Props and Equipment

During the making of our music video we use a number props and equipment to help us with our video. The Equipment we use were the camera and tripod which help us to film, we also us greenscreen to film me playing the guitar for our video. We need to have 3 lights to get the shadow of the greenscreen.


This an example of what green screen is.


We also use the Mac and the software on it including Track Pro to edit the clips we capture on camera, this was the hardest bit to do cause you have mess around with it.

We use a number of Props in the music video which are important to have in the video cause a rock video wont be good without them.


The first prop is a key symbol in rock music video and that is the electric guitar. The one you see to your left is the electric guitar we use in the video. Electric guitars are important to rock music videos, all the big groups in rock music have an electric guitar in their music videos including Sum 41, Dragonforce and even the lead singer of the song we are doing is playing an electric guitar in the original video.We also use drums in the video to give it that feel of a good rock music video.

We also use a werewolf mask because we went with the idea of having a monster in our video, so we decided to have the monster as a werewolf. so we needed a way to have a werewolf in our video, so we brought a mask from a shop so someone can wear in the video. This is what is mask look like.

directors cut

This is the interview with two directors about the music video

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

The music video follows the conventions of Rock music videos such as Welcome to Masquerade by Thousand Foot Krutch, this song was inspired by people hiding behind things, though our music video was inspired by the lyrics about a person hiding something inside however, it does have similarity in the sense that there are both talking about the same thing, the video was fast paced to match with the pace of the video which is like most rock video and most rock videos are dark,serious and in some elements sinister.



















This is an image isfrom video fall apart, which is a typical video of rock music, however we decided to challenge this by making the video light"tongue&cheek" with little elements of dark and serious such as when the masked person is killing the girl, we decided to do this because we wanted our target audienc to get the receive whilst also enjoying the video.

This image was taken our video, and it light compared to the image above and portrays the tongue&cheek i was talking about.

The other thing is that most rock videos e.g Fall apart features a band playing the video, though we didn't put the whole band, we tried to include atleast one person playing a guitar and drums, it was because in the background the song had drums and guitar which is typical of a rock music video, because we didn't have alot of people to do it, two different people were used.

The similarity might location, most Rock music Video use dull and daunting location, we tried to follow but also keeping the theme in mind, which in a sense worked to our advantage as we uses the cementary.

Another thing we tried not to do is making the costume of the characters shocking dark, which is a cliché of Rock music video, though we did try to stay clear of dark elements even though the song is dark, the characters are walking dark clothes, however their surounding and lighting is natural which makes this video light and humurous.

Overall it does follow certain convention, however because of the difficulties of other elements it is made simple, which brings out its originality and uniques, though it is gruesome at times in terms of the close of the wolf, it is a fun video and the story is narratored and performed just like other rock music video, our video has a clear narration compared to fall apart.

Evaluation question 2

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS.

We have finally finished creating the CD case, the video and the magazine advert. Whilst creating the CD case and the magazine advert we decided to go for a common theme that should reflect the music itself which is a rock song. Therefore to achieve this effect we decided to use an image that was a bit scary but narrative on its on for the front cover of the CD, and on the inside of the CD cover we used both the wolf image and that of the girl on the front and back. Because we wanted the audience to realise what the song is trying to imply. ie. the girl transforms into a wolf . so we put the girl on the inside front pane and we put the wolf infront of the back of the CD to reflect a transformation from being human to warewolf without control. Interms of ideas on how to craete the CD cover we did our research and got a few ideas from here and there on the internet on how to layout our text so that it catches the attention of the audience easily by, especially using really artistic but unsual texts so that the image itself would stand out more but at the same time blend with the picture that we decided to use. Also for the back cover of the CD we deciede to go for something mysterious to create an air of mystery around the music we are trying to sell, we decided to go with this idea because it would make it easier in terms of creativity when it comes to marketing and producing merchandise for the promotion of the video, because we realised the more mysterious we made it look the more appeal it would attract from our target audience which are young people and adults who are into rock music. Also we decided to use the same background image we used for the album's front cover for the magazine advert because we thought it would make it easier for the audience to recognise which album we are trying to sell to achieve this aim even more we used different fonts and font sizes in the creation of the video, so that we could lay more emphasies on the fact that the album is out now and we want people to buy it. we also put some information about the merchandising on the advert to get more people to purchase the album to make it a success. Finally the music video we were going to create before also inspired us with the album cover because even though we had changed the song elements of frustration which both songs expressed in its lyrics(ie. Unlove- the frustration of being trapped in lost love and Monster the frustration of not being able to control your inner beast) also influenced us to have a close up image on the album cover because close causes the audience to actually see what the person in the image is actually feeling and further sells the album because after this the audience is able to connect with the protagonist on the CD cover and tries to understand the message she is trying to convey before actually listning to the song. And also the actual band for the song we used also inspired us when creating the CD cover. The image below is a close up image of an album cover by the band skillets which uses the close up of a "mummy" just showing one eye we saw this and realised how important the visibility of the eye would be on our album because it sort of gives a glimpse into what is on the actual CD if it was on sale, and that would cause people to purchase or want to listen to and watch the track we have produced.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When we were finish making the music video we shown it to a couple of people classmates and people who do not do Media, so we can a range of opinons. They watch the music video and most of them liked it, but we did get some critics about the video one of the things said was that the video was a bit bright for a rock song and they also said that the green screen image was a bit dull so we took the comment on board and we manage to make the video darker to suit a rock song by using a effect, which change the colour the clip and made it more greyer. We failed to replace the green screen with any think better since we could not find any think better which would match with the song and the performance.

The was good comment about the music video. One of the good things they like was the part were the werewolf fist emerge at the begining of the video. They liked it because of the way we did it cause we had it as clip, no clip, clip, no clip which an earthquake effect on which shake the clip. This cause of build up of tension within in the video which the audience liked.

We interviewed people to get their opinons and one of the questions was that did the music video goes with the target audience which was rock music fans. All of the replies was yes it suits the rock genre and the rock fans should love it to. we were pleased by the people opinons because was what we were aiming for.

Me and my group have took on board all the feedbacks given to us from the audiences and have made changes to the video that the audience found was quite poor, so it will look more appealing to them.

Finish Editing the Music Video

10th December

Today we finally finish the music video. We only needed to fill in tiny holes within the timeline and since we run out of clips we started to put in randon stuff cause Mary had an idea when were out filming that she would do alot of randon stuff like crawling and lying on the floor, so we used some of those clips towards to end of the music video and by our surpise it was an excellent idea as it was actually good cause it blends in with the rest of the music video.

We have also finish filming the directors cut which is an interview of two directors of this music viedo. There are a few mistakes so we are going to edit it a bit to make it look good.

The original Music Video

This is the original music video for the song we have choosen. When you watch the video you will see that the video has a wide range of shots, including a close ups of the guy and mid-shots like when they are being chase.

CD cover

We as a group have decided to make a CD cover that actually reflects the song we are making the video to "Monster". And in the video we have come up with so far it involves the transformation of a girl into a ware wolf , therefore we have decided to go for a half wolf half girl sort of image for the CD. We got this idea after we researched and tried to get a concept of what the album cover of a typical rock/metal song would look like and we got inspirations from a variety of album covers some of them rock music others which weren't. Even though we are creating an album cover for just one song we wanted the audience for the product to have an idea of what sort of music they are considering to purchase just by looking at the album cover. therefore as said before, for the front cover we concluded a close up shot of the half girl half wolf image would would quickly grab the ttention of the audience and cause them to think what the music is really about, which by looking at the album cover now seems pretty obvious. We chose to go with the "half girl half wolf" idea because its a clear illustration of what the song "monster" is saying. When creating the album cover we got inspiration from the album above on how to layout the artist and the album title on the album cover. We were going to also use a middle shot for the cover as seen on the one above however we chose to use a close up because it seemed much more appropraite considering the song we were using.

But for the back of the CD cover we decided to use a shot from our video, a shot of the cemetary and how it appears during night time we chose this concept because it reflects the mystery and darkness behind the song "monster" and again would further reinforce the audience's view of the song as a rock/hard metal sort of song.

analysis of the video

the video consists of narrative and performance, this was due to the song, the two elements worked well because of location. the main reason why we did narrative was because we wanted to illustrated ceratin things that lyrics were saying and also we did perfromance because in the actual video, the band were performing so we decided to add that element because it suited the song, for perfrom wise in terms of showing someone playing a guitar, we decided to do use green scene and a dark background following the convention of Rock music videos .

using green screen was useful, because it made our job easier in terms of finding a different location for the guitarist, green screen was easy to use to a certain extent in terms that at the beginning the light was right, however once the light was sort out, everything was fine until we put the clips that we saw that there was something wrong , other backgrounds other than the green screen, so we cut pro to reframe it to a good angle.

shots such wide, though it wasn't a point of view however it does what the monster is seeing and also it that it following or spying on it's prey. and also it does the location to some certain, also the male character wearing white and denim is another example of the breaking the convention of Rock music video, though the location seem dark however, these colours do contrast with the conventions of the rock music video.

7th December

Today we continue editing the music video after getting more clips to add, since we needed to replace some of them. we replace them then added effects to some of the clips like the earthquake effect which matches with the song we are doing. There are some clips that looked like a big jump when joined together so we put somethink else between them instead like a close up of a guitar and at some points the fade in and out effect.

we also tried mixing it up a little bit by putting good randon stuff between clips and which matches up with the words, this idea was a 50 50 success because some of the randon clips we got was a waste cause it did not go with anythink, whereas we took a shot of the night sky and it was perfect for the music video as it goes with the lyrics.

Editing New Song

As we done the filming, we started to do editing, like before we put the filming onto the computer by log and capture. With the clips onto the computer we started cutting the clips down and putting them on the timeline. At first it did not look good with every think all over the place, but as time progress it started looking more and more like a music video.

We put the song onto the computer but it was a MP3 track, so we needed to change it into a wave format. We did this by putting it onto a software called Track Pro which is on the computer, we were able the change the format of the song here, then we saved the song into our folder. Where from here we could put it onto our timeline without any problems.

The clips we put onto timeline was all over the place so we rearrange alot of clips to see which clips would match with each other. It was hard at first, but now it is coming along pretty well, we found out we did to go a little more filming to fill the timeline. We have started using the effects as well, we found some effects that works perfect with the song and footage we got as it make our music video more like the music video you see on TV.

Change in Idea

24th Nov,2009 (this is a link to the song we were going to use for the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1QE8hZxDC4)

We as a group have decided to change the direction in which we were once going in. In terms of the fact that we have decided to change the music and the original idea we once had because we realised our original idea lacked some sense of energy and creativity because of the song choice. Its arguable that we should have analysed these factors before filming however we didn't notice until we had a few reviews from those who saw what we were doing. Therefore we decided to do a totally different genre of music compared to what we were once doing which was a slow RnB sort of music, so now we are making a music video for a rock song called monster which unlike the other video we were once doing it has an original video from which we can get some inspiration: The song is called "Monster" and was performed by a band named Skillets. amongst all the other music genres we could have chosen we decided to choose rock music because it is more energetic and is easy to create a narrative as there is not much time to really think about complex narratives we are going for somthing much more simple but creative as well.

Editing

2nd Nov,2009
Today we were able to do some editting on the little filming we have done so far. We managed to edit the beginning of the filming and decided to change our mind on some things we had decided to do before because it didn't make the video look very presentable, for instance instead of using the stairs we thought the elevatorwould be better because by doing so we waste less time on filming. but so far it seems like we are a bit behind time so we want to quicken the pace by also filming outside lesson times. Above is an example of the software we used whilst editting which is the "Apple mac final cut pro" programme. it is very vital we use this software because it is able to help you log and capture the shots you need onto the timeline where the actual video would be and also gradually helps you to put together a more professional video.

Music choice and Location

Deciding on what genre to do was very important and difficult as we were thinking of what impact it might on the audience and what music genre is commonly listened to, which can apply to both young and old audience. We both came to an agreement that POP was the most listened to genre and it can appeal to the target audience.

After selecting POP as our genre, our major issue was the actual song that is enjoyable and that would lyrically apply to both age world, something that happens in every day life, we listened to all sorts of music, mainly slow love songs such unbreak my heart by Toni Braxton, irresistible by Jessica Simpson e.t.c after listening to all sorts of songs, we got fade up and started thinking of location maybe that might trigger an enjoyable song that would go well with the location.

Pondering on location was also a little difficult because we wanted something with a sentimental feeling. It didn't take us long as, when the images of Salford quays, thought it was perfect and it has the sort of feeling we wanted.

We went back to choosing the song, that was ideal for the location and the audience would know why the location was chosen, as we discussing i was listening to songs on my Mp3, and also trying to visualise the sort of song that was needed, then i came across the song by Elise Estrada to unlove you, i discussed with the group and we thought it was a good choose.

1st day of filming

5th October 2009
Today we went out filming, we meet up with each other at 8:30 at a place where we all know, then we walk all round Manchester looking for an ideal place to film. We found all kinds of perfect locations but we were not able to use them because there was all kinds of problems like no way in and the building was under construction. Throughout the day, while trying to find a good place, we started thinking of changing the scences and locations a bit so we can find a good location more easily, we had the idea of having the scene in a abandon building, but we could not find any which suited us. we started thinking that the location could be a nice place, so that the character could go to, to get away from reality but we really want a dark and cold location to film because it suited the song that we are using.

After walking around for 40 mins we finally found the ideal place to film. We started setting up the camera, before we started to film we acted and discuss where the characters was going to be, how they was going to enter the scene, where the camera was going to be place and what actions the characters was going to do in the scene. When we finally were ready to film, we place the the camera in to great position, we turned the camera on and after 3 mins of filming without recording it, the camera turn it self off because the battery pack was low on power. We did not get any footage today but we were able to know in detail what was going to happen in that scene, so the did was not a complete waste.

Story Boarding

1st October,2009

Today we finished creating the storyboard for our music video. We were able to complete 4 storyboard sheets because our music video is only 3mins 12 seconds long and does not require a lot of detailed drawing as its a pretty much straight forward acting routine and in addition we have tried to avoid any over complicated camera shots and angles so that the audience does not misinterpret the story the video is trying to convey. my group members and i decided that our music would involve mostly a performance a few illustrations and probably no disjunctures, this is because our music is telling a love story so we need things to be pretty straight forward.



while creating the storyboard we made note of the camera angles and shots that we would be using most of often and also the kind of lighteneing that would be suitable for the scenes.

• Our first shot is an establishing shot of the opening location where the first scene begins.


• Then slowly as the camera pans around the location it sets on the person singing with a close up shot, so that the audience can see her emotions.


• The next shot is a mid long shot gradually forming into a long shot as the cahracter walks off towards a door.


• As she goes through the door she appears to be going down the staircairs, when she turns around and there's a point of view mid shot of something she is looking at.


• then she turns around to continue going down the stairs with a low angle mid- long shot.


• There is then the scene where she opens the door from de staircase and finds her self in her sitting room watching a video that seems to reflect a love sharing relationship and this is an over the shoulder shot so that the audience can see what she's looking at from her point of view.


• There's then a middle shot as she comes out of her house unto a street and this develops into a long shot as she walks down the street towards the river.


• As she gets closer to the river there is a wide shot of her walking past the river.


• Standing near the river she looks into it and thre is point of view shot of what she sees in the river
• She moves away from the river then there is a wide a shot of her walking towards a bench.
• whilst sitting on the bench there is a long shot enough to see both characters in the scene
• However in the next scene even though this is still a long shot with her sitting on the bench the second character would not be in the scene as she turns around to see what is behind her.
• In the next scene is the main character running nervously away from the river towards an abandoned building this would be a mid long shot.
• the next scene would a be a wide shot of the abandoned building which gradually moves into a mid shot showing the character sitting on the floor with a picture frame in her hand.
• There is then a point of view shot of the female character looking up to the male figure this would be in a mid long shot.
• there is then a middle shot of both of them arguing using a two shot.
• then all of a sudden th female character grabs the picture frame and this would be a mid shot.
• There is then a slow motion midshot as she throws the frame and it smashes into a wall.
• suddenly there is a quick close up rewind of everything that has just happened to a scene where she is lying fast asleep in her sofa in her sitting room.
• The next scene would be a gradual zoom in close up unto her eyes as she sleeps then suddenly she opens her eyes and the song ends

We chose to use the rewinding technique so that so that the audience would realise that the character was having a dream of events, she feared could happen to her.