magazine advert

Digipak

This is our final digipak cover

Feedback for group R2-23, Couldn't post a comment on thier blog for some reason!

Feedback from R2-22

I really liked your music video, originally the idea sort of confused me, but now i can see the finished product, I'm really starting to love it!

I liked the amplification of the lyrics with the use of cards, i didn't realise before that the lyrics even mentioned cards, and this amplification, makes the lyrics more catchy.

I also like the reference to "Bunny Chow" in relation to the use of the rabbit costume, I don't know the story myself but it was a nice reference to use. Made the story oddly credible.

The filming of this project was very well done indeed. You had fairly ranged shots, from longshots of the bunny climbing out of the skip, to the close up of the skateboard as he is riding it. I also liked the way you put that in time with the guitar strums.

The only thing I have to pick at with this video, is that at some points the lipsincing seems to be slightly off, and also the enthusiam of the artist, but then again, it is difficult to sing infront of a camera, in the knowledge that it will be on the internet shortly.

Directors Commentary

Directors Commentaries are a standard part of most films and releases today. It all started in December 1984 with an audio commentary on the original King Kong film in a special collection, called the Criterion Collection. The commentary was voiced over by film historian Ronald Haver, here is a quote of what he said:

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Ronald Haver, and I'm here to do something which we feel is rather unique. I'm going to take you on a lecture tour of King Kong as you watch the film. The laserdisc technology offers us this opportunity and we feel it's rather unique — the ability to switch back and forth between the soundtrack and this lecture track...”

The actual definition of an audio commentary, or a directors commentary, is an extra audio track containing single or multiple speakers which can be played over the sound track of a film or other release, where the speakers give in depth details of what is happening at any given moment, so the audience can furthur understand the technicalities and background information in the release. Directors commentaries can be very formal to incredibly light hearted, depending on the character of the person speaking and the type of release it is. Even video games are using audio commentaries today.

Digipack Front cover idea

we would like to use a similar idea to the poster for our digipack front cover by continuing the circus theme and use several images of the mime doing actions such as juggling and pretending they are behind invisible glass in the style of the picture below. The image inside the hot air balloon wound be of the artist to ensure we are in-keeping with the needs of the record label to sell the artist however we may not use the hot air balloon within our image.

 An idea we had for the cd case area was a very close up picture of a juggling ball as it is circular and fits with the mime theme and also it is the correct shape to be a cd.

Idea for digipak and Magazine ad!

Theme : Mime/ Circus

Basically for our magazine ad and digipak we want to emphasis the use of the mime in our music video. In other words for our magazine ad, we would like to create an old style circus poster, which we think will be interesting and eye-catching as well as linking to the video.  Here is an image of what sort of style of circus poster we want to create.

For our digipak, we'd quite like to link the idea of the old style circus, on the front we'd like to create another circus style poster with an image of the artist of it, and on the back, we'd like to have it in the style of an old ticket to a circus with all the information of the digipak on it, such as a barcode, age rating, what is on the DVD etc. On the inside of the front cover, we'd like to puts some reviews and

 possibly the lyrics to the tracks, possibly on a scroll included in the digipak. The inside design will be a tea-stained colour with lots of references to circus stuff.  Heres an image of the ticket, similar to the one we wish to create for the back cover of our Digipak:

We will use images of the mime on the back cover.

Final Music Video

Where did mimes comes from?

Mime is considered one of the earliest mediums of self expression. After the spoken language was developed mime came a form of entertainment. The scenes they would perform in early times would teach moral lessons.


Mimes first originated in Greece and then Italy where they were formally know as Commedia dell'Arte. in the middle ages and 16th century it reached its peak in italy. It originated in the market place in the early 1500's. by wearing masks with exaggerated comical faces they drew attention to themselves so that their acrobatic skills were noticed. the characters they created became known as Zanni and when two of these performers joined up it became an established genre. The subject matter was always contemporary and by wearing masks they were able to ridicule all aspects of society. 


Another name used was dei maschere because the actors wore masks. there was originally five different mimes; the sad clown, the happy clown, the villain and two others. the actor would choose which character to specialise in and then play that character throughout the play. 


The mime in our music video takes on the role of the sad clown as he tries to get the attention of his love. The story line goes with the generic mime plays where love plays a big role. during the end of the music video it is clear that the mime character changes to become a happy clown as he meets with his mime love. although there it is a music video so therefore contains music and words the mime himself never talks which also goes well with the generic silent films mimes were often a part of. 

Magazine advert conventions

The conventions of a magazine advert are:

• Song/Album title
• Visual links to videos- Intertextuality
• Reviews (Newspaper, Music press, Celebrities/DJ's- Trend Setters)
• Condensed information on content
• Release date
• Artist name
• Where is it available to purchase (HMV,Amazon)
• Record label logo
• Website (official artist site, Myspace)

Techno editing

Filming

When filming, we took full use of digital HD handheld cameras supplied by the media department. We used varying camera shots including close ups, zooming, longshots and techniques such as tracking. Although, we found that in different locations the lighting severly varied, requiring extencive use of colour corrector in order to rectify a neutral colour pallet.
NB: the public are a nuisance. (as mentioned in a previous post)


Editing


When editing we used final cut express to compile all of our shots into a beautiful music video. It wasn't too much of a challenge to sync the artists vocals with the footage of our artist singing, although our artists mouth moved slightly abnormally, so sometimes it didn't look like our artist was singing the right words in comparison with the accent and tonality of the original artist.
We used many layers footage tracks in the compilation of our music video, as this allowed us to clearly view raw footage and edit accordingly.
The filters in final cut express were also very useful to us. We used a filter called "vignette" and also put a layer of light noise on it in order to achieve the effect of old style filming, to get the feel of an aged piece of tape that has been exposed to light, dust, and years of love. We also used colour corrector to even out the lighting and tonal differences, for the use of different locations and times of day.

Analysis Of Previous Student Music Videos

Group 12 2009
David ford-A long Time Ago

1. Genre Characteristics-

The genre of the video is folk rock, i believe this video presents the genre very well. The use of ordinary clothes such as a shirt and jeans with a hat is consistent with the style of clothing that artists within the genre wear.

The use of a park scene where the artist is on his own is also using another characteristic of the footage being in naturalistic environments and a sense of loneliness.

The colours of the real footage in the park has very bland colouring which is similar to many other folk rock music videos by the use of bold colours being limited as the footage is meant to look as natural as possible.

The use of a guitar is very popular in this genre and the group has used this in their video to emphasize the genre well.

2. Lyrics/visuals

The video makes use of lyrics and visuals well.

One example of this is when the artist sings ''it was a hollywood sky'' the word hollywood is spelt out in the sky of the animated scene.

The whole of the animated sections are narrative and the action corresponds to what the viewer is hearing which is a characteristic of folk rock videos.

Another example of the use of lyrics and visuals is where the lyrics say ''there's a girl by the cigarette machine'' and there is a girl standing in a bar by the cigarette machine.

3. Music/visuals

There is definitely a relationship between the music and visuals as the clips cut at the end of verses and the shots in the park towards the end of the video cut at the end of each bar of music.

4. Demands of the record label

The demands of the record label have clearly been taken into account during the making of this video as the artist is the main character within the sequence including the animated parts so that the audience is reminded who the artist is and so that it sticks in their mind. There is the use of allot of close up shots in the video to emphasise the artist particularly during the park footage.

5. Intertextual references

The music video is similar to that of the video for the magic roundabout fruit party as it uses animation of clay to describe the story.

Feedback from Amar and Andrea

Camerawork - All camerawork good, but need more close ups of artist and mime, and more shots in general of artist. We will possibly do some more filming in class, on site, so we can have these close ups. On the other hand, the lack of close up does make the end scene more powerful, but all the shots at the begining are very similarly framed, so there is need of some variation.

Editing - Possibly a change of tone, so that the music video doesn't look too "concrete" because most of the buildings are grey or beige. Our shots on mill pond are alot better because of the bright greens or the grass and trees, makes the colours seem alot bolder. More frequent shots of performance.

Concept - both really like the idea, and thought thats the ending was beautiful, but we need more close ups.

Feedback from rough cut video

Goodwins points:

• Visuals, lyrics all linked really well together
• The pace of the song fitted well with the camera work
• Lyrics and visuals 'waiting for you' shown well by mime waiting for the girl to take notice

Editing:

• All the cuts were on the beat and natural transitions and filming
• All the footage is filmed smoothly and the camera work was effective 
• Shot reverse shot
• Use more interesting filters and different shots

Mise-en-scene:

• Good costumes and makeup, and location
• Convincing man
• Utilizing natural light well

Creativity:

• Original, a very unique video
• The story link will keep the audience interested because they will never have seen any thing like this
• Good use with vocalist meeting up with the actors. Makes a good effect 
• Not boring!
• Overall very good :)

ROUGH CUT!

Jazzeh.