EVALUATION - Q1:




One key convention in the indie genre is the use of performance shots which show off the artists instrument. We felt that the use of showing our artist playing an instrument shows the audience how talented they are. This is used throughout the indie genre, as shown here in the video "R U Mine - by The Arctic Monkeys. This is why in our video we include performance shots.

We feel that using live performance we are able to make the audience feel what it would be like if they could have seen this artist live. This would hopefully lead to the fans wanting to see the artists live more. We felt it was necessary to stick to this convention as indie artists main goal is to appear unique and talented, this is best shown if the artist can show that they can play an instrument.
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Another key convention that we followed from the indie genre is the use of rebellious actions, This is important to the indie genre as it makes the artist look "cool" and "careless". This is seen in Arctic Monkey's "R U Mine" also when they have fireworks / explosions going off behind them during a performance. I feel that this also achieves similar effect, as seen to the right, it makes the drummer look dangerous and highlights him with the contrast of white/black.
The use of the white and black makes the drummer also look somewhat like a silhouette, which could reflect mystery, which links back to danger (the unknown).

In our video we used the idea of smashing a guitar, this makes our artist look rebelious and seem to separate himself from society by breaking the rules and doesn't really care about it.
We stuck to this convention as it seemed very important for our artist to look like he is worry free.



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One convention which we developed was the weird part of indie.  By this we mean that we wanted to go outside of the normal music video scene and try something new. This is often done in lots of different ways, all of which intend to make the video more unique and memorable. An example of where this "weird"/"arty" twist on a music video would be in Gotye's "Somebody that i used to know". In the video, the background which Gotye is standing in front of is slowly painted on to create lots of interconnecting triangles, and overtime as the painting is finished, Gotye is drawn on also to become a part of the background. I feel that the use of a strange arty/ weird twist on this video was extremely powerful and can lead the viewer to question the use of the unusual twist and find their own meaning behind it. We decided to go very artsy and unique by creating an effect which makes our main character look like he's watching videos of his life back on a tv in front of him. To develop this weird concept we will be breaking the fourth wall.

This will some what confuse the audience, which in order to make it more obvious we added in pause and play buttons. The use of breaking the fourth wall in an indie video is to make the audience understand that our artist is a real person, rather than just an actor for the music video. This is shown through giving him control of the video that they are watching.
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Another convention which we decided to develop was obvious editing. Editing which was put in for a purpose rather than just to make a video look nice. This is perfectly highlighted in Emma Louise's "Underflow". As seen on the left, a girl is covered in a white concrete like substance, seeming to be trapped inside and unable to move her body freely This use of cgi and editing is used to show off the main theme of the video which is "Exploring an impending emptiness contrasted with the notion of inner hope, a girl breaks through her doubts and finds solace in the surroundings of a surreal world." I feel that the use of editing really highlights the metaphor as the woman is seen trying to break through the rock to become free again, quite like the girl breaking through her doubts. Although our video didnt quite match this in terms of completely altering a video to make an intirely new image such as the one shown in this song, we do however show off how much effect just simply changing the contrast and colours of the video can have on a scene.
The use of black and white in our video was to highlight when the artist was watching back parts of his relationship. The use of adding a slightly grainy and unrealistic filter makes the video more obviously a flashback of the artists past. However using the TV idea we were able to take the generalisation of a flashback and make it even more personal to the viewers as they know that the artist is watching these moments back in front of his very own eyes.


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One convention which we didnt follow was having the artist perform live in front of an audience. This is seen in lots of indie videos, especially those that fall into the "Indie Rock" genre. Live performance is a big part of the indie genre as it shows the audience and the artist's fans how talented they are, and also gives them a slight teaser as to what a live show would be like, possibly generating more hype for real live performances from the artist. This is seen in The Killers "Mr Brightside" where The Killers are seen on stage performing at what looks to be an exclusive club for wealthy people, which is an environment which their style of music wouldn't often be suited to. The live performance is part of an alternative timeline as the singer is seen doing other things during the video, which is often very common in indie videos.
Although this is often proven effective, We didn't stick with this as we wanted to focus our video around the story more than the artists career. This is often the opposite in the indie genre as they often attempt to come across as unique artists who really love making music. the use of a prolonged story that has multiple parts to it shows the audience that this artist is more artsy than musica, which is something we've always tried to portray him as.
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Another convention which we didnt follow was that our video is very focused on an individual person and his individual plot, rather than the video being completely random and silly. A great example of a silly/ random video is the music video for The Arctic Monkeys "Fluorescent Adolescent" Which shows two groups, the Clowns and the adults in suits. Who are just straight out beating eachother senseless, to the point of even killing eachother. Although this seems to be completely random and unnecessary, the video somewhat links to the songs meaning of midlife crisis. The clowns represent an adults inner child fighting to be free again, compared to the adult who has to suppress this urge to be childish again.
 Although we could have also gone with a theme of a weird and unusual video having an alternative meaning, we decided our best bet to suit our artists theme would be to make the video more straight to the point, quite like our artist is portrayed. We felt this shows off the deep and emotional connection that the artist has with these lyrics. Although some of the video doesnt directly correlate to the song, we still did our best to make the video as suited to the lyrics as we could without giving it all away, we felt its best to leave a little suspicion of the songs true meaning to the audience, which also means our artists mysterious and hidden personality.


EVALUATION - Q2 :








EVALUATION - Q3 :
Here links to my powerpoint for question 3: 


QUESTION 4


The most common thing to arise from the audience feedback we received was that the idea of breaking the fourth wall was mostly accepted and enjoyed by most audience members, we originally decided on having three separate breaks in the music video but the early feedback indicated that it would be too long and the comedy factor would have been very worn by the third attempt and as such we decided to cut out the third break in the song. This not only added some symmetry to the music video but it also keeps the comedic value.
The use of shift focus within the music video is something that our audience received very well, this was something that we originally used unwittingly as we wanted to try to conform to the genre as much as possible so we tried to have very alternative shots and angles, in doing this we ended up using shift focus which on the first viewing by our audience they all replied saying how it made it very different and made it seem 'indie'. However some people thought that the constant blurriness took away from the video itself.
Most of our original footage was shot looking directly at the main characters, we also had a few shots that included footage shot from behind the characters and due to some audience feedback, the majority of the audience felt that it felt more sincere and that it fit the plot line of the artist watching his relationship back if the majority of footage was taken from behind the characters as if it was a camera crew following them around. In our final viewing we asked the audience what was happening in the video and 86% of the audience said that it was an artist watching a relationship back.

Here is the link to our final Video product:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2xuvwT0nRU

Below, is the full digipack for our project, shown from front to back , and then the advert shown separately. 

We decided to change one of our images to be used as a fold out signed exclusive poster, that would come with the special edition album, tucked into the back behind the CD booklet. We chose the image with the signature already superimposed, as we felt this image's size and look best suited for use as a poster.
Shown below , is the image, shown with grey fold lines to show how the poster would be folded up, and to demonstrate the use of the image for this.

1: Talk about how the shots in the bedroom with vibrant colours link to the overall aesthetic of our brand and the "neon" element used in all of our branding. we wanted to do this to create a "brand" identity like a band like bastille. Using special characters and adapted fonts to create a recogniseable brand out of our artist. for example the use of the palm tree added into the font, and the consistant use of the neon glow effect in both our final video and our ancillary material/products.

We wanted to give the audience exclusivity, based on our genre research; that found indie fans love being part of an exclusive fanbase, and in turn, having exclusivity with their views and what they think is the meaning of the lyrics. We have explored this by making the character watch the relationship unfold through the fourth wall acting as a tv screen, which may contrast the lyrics expected meaning by the listener, as they would just expect other scenes of the relationship, or shots of the character thinking back on it, as appose to viewing it like a movie. This gives us exclusivity as the listener can draw some added meaning to the lyrics, only through watching the video itself. As well as coming up with further theories as to why the video is set how it is, why is the character looking back onto the relationship?, why is the girls face never shown?, leaving confusion and the rest up to the audience brings the indie genre feel much more into our video; and we feel it fits the conventions of the genre whilst also exploring and challenging some.

We decided to use black bars over our footage, this was to make the aspect ratio of the video more cinematic "widescreen" style. The reasoning behind this, is tied into the research we did on our chosen genre; linking back to how bastille uses a very cinematic style for their videos and plots,  something tied into their fanbases culture. Cult classic films are referenced and this is not uncommon with indie bands, as many of their fans, are often parts of many indie type fanbases that thrive off of unique interests with exclusivity. We wanted to use this to our own effect, as we said before how we want to appeal to our indie genre by creating exclusivity within our project, making the video and digipack almost an extras experience to the song itself. With the video being cinematic style, it adds to our exclusivity, and of the video being a extra story/ narrative to what the song may tell in the audiences head when they listen to it. Giving extra, or contrasted meaning to the lyrics.

Due to the fact that the camera we were using was a high grade dslr, we were able to use it to also take high res pictures and stills of our artist in the filming locations to use for the digi pack. For example while filming at the skate park, we were able to capture some good images of our artist laying on the half pipe, and sitting up on it with the guitar. Also due to the high resolution and quality we managed to use some of the actual footage we took as photos for the digi pack , like the photo of the broken guitar. We used a handheld technique and manual focusing so that we could control what items were in and out of focus, and manipulate this while filming the shot slowly and subtly  to mimic a smooth blur effect we would have had to add in in post and save time .

After we had the change in the narrative, we then had no need for all the costumes mentioned in previous posts. We kept the girls costume the same, with a black jacket, jeans , t-shirt, and trainers.
For the artist, we gave him a black leather/ wool varsity bomber, on top of a black jumper with white detailing, and black jeans. We chose these dark colours as the artists clothing contrasts the neon theme of the artist identity, and you can see this effect shown in the dici-pack images.
Also we liked the fact that using these dark costumes meant the clothes did not get effected by the filters we planned to apply in post, and worked very well with the B+W effects.

After we showed the first clip we had filmed of our artist in the bedroom breaking the fourth wall to a selected group of peers, we had feedback that instead of our idea of having the artist in many different locations, we feature more of him in the bedroom, and as if he is watching back the relationship. They felt that our original idea was "unconnected to the relationship theme" and that "it makes more sense to reflect on that more" .

We had issues also with filming the initial idea, as getting the camera in exactly the same position and framing every time was near to impossible. So we decided to take on board our audiences feedback and come up with a way to blend in the performance shots, with some way of creating the illusion of the bedroom scenes looking back onto the relationship scenes.

Eventually we decided to use the fourth wall, that the artist was looking at, as a screen, where he would be watching back scenes of the relationship. We wanted to play with the comedy aspect and idea explored in the breaking the fourth wall at the start, to do this we decided to quite literally want to use the fourth wall as a television/dvd player, which he would use a remote to control the playback of the relationship and also the music.
We had a unique idea, we liked the idea seen in some other music videos, where the music stops halfway through, and you get some cinematic/dramatic moments with the actors talking. This breaks up the video, and helps give it an extra appeal to fans as it means when you watch the video you are not just listening to the song, you're getting an extra cinematic experience out of it, exclusive to the music video. It also almost creates a new version of the song, with fades and sound effects; that again adds to the exclusivity. So we decided to use the idea of the artist using the remote to pause the song and footage playback at the same time, when he then stops watching to go to the toilet, where you hear him flush the toilet. Or a scene where he goes and you hear a microwave ding, before he returns with popcorn.

We want the artist to be seen as playing around in the bedroom scenes and coming across as a quirky character, to accomplish this, we would have him throwing popcorn at the camera (screen ) during the argument scenes, or looking on his phone during some of the others. Other ideas we had were him laying back down on the bed seeming bored at the start, however as he continues to watch the video , he smiles at some of the happier scenes, and then as the footage gets more serious and the couple are arguing he also at the end should look solemn and deep in thought as he turns off the screen and leaves the room, to mimic the title of the song, and suggest he is "thinking 'bout" her.

For our editing, we have used a range of different techniques, one that i will focus on with this post, is using speed of the clips and filters to enhance the footage.

For our video, we wanted the colours to "pop" more, as our artists name "neon Island" ties in with the theme of having bright contrasts and colours. To achieve this , we have used filters on the contrast and brightness of our footage that will be taken as "present day" or performance shots. This is also to blur the line between what is real and what the artist is watching on his screen. With the vivid colours possibly hinting at a dream state for the performance and lip-sync shots, as well as the shots of him breaking the guitar.

We have used Bright Vibrant LED lighting in the background of the bedroom scenes, which ties in to the "neon island" theme again , and creates a subtle reference to the artists identity and branding,
we also plan on having the artist change the LED lighting from RED to the neon island logo blue, again referencing the identity and the fact that he is playing himself in the video watching back the relationship.

Lipsync Shots:
Some lip-synch shot in bedroom as artist clicks at camera and sits down. MID SHOT (TRIPOD)
More lip-synch shot in bedroom with different colour. MID SHOT (TRIPOD)
Lip-synch Shots to film in bishops stortford: Skate park (half-pipe) , playground: roundabout(guitar solo)(TRIPOD):  some MID, some CLOSE UP, some LONG

Shots of Character and Girlfriend:(B+W FILTER)(all HANDHELD shots to SHIFT FOCUS)
EXTREME CLOSE UP: holding hands at table (HANDHELD)
walking in field, (HANDHELD) CLOSE - ZOOM OUT TO MID
over the shoulder shot at table : artist smiling (CLOSE) (HANDHELD)
tracking shot of couple walking along path from behind (HANDHELD) (MID/LONG)
shot of couple sitting on a bench, low angle, (MID)(TRIPOD)
MID two shot of them arguing (girls face not visible) HANDHELD,
Over the shoulder HANDHELD of artist walking towards the camera , and girl walking away in the opposite direction over his shoulder.

Other:
MID/LONG shot of Artist laying on wall, Shift focus.
MID shot of artist smashing guitar
high angle LONG shot of artist walking along half pipe with guitar dragging along.

After we planned i our initial narrative and filmed some of our initial scenes and some filler shots. We decided to alter the narrative of our video.

After filming the intro shots of our the artist breaking the fourth wall in the bedroom, we decided that this shot was perfect to use for the idea of him looking back onto the relationship with the girl in the video. We also want to add cut off sections of the video, where he uses a remote to stop the music, and then he will exit the shot and go to the toilet, and another time come back with popcorn, which he will play about with and throw at the camera (fourth wall acting as where the screen would be) we liked this idea as we want the artist to come across fun loving and light hearted.  also it gives the video an extra to just being the song, cutting the music and having extras makes the video an added experience, and more exclusivity.

we will througout the video cut between lip-sync shots, bedroom shots of him watching the relationship back, and the flashback shots of the relationship that progressively shows arguing and them falling out.

We want at the end, to have a false ending of them walking away from each other with the camera looking over the artists shoulder at her walking away. Which then transitions to the artist using a remote to cut the video off and then leave the room , leaving the popcorn lying everywhere.

For this image, contrasting the previous one we have used the album name instead of the artist logo, this is because we want the images in the digipack to both represent the artist as a whole as well as be exclusive to the album .  For this image we again took a picture behind the scenes of the music video and staged it to look as if the image was taken with the artist "acting natural".

we go our artists signature and placed in in the bottom in inverted colours, this again provides a personal and exclusive element to the digipack , and allows for the audience to feel like they have a connection with the artist with him signing the digipack. We would intend for the artist to actually sign the image with white pen for a few extra limited edition albums. This would make even more exclusivity for the customers who would presumably be superfans of the artist.

For our digi pack images, we wanted to give the audience and fans a more personal connection with the artist. With indie artists, the convention is to not show the artists face on the album cover, and they are normally not very revealing about the artists history and values upfront, however the artist normally do personal interviews etc for fans who want more.

For our project we also had to create an advert to advertise the album and artist, for this, we wanted to use footage from the music video to create promotion for the video also as it would be for the main single on the album.

To start, we chose a picture snapshot from the footage we shot for the video, of the artists guitar laying broken on the floor. However This shot may not make it into the actual video and this is why we decided to use it. Going against the initial idea of using footage from the video , this image would be still in the context of the video, as it relates to the events that unfold during the video; however the fact that it might not make the final cut creates even more appeal; due to the fact that it hints on the events of the video and is almost an exclusive image, not used anywhere else. This makes the advert more interesting as the fans will want to watch the video to understand the meaning behind the image.

Next, we added in the band logo in the top to advertise the artist.

and then added in a screenshot of the album cover and the date of the release, keeping the neon colours and glow effects added in. As well as adding some large white text advertising that is is the artists debut album.
 
after this we added in some smoke to compliment the glows, and also put the album name layered under the guitar.

Finally adding further neon glows, to the album name, to finish off the advert.

After we had finished choosing the font we proceeded to add a background to the previously created band logo on a square canvas. We wanted to keep the logo quite large as we are marketing the album as the artists debut full album and would want to promote the artist and their identity.

To start designing the album cover we first had to come up with a name for the album , we wanted to choose something that fir the almost retro indie theme of using neon lights. We eventually decided on "2D reality". To decide what font to use, we started brainstorming and figured out we wanted to match the retro theme of the neon , by using a almost 8-bit text reminiscent of old video games and arcades , which ties into the "neon" idea, as arcades used lots of bright neon signs etc.

After researching various fonts we eventually decided upon "super smash tv"
included below is a snapshot of a mockup using this font from one of our digipack elements.
 this shows what the album title will look like using the same neon glow and colour as the band logo.

After We created the initial logo, with the added palm tree design. We decided we needed to add some "neon" glow effects to the design. We did this by using brush effects around the text, on a layer behind. We then changed the layer style to soft light or overlay so the effect would be a glow instead of brush strokes




After that, we also added a stroke behind the text to act like the wire to power the lights.



once this had been done, we saved this logo to be Used on the cover we would be designing soon.

With our album cover, we wanted to conform to the genre conventions , that the artist does not show their face on the cover. We decided instead to save this for us in our digipack as this would make this special edition more personal and provide a connection between hardcore fans and the artist.