Our final completed advert, CD cover and inserts

Finished pictures after being photo shopped.

This is the CD advert we created, using a picture of the band as the main focus therefore making it clear who the band is that we are promoting. Throughout all our print work, we have a cohesive colour scheme, the two main colours being black and green/grey. We used the paintbrush tool to create the 'paint splat' effect in the corner of the advert. We used this effect to make a link with the name 'Splutter' as it gives the impression of 'spluttering' and therefore having 'splats' across the page.

This is the front cover and the back of our CD album. We used the picture of the guitar and amp, as key iconography for our music genre. We used a photo of the band on the back cover to remind the buyer that the band are the creators of the songs on the CD. The name we have chosen for the album is 'White and nerdy' which is a postmodern reference to the song of the same name by Weird Al Yankovic, well known for his songs that promote humour and comedy, much of which has influenced our video and print work, so this is a key reference to make. It is also very relevant to our project as a whole, because our main character is white, and we've portrayed him 'nerdy'. We used the paintbrush tool to create the splat effect, and made the brush much larger to create the effect along the bottom of our front cover.


This is a picture of one of the double paged inserts we made. It depicts the band playing, making direct links to the music genre once again, for example playing in a basement/cellar, with dark lighting.

We put the name of the band in the top right corner, so it can easily be found, we also put some information in the bottom left corner, such as the fact that they are an unsigned band and that they record all their own songs. This makes the band seem more genuine, and the audience would be more likely to relate to them as people. One of the effects we used when making this insert was the smoke paintbrush tool, which gave the picture on the right a mysterious and powerful effect. We also made one of the pictures black and white, whereas the other is in colour, this could show two different sides of the band, the dream and the reality, which is cohesive with our second insert.

Our second insert is cohesive with our first insert, following the idea of contrasting fantasy with reality. On the left hand side of the insert we see our main character sitting in his room playing on his laptop, this would be how he is generally perceived. However on the right hand side we have depicted him as being right into the action, how he sees himself in his own 'fantasy gaming world'. The effects we used on this insert were the paint brush using the colour white to 'fade' the picture of our 'nerd' into the animation picture of 'call of duty' and I set a photo from the Internet as the background as a basis for our insert. The right hand side of our insert also has darker connotations, which we have managed to portray through the lighting we used, connotations of violence and being trapped. This makes our CD seem edgy and extreme.

Our photos before being photoshopped

These are the photos we took as ideas for what we could use when we visit CLC and use photo shop to create our CD cover and back, 4 inserts and our advert.

We took this picture as it portrays 2 key elements of the music genre we have focused on. Two main objects that are linked directly to the punk/rock genre, they are two of the defining factors of the genre we have chosen. This is why one of our photo ideas was to portray this, so that the consumer would make the direct link with this music genre and therefore know what exactly they are buying.

We also took a photo of just the guitar, without the amp, in case we decided to just use one, and use the space on the side to put something else in, for example a photo of the band or another link to our video, such as the myspace logo.

This photo shows our main character, the 'nerd' playing on his laptop in his bedroom. If we used this picture, it would link directly to our music video, as he is the character from it. It is also a very realistic picture, and I'm sure a lot of people, especially those within our target audience would be able to identify with it and what is being portrayed.

This picture shows our main character looking at Splutter's, (our band) Myspace page, through an over the shoulder shot. By using this photo, we would be connecting the main character from our music video, the band itself and the song our music video has focused on, by showing Myspace, as this is a postmodern reference within our music video and the song lyrics.

This photo shows Splutter, on YouTube. This would make it clear who our target audience is, because the reference to YouTube is not very widely known. Showing this picture of the band also gives an indication of what music genre they are in, showing them playing in a dark basement, and the amp and guitars can also be seen, this makes direct references to the punk/rock genre, and finally the use of this picture would prove to our audience that they are just regular people, not a rich, Hollywood band, as they are playing in a basement, rather than on some extravagant stage. This would mean that our audience could relate to them and would have a lot of respect for them as they worked hard to get themselves first noticed i.e. by broadcasting themselves on YouTube.

Timeline/history of music videos

Although dating back much further, music videos first became prominent in the 1980's when they first came into use by MTV. Before then, music videos were referred to as an 'illustrated song', 'filmed insert', 'promotional (promo) film', 'promotional clip' or 'film clip'.

Development of the music video:-

- In 1930's animation artists first made series' of sing-along cartoon shorts, inviting audience's to sing-along, 'following the bouncing ball' some of the most popular were Walt Disney's 'Silly Symphonies' and Fantasia, as well as the Warner Brother's 'Merry Melodies'

- Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Many other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this time. In the 1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film 'Lookout Sister'. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of the music video

- Musical films were another important precursor to music video, and several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl" which was closely modelled on "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of Michael Jackson's videos show the influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and "Bad" which was influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story.

- 1967 - 1973 Promotional clips grow in importance, many of these 'filmed inserts' were used when the band themselves were unable to perform live. Examples of some of the first groups to make such 'promotional clips' were Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. The Kinks were the first band to make a 'plot' promo clip for their single "Dead End Street" (1966) a miniature comic movie was made. The Who also featured in many promotional clips.

- 1974-1980 Mulcahy, originally from Australia relocated to the UK and became a full time music video director, one of his biggest landmarks being The Buggles 'Video killed the radio star' as it was the first video to be shown on MTV in the 1980's

- The long running British TV show Top of the pops began showing music videos in the 1970's, although the BBC gave strict limits on what videos could be shown

- Illustrated song: In 1984 George Thomas was hired to promote the song 'The Little Lost Child'. He projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the 'illustrated song', the first step toward a music video

- 1981-1991 music videos go mainstream. Many artists gained success through their portrayal in their music videos including Madonna and Duran Duran. During this time, music videos began to change, from simply promoting the artist to telling a story or narrative, sometimes with the artist themselves not even being present in the video. Some of these earliest videos include, Queen's Under Pressure and George Michael's Freedom 90 where he refused to appear in his video

- 1983 the most successful and influential music video was released. Michael Jackson's Thriller at nearly 14 minutes long.
Another important stage in the development of music videos was The Chart Show, introduced on Channel 4 in 1986 which consisted entirely of music videos with no presenters, instead the videos were connected through computer graphics.
In 1986 the first music video making use of special effects and animation techniques by Aarman animation was Peter Gabriel's sledgehammer, which would go on to receive 9 MTV video music awards

In 2005 was the launch of YouTube, making music videos much more Internet friendly, and making videos much more accessible and easier to view. Many artists became well known and evidently reached fame through music videos which had been viewed almost entirely online, a main example being Soulja Boy and the band OK GO receiving 15 million views for their song 'this too shall pass' on YouTube alone.

CD cover analysis

CD cover analysis

Band - Sum 41
Album - Does this look infected?


Camera Work

- The angle is slightly lower than an eye level shot, but the character's face is not looking directly at the camera, instead he is looking off diagonally as if the character is talking to someone else not being viewed.

- The shot is a close up of the man's face, making the image appear even more frightening and disturbing, as if the person is right there in front of your eyes.


Editing

- This CD cover uses a combination of photography and animation, the man shown in the centre of the image is a photograph, having been photo shopped to portray the blood and gore more clearly, however there is a cartoon image of a woman in the bottom left corner, showing a particularly shocked face, this makes the image seems slightly more comic, as opposed to grim and frightening.


Mise en scene

- The background colour of the image is bright green, this has links to cartoon animation and also adds to the humorous effect the image may present, as it is not a natural colour, so this could relate to the picture not being a natural image.

- Other bright colours that are used to increase this particular cover's link to for example comic strips/pop art, is the yellow of the woman at the bottom of the picture which strongly resembles that of pop art, as well as the bold blue in which the name of the band is written.

- The facial expression of the man in the main image seems to be of a slight smirk, that he is amused, which gives an air of uncertainty, as to who he is looking at and what is wrong with him.

- The make up is used to make the blood and gore on his face extremely obvious, so that it is clear that this is the main image, and the title of the album links directly to the image itself.


This CD cover, slightly influenced our own cover because we also used bright colours and had a close up of our band as the main image. The photo of our band is slightly jokey, making them seem more fun, which links to this image slightly as it is also supposed to be funny in a way.
However this picture uses an actor as their main image, as does our music video and two of our inserts, as opposed to the band, making this CD cover again similar to our project.

Editing :)

These are some of the techniques we used whilst editing our project using imovie.

To begin with we uploaded all of the footage we had filmed, from our camera onto the mac. After this we cut and deleted our footage, depending on what was usable and what wasn't. We superimposed our song onto the timeline on imovie, so that the song would play alongside our footage. This way we were able to edit our footage and to sync the action with the song.
The layout of our music video would switch from , narrative to non-narrative action, which meant that we had to cut our clips and use jump shots and other transitions to move between the two forms of action.
We also changed the contrast on each of our clips, so that the lighting would appear the same in each clip, giving our overall video a more professional look.
We also used particular tools on imovie to create different effects, for example speeding up one of our clips.
We have many different shots which we filmed to match the lyrics of our song, by including as many of these clips as we can, our video has become fast paced, which gives it a high energy, which is stereotypical to our chosen music genre.

More postmodernism

As we have been filming and editing, we have found more ways to make our video postmodern and other references that we have been able to put in. Here are the other postmodern elements (aside from the ones I have already mentioned in previous posts)

When we filmed the band, one of the members was wearing a Pour Habit t-shirt, we decided to keep this in our video as it shows influence's, Splutter (our chosen band) have had, and what band's they have gained inspiration from.

A different postmodern element we've included in our music video is a reference to Kick Ass the film, where the teenager is seen throwing tissues into the bin, an act that we have tried to mirror in our music video. We did this because Kick Ass is a very well-known and popular film for people within our target audience, so the reference should be easily recognised.

Another postmodern reference we have included is Red Bull the energy drink, our main character drinks this whilst running and suddenly speeds up rapidly. This is also a reference to Popeye the cartoon sailor on whom spinach the vegetable had the same effect.

A final postmodern element we have managed to put into our music video is from the film Rocky, where the main character has a particularly well known action, which is the same one that our main character does in our video.

Filming all up to date

Since I wrote about the last time we filmed, we have done some more filming since then. After filming the band, we filmed the stereotypical 'nerd' for our music video. We filmed him being 'maced' to match our song lyrics, we also filmed him eating on his own, to indicate how lonesome the teenager is.
A week after, our group met up to film the 'nerd' playing on a computer game similar to 'call of duty' which is also referenced in our song lyrics, we also filmed the 'nerd' running in his PE kit, to fit in with the line from our lyrics 'how dare you call me unsporty'.
Finally, our last piece of filming was completed when we filmed the nerd in his bedroom, making a clear comparison with what he is like when out and about, and what he is like when he is at home.

Now our filming has all been completely finished, we have moved onto the editing stages, putting our different pieces of footage, and clips together with the music to create our video, as well as using different effects and techniques on imovie to improve it as much as we can along the way.