Evaluation

For this project, we had to each make a music video, and create a digipak complete with artist brand identity that had a linking theme. I decided to make a music video for my song which I wrote. I started out with a basic knowledge of video editing, on Adobe After effects. This project has pushed me to learn more about how to use the software, to a higher standard. For example, in my foundation project we had to do a movie opening sequence. This was the first time I had ever used after effects, I had to learn how to make basic to intermediate effects, such as radial blurring, colour balancing, editing, fading in and out, overlaying two pieces of footage. Now as I have gotten used to the programme, I can work faster because I know what to do, also I can now add a lot more effects properly, because I have been practicing with them, effects such as noise and grain, fractal noise, and making the footage pulsate and swirl around. I decided I wanted to use a green screen in my music video, I had no prior experience with using one, so I taught myself using YouTube tutorial videos, and researching on Google. Through this I gained a good level of knowledge of how to do it. I also had a very basic knowledge of how to use Photoshop, so I had to learn how again with internet tutorials, so that I could edit the photos that will go into my digipak to a professional looking standard. I researched music videos of a similar genre for inspiration, to get ideas for what sort of story I should have, and what types of locations to film at. I also researched marketing and branding of artists, I learned about how artists use certain hooks to attract an audience, for example you find your target audience, mine is university students that would be into phsycadelic things, like hippies, so my whole brand identity is based around phsycadelia. I used colour heavily to give my work that phsycadelic effect, enhancing colors and adding more, I also distorted the images and video footage with swirls, and pulsations, and laying footage over other footage, this created a trippy effect that links in with old school phsycadelic music videos and artists from the 60s and 70s. Artists such as the wooden shjips, Jefferson Airoplane, Pink Floyd etc… One picture I edited it to look like it was hand drawn, and like I was melting into the wall behind me, I was wearing round glasses, so I made the glass green, to give it the notion of looking in, ie the artist sees the world in a tripped out way, and that my mind is a strange place. It added a sense of mystery to the artist. I also learned about logos, and how artists always have one or 2  logos on all of their albums, posters and merchandise. To create mine I used a font website called dafont.com, my text has two tones in it, this helps to make it stand out more against any back ground, and will create a bigger impact on the audience.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real 
media products? 

My product uses conventions that you would find in rock videos, and the style is phsycadelic, which is integrated in many other artists in the music industry. For example, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and the Wooden Shjips. It challenges mainstream story lines because of the final chase scene, where  the coked  up character is chasing a girl through the woods at night, it challenges the scope of what can happen within the phsycadelic style – because that’s all about peace, and taking life easy, not going crazy and chasing people. Also the drugs in the video don’t really fit into the phsycadelic category, but I think it’s this binary opposition that makes the video work well. The artist is a really laid back, chilled out guy – this can be representative of LSD, and the character in the story is a crazy hyped up person with no self control – which is representative of cocaine.  It challenges the convention of costume and artist appearance – because he’s not really wearing such nice clothes, or 8 different costume changes – this is a message to people that they need to get back to the music, not like an artist because of the way they look.

. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? 

I think that my main product and my ancillary task work really well together. They have a continuous theme running through them, and the style is all noticeably the same. They complement each other well, and I think they would create a strong visual impact on the audience, and they link each other very well. They are linked by the artwork that is layed over the pictures, the colour editing and the text are all the same. The costume i wear in them is also all the same so its quickly identifiable as a part of the purple epidemic project. 

. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I had a screening of the video at my house, and a few other places for a bunch of friends, and a few teachers at my school. I’ve learned that audiences like it when a video has a strong narrative that they can understand, because if its too confusing they don’t like the song so much, and it detracts from the artist credibility. I have also learned that it is not good to show explicit scenes, because then not many people will want to see it, and there then becomes a parental guidance aspect to it, so the value of the video is decreased. Some of the older people i showed were quite shocked that i portrayed drug and alcohol use in the video. One of the comments i got was, "this shouldn't be seen by kids". I decided to leave the end scene ambiguous to the audience, because it also leaves the audience to think more about possible endings. Also because i have filmed it with boys dressed as girls, the video now has a tongue in cheek feel to it, like i find female abuse funny, but id like to confirm that i do not find sexual abuse funny at all. I had no choice in using a boy, because all the female actors i had cancelled on me. So because it was boys, the acting naturally had a more playful flow, where as if there was a girl, it would be serious. 

 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation 
stages? 

Construction – I learned a lot about how to use Adobe After effects and Adobe Photoshop. I gained skills in video editing and photo enhancement and editing.  I learned how to use a green screen and how to edit it in to look believable.

Research and planning – I used YouTube videos to gain knowledge about music video theory, and to find inspiration for what I want to do. I also used YouTube to learn how to use software’s that I was unfamiliar with, for example how to use green screen and Photoshop. I learned how to use prezi to make more visually interesting presentations, i also learned how to embed the prezis into this blog. 
I used Sound cloud to find a target audience for the music i write, i also learned from sound cloud about how to market music, with tags and sharing other artists music.

All in all, i like the way the video turned out. I set out with the intention of trying to make the video more mainstream than my previous works, which were really weird. But some innate force within me subconsciously took over me, and i couldn't help it turning out non mainstream. Im happy that that happened though, however, its in the middle between weird and mainstream, so i don't think its reached its full potential. 

tHE FINAL PIECE

 Here is the link to it for youtube

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoVfMJ0lG_o

        aRTISTS tHAT iNSPIRED ME

I was inspired by a whole barrage of artists throughout the course of this project, in both the process of writing the song, and making the video. The main artists that had an impact on my decisons are - Jimmi Hnedrix, The Beatles, Jake Bugg, Ill Bill and Tom Petty. 

This video is by Ill Bill, it has a similar theme as mine, i really like the special effects that he used, they give the video a really creative dynamc, and make it look trippy which runs with the theme. I especially like the way he used noise and grain and dust and scratches, and also the colour effects he used. 

Bleeding heart

Jimi Hendrix

I am the Walrus

The Beatles

       

       White tree records

White tree records is the record label that distibutes the work of Vince Anthony. It is owned by Vince Anthony, and he records and produces other artists there too. I made the logo in Photoshop, i then made a face book page for it, and got some of my friends to like and share it. Here is the link to the page - 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/White-tree-records/590510641045860?ref=hl

Artist Identity Update

I've decided to change Vince Anthonys appearance, and the style of his artwork slightly, to make him seem more accessible to my chosen target audience. His clothes ive made a bit more informal, as you saw in the previous post, Vince Anthony always wore a waistcoat and tie with a bowler hat, this made him look a bit too old fashioned and didn't work well with his personality  and life style. Now he wears, patchwork yoga pants, made out of patterned multicolored material, a checkered shirt to match and a turquentine necklace, with bowler hat and round glasses. Also in the video when he is with his friends, he is wearing all black, a silk Chinese shirt, jeans, a semi smart jacket, and more mainstream style glasses with an old battered hat. 

Because he is wearing two different costumes in the video, it makes his character a bit more dynamic, and fits in with the whole artist vs character narrative i have going on. People are also more drawn to it, because they like to see the artist in different costumes, as i said before,people care more about appearances than the music itself. I have also changed the text that is on all his products, his logo basically. At first it was a really bubbly text, that just stood out too much for my liking, and didn't fit in with the brand identity, or style of pictures i used. So the new text is alot thinner, and is quite quirky and hard to read, which reflects the character of Vince Anthony better. The pictures to the left show the new Vince Anthony, and the text. 

production of purple epidemic track

The track was recorded with a neumann m 150 tube and 2 neumann km 185 microphones. The guitar was recorded with the 2 km185s placed in front of the sound hole and one in the middle of the neck. I recorded it in a concrete room with wood floors which gave a nice natural reverberation. It was recorded at 140 bpm. I recorded a lead guitar part playing over the rhythm throughout the song, first i kept it clean with some reverb on it, but i didn’t think it was accompanying the track very well. So i put an echo effect on it. The bass was recorded into a preamp, it had a mixture of finger plucking and slap bass playing, so it was a challenge to get the whole bass track to sound the same, i wanted the finger plucked parts to still sound punchy. So i split the track into 3 and put different effects on each one. The first I just put an eq on it and

compressor to make the bass frequencies a bit fuller, the second and the 3^rd I cut up, so I took out all the parts where I was playing slap bass and left the finger bass tracks in line with the original bass track. I put eqs on them and raised the treble side and the mids. The third track I turned the volume down a lot, just so it could add a bit of depth to the bass. I think it worked well, because it does have a nice punch to it. The vocals were recorded with the m 150 mic, and there are 3 vocal tracks, the main one has a small amount of reverb on it. The second track is a very low harmony over the chorus, this is my voice again, i didn’t put any pitch benders on it, it was just natural singing, it sounds like there is some distortion on it but its just a lot of rasp that I had in my voice. The third track is in the same low voice, but it is singing "ooooo" throughout the second verse, I then duplicated that track and layed it over the top, to make the ooos sound more like a Gregorian choir singing in the background. All three of these tracks i put in quietly so it was more subtle and in the background. The drums were digitally made, these were made in Pro - tools 9, it is a kick drum, snare drum and a crash cymbal. The simple drum beat i made really accompanies the bass, which added to the paunchiness of the song and kept a dancy rhythm, with short bursts of crash hits. This is what makes the song work well with fast paced editing. I intended the song to have a nice groove to it, something that you can dance to, and something that is warm and can create a nice atmosphere in a room, i think i achieved this.

Here is a screenshot of the Fl Studio work space for Purple Epidemic 

Filming Process

I had a girl that i was using as my lead actress, i had organised a filming day, but then at the last minute she pulled out on me and so i was left without an actress. I tried to ask a whole bunch of other girls, but unfortunately none of them could help me. I had to re-schedule filming and change the story slightly. Now it is just just 4 guys who go on the journey, one of them is dressed as a girl. My original idea was to make it like a more mainstream "normal" video, but it turned out really weird looking and i couldn't even help it! I filmed the whole thing in one day - i was in most of the scenes, so i had to direct the cameraman with all the different shots i wanted. It took quite a while to get my actors to act well in some shots, like the close up shots of olis eyes twitching and looking coked up. So in the editing process to make it look better i had to cut it up with lots of short shots to detract from it and to keep up with the beat of the song and make it look interesting - something new happening every time. It was a bit of a challenge getting high quality shots in the dark by the fire, even though my camera had a really big sensor to make it good in low level light - so i had to use a white led torch to add some light, especially in the dark woods where there was no fire. However it is also symbolic of moonlight, which is always used in horror movie chase scenes to add drama and a sense of dread. My brother ran alongside me as i filmed shining the torch on the actors as they ran, this proved a rather difficult task because we had to make it so the light was not so strong on them, as soft light looks more natural, and we also had to keep certain distances from each other so we didn't cause shadows of the camera on the actors.

Editing
 I decided to cut the video up with lots of quick shots of drums, or flashes of previous or later events in the video to keep it interesting, and to fit in better with the beat which is fairly fast and jumpy.

 I used hue and saturation to make all the weird colors, which is consistent throughout the video - this is to reinforce the whole idea that its not real, and it symbolizes the psychedelic aspect of the music, and the artists brand identity. I then layed blur and distortion effects over some of the shots where the actors are all intoxicated to help enforce whats going on in their heads, and to make it look more disorientating.

The green screen i used ended up working quite well, compared to the on i did in an earlier blog post, and i think it is an effective device to isolate the artist in the shots where he is performing so there is more of a focus on him from the audience.

I first tried doing the green screen inside my house, but the lighting was too low and i couldn't get any lights from the art department. It was also very difficult to get the angle right for the shot. After a few days pondering, i tried putting it up outside in my garden on a sunny day. This worked really well, because i had alot of space, the lighting was perfect, and i had a wooden frame in my garden that i could pin it up on.

One of my original ideas was to use a 1970s Cadillac, which would take the characters to an isolated place for them to set up camp. I had it all arranged to use the Cadillac, but then the next morning there were some problems regarding my actors, so i decided to not use it for the following reasons - It didn't really end up fitting in with the footage i had shot, or the story, it was never essential, i just really wanted it because i love old-school Cadillacs. Also i had filmed everything else that needed to be filmed the previous day. However - here are some pictures i took of it.