Media Questionnaire

• For our music video we have planned to film in Cambridge as it is a beautiful city full od people and unique locations to film in. Do you think this type of location would be suitable for a music video of a singer songwriter, similar to Ed sheeran or James Morrison.

Yes
yes
yes

•  Our artist would seem to wear the 'indie' style clothing, he isnt within the indie genre, but find it suitable as it is the element of fashion, and we believe our artist should wear clothing linked to fashion. We planned jeans, converse/used trainers, fleece and scarf , what is your opinion on that?

Maybe a blazer and a trilby hat too?
looking messy
nothing

•    The narrative of our music video consists of the relationship between the artist and a girl, it shows segments of their meeting, a flash back of their time together and then returns to the beginning shots of them meeting; what do you think of this idea?

typical, but proven to be popular

it depends on the song

its a good idea because it will reflect most relationships

•   Is it too cliche for a music video?

depends no the different peoples opinions
a bit

it is similar to other music videos but it doesnt really matter because it is what people like to see and it also depends on the song lyrics.

•     Do you have any suggestions?

not really
be original with diffrernt ideas
no

•     We decided that our artist should be playing the guitar whilst he is singing in the music video, do you as an audience member prefer to see the artist performing the music and instruments or just the narriative.

with the guitar, so long as it is in sync with the music and looks real.

the artist performing at gigs etc, not just random

 I prefer to see the artist performing it shows that they are actually talented and shows their ability.

•  When looking through my blog so far, what do you think? Have you got any feedback for me to improve upon?

 I like the layout and the colours, and the arrangement of the pictures
very good!!
The use of technology to portray the different texts and images are very good.

•   Once listened to the song 'Nutella' what opinion have you created of it? Could you listen to it again, would you spend money buying it?

 Yes
Yes, he's a bit like Ed Sheeran
I have already got it after hearing it.

•   Looking at the content of shots we plan to put within our music video, do you think this will be managable? Will it work?

Yes, so long as it is really well planned.
Yes
They have good variety and change, it will look good.

•     Lastly, what is your favourite music video?

Lady GaGa's Videos
All of lady gaga's videos. she's sexy.
Ed Sheeran, Lego House.

    

 

Music Advert Analysis

In our last class lesson we got into our coursework groups and found a magazin advert similar to our artist; we used Tom Waits, this is the photo of our analysis of advert, so we know what similar conventions and elements we need to include within our Artist's magazine advert. Very important elements of the magazine advert that we could include, such as;

• voucher / discounts so the audience know where to purcahse the digipack from
• reviews and comments from music reviews and newspapers
• Quotes from the reviews
• star ratings on the album
• mentioning any awards or title given to the artist
• photos
• additional bonus features

Digipack Photos

Today Luke and I went out to take some shots for our digipak, through research and planning, we decided that a lot of face on shots, looking directly at the camera will be effective. Whilst taking the photos, we decided that sticking to the theme in our music video of 'cheeky chappy' we wanted to take some humour photos which presented this area of the artists character. We feel it is important that the artist is reliable in every product and that the audience can see clear links between all 3 of our products. These are the photos we took today.

In my opinion, I found this photography session useful, although I only intend to use one of the photos. The majority of the photos are not what I think would be suitable for our music video or digipak, although from this photography session we were able to practise using the camera effectivley and realise potential problems now. From this we learnt it is very important to get the right camera angles used to show a 'flattering' side of the artist, similarly that when using any form of lighting, you have to preplan to avoid getting shadows in the photo, as seen above.

Rough Cut Music Video

This is the first rough cut of our music video, the shots are complete, although the editing and transitions have not been added yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI-JsKs1b_k

Planning Progress

So far our media work has been progressing quickly, yesterday night we finished our first complete draft of our music video, and we are currently exporting it to youtube to try and get some music video views and any potential audience feedback.

As a group, we spent wednesday and thursday together completing last minute filming and slotting shots together to complete the music video. After that, Luke and I spent further time completing the video completely and adding some transitions, although more need to be added.

To the left is a photo of a plan we made in class of our to do list, this consists of:

• digipack planning, thinking of different shots and elements we want to involve within our artist and the appearance as a package.
• Uploading the music video to youtube, to gain audience feedback.
• Plan ideas for the advertisment, research and analaysis and different elements to involve within our music genre of singer songwriter.
• Think of different questions we can ask audience members when they watch our music video to gain audience feedback; similarly thinking of other ways that we can gain qualitative and quantitative data.

Progress Report - final

Today we went out as a group and filmed the last group of shots and footage; we managed to film everything successfully and enjoyed our last filming session, in this filming session Luke and I developed some ideas whilst out and added them to our video, these will work effectivley together to create our music video. Now we will spend the majority of our time editing the clips and creating an overall product of the music video. I am very pleased with how we have progressed over the last few weeks and look forward to seeing our final product.

Progress Report - 2

Today we went out into Newport and filmed some footage for our music video or performance and narrative, both actors were present alongside all group members. The filming session was successfull and the risk assestment proved successfull as no problems occured. We filmed approximatley 45% of our overall footage today which was a success, we shall now start editing the clips together to build a rough cut of the music video.

Digipak Research

Whilst I have been researching different styles of digipak and album covers from artist within the singer songwriter and indie music genre. Using google allowed me to see a range of different covers and I came accross Joshua Radin's album cover, and I thought it would be perfectly suited for our artist; well something similar.

Another artist exremely similar to our artist is Ed Sheeran, we have researched him throughout the whole of our course and have found him as an artist a great influence upon our work. The idea of hidden artist and old fashioned shows that he differs from the ordinary, but the idea of fashion and genre makes him flow within the mainstream of music. These contexts work well together for our artist.


Another element of our digipak which is important to consider is 'who' the artist is signed to, who they represent and what comes with it; deciding the record label has a great influence upon the sucess of the artist, and we have to consider these things whilst planning out music video suitably. For our artist we have decided to use the record labels:

• CUSTARD records -  Custard Records is an American record label, best known for its success with English singer-songwriter and Number 1 recording artist James Blunt. The label is run by former 4 Non Blondes member Linda Perry and has a partnership with Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records division.
• Atlantic Records - is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz.[1] Over its first 20 years of operation Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most important American independent recording labels, specializing in jazz, R&B and soul recordings by African-American artists, a position greatly enhanced by its distribution deal with Stax Records.

These two record labels would be good labels for our artist to be signed with, as these two companies are not the biggest and are not involved in mainstream, they are used in the transition from upcoming artist to mass audience, which is what our artist aims to do. Using these two record labels is exactly what out artist needs, and we will place their logos on our digipaks.

Possible shots to add

Looking through the content of our shots Luke and I decided that it would be good to look at other music videos for influence and ideas of creative shots we could use... Looking at the videos we decided that some of the shots would look really realistic within our video. Ed Sheeran - Lego house used shots of the lyrics being written which we found suitable, using the idea of 'singer songwriter' within the music video. Lower angles are used to show contrast from the clarity showin in medium shots of the face; and the content showing the artist collaborating with the instrument and not playing it creates a barrier between musician and artist. These shots will work really well within our music video.

Another Artist we looked at was Joshua Radin in his music video I missed you, the first shot of the artist walking along holding the instrument out of the centre within the shot takes away the attention of the artist and shows the overall impact which we liked. Similarly the shots of the name engraved onto the guitar and the words being placed out looked really effective with the lyrical emphasis. We have chosen certain parts within our music video to include this and plan to film them today and tomorow.