Digipak - CD cover research

Along with the music video we also have to produce the digipak for the band, the pack will consist of four pictures. One on the front and back and two in the inside of the cover, therefore it is vitally important that we take a large amount of photos for each of the four pictures, we will obviously have to base the photos around the band and also around the concept and the imagery in our music video. For example the rose, that is used frequently in the video.

We will be taking the pictures when we film, for obvious reasons this will be the best time to take the pictures for many reasons. We are all going to be together, Claire and myself will be in the necessary clothing and in the characters we play. We can use Charlotte's white wall to take the majority of pictures, we can then just edit the pictures in Photoshop, I would really like the majority of our pictures in black and white, seeing as the song is called The Funeral. But then i think we would like Claire to be holding a rose in her hand or pinned into her top, then just make the rose really red and vibrant. We could also take pictures of gravestones with Claire behind it, then possibly blur Claire behind the gravestone to make her look like a ghost. We could take pictures of the suicide note and also the pills that she kills her self with. Our video is mainly based around the issue of cyber bullying. Bullying on the internet, using text messages and also Facebook. So an idea we had for one of the pictures is to write horrible and abusive messages on our characters Facebook page, to emphasize the whole cyber bullying issue, which in my opinion is the video's main theme!

I personally don't think that each page of the video should use the image of Claire or myself, I think the front page and one of the inside pages should, but I think some interesting graphic effects on Photoshop could make the back page look really modern, yet still keep the indie/rock effect that we are hoping for within the video. The song is called The Funeral, so I think a black and white graveyard with a dull cloudy sky could work really well with the theme of our video.

I think the three CD covers that I have chosen types of front covers that we should be considering, when it comes to taking our pictures. For example cover above (Bombay Bicycle Club) have just gone with something they like, quite an extraordinary picture that fits their style and their feelings on their album.

This one is The XX's album cover, clearly they have gone with simplicity and boldness, I do actually like the cover, it's clear, precise and the single X on it's own look's very sophisticated, however i don't think we could use this type of layout for cover, I don't think it would fit with the style we are trying to achieve with ours, I don't think any of the group would have the boldness and courage to just lay down a single letter for our cover.

The last album cover I have chosen is Lil Wayne's Dedication III. The reason why I have chosen this cover is because I love the effects used in and around the artist, it looks like he owns the city behind him, with the way he's standing in front of it. The way his name and the city is lit, with the three dominant colours red, white and yellow I also really like, and something that my self and the group can pull of in Photoshop!

Props

Our video consists of a small amount of props but they are actually very effective in the roles they play in the video, one of the main props that we use is the pills, that the girl in the end kills her self with. We purchased the pills at a local supermarket near where we filmed.

We used a rose a lot through out filming the video, for when the girl was laying dead clutching the rose on her chest and eventually draping it towards the ground, we also used the rose on top of the grave where her funeral was taking place, we filmed a three piece shot sequence with the girl holding the rose calmly, picking the petals of the rose slowly and then really taring apart the rose, quite violently actually. Also when the girl was walking towards and away from the camera, showing her isolation, the rose was just draped by her side.

Actors clothing

For the girl:

Outfit 1 - All black (top, skirt, tights) this is the costume we will be using for when the girl is depressed, isolated and lonely, for when she is arguing with her boyfriend and possibly when she is lying dead. (See below)

Outfit 2 - A long white dress, this will be used for the more happier scenes spent with the boyfriend and also when she is running through the forest alone after breaking up with her boyfriend. (See below)

For the boy:

The boy doesn't have a major part in the video, so casual everyday clothes i think will be fine, for example jeans and a jumper. However when we do film the last part of the video, the girls funeral, I think the boy needs to be wearing all black, possibly with a rose in his button hole.

Time management

To keep organized and to just be in general connection with one another , we put together this chart, so we all knew when we were free and available to film. As you can see above this when we filmed our video.

Locations

We chose Charlotte's house to do most of the filming for the video, it's spacious it has good light, and her garden is a perfect location for Claire's isolation to sit on her own and reflect on her past. We filmed in her garden for when me and Claire were together and having fun, and also when Claire was filmed showing how lonely and upset she was, after I left her. We also used her kitchen for the drug scenes, the shots of the roses, close up's of how depressed Claire was and also when she was lying down on the sheet clutching the rose, dead. When filming the cyber bullying, so the Facebook messages and the texts sent to her, we also did that in her house, simply because we had some time and it was an easy shot to do.

At around 4 - 4.30, it starts to get very dark and filming outside looks very unprofessional and is really just a waste of our time. So when filming during the day we made sure we did all of our filming outside, when there was plenty of light. Another problem we faced was the snow, Claire lives in Orpington so it was impossible for her to get over to Wilmington and Charlotte and Alysha couldn't drive out to pick us up, because of the amount of snow, so it as been hard filming in and around the snow, ice and slush on the ground. So we were faced with a little bit of a dilemma either wait for it to melt, or just film outside in the snow, but if some parts our snowy and some aren't the video won't feel very smooth and it will just look quite strange, jumping from a snowy field, to a clear grassy forest. We decided to just get on with it, most of our filming outside was done in Charlotte's garden because it was big enough for what we wanted to achieve in the video, and the snow in her garden was untouched so it looked fine. Funnily enough the snow was actually very effective, during the happy scenes with me and Claire it worked well to our advantage because we could have fun in it, but also when she was sitting alone it looked really good, because it looked like there was just nobody around her, no life almost.

This is Charlotte's house, where did the majority of our filming, for example we used her living room for the happy scenes with the boyfriend, her garden for the arguments and the girl running away, her bedroom for filming the Facebook scenes and the abusive text messages and her kitchen for small parts like filming the girl laying dead. On the right is me filming and lining up a possible shot.

Actors

The deadline for all of our filming to be done for the video was approaching me and the group very quickly, we had a short-list of actors we wanted to be in the video, but it was hard fitting there timetable around ours and also fitting their work hours for when we were free to shoot the video.

So myself and the group decided it was best if we were to do the acting in the video, we only really needed two people, and four or five extras to be in the background and at the funeral scene. So me and Claire decided to be in the video, her as the depressed and suicidal ex - girlfriend and me as the unpleasant and cunning boyfriend. I think at the time we didn't really know if it would work or not, but it turned out to be better for us, we didn't have to rely on other people, when we knew we had media or just when we arranged to meet, we knew everyone could make it, and we could all get to places in the car or walking to where ever we had to get to! I think me and Claire being in the video actually had brought a long a lot of positives to the final result, if we had used friends we would tell them how to react, where to sit and what to do next, using group members we knew what we wanted to achieve, we all knew how we wanted it to look like, and if me and Claire had an idea whilst being filmed we could let the guys filming know and they could incorporate into the shot.

We tried to match Claire's feelings and personality with her make up, clothes and props. So when she was with me she had bright make up on and bright coloured clothes just to reflect her feelings at that point in the video. But then when we split up and I start to torment her, we told her to wear black, have no make up, take of your jewellery etc. We wanted the scene to be really dark and dull, however we left the bright red rose just to contrast the colours and also for the memories she had with me in the video. The clothes she wore while filming were fine, we didn't have any complaints, they fitted into the genre and the feel of our video perfectly.

In terms of make up, the girls applied her make up and made sure her was correct for the type of scene it was, so for the happy scenes it was bright red lipstick and foundation applied. However when we filmed her on her own very distressed and lonely, we didn't apply any make up at all, Charlotte had the idea of using talcum powder to give a really pale and quite shocking effect to her face, we used the talcum powder a lot when we filmed her dead for example.

Below are pictures of me and Claire filming the video.

Copyright letter feedback

There still has been no response from Sub Pop Records who manage Band of Horses, about using their song and all of the copyright issues that go with it. We will take this as good news at they have no desire to not let us use the song.

Possible locations

We started to film our music video last wednesday and thursday. We filmed and took our location shots at a church/graveyard in Horton Kirby, the first picture you see in our slideshow is of the metal gates leading out of the graveyard, the gates are perfect for when people leave and for when the girls bullies look over at the funeral taking place. We took six pictures of the locations that we could use and that we are may use in the future of our video. The pictures in my opinion are clear, they are very well lighted and they give the audience a clear sense of what to expect.

Animatic pictures

Charlotte has drawn all of our wonderful pictures for the animatic, our end product of the music video will definitely try and have the look of our animatic.

Animatic

This is the groups animatic, we hope our overall music video is close to our finished animatic, however i am sure we will add and takeaway parts of the animatic that we feel appropriate.

Preparing to film

As the deadline for all our filming to be complete draws closer, we will start to film the basic parts of our music video. We haven't yet sorted out our actors and actresses. So the filming that will take place during the week, will just be of hands and props.

We will be filming:

• Rose dropping to the floor
• Petals being picked off a rose
• A text sent to our actress, along the lines of "We hate you!!!"
• Three or four brief clips of cyber bulling, Facebook for example

The Drums, Lets go surfing - Video analysis

The video I am analyzing is Lets go surfing by The Drums, the videos genre is rock/indie whicis perfect for the genre that we are aiming for, this is pretty obviously shown to us by

the bands clothing, of tight jeans, short tight tops, indie style thrown back hair cuts and of course when the band actually start to play their instruments, of drums and the guitar.

In terms of their being an actual connection between lyrics and visuals in the song, there is only a couple of lines that actually work with each other. One for example, "honey, take a run down to the beach", the band members are running along the seafront on the beach. Also the line "i'll never let you go" this line is used frequently in the video, and is also played when the band members eventually drop off, one by one. There is a slight lyrics to visuals, in the lines "down, down baby down by the roller-coaster, sweet sweet baby i'll never let you go." These lines are repeated four times, and on the last repeat, the back two of the band stay, while the other two run off. But apart from these three examples the video has no lyric to visuals connections, I can understand the music director trying to achieve fluidity through out the video, but I think some clever lyrics to visuals links would work very well in this video. The line "there's a new kid in the town", they could have reunited with their band members.

In the video there are no shots or links to instruments and the music, there are shots of the guitars and the drums, but no real close ups of one of the instruments. In terms of the video cutting to the beat, the video has no cuts! It is one long sequence of film, the song is quite slow and dreary so in a way this type of filming does work very well with the video.

The main objective of course for any music video is to sell the track and the band involved. But in this video there isn't any close ups of the band, the video is shot all from a medium close up but showing below the waist as well, it is a stationery camera that films the band, but it is probably being drove along by a car/truck. Looking back at other videos from the The Drums, for example Best Friend and Forever and Ever, they do like the feel and the look of not so much a stationery camera but when the band is walking towards the camera, and they let the artists do their own thing, this is clearly seen in the video "Best Friend", where the camera is stationery and the band do their own thing. This type of filming does a give sense of freedom to the video, and i actually quite like how it is filmed.

- Lets go surfing Best Friend -

The video is mainly narrative based, but there are definitely parts of the video where there is a small performance for 20 seconds roughly. However the video still keeps to its traditional camera shot even for the performance part, you would think they would do close ups of guitars and drums but they don't in this case, I guess they want to keep that stationery feel through out the video.

To sum up this interesting video, I think the way the director has portrayed the band is very interesting there are no close ups of the band members and the instruments, hes just letting the music sell it self which I really like, obviously the way the video is shot on a beach ties in well with the song "Lets go surfing". I do actually quite like the way it has been filmed with the band members filmed using one shot all the way through, me and my group may consider this when it comes to filming our video.

Questionnaire to our target audience

As you can see below this is the questionnaire that i have published to our target audience. I gave it out to 10 people in the age range of 16 - 18 years old. The results were intriguing and helped myself and the group really figure out what the video should include, what they want from a music video and more importantly the parts that they don't want in a music video.

As you can see by the results below, the ten people I gave my questionnaire out to do actually support the ideas that me and the group have come with. The factor in our video that i was most concerned about is whether the audience would mind if the video didn't actually contain the singer/band who's song it was, but as you can see in the pie chart below, 80% wouldn't mind if they weren't in it.

One of the ideas we have is to film some of the video in black and white, not all of it, just the parts we feel necessary for that part in the video. As you can see below our target audience don't mind if the video is in black and white. I think if they did mind, then it would raise serious concern because the song is called The Funeral, and a black and white theme in some parts, would look really nice.

Important times in our song

The way this song is made is very intriguing and is exactly why we need to note down these important times. It starts slow and then speeds up with drums and guitars then will it slow right down again, with almost soft, smooth coral music. One of the key points to the success of our video is to make sure when we know to fit our shot ideas into the right slot, in terms of the pace of the music, the instruments and the pace of the singing.

Link to Band of Horses The Funeral

Key times in the song:

0.22 - The soft instrumental music stops and the lead band member starts to sing.

1.03 - The coral singing starts to build up.

1.22 - Big smash of the drums and electric guitars signals the start of when the fast pace starts to turn up, and become commanding almost, the singing is deeper (use cuts at this point instead of cross dissolves)

1.57 - The drums and guitars stop, the song starts to mellow back out again, it becomes softer and the instrumental is played again, like at the start of the song.

2.00 - The drums and guitars are introduced back into the song, with a commanding thump on the drums.

2.45 - Crash of the symbols, there is silence for 3 - 4 seconds, the sequence has ended.

2.49 - The music starts back up again, with the slow soft singing and the guitar and drums at a much softer and slower pace.

3.08 - Music changes, the pace in the song increases and so does the loud drums and guitars.

3.40 - The instruments and the singing becomes less aggressive almost, the slow drums and guitars are back, the song starts to fade out.

3.45 - Song ends.

Secondary parts of the brief

Brief

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band;
• a cover for its release as part of the digipak (CD/DVD package);
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

Myself and the group have decided to do the cover for its release and the magazine advertisement. We feel that these two objectives suit our skills better than the website, we can fully utilize our photoshop skills together, and also none of the group are very comfortable with website development, unfortunately.

Possible locations

Woods/Forest - This location is very important for the success of our video. It will be used on many occasions, for example when the girl is running away, sitting down reading the text and reflecting on what has happened. The woods do give the look of a mysterious future of what she will be facing, also it will clearly show her isolation and loneliness.

House - Using somebody's house is also important to the success of our video, the scenes where we film in the house will be where she would of been with her boyfriend enjoying herself, but now she sits and alone. Also the hate messages on her Facebook will be filmed in the house.

Graveyard/Church - The song is called The Funeral, we simply have to feature some sort of graveyard and church, whether it is just the outside of them, for an establishing shot for example. One part where the graveyard will be used is when the girl's funeral is shot, we have decided on the church we will use and will be asking permission to film nearer the date.

Public Park/road - This location will be simply used for 5 - 7 seconds worth of filming from when her and her boyfriend were happy together, so we can use the film for the flashbacks. We will also be using the public ark location for when she is sitting alone and cross legged, Oakfield and Dartford Park are the two favourites to film at.