborators?

D.O.P: Katie Milwright

LOCATION SCOUT: Remmi Aloni

ART DIRECTOR: Jackson Dickie

WARDROBE: GIRLS SHOOT Stacey O'Connor/ Tom Howard

WARDROBE: Mia Veur ( Band Shoot)

MAKEUP: Samantha Coles & about 12 - 15 other MAKEUP people. It was like Willy Wonka's makeup factory.

Q. Have you worked with them before?

D.O.P . Locations scout and Makeup yes, the other guys were new relationships and super great to work.

Q. What was the process you took in producing the video?

Just accepting the chaos of the process, dealing with dead ends, when things don't work out how you plan.

Being a fast problem solver.

Q. What was the turnaround?

We actually went over, post was meant to be finished 7 days after the shoot, but it took around 3 weeks to finish, which the label and management graciously gave us. We shot an epic amount of footage.

Q. Why did post run over time?

Due to the amount of footage we shot, editing was quite arduous. I had over 16 hours worth of footage!

I had a whole entire band video also, so there were a lot of choices.

Q. What did you shoot on? What lenses did you use?

Alexa & Ultra primes => Girls shoot

7D & Canon lenses => Band Shoot

Q. Where did you shoot it?

Brighton, Melbourne.

Q. Was the house a private residence or was it a display home?

Private residence, which luckily was only partially occupied, so there was hardly any furniture to clear.

Sadly they're going to renovate that house.

Q. How long did the house shoot take?

The house we shot over a day and a half.

Q. Did you cast this yourself?

I did indeed. It was a pretty epic undertaking; I met with nearly everyone of the girls before the video. Over 50 girls.

Q. 50 girls is a huge cast, how did you manage to find so many?

Through various means, word of mouth, casting sites, a call out through online magazines, casting agents, acting/ dance schools.

Q. Was it an easy job convincing the cast on their actions and motivation?

All actions came from a place of feeling, so when speaking with the girls in these terms, we were able to find motivation.

It seemed fairly natural and organic; I made sure everyone new what we were making so if any one felt uncomfortable there was no pressure.

I felt it important that everyone genuinely wanted to be there.

Q. Did you use to practice kissing on your hand?

Yeah, definitely.

Q. Do you feel that the client understands the production process? How involved were the band throughout the process?

The band and I spoke initially via email about details of the treatment, they were super good throughout both the shoots.

They were on tour during the girls shoot, and some of their connections were in the girl’s video.

Q. If you had a chance to approach it again, what would you do differently?

I'd try having more sleep the night before the shoot. I think I had 1 hours sleep due to last minute thing and more wild life/ fauna."

It is clear that my A2 production will involve a much less substantial size and budget, but many of the above answers and topics raised apply to my upcoming music video and has helped keep these at the front of my mind when generating ideas.

Quantative Research

Once deciding upon, the type of project for my coursework I thought it would be a good idea to do some quantative research and get some opinions on general ideas about music videos.

The first bit of research I did was, to simply ask a few of my schoolmates to tell me the first word that pops into their head when asked about what they want to see in a music video:

"What's the first word that comes to your mind when I mention Music Video?"

I then wanted to just get a variety of different data about loads of things related to my project, so I made quite a few graphs from some questions I asked classmates and friends on topic related issues:

Favourite

Effect

Genre

I feel I benefited a lot from this research as it involved a large amount of people for a project of my scale, and gave me an accurate reading of what people are interested in and like to see, and the associated target audience for different types music videos.