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.

    Digipak pictures and Poster

These Pictures were all edited in Photoshop cs6, i thought it was one of the areas where i learned the most during the course of this project, i had virtually no experience in Photoshop before, and now i am fairly good at editing pictures. I learned from YouTube tutorials. I think it works well with the brand identity how i layered a technicolor-ed painting over all the images, to give them that trippy dynamic i was looking for, i also turned up the saturation and hue to make the colors more bright.

Locations and actors

Casting The actors

The artist - The artist for my music video has to be me, because i wrote and produced the song, and because i want to release it for commercial purposes as well after its finished.

Oli - This is the character that does the cocaine without anyone knowing, he is the one who will be chasing the girl through the woods with lust in his eyes - this is a reflection of the lyrics. I chose him because his face looks a bit evil, and he can have a very menacing smile, also because he is strong so it would look more convincing when he pins the girl down.

Lana - This is the girl who gets chased, i think she is good for the role because she is pretty, and she has an innocence and a vulnerability about her that would work well with the lyrics of the song.

Frankie - I need another girl to be part of the group of friends, i feel Frankie would be good for the part because she has a fun exitable personality that i think would come through on camera.

Clinton -  Clinton is my brother and i want to cast him as the drummer, because he has long hair and looks scruffy, so he is well suited to the part of rock drummer. Also because he actually plays drums, so it would be easier to film because he knows what hes doing.

Focus Group

One of the ways we did research into what audiences like from music videos was by conducting a focus group. We asked a few of our friends to sit and listen to our questions, to aid us in narrowing down our ideas, and to see what appeals to an audience of our age.

Here is the link to the focus group - Unfortunately it wont embed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq7_dXDDgdU&feature=youtu.be

The results showed that audiences like videos with narratives, they also like the artist to be showcased, and to have some costume changes, basically they like a video that is visually engaging and makes you think about it. 

Marketing

An easy way of bringing a target audience basis is by linking your youtube videos with all the things that people will type in to bring your video to the top of the search list, these are called tags, you can then also tag all the things to do with your name and your videos, blogs and music pages, so they will all be there in a bunch that the viewer can click on after watching the first video. Thus allowing them to see all your work, giving them more of a chance of enjoying what you do, so then they can support you and join your fan base.

Here is an example that i print screened for my focus group -