Evaluation

Throughout the media course we have been working towards this one big task, over the last two years we have learnt all the things we need to know to create a music video and, as an ancillary task design a digipack and advertising album poster to accompany it. As you will be able to see further down my blog, I have had to put plenty of research into these areas also, in order to effectively produce the project to a good standard while sticking to the codes and conventions of my genre which in this case was indie. I used a various amount of equipment and worked in and out of school to complete this, here is what I did. My music video project is of famous indie band Bombay Bicycle Club using a track off their first album called Cancel On Me. After being a listener of this band and song before this project I felt I could understand and enjoy the lyrics and also the production task of actually making the video. I decided to stay fairly standard in terms of the convention and style making the decision that a mixture of narrative and performance footage would be the most effective for this style of genre and seemed the most realistic option, with the other style of music video conevention the art clip being much harder to create. After a few weeks of research and planning I organised four of my friends to partake in the shooting of the performance part of my video at one of the friends houses. On arrival I set up the camera and immediately decided it was not suitable and wanted to shoot the footage outside, to stick with the folk indie style of the band I was created the video for. However at that time it was snowing outside so I arranged it again for another day. When we met for the second time to shoot the performance I arranged it for a sunday morning where I could manage to get everyone their away from work etc. I filming my four friends perform to the track in the back ground with instruments from myself and the participating members of the video. I shot it in a grown up and unkept area for a rural look which I wanted to create, I feel the filming in general went well and I got all the footage and I needed for my videos performance parts while sticking to the conventions of an indie music video. After uploading this footage onto Final Cut Pro on the Apple Macs in our media room, I loaded the backing track a song I copied off the album and went to work planning and arranging for my narrative section of my video. After listening to it over and over, I had come to the conlusion that the best way to go about making a plot for this track would be to use the lyrics. Deciding that 'cancel on me again' would fit effectively with a plan of a couple being happy and in equilbrium at the start of the video, then falling out and the girl turning to another man, then the pair of them being seen and confronted my the original boy. I felt as well as the lyrics their is an instrumental towards the end of the song that is built up and fast tempo and I felt would be very effective for a fight/confrontation scene in the video. I arranged narrative shoot again on another morning but this time it was in the holidays so it was easier to organise than the first time, I decided to shoot the footage on and around the local park in my village. I felt this would fit as I thought I could actively portray a more youthful style of young love at the start and it would fit with the genre that thesedays tends to be the weirder place the better. On the day of the shoot it was a bit overcast and raining slightly, however I made the decision to go ahead with the shooting and in my opinion got some fairly good shots and felt like I had captured the style and effect that I had planned. I used the over shoulder shot effectively in this shoot as I knew it was effective as a voyeur shot and fitted the video perfectly. After finishing my narrative footage, I then uploaded that also to Final Cut Pro and started the editing process of the task. I was initially suprised at how time consuming editing a video was and at times I found it had to sync the lips of the singer in my footage to the actual track. As well as this after one lesson my computer crashed and wiped almost half of what I had done that lesson. Despite all this though I eventually managed to edit and finish my video to a standard that I thought was effective and at the same time the storyline was clear and enjoyable. After showing it to friends including people whom participated in the video everyone seemed to like what I had done and outlined numerous sections which they said they enjoyed. I was happy with this feedback, as it has made me confident and quite proud of what I have created. The ancillary part of the task was to create and design a digipack and a poster to relate to and would be effective to use with my video in a real life situation. This part of the task I quite enjoyed as the girl I used in my video is also a photography student and so for each of these tasks I was able to use her camera, with the added advantage of having a fish eye lense at my disposal. I once again arranged for everyone I needed to be in the same place for this shoot and again I feel they went well and came out pretty much how I had wanted and planned for them to be. As the digipack and poster is important for the marketing of any band, I particually made sure items that represented the indie genre where included for example, cigarettes, skinny jeans and the singer wore a trilby hat, typical of the indie scene. I edited these pictures on Photoshop and arranged them into the poster and digipack you can see below. I think each of effective and striking and I believe the use of the fish eye lense espcially on the front cover of the digipack was vital on tying in again with the genre. I asked for feedback from my friends from each of the tasks, and in general they seemed to be able to link in the music video with the digipack and the poster which I was happy about. Throughout I tried to make a air of sadness around the lead singer due to events in the video and due to comments from friends and family I am confident that I achieved this. All in all I think I have done a good job on each of the tasks and throughly enjoyed the duration.

Finished Advertisement Poster

Here is my finished poster, which I constructed using photoshop, I tried to make it simple but striking so it could catch the attention and appeal to the target audience. To contsruct this I used Photoshop again, and used one of the pictures taken in the digipack photoshoot which I had planned to use for the poster. I feel my poster is quite effective because I tried to make it quite simple, with bold and striking fonts that still suited the style of the poster. Once again the subject my lead singer in the video is wearing skinny jeans, with a plain cut top and a trilby with a cigarette in one hand. I did this to obviosuly stick with the indie genre of the project as a whole and in my opinion looks very good.

Poster Construction Screen Grab

I constructed my poster on Photoshop and this is a screen grab from this process.

Poster Examples and Inspiration

Here are two exmaples of indie genre posters which I have scanned in from popular indie magazine 'NME' I feel they are good examples of what I want to create as they are simple but effective and show the main singer of the band as the most prominent figure. I think this theme of using the lead singer is effective and in many cases typical of the indie genre, and I will try and design my poster to a similar effect. Here are my examples :

Finished Digipack

Here is my finished digipack, using the photos that I have recently uploaded based on my previous digipack designs and plans. I am extremely happy with how my digipack came out in the end, I feel its looks sleak and appealing and truely shows the indie genre through the contents and style of the shots. For example skinny jeans and smoking, in my opinion this digipack would effectively appeal to its target audience as it is interesting and stark. I am very happy with it and despite a large amount of time spent on Photoshop creating it I feel it couldn't be much better given the shots I had. As well as this I think it fits in with the genre as it is similar to the examples of other indie digipacks displayed earlier in my blog fitting with many indie conventions. Now I have to create my poster that will advertise the single as a whole and I will use a photograph taken in the digipack shoot to achieve this.

Digipack Photographs

Here are the photos I have taken for my digipack, using the plans from 'Idea 2' which I explained earlier on in my blog that I would use. I feel they have come out very well and I utilisied the fact I had a photography student, ( Marilena Ingle) in my video, where she let me use her camera and advised me on how to take the perfect shot. Despite my plan from 'Idea 2' I have decided after taking the pictures to swop the inside cover picture of the band with the individual picture of the singer roud as I think it is more effective as an album cover. Here are my shots: Front Cover: Back Cover: Inside Cover: I also used a fish eye lense on the camera to take the pictures I feel that this works quite effectively to display the subjects and also the genre, which I think will appeal to the target audience.

Inspiration for Digipack

I was inspired for my digipack ideas by a number of various bands with a similar genre to the band I am doing my music video for, which is the indie genre the examples I have used to inspire my design are from two popular bands in this genre Vampire Weekend and The Strokes. The following examples I used on thge 'Idea 2' of my rough designs for my digipack.

This first example is the album cover for Vampire Weekend's second album which I took for inspiration which is clear on the front cover of my 'Idea 2' rough design.

Another example that inspired me when making my digipack was this picture which can again be seen in a similar fashion on my rough designs on 'Idea 2'. I used this because I thought it was effective and typified the sort of indie genre I want.

Thanks to these examples I feel my finished digipack will be effective in relaying an example of my genre, I plan to finish my digipack within the next week or so allowing time for organisation and unexpected events, and will upload them soon.