Monday, 19 April 2010

Music Video Advert


This is my music video advert. I tried to keep to the distorted and trippy theme so I decided to use a still capture of city life/nightlife which I mainly intended on using due to the 'whats going to happen next' feel to the image. This I felt was vital for the advert as not only does it draw the audience in. It almost gives a teaser for the video, showing the extraordinary lighting and colour use within the video and the almost beauty seen through-out.

Wednesday, 31 March 2010

Music Video: Evaluation.

Lloyd's TSB Dubstep Remix Music Video Evaluation.


Overall through-out the project, I gained up various amount of skills (mainly camera-work and editing) but before I never fought I could of improved in these areas. As the filming schedule for my partner and I went rather well due to us picking up the camera on time and filming straight away so we could gain the footage as quickly as we could as we knew due to the outlook and genre of music we had chosen editing may take over most of our time, which we expected. However the only downside was due to us living so far part meeting up to film became an issue so we divided the filming to make it fair on both parts and mainly easier for us. As for my half of filming, it went as planned and the weather luckily didn't let me down as we needed not total sunny weather but an average slight cloudy day to set the urban feel/believable to viewers. Also due to this advantage I took the opportunity to set a tripod up on an high up point to capture a couple of establishing shots, which I panned across the view to maximise the length of the clip, this is did both at day and night to totally capture to view and setting. The skill I gained from this was the ability to pan smoothly and effectively. It to abit of practice but improvement came quickly with a few takes.

The main filming involved in the music video was handheld cam. This we needed to create the personal perception image we wanted the video to achieve, or tho it will eventually be sped up or edited to create the abstract/trippy atmosphere for the video. The filming on this half went as planned, I drove as I got an friend to film his view as a person. This would overall capture a persons journey which is vital to the video. Various issues came about when filming. First was the camera I was given was slightly large and became hard to hold in a certain position but with the use or a pillow and material to position the camera in a comfortable and in a way to not sabotage the filming. Secondly was the ability to film smooth, sharp shots or footage to totally capture the 1st person feel and to as if if was filmed not like this it could be unwatchable or totally unsatisfactory. This I knew I could achieve straight away but with a couple of practice takes and play around with the camera finding all the button locations and positioning of my hands and body. I slowly improved resulting in total control over the shots either on a tripod or hand held. Maybe I admit totally professional but a vast improvement compared to when I first picked it up.

Editing the video was the main milestone we needed to get past due to our approach for the music video, editing would create the atmosphere for our video and almost explain the scenario/character as time went on. As we knew the time which editing would take, we meet up various times out of lessons to form the video and edit until completion. Skill wise with editing we both had experience however with different technology/application, so using the mac's at first became a right issue and slowed editing down due to our lack of knowledge. But our abilities to overcome this helped an with a couple of seasons practice and seeking advice from more experience people (teachers, class mates etc) I much improved being able to add video transitions, video filters, clip alignment, video structure and overall the ability to use Final Cut Pro (available from the macs) fluently and at least understand totally what I was doing. By our editing skills improving to the level we needed, we could create the surreal effect to the video resulting in the unknown atmosphere to whats going to happen next giving us total control over the audience. This I believe at least ourselves could look back at the video and be happy to what we achieved over all the hours of staring at a screen editing to driving endlessly to capture to total view/shots to make a unique video and the ground streetwise 1st person accounts/footage to give it that total personal experience touch we overall set out to achieve.

Thursday, 4 March 2010

Analysis of Digipak Covers from Chosen/Simular Genre.

The first digipak I've chosen to analysis is from the artist 'Chase and Status' a drum n base artist which follows the urban, street nightlife theme overall through-out their music. As we can see from the digipak the artist is still following the theme giving the digipak an urban and dark high class look on life. The cover mainly states the dark night-life atmosphere keeping to dark strong colours, in this case the primary colours are red and black giving the image an dangerous vibe following the title on the digipak as 'Against All Odds' hinting from whats shown. That the label/artist is rebelling against society or police/authorities stating no matter what or if everything is against you'll(or the artist) still rebel and carry on the outrageous drug/drink fueled party hard lifestyle even if the risks are high. This will appeal to the young audience/Raver or DnB fans as this will mainly link to their lifestyles. Additionally the images follow the theme trying to be set showing images like 'serious/threatening looking men dressed in high class suits' and dark out lines of streets/city's relating to the audience and elaborating on the urban scene of ghetto and harsh lifestyles/places. Keeping to the theme other images like white wavy lines almost suggesting smoke coming back to drugs (marijuana) part of the lifestyle or the artist/audience and different to main themes of the digipak another image of an male with flash glasses wacky styled hair bring in the wannabe wealth side of life fans wanting to be rich or successful and even just making the character looking cool/appealing to the fans making him the main role model of the digipak.




The second digipak I've chosen to analysis is an 'Dubstep Collection' CD the genre which we have chose for out video. This straight from the first look keeps to criteria and atmosphere of the Dubstep area. With bright colours contrast to the dark background it creates an almost dream like image bringing back to the trippy side of drugs and nightlife scene of it being dark in the club or at night sidetracking in the glamorous wealth lifestyle if nice colours and lasers/lights of the clubs. On the other hand this shows another side to the dubstep image of out of this world feel to the music as its so unorthodox and suggesting its another form of music altogether or maybe out of this world?

Thursday, 4 February 2010

Promo Pack and Digipack for Music Video.

Promo Pack.




A 'Promo Pack' by an artist is used for booking 'shows/concerts', attracting record deals and publishing deals. Can also be used for assembling a mangement and legal team, and for gaining radio and television airtime.




Typically a 'Promo Pack' contains;




  • A demo tape/CD (3-5 of artists best songs!)


  • A song list


  • A lyric sheet


Digipak.




A Digipak is a type of compact disc/DVD packaging, typically forming a gatefold (book-style) opening up with the disc simply displayed inside. Whereas the outside is normally used to express/state what the compact disc is and what it contains.