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
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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 product
s, 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
- 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.
- 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.
- This picture is from one of my favourite scenes from the video, it is where mint is sitti
ng 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 contrasti
ng 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.
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