Some of this work is in the wrong order due to problems with the internet at the time and having to save it in word and pasteing it in the blog later however it all should be there. Sorry for any confusion.

Luke Robinson

Final video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1X-qX_REu0

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmTu92K9fKE Making of new slang

Animatic
An animatic is a series of drawings that are put in time with the music to give the director an idea on how his or her music video will run. It is useful to see what changes need to be made and how smoothly the video idea runs with the music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjXc0BjG18o

Digipak research
Wikipedias definition of a Digipak is:
"digipak - A form of jewel case, for holding one or more CDs or DVDs, in which the outer cover is of card rather than plastic"

The design of a digipak can be useful to draw in potention buyers and fans of the band or video it is holding.

Digipak-

This is the backcover to my DVD box of the Shins New Slang, the font style is the same as the font as the the writing “New Slang” on the front cover, the background behind the text has been made white to make the font easier to read as well as being a techneque The Shins use on a lot of their text that makes them recognisable, the white was created by the rubber tool on photoshop and having a white layer under the background. The background itself is taken from a section of the film, I used this picture from the film because it does not distract the viewer however it is the same colour scheme to the picture on the front of the DVD box and the video itself. The pictures were carefully selected to show sections of the video which i thought summed up the general mood captured in the video. There is a series of text explaining the very basics of the story line behind the video, this method of introducing the viewer to the video with the box is used on the vast majority of DVDs so the viewer has more of an idea about what he is buying. I placed several reviews on the back of the box in the same font style as the description however the writing is in italic to make them stand out and be more noticable.

The front cover of the DVD is of Mint looking angsty and smoking a cigarette, this may be something that catches the fans of The Shins attention for they may feel they can relate to it (at least 60% of the display pictures of shins fans were of them looking angsty), they also may find that a creature made from Tic Tac boxes smoking a cigarette is abnormal and different which is what my research tells me the fans seem to crave. In the editing of this photograph I increased the contrast between the dark colours and the light colours, turned the saturation of the colours down and decreased the brightness of the lighter colours, by doing all this I hoped to make the picture look like a painting and artistic which was once again, to try and make it more appealing to the targeted audience. The DVD needed a bright colour on this front cover to make it more eye catching and compelling so I inported in a picture of the heart from the video, this is the bright red tic tac box which I placed on to a dark window so the darkness enhanced the bright red and made it more eye catching due to comprasion between the colours. The pictures layered ontop of the background have been carefully chosen to try and give the viewer an idea of what this video will involve, I have chosen pictures from my favourite scenes which are very different to one another, I have the pictures slightly transparent so the audience know they are not the main point of focus on the box. The Shins font has been placed there so that that the fans of the shins would recognise it very quickly due to having the memory of the font from past products and be drawn to it

The picture over the CD holder is from a scene that comes up twice in the video. It is of a heart shaped like a question mark that relates to the theme behind the video and lyrics of love and confusion. I feel this picture sums up a lot of the atmosphere and elements in the video. I have gathered from my research that the inside of the box is less important to the outside due to the outside being the main point of advertisement, if a viewer has got as far as to view inside the DVD box the chances are that he has been attracted to what he has seen on the outside and already purchased the product.

feedback from Facebook reguarding this Digi pak was mainly positive. There was some criticisms from people who did not appreciate the abnormal elements to it and found it overwhelming however my research has instructed me that this what my target audience find appealing.

Summary

I have created a video for my Media A2 project which has a storyline about a creature made out of discarded Tic Tac boxes coming to life and trying to discover where his heart belongs, he tried to give it to the telivison but it does not belong here, towards the end he finds himself using his heart to help lift up a feminine looking creature that was made out of a Lindor box, he finds his heart belongs with her.

I used both stop frame animation and puppetry to make my ideas come to life, the rustic, indie atmosphere and the wide range of possible storyline options that come with stop frame animation seemed perfect for the storyline i had created. The final video has over 1700 photographs, probably closer to 2300 photographs were taken but some scenes were cut out or re shot. The choice to use puppetry as well as stop frame animation came after I realised my limitations with the software and hardware I had at the time, which was just a tripod, compact camera, photoshop and Windows media player. After watching a lot of music videos that were all recommended to me by websites and friends I came across warrior dance by The Prodigy, this video showed cigarette boxes in a traditional, run down, English pub turning into human shaped creations and eventually burning down the pub, this video made me realise that puppetry, when combined with stop frame animation was my best option to make all my ideas come alive. Both unexpected and expected problems kept re occurring while creating this video, the main ones were due to Mint the model. I did not design Mint to be able to do a lot of actions that he ended up doing due to high expectations and changes to more imaginative ideas e.g. smoking a cigarette the way that he did, on more than one occasion his limbs fell off or the weight of his head would unbalance him and a whole scene would be ruined, due to this I had to re design Mints way of moving and how he moved half way through the process of filming this video. Some of the ideas on how to red design him were very simple such as increase the amount of white tack to his limbs so i had more control, change the place where the limbs were attached and add more wire to some areas to keep him more stable, it got more complex when I started using a bit of string to take some of the weight off Mints head and body so it was easier to move him around with out falling over or becoming unbalenced, this worked like a dream most of the time however there were minor problems that he could only move backwards and forwards but this was never a big problem. Another major problem was how the light changed from video to stop frame animation, this made the two very easy to tell apart. Unfortunately the stop frame animation and blog work takes up a lot of time and I did not have time to sort out this problem however if I did this again and had more time I would have used computer software to take stills from parts of the video scenes, then put them back together and edited the light and dark settings on the stills which hopefully would have given the footage the same jumpy, rustic feel that the rest of the video has. There were a few other problems such as the heart, at first I drew on a picture of the heart on the tic tac box however when I re watched the video I realised a lot of people would not be able to make out what it was, because of this reason I decided to cut out a heart in card and place it on top of the red tic tac box, this would have been better if I thought of this idea at the beginning, because I did not there is a lot of footage where the cardboard heart is not on the red tic tac box which more visually aware people would pick up very quickly, since stop frame animation takes so long and so much of the video has scenes where the heart is visible however I decided re doing all those scenes would be impossible with the time I had, I have done everything else in my power to tackle this problem. Another problem was with some objects appearing in some of videos, e.g. the lighter during the smoking scene, this frustrated me t however I really like how the rest of the scene came out so I decided not to re do this, the lighter itself is not the problem, it’s the colour of the lighter which makes it so eye catching and frustrating however one review pointed out that this added to the ammature, indie atmosphere which I was looking for however next time I would like to be more careful.

This video is full to the brim with metaphors that I thought artistic, imaginative fans of The Shins may appreciate. Mint is created out of discarded, damaged pieces of rubbish, he is confused in the video and does not know what to do with his heart, his heart is a metaphor for his own emotions and feelings the rubbish represents damaging experiences and emotions that people face in life that we all want to throw away and get rid of however they make up apart of our character, personality and generally who we are at the end of the day. On the first draft of the video Mint tried to give his heart to his wallet as well as to the television, this is self-explanatory, this was my slight dig at modern life where people are trying to fill the hole inside with money and material possessions which fails for Mint in this video, the only place where his heart belongs was with another living being.

Another problem I found was that I was trying make lots and lots happen in a very small amount of time while making this video, there are so many story blocks and turning points and the video is not even 4mins long, I thought this could become frustrating for the viewer so I cut out quite a few scenes and ideas e.g. at the begining I was going to have the first Tic Tac box fall off the table and explode into 20 other Tic Tac boxes but I realised that this would have been too much for the viewer to take in and make sense of and this is the reason why my final result is very different from my animatic. Looking over the video now I have realisedt that I was trying to make a small film for the target audience of the Shins which mixed in with the lyrics and atmosphere with one of there songs, there are points where I found it very hard to make the music and video mix and be on the same level due to so much happening in the video. Overall I am rather pleased with the outcome of this project, I have learnt a huge amount about editing, overcoming problems, some computer software, lighting, composition, how to right a storyline for a target audience, how to capture a visual atmosphere from audio and general directing.

Reviews

Room Mates-

I first showed the video to my house mate, he is not a fan of the shins or that form of music but I thought his opinion on the editing and movie style may still be valid and help me progress my work, he looked blankly at the screen and then stated that he did not understand a lot of the video, this could be seen as a good thing since The Shins fans like to see there video and music tastes as being something less than mainstream. Him being confused by it may mean that fans of the shins may like it.

A friend of a friend who is well known for his short movies and editing:

I “actually really like this! It's really creative.

It's got this really weird, indie quality to it...like something Gondry would do.

Is it suppose to be a music video, a short film or an advert? Because honestly I think it works as all of those, the music you've put to it definitely gives it an edge!

Really well done”

I posted the video on The Shins facebook page and my own to try and get some responses from my target audience, these are the reviews:

- Your video is adorable :)

It is actually amazing. :)

More screentime for the Lindt character! I demand it! (came from the version I posted on youtube before the editing)

Conclusion

Very positive feedback from the fans of The Shins however not that positive from those who are not, this can be seen as both a good and bad thing, bad thing because it means that the people who like this will be only a select audience of people who appreciate strange, alternative videos however this can be seen as a good thing as well since the people who like these kind of music are Shins fans which are the audience I have been trying to make the video for, which means I got the style of the video right.

Evaluation and conclusion

Opening scene- After researching the working methods of several film directors and producers I realized how important the opening scene had to be, it had to be able to go in any direction and be unpredictable as well as being able to capture the viewers’ attention and hold that interest, For these reasons I thought having a Tic Tac box coming to life next to an ash tray was a suitable opener. I used a medium close-up establishing shot to give the first brick to a storyline, it was shot as medium close-up so that the objects involved could not be questioned, it is very direct. Before I started shooting each scene I asked myself if this scene right now would make a good photograph and I became quite obsessed with the lighting, shadows, composition and contrast/saturation of the colours. In the opening scene, for example, the shadows and the lighting merge well together and there are no clashes in colour so I am quite proud of it. The way the Tic Tac box walks was made to be slow and rickety at first, to give it character; the way it walks is slightly childish and the slow rickety actions give it a sense of learning. However, it is going in a clear direction which tells the audience that it has some form of motivation - which I hope inspires a sense of wonder and curiosity. I am very pleased with this opening scene.

Scene 2 (Tic Tac box comes out from under the sofa) - I shot this scene to tell the viewer that the discarded, forgotten Tic Tac boxes are coming from all over the room, from dark, closed places such as under the sofa. The Tic Tac box in this scene is very damaged and this was done on purpose to make it look old and forgotten, the reason for this will be explained later on. The contrast in this scene has been massively increased to emphasise the darkness under the sofa, the light green colour of the tic tac box is this colour so it stands out more and makes it the prime subject of the scene. The way the Tic Tac box moves is quite quick and not very agile, this has been done to convey child-like characteristics of unperfected but excited movements, which I hope has created a visual reflection of the childishness in the music. I am happy with this scene.

Scene 3 (tic tac box getting up and looking around) - The editing of this scene has been done in a way that carries on from the last scene. As the last scene finished the Tic Tac box was half way towards standing up, in this scene the Tic Tac box is in the second stage; half way to standing up. I did this so that the actions ran more smoothly and suggested that the Tic Tac boxes were all moving for the same reason; this has been underlined with parallel scenes highlighting that the tic tac boxes have the same objectives.

Scene 4 (the bin) - This scene has been created to put a bit of childish humour into the video, I found the idea of the Tic Tac boxes all poking up their heads at the same time quite quickly from the bin quite amusing, it also tried to accentuate the point that the Tic Tac boxes are coming from all over the room, where they have been both forgotten and discarded. This is a minor, few second scene so I do not think that by itself it captures the elements that I wanted it to, however, I tried to build up a larger, more clear image by using this and other minor scenes to help communicate the ideas.

Scene 5 (Tic Tac Boxes standing up) - This scene shows my first attempt to shoot a panning shot while experimenting with stop-frame animation. The movements of the Tic Tac boxes is, again, very rickety and slow to communicate them learning and waking up. The panning motion could, I think, be improved but it is very short and only shows some more features of the other Tic Tac boxes, so it is not a major scene. I did this pan not only to add to the video but also to practice and learn from it to improve my technique.

Scene 6 (Cigarette scene) - The Cigarette scene has been included to give the video an artistic, atmospheric element. I really like the colours and movement of smoke, it is beautiful and hypnotic and I wanted to capture that. Also this setting is the same as in the opening scene and is further repeated throughout the video, I have done this to familiarise the viewer with locations so that change becomes recognisable. In this instance the change is from the cigarette being there now and not later on, the camera angle is the same as well so that the object being missing is easily noticed.

Scenes 7 and 8 (Mint being made) - These two scenes are to show Mint being made, scene 7 is a long shot of a group of tic tac boxes working together to create Mint, illustrating that there are several boxes involved. The camera becomes shakier as well to represent the energy involved. The next scene is a medium close-up shot of three Tic Tac boxes carrying white-tac, one of them drops a bit of white-tac to again show childishness and learning. These two scenes begin to tell the viewer the objectives of all these moving Tic Tac boxes.

Scene 9 (Tac been made) and 10 (heart question mark) - 9 is a scene which has been shot as an extreme close up shot, the reason behind this was to keep the viewer interested; I wanted them to be wondering what the Tic Tac boxes were making. All the viewer can see is several Tic Tac boxes moving around in a pile, the detail and activity says that something is happening but you do not know what it is. The next scene is shot much more smoothly than the previous scenes, this was done to give a sense of calm as the scene features a question mark in the shape of a heart, followed by a shot of a Lindor box and then Mint. My intention was to encourage the viewer to link these elements in their minds by suggestion rather than with a blunt statement so that they would remain interested in and challenged by what they saw. I feel that the editing works well over these scenes.

Scenes 11, 12 and 13 (Mint’s first steps) - This is where the Tic Tac boxes intentions are revealed: they came together to make a creature. The first shot is a close up of Mint’s arm moving which has been done to reflect a scene from Frankenstein (the movie) when Frankenstein’s monster first moves, it is not at first obvious what the shot is of until in scene 12 it zooms out to a long shot of Mint trying to stand up, he finds it difficult which is meant to show him learning. In shot 12 the angle is looking down on Mint, something the audience are encouraged to do, he is weak and vulnerable. However, when he stands up in scene 13 the camera angle changes and the viewer is encouraged to look up at him and see that he is now stronger and capable. The viewpoints in 12 and 13 have been chosen to make the viewer feel impressed and almost proud of this Frankenstein creation for learning this skill. When shooting these scenes I was learning how to mould and control the model during stop-frame animation, and I found that my learning was reflected in Mints learning; his stumbling and tripping echoed my own method and I think this helped to give a sense of impulse and struggle to these scenes.

Scene 14 (Mint moves and finds head) - In this scene mint shakily walks over to a pencil, picks it up and then carries on walking, this scene has been put in to build suspicion about what he is doing, once again to keep the audience interested in Mint’s intentions. There is an establishing shot of Mint’s head; I made his head so that it is unrecognisable unless it is seen on the body of Mint himself, so this establishing shot is intended to maintain the viewer’s curiosity. In this scene I also used D.O.F to guide the viewers attention from Mint walking over to Mints head, by doing so the plan is to make the viewer relate the two together and them to realize that mint and his head are connected and are likely to interact. It felt appropriate to use puppetry in the next shot and I am not especially pleased with this part as I found it extremely difficult to match the colour with the stop-frame scenes and it is also more dark than I intended.

Scene 15 (Mint blinking) This establishing shot has been done with a bit of humour to show that the head is now a part of the body and that Mint is learning how to work himself.

Scene 16 and 17- This shot is where you finally see the whole of Mint as a moving, functioning creature and the first section of the storyline is now complete, Mint has created himself and now his new objective must be introduced to the viewer. The camera pans slowly over as a long shot to a red Tic Tac box, this leads the viewer to ask the question what is this box and what impact does it have on the storyline? A new foundation of curiosity I hope will keep the audience interested in the video. The pan was shot to follow the path of Mint’s sight, then zoom in to an establishing shot at the end of the pan, representing the focus of Mint’s mind. Although I think, again, that the pan technique could be improved I am satisfied that I managed to convey the message. The way Mint moves is also very important to this scene and the whole video; he walks in a very robotic and rusty way, he is still finding it hard to walk and is learning; this once again reflects his childish elements, it also captures the atmosphere of a gritty, indie style film in the way he moves little by little in a very jumpy way, I am generally pleased with this scene. Scene 17 is an over shoulder shot from the red Tic Tac’s angle, looking up on Mint. This shot is to show the progress Mint is making towards the red Tic Tac box and, by using a low camera angle it gives the viewer a sense that Mint is important to this box.

Scene 16 and 17- Shot 16 is an establishing shot that suggests what the red tic tac symbolises. A heart. In shot 17 he looks around the room wondering what to do with the heart. Shot 16 quickly zooms in on the heart in a staggered, jittery way. I worked the scene this way because I found that when I used a smooth zoom in it gave the heart an element of calmness which now seemed to conflict with the other jittery scenes before and after it. I wanted it to be seen as energetic and edgy.

Scene 18, 19 and 20 - These scenes are all establishing shots to carry on the storyline, scene one shows him looking round, wondering what to do with the heart when he sees the TV, the over shoulder shot on scene 19 shows Mint seeing the TV and suggests to the audience that his next action may be including it. The next scene shows Mint looking down on his heart and then looking back up; leading the viewer to believe that the next step in the story will involve the heart and the television.

Scene 20 (television) - This scene starts with Mint popping his head up from below the set of draws, this establishes his route which was hinted at in the last scene when he looked at the heart and then the TV, the reason for him climbing up the set of draws towards the TV is still unknown so there are still uncertainties left to draw in the viewer. The scene is split in two so Mint climbing up the set of draws does not get dull and the viewer does not get frustrated and lose concentration. The rest of this scene is in almost slow motion flash animation to mirror the shift in the music. Mint places the heart on the TV, I made this story block to make him look more innocent and naïve, confused about where his heart lies. The TV turns off in time with the music, it turns off to signify rejection. I am reasonably happy with these scenes, I like the way the video speed changes and the metaphor behind the scene itself of giving your heart away to the media. The important aspect to this scene is the colour, its very different to the rest of the video. Here the colour is white and blue which is different to the orange and brown colour that dominates the video, the reason for this was to try and visually reflect the audio change that happened in the music. He stands in front of the television before it turns off and blankets the room with the orange glow that had previously been the main colour but this time round it looks much darker than the white, this has been done deliberately to combine with the camera angle of the back of Mint looking into the Television to highlight the harshness of the rejection that Mint has just felt

Scene 21 and 22 (Dropping of the heart and cigarette) - Scene 21 shows Mint giving up on his heart, throwing it to the floor and walking away, this uses a close-up shot which is turned into an establishing shot when you see the heart drop in front of the camera lens. The D.O.F in this shot makes the heart blurry and him walking away quite sharp, this has been done to tell the viewer that him walking away from the heart is the more important element of the scene rather than the heart itself. The shot in between 21 and 22 shows the ashtray from the first scene but with the cigarette missing, this is explained in scene 22 where Mint is smoking. I am really pleased with scene 22. The idea was to have Mint relate to the audience, confused and full of angst, which many of the display pictures of Shins fans on Facebook showed. In this scene a lighter flickers in and out, which does not work out as well as I anticipated, however this scene took a very long time to film and I am generally pleased with the outcome apart from this.

Scenes 23 and 24- These two scenes show Lindor box girl (Tac) being created and Mint’s reaction to this. First of all the Lindor box moves very slightly, which draws Mint’s attention, the energy and excitement of this situation is conveyed in the frantic camera rattle and Mint blinking quickly. I used this style showing the Lindor box being created as well; I think that it being quick and jolted also helps capture this energy and magic in the scene. Throughout the video I have put in small glimpses of this Lindor box moving to arouse the curiosity of the viewer. I did not want to disappoint the viewer so I decided to make Tac while taking pictures so I could show her being created into a video. I think I have succeeded here, I am very pleased with the results of this scene due to how smoothly it ran, it was also interesting to watch the process of her being created, for these reasons it is my favourite scene from the video.

25 (Mint and Tac meeting) - This scene starts with Tac finding it difficult to stand up, there is a close up shot of Mint’s reaction to this, his eyes are wide but he does not look frightened. The next scene is of Mint giving Tac his heart to help prop her up, which is meant to be taken both literally and metaphorically.

Ending scene- The ending scene is a slow motion zoom in on the heart which is now connected to Tac, the zooming in gets slower and slower and in the end works as an establishing shot which tells the audience that Mint has given his heart to Tac. I thought that having the two characters sitting next to each other holding hands with the heart connected to Tac would be the right way to end the video as it would reflect the optimistic, child-like and happy feel of the song.

Media A2 1

Media A2 1

1. My task is to plan, direct and film a music video for a song of my own choice, from this I hope to develop my skills using Photoshop and learn how to use video editing software such as Windows Movie Maker and Mac Pro.

2. Before I begin deciding how to create my music video I need to research very different music videos to see how the music and audience influence the video.

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrivjzw0RlI

This is one of my favorite music videos, The song is called 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins, it’s a slow alternative rock song from the 1990’s. The lyrics are based around the singer’s (Billy Corgan) reminiscing on his youth, lines such as “cool kids never have the time” and “Junebug skipping like a stone, With the headlights pointed at the dawn, We were sure we'd never see an end to it all” paints a picture of warm summer youth and innocence, which basically sums up the video. The video follows a group of friends as they spend the day together and party in the evening, the filming style is very upbeat and uses quick cuts and jerky handheld camera movements to show youth energy. It is meant to relate to the youth of today and yesterday, older generations may like to watch it to remind them of their teenage years while teenagers now will watch it because it is something they can also relate to and imagine as their own lives.I really like the way the camea angle in this video follows the group of friends as if it was one of them, for example the opening scene when you see the girl on the other side of the tire, the camera captures the scene as if you were also in the tire with her, or when two of the charactrs jump in the water together and you see them from beneath the surface when they go under, really makes you feel as if you were there yourself.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw

This song, called Fire Starter, by The Prodigy was banned from many channels at first as it was considered “too scary” even though it has no graphic images. What people found scary was the dancing by the main singer. Here the Prodigy were trying to create an image for themselves as underground, controversial, chaos-seeking Rave Rockers,

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

This song is by the famous Brit Pop Band called Blur, and called Park Life, the song and the video viciously mock the older, more conservative, section of English society. The video follows a businessman who words the lyrics of the song whilst everything around him is exaggeratedly English, from the buildings to the buses. This video is meant to appeal to the youth who are sick of the actions and culture of older generations of English people who they see as a joke. What i like about the camera work and directing in this video is that it is fast pace, like the music, with almost all the scenes being close up establishing shots, being doing this it highlights each and every joke and mockery Blur is talking about in their lyrics. The colour in this video is also very interesting, baby blues and bland dull reds, these colours can be seen in almost every scene and makes the viewer think about the 80s, a time when Conservativism ran the country and these type of colours were vastly used around the nation in public areas and advertising.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHVQT8aIBM

This song is called Single Ladies and is by a female singer called Beyonce. It uses a black and white colour scheme to make her and the two dancers look bold and strong. The storyline is very simple, being just the women dancing, but Beyonce dances in it and the camera panning around them emphasises an energetic and stylish image that has made it one of the most well-respected modern videos. The objective of this video is to show the audience that Beyonce is more than just a singer, she is an amazing dancer as well. Her dance moves in this video are a modernisation of a dance move performed by an elderly trio over twenty years ago. She has changed it to give herself sex appeal as well as making her seem like a strong woman, this image is what many young and middle-aged women can relate to, drawing them in.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooT4Le2HIbk&feature=relmfu

-

This is the music video for a song called Flash Delirium by MGMT. The video tells a story of two men (the band members) returning to a very upper class traditional house with older, very conservative and strange people who, perhaps, are family. It is very surreal and controversial. After some of the members of the household play with puppets and do a very dull, routine dance a band member begins singing from a mouth in his throat, the older people then rip out an eel-like creature from this second mouth and put it in a strange iron-lung like machine and then everything builds up chaotically to almost explode. The video uses a lot of blurring, sudden detail and jerky movement, especially toward the end, and suggests a psychogenic and individualistic image. The video will appeal to those who are looking for something different and are against traditional conservative values; this sums up the bands fan base quite well. The camera angles are like a movie, they define personality by both looking down and up on characters, making the viewer see them as superiour or not important characters. Establishing shots i repeatedly used to draw out the uneving abnormal behaviour of some of the characters and the scinario the band are in.

3. The track I have chosen to make a video for is New Slang by The Shins. This song was originally written as a sound track to the independent film Garden State. It’s an alternative, quiet indie song which tells the story of someone who has just left a relationship, the lyrics are written in a poetic manner and are well respected. I was also considering doing music videos for the songs: Cherry by The Smashing Pumpkins, Make Yourself by Incubus and National Anthem by Radiohead, however I felt that the ideas that came into my mind when thinking about New Slang were much more creative and appealing than with any of the others.

Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.

Only, i don't know how they got out, dear.

Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met.

I was happier then with no mind-set.

And if you'd 'a took to me like

A gull takes to the wind.

Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree

And i'd a danced like the king of the eyesores

And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.

Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.

Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,

Never should have called

But my head's to the wall and i'm lonely.

And if you'd 'a took to me like

A gull takes to the wind.

Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree

And i'd a danced like the kind of the eyesores

And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,

And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.

I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.

Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?

And if you'd 'a took to me like

Well i'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores

And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

4. Dear owner of New Slang by The Shins

I am making a music video for my media A2 course and have chosen the song New Slang, written by The Shins, as the track to base the video around. I know there is a lot of controversy surrounding copyright in the UK at the moment and how not obeying copyright law is killing the music industry, I would not like to be a part of this problem.

Your sincerely

Luke Robinson

5. The Shins are an Alternative Soft Rock band with poetic, meaningful lyrics and happy uplifting beats. The song I am creating a music video for, “New Slang”, is an angsty love song wrapped up in a soft, childish, catchy beat with an essence of self-consciousness and loathing. The video needs to resemble this by being childish with a darker side to it. Their facebook page (seen below) shows the display pictures of many of their fans and I used this to try to pinpoint the kind of audience that The Shins attract; there is an interesting mix of people, many with very different themes, some show middle-aged men and women with their families others show normal younger people, the majority shows either artistic drawings and paintings or heavily Photoshopped self-portraits of young people looking depressed or thoughtful.

The Shins appear in the two magazines, NME and Q, quite often. NME focuses on almost all rock genres, e.g. Alternative, Goth, Heavy Metal, Metal, Indie, Country, Acoustic, Afro Pop, Pop, Grunge and so on, the magazines target audience are people between the age of 16 and 25 both male and female but the vast majority of readers are currently male, middle and lower class music lovers

These are the statistics I found about NME readers-

following –

MALE 69%

FEMALE 31%

AVERAGE AGE 24

WORKING FULL TIME 52%

WORKING PART TIME 7%

STILL STUDYING 29%

ABC1 65%

CIRCULATION: 40,948

READERSHIP: 369,000

ABCe UNIQUE USERS: 4,454,983

Q magazine is also a magazine that updates the viewers on almost all genres but it mainly focuses on indie and alternative music. It’s read by more elderly people from the ages of about 29 to 60. It’s a classier and more stylish magazine compared to NME and for this reason it draws in the Middle and Upper class.

A website called last.fm lets the visitor look up bands and songwriters and then tells them what they’re like, where they can buy their songs and, quite usefully, tells them what other bands they may like. When I looked up the Shins the website also suggested Modest Mouse (an alternative, experimental, art grunge band) Bright Eyes (An Acoustic, Angst songwriter) and Iron and wine (An easy listening acoustic songwriter), all these bands and songwriters appear quite often in Q and NME as well.

So according to this it would be a fair conclusion to say that listeners of the Shins like experimental music as well as easy listening, this is useful because I can see what type of videos have been made for songs written by these bands and look on youtube to see if the fan base liked them or not.

6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkITsv3Nk6M

This song named Phantom Limb by The Shins tells the story of a couple who are sick and tired of the town they live in and so go travelling. The Video, however, shows children acting in a play about different times in history and legendary/ biblical stories. The play looks very professionally made and the children are very good actors which is very different to how children’s plays are stereotypically made. About halfway through the video the viewer becomes aware that this is no normal childrens play, they are acting out quite horrific, gory dark scenes such as burning of witches, battles, sacrificing of animals and invading countries. It shows historical events such as the path of the pilgrims and explorers killing natives with the common cold. Like the music, this video has the innocence and childishness provided by the children blended in with the dark, depressing edge delivered by the children’s actions. The message behind this video could be that human history (especially that of America) has been built on naivety and childish behaviour. This video has an interesting storyline, makes you think and is slightly disturbing, all these factors would please the fans I saw on facebook with artistic display pictures, the fans from older generations would like it because they would not be put off by youth culture. The Shins as a band are quite different to the mainstream and therefore they need to make quite challenging, different music videos to please those fans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoNtIkRm1HE

This Song is called Sleeping Lessons by The Shins. The story portrays a young female artist trying to paint a picture, becomes frustrated and then the majority of the video shows her painting a different painting on her wall. The video has clips of colours and shapes, the colour scheme being different shades of red and blue and the shapes being rectangles and circles, both show ways the artistic mind works and gives the sense that the video is like a painting itself. The actor in this video is a young girl (around the age of 21) painting this picture. The stereotypical female fans of The Shins would like to think they can relate to this girl, frustrated, beautiful and thoughtful. Again this video is quite alternative compared to today’s mainstream videos. While a lot of bands use music videos as a chance to get their personality, faces and characteristics recognised The Shins use videos to get the feel of their music recognised by making the tension and its uplifting sounds visual.

6. Notes:

What style?

- Animation?

- Stop frame?

- Black and White?

- use effects created in mac pro?

This video has to be something different, artistic, dark, yet childish, how to do this?

- film using children? (obvious copying of the video for Phantom Limb, so no)

- Youth? ( Young people could attract a section of the audience, so maybe)

Need something that all the fan base will like so no to youth culture

- Use of animals? Shows in innocence and childishness, however may be hard to direct and to get them to act.

- Animation? (this could be a good idea if with the right kind of storyline)

- Stop frame animation? (This could be done with a jilted rustic look which could give the dark edge to an otherwise childish storyline, also older generations would be brought up watching Wallace and Gromit so may enjoy it, it also opens up the options and possibilities of something artistic and different)

DECISION MADE: STOP FRAME ANIMATION

- Clay animation? (no; too mainstream and done too many times)

- Puppets (possibly. Not stereotypical wooden puppets though)

- Moving models? Moving pieces of art e.g. a moving model made out of rubbish (would fit the artistic side of the fan base, not rubbish though, some may find this disgusting)

- Empty packets e.g. crisps or mint/chocolate boxes? ( this gives the opportunity of a story line where the model makes itself as the beginning, could be very challenging but may have good results)

- Models need to look childish and have a childish storyline (based on Marvin, the robot from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? Seen as “adorable” and childish but has a dark adult side to him)

Marvin’s physical characteristics from newest film: big head, small body,

- Eyes convey emotion

- Make a model whilst filming in stop frame animation? (be challenging but have great results)

How can we make a model come to life?

Video for the song Warrior Dance By the Prodigy? How did they make it?

Making this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHeaRJoBos0

Puppetry needed in places?

Software: AnimatorDV? Frame By Frame? This type of software makes stop-frame animation a lot easier by showing the user the former picture so they can make the next shot based around it.

Software= Unusable due to hardware, only have a compact digital camera which does not connect with these types of animation software, the stop-frame animation needs to be done old fashionably with a tripod and estimation of how much the model needs to move.

Storyline: The song is a love song with tragic lyrics, this needs to be put across in a childish manner? Ideas

1.

-model makes itself

-falls in love with other model

-other model bursts into flames when falls in love?

This could work but there might be a health and safety problem with fire

2.

–Starts with the models happily together

- Models break up

- Models get back together?

Very basic and boring, need something more thoughtful and interesting

3.

- Starts with a few boxes (chocolate or mint packaging depending on colour scheme we decide on and how to make the model, they represent aspects of character and experience)

- they come together to make the model (we are created by experience)

- The model finds a heart (drawn on either a chocolate or mint packaging)

- tries to give it to materialistic objects in the room (TV, Money, cloths etc)

- nothing works, he gives up and drops the heart

- Next model comes in (could be created on stop frame animation)

- he gives his heart to her

- They fall in love

This could work, it has some metaphors that the fan base may enjoy and will have a childish filter to it as well as being slightly dark)

10.

Mis-en-scene

Location settings: The location of this project will be in my room at home. Here I have the right environment and background to suit the style of the video, the lighting can be controlled, the camera and people involved are in no harms way, the environment can be changed and it will be easy to re-shoot scenes that do not make the cut.

Props:

- A Television

- 25 Tic Tac boxes

- A set of draws

- A sofa

- A lindor box

- A wallet

- A carpet

- White Tac

- A pencil

- An ashtray

- A cigarette

Colour: The colour scheme is going to follow the same style as the movie it was made for (the colours decided before I saw the movie) these are warm orange and yellow. I shall use a white spotlight to guide the viewers attention and brown, greens, purples and white will be visible in the props although they will have very little impact on the overall colour scheme.

Plans for mint (Mint is the studio name for the Model made out of Tic Tac boxes, he is the main character) :

The plan is to make a human like model out of Tic Tac boxes, wire and White-Tac. I decided that his head should be larger than normal, so that he looks more innocent and suggests a childish character (like Marvin from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy), this character will be emphasised by his large eyes. Here is the plan to his head:

By making two wires lined with Tic Tac boxes and then merging them together I can make the shapes I want.

Test using paper:













Real:

















The body was made out of wires to attach the tic tac boxes together and white tac to make the joints move, there a pencil was broken in half and used to hold his neck and body together.

How I made the Lindor box into a person shall be seen in the final video.

Before trying to create a whole three minute video of stop-frame animation without any form of software to help the process (not including editing software) I thought it would be best to practice by creating a cartoon animation. This followed the same approach: draw or photograph a picture then draw or shoot another one with a tiny amount of difference so the eye can not catch the gap between the two pictures, by doing this over and over again you can create a story, here are the animations I made using the hand held gaming console, the DSI:

Moon thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nveWIsGKMrY&feature=player_profilepage

Luke’s inner child:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsLuadT5dV8&feature=player_profilepage

From making these videos I found out how long it really takes to make stop-frame animation/normal animations (about 3-4hours for each of these 30second long videos) plus here it was hard enough even when the software let me see where my last drawing was. I also found that my ideas were much more interesting and compelling when I did not have a plan, for this reason I am going to leave small gaps in the framework of my video. I then felt that it would be useful to make a short video to test my ideas and make sure they were possible. Here are the results of the tester: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzFRrJFkz7o it took me around 7mins to shoot this 2second clip, however, I am assuming that over time I will develop this technique and become both faster and more proficient.

Rejected footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vgRCWg0GMQ

The reason why I re-shot these scenes was because I did not feel like they flowed as well as I would have liked them to, this was frustrating because each of these scenes took over an hour each to produce. The problem I found was that the model’s head was too heavy to use in stop animation as it kept weighing down the rest of the model making it very difficult to move it step by step because it kept falling over no matter how much White Tac I used. To improve these clips I had to find a way to take the weight off the model’s head, I did this by attaching a piece of string to each side of my walls with pins high above the model, then I attached a piece of sewing thread to the model’s head and a circular piece of string that went around the string attached to the walls, by doing this I was able to support the weight of Mint’s head as well as to move him in a straight line smoothly. In some of the photographs you can see the piece of thread holding Mint up.

The editing of this video has taken two steps:

Step 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-QpjpaVFVY

Here is step one, the editing to the pictures have been done on Photoshop, I managed to make the same changes to all of them by recording an action and then applying them to a batch. I also deleted scenes, decided the order of footage and the amount of time each photograph was shown for (this was an average of 0.1 second).

Step 2:

This involved editing the filmed footage used on this video and lining the footage up to work in time with the music.

Pros and Cons of Step 1: Step one took a huge amount of time (8 hours) and almost crashed my computer many times, Photoshop was not built to edit that many photographs at once and is definitely not an idle tool to use when creating effects for a stop-motion video. Nevertheless it still worked rather well, the contrast, cropping and editing was all done in bulk and I could edit individual frames at the same time - if I had just turned them into a video and then edited them on Windows Movie Maker the results would have been much worse.

Pros and Cons of step 2: As I pointed out in step one, I could not edit individual photographs on Windows Movie Maker, nor could I edit the contrast or colouring, however, I was able to edit the length of my videos to fit the music and feel of the video.

Postal Service- Such Great Heights (single art work)

This is the cover art to a single released by Postal Service called From Such Great Heights, this song has lyrics such as “everything looks perfect from far away” and “I have to speculate that God himself
did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay
 And true, it may seem like a stretch, but 
it’s thoughts like this that catch my troubled
head when you're away when I am missing you to death” These lyrics draw a picture of a member of a family leaving home to go on shows where they desperately miss their loved ones, the album cover shows a child and a woman crying as a man walks away and another man in the background is getting along with his life happily. This can be seen as the man in the background looking in from “far away” and the child and the woman crying can be seen as a result of the father leaving. The American style of cartoon artwork reflects the culture and country they live in which, to a lot of musicians, is very important.

.

The Shins - Searlegs

The shins did a series of single covers with many similarities, the similarities involved a drawing of something in the bottom corners, in this case some flowers, in stark white or black that made them stand out from the rest of the art- work, the backgrounds were different colours with slightly different patterns and the writing was usually quite close to the top right hand corner of the page. The result of creating artwork like this was that it made the Shins albums instantly recognisable; effectively identifying them as a distinct brand. This was a benefit because anyone interested in the Shins would recognise a new product very quickly while people who did not know them would also recognize and perhaps be curious about the artwork and be drawn to the band.

Bright eyes- Shell Games

This is the cover of Bright Eyes’ last single; a majestic, beautiful sign off. The song is much more upbeat and energetic that the rest of their singles. The artwork captures this as the patterns and colours resemble fire and warmth. What I find interesting about this approach is its simplicity and minimal use of words, it is bold and clear but does not have any elements that make it easy to identify as a Bright Eyes album, the question is: why have they done this? a reason I cant think of is that Bright Eyes like to be seen as a cult band, their lyrics also portray their hatred of commercial products, materialism in general and the money-based systems the citizens of the western world live in, because of this they would like their music to only be bought by people who are loyal enough to them to find out what the album cover looks like before going out and buying the product. Ensuring themselves a dedicated fan base.

Iron and Wine - Walking far from home

Iron and wine have chosen to have an artistic image of a man standing in a lake with a burning house in the background and the land between occupied by peacocks. The colours used are pastel, they’re very bright and drawn on a black background creating a contrast between the two. The target audience to Iron and Wine are similar to the ones of the Shins, this means they would be looking for a visually attractive but dark cover with some form of meaning and message to it. The classy artistic element to this photograph reflects the slightly classical sound in Iron and Wine’s sound, the designer of this cover has tried to make a visual portrayal of how he thinks the sound would look like.

In studying these artworks and advertisements I recognised that the directors had all identified their audience and aimed the imagery to reflect both the style of the music and the probable tastes of the audience. I have tried to do this with the video and I think that I would use a still photograph from it, with some retouching to emphasise certain aspects, for the artwork and advertising so that it would arouse interest and make a consistent theme.

Add advert drafts here!!! with text

Digipaks

1. This is a very simple idea that portrays a few scenarios in the video. It has Tac clutching the heart while tic tac boxes are moving around in the background. The bands name is at the top of the page and the words New Slang are spread out over the page. The background is also very basic, three pictures on the right side with text on the left. The idea behind the simplicity of this cover and back is that it does not overwhelm the viewer, the viewer can quite quickly see that this an advertisement for the Shins and the cover is not what you would usually see on the front cover of a pop music dvd and therefore they would find it appealing. The inside is very simple as well, where the CD would be there is a picture of Mints head.

2. This DVD cover was designed around the blue prints that other Shins albums obey. The idea is that there is a silhouette of a related object in a corner that contrasts with the background while the words “The Shins” and the name of the product the Shins are releasing go in the empty spaces. I copied this idea by having Tac as a silhouette in the bottom left hand corner and the words The Shins and New Slang go in the empty spaces. The background follows on this trend and has the heart and Mint in the bottom and top right hand corners, this DVD case tells a little about what is inside but the more important aspect of it is that anyone who knows the Shins would find it very eye catching. The inside also carries on this trend with a silhouette of Mint next to the TV holder on the inside cover.

3. This picture is from one of my favourite scenes from the video, it is where mint is sitting down smoking a cigarette, reflecting many of the display pictures of Shins fans I saw on the internet. There is a bit of text saying “The Shin” and “New Slang” so people know what they are buying. Around the sides and empty spaces there will be slightly transparent pictures of scenes from the video. On the back there will be a couple of pictures which portrays scenes from the video as well as some text explaining what the video is about and a few reviews. Inside there shall be a picture of the heart in the shape of a question mark which can be seen a few times in the film.

4. This picture is a shot from the video where you can see the red tic tac box with a heart on it, the idea of this front cover is to intrigue the viewer, wonder why there is a heart on a tic tac box and get them to look at the back where it says why. The Shins will be written in the traditional Shins font to make it appealing and eye catching to Shins fans, the background would have a picture of mint down the bottom and writing at the top, the point of this is so the back looks neat, simple and informative. The front cover is going to have a picture of Tac where the DVD holder is.

,

Advert- This advert has been made for a small advertising space in a magazine. I wanted to make it eye catching, informative and persuading. I have tried to make it interesting by having quite random objects next to each other. If I saw this picture in a magazine I would be curious about what it meant and how the objects in it were connected. I would also be excited by the words “The Shins” written in the magazine in big letters, it is important that “The Shins” has a larger that usual font so that when a fan is flicking through a magazine this will catch their eye. The reviews along the side would also draw me in, even if they were not good reviews them being black on a white and light brown background would draw me in. When I posted this on facebook the feedback was mainly positive, many said that they thought it was a real advertisement and were asking if I had been sucked into an advertising scheme however when I explained to them what I was doing many gave me constructive feedback such as “make the “out NOW” bigger and change the font, however they did explain that they were just picking on small aspects, they complimented the placement of the reviews and the picture in the background as well as having the shins in their trademark symbol.

These Adverts all came from Q magazine, although they are all adverts for tours the bands and song writers are embarking on the same target audience and techniques to capture the target audiences are going to be used.

This is an advert for the band Noah And The whale. I instantly notice that the writing is black while the background is white, highlighting the contrast between the two which makes the writing stand out more and become more eye catching. The photograph itself is an artistic old fashioned photograph of the band looking deep and thoughtful, the photograph film is the same colour film that they used in the the 1960s, this is the time where great legendary bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were introduced so the film type has been used to reflect on these legendary bands and imply that this band is also this great. There are tabs of red on the poster which your eye is very quickly drawn to, the writing is also referring to how great the band is.

This advertisement is much more basic and less eye catching apart from the giant Funeral Party sign. A lot of this advertisement is devoted to the name of the band, this is because when a fan of this band is looking through the magazine the band want to do everything in their power to grab the fans attention and to let him know about the bands activity. I really like this style, its simple and eye catching and does not overwhelm the viewer.

Like the rest of the band advertisements, this one has used big letters for the name of the band and contrasting colours laid on top of each other to catch the readers attention, the picture in the background is the logo of the band so if the fan does not get drawn to the giant “Villagers” letters they will get drawn to the logo. This can be very useful tip when creating my advertisement, if I make a picture from my video big as well as having big lettering for the Shins then at least one of them will be eye catching and draw in a viewer. The picture also has to be interesting to draw in the members of the public who are not already fans, like this one.