Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For my coursework task I chose to construct a music video, and with this a magazine-advert for the band’s album as well as a complete digi-pak design. The conventions of my product are incredibly subjective to which genre I were to choose. If I were to have chosen a pop video it would have made sense to fill my video with very aesthetically attractive people and include a dance routine, however I chose rock/metal music. The conventions of music videos for rock/metal music are far more open as the genre varies so widely. My music video took the form of a horror/thriller storyline combined with a rock band performance on a stage. This is very typical of heavy metal music as the imagery of the film genre matches the sound and emotion of the music perfectly. One thing I was always certain I would include was the bands’ performance, on a stage, I had noticed from research that many students with the same task leave this part out entirely and it’s such a vital part of any music video, very importantly though, within rock music, certainly heavy metal, the band or singer aren’t necessarily the ones involved in the opposing narrative. My music video, very much took influence from all other videos by HIM, as they have quite a unique and celebrated style of music video and I think resultantly my music video did end up looking similar to one that the band would have made themselves. Also another thing i've noticed abotu other students work is the lengths of their shots being far too long, leaving the video unrealistic and unwatchable. My clips however average at about half a second so the viewer is constantly interested. I have developed this though to try and add my own unique style of filming and editing with my personal choice of varied shots such as close ups on the vocalist and the main character and dynamic moving shots of the bands’ performance in general. In terms of my ancillary tasks, however much I genuinely think they look good and that they fit their purpose perfectly, I would find it hard to say that there’s anything particularly original about them. Instead they are an incredibly typical example of a heavy metal album case, to the point where you could say they’re quite cheesy. I think this is ideal though, I don’t particularly think there’s any need for anything experimental or unique with the digi-pak instead I think it should clearly reflect the genre of music it’s containing and I feel I have done that sufficiently.

 How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I think the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are very effective. To go with my
music video i created an advert for the album that would appear in a magazine and a CD album Digi-Pak which includes the front, back and side panels. One thing I always knew was very important was to keep the general feeling of the Mise-en-Scene the same as a running constant throughout all of my products. Therefore I had to make sure that the ancillary tasks gave off a similarly dark and moody feel to the music video. To achieve this I used a lot of darker colours, blacks dark browns and dark reds, combined with white font, usually with an orange or red shadow to create a flame effect (to match the song title soul on fire).  The photo I used for my album front cover and resultantly the advert too, was taken in a near pitch black room, and then affected later. I made this decision as I liked the dark shadows that occur in the confines of the face and wanted to play around with the idea of darkness. I then incorporated the use of candles, the idea of a weak flame that’s quite fragile but also providing this small source of light, I think fits perfectly into my ancillary tasks. At the close of my music video it cuts to a shot of the band’s name HIM and then fades out, I used the same font in the video as I did in my ancillary’s when displaying the band’s name, and this link works very effectively in my opinion. All together they make a very believable package, emulating hugely previous work by HIM but also previous work by me and incorporating these things together across the entirety of my coursework has been fantastic and turned out very effectively. 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been an essential part of my coursework production process. Within our media class we compared all of our ancillary tasks together and collected feedback from our peers on several occasions, this helped me hugely in shaping my products. The video has been received very well by all i have shown it to, people have particularly commented on the fast rate of shots, the dual narrative of the story and the band performance, the editing surrounding the vocals( the syncing of the lyrics as well as the slow motion effect) and my general continuity and construction. The only negative comments i have received are that the storyline is relatively hard to follow, this is due to the fact that this video was originally going to be much longer with a prologue and a voiceover explaining the situation, but i altered this due to time restraints and then tried to make the story as simple as possible. Ultimately what I have learned from my audience feedback is that everything takes a lot of time, there’s no point in rushing anything like this and if I’m honest I would have liked even more time especially with the video.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the construction of my ancillary tasks I was getting to grips with new media technologies in the form of the apple mac. Though I understand the idea of a mac isn’t particularly new I’ve never really used one before, however I knew that they are dramatically advanced compared to PC’s in terms of artistic and creative work. I used word 2008 for the mac and found it to be both incredibly easy to use and super effective at creating dynamic and realistic looking products.

For the Music Video I first of all had to use a piece of software called AVS video converter Pro, as my video camera saved it’s files in an unusable .MOV format. I spent a good few hours scouring the internet looking for a free video converter to download, finding that most of them would leave a  water-mark across your video but eventually I found one that didn’t and I was on my way. I then had to upload all of these video clips into Windows Movie Maker. After spending so much constant time editing my music video using this software I would say I’ve not only become a semi-expert but I also never want to see it again. But seriously if you are to use Windows Movie Maker for any extended period of time it becomes very easy to use and although it’s limited in its’ editing properties it more than makes up for this in its’ simplicity and adaptability.

In terms of my evaluation I have used Facebook to assemble audience feedback from people as well as doing all of my research using the internet, being the only subject that I don’t partially rely on a text book for it has been great to research and record things as I would do myself with my own interests. The blog has been an incredibly effective and easy way of organising all of my coursework together and since doing this coursework I think I will be using them a lot more.

Special Effects

 

To edit my music video i used Windows Movie Maker, as it was the only system that my netbook laptop was able to run and i didn't have any other computer i could use. So my selection of special effects were quite narrow, however i did feel it was important to use some, to try and vary the look of the shots as much as possible. I was originally going to use this grainy old film effect on the entirirty of the bands performance but during editing i realised taht it was a waste to plut this effect on every band shot as the definitionw as so high it would be a waste to taint it. However i did keep the effects on some shots like this one of Oli facing forward from the stage, one because it hid the fact that there were no audience for the performance as well as combining with the lighting of the shot really well to leave an incredibly aesthetically pleasing look.

I also used transition effects, rather than opting for the super cheesy swirls or diamond transitions or even a star wars wipe out, the only transition effects i saw as suitable were the fading out and in from black or white, both adding more fluidity, and adding to the charactisation of the two main characters, adding a black vs white motif makes these opposites more clear.

 

My final use of effects was to shoot alot of the close ups on Tim at 1.5 times the speed and then later slow them down in editing so as to create a slow motion effect. This is an effect that is used in the majority of HIM's videos and as has been previously stated the effect does very much fit the lyrics and the vocals to their songs perfectly, so from the very beginning i was dead set on using this effect. though it proved more difficult than i expected as the only option in Windows Movie Maker was to slow down the footage to half the speed rather than -1.5 so i went online and found on a discussion board that it was infact possible to change the exact speed of the video playback by using this xml

TransitionsAndEffects Version="1.0">
<Effects>
<EffectDLL guid="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}">
<Effect name="Speed up modified" iconid="32" speed="2.0" comment="Speed up"></Effect>
<Effect name="Slow down modified" iconid="31" speed="0.5" comment="Slow down"></Effect>
</EffectDLL>
</Effects>
</TransitionsAndEffects>

Thank god for computer experts and google is all i can say.

My Final Cut - Soul On Fire Music Video

After a month and a half of constant editing in Windows Movie Maker i have finally finished editing my music video. The video contains over 200 shot changes and the average time for each clip is under a second, this was partially due to my research into other music videos, and seeing that this is the most popular pitfall for students to fall into, to leave long sprawling shots resulting in a very slow paced video which doesn't match the artistic vibrancy of the music. But if i'm honest it was also that this was what came naturally to me when creating the video, i followed my instincts hugely on what i thought looked effective and worked well, though i do realise that this is due to my subconcious knowledge of music videos, having spent half of my life watching them. The video has been received very well by all i have shown it to, people have particularly commented ont he fast rate of shots, the dual narrative of the story and the band performance, the editing surrounding the vocals( the syncing of the lyrics as well as the slow motion effect) and my general continuity and construction. The only negative comments i have received are that the storyline is relatively hard to follow, this is due to the fact that this video was originally going to be much longer with a prologue and a voiceover explaining the situation, but i altered this due to time restraints and then tried to make the story as simple as possible, taking out any fundimental plot points and leaving a basic frame of story so that i could concentrate more on the bands performance and have the story acting as more of an artistic antithesis to it. I myself am very pleased with how the video has turned out, i was worried that i didn't have enough footage to achieve what i wanted but in the end as a rounded piece i think it looks very professional and fitting to the bands music.

Ancillary task 2 - Digipak

My album cover is quite simple, With the bands' name the album title and a solitary face. I have chosen this design because it's reminiscent of most HIM album covers, usually with the lead singers face or half naked body on the front cover and HIM written in big letters across it. I have put my own slant on it though by using an apple mac to effect the photo to make it look both like an etching on a wall and to have a fire-like orange colour. as well as this i have applied a flamed shadow effect behind all of the white text to again amplify the element of fire, running through the design. Within the Digi-Pak i have kept this simplistic motif as well as keeping the same stylised calligraphy font, i have also included the bands symbol the heartagram on the side panel and one of the digipak's panels as the symbol is so synonymous it just would have been entirely unrealistic not to include it, i have been careful not to play on it too much though just to keep it present throughout with exerpts of lyrics running throughout aswell, another feature typical of most HIM album cases. I have kept the colour scheme the same throughout too using blacks and dark browns with a white/cream font, i think the key word for my design is simplisitc, but i have put my own twist on it with my running artistic style and schemes.

REAL HIM ALBUM COVER

Ancillary task 1 Magazine advert

Above is my original version of my magazine advert for the album, while below is my final copy. My first draft was far too rushed and i missed out some very key details. through feedback i realised the main image for the album cover was far too dull, as well as the entire advert being very blank, leaving far too much empty space and not having the dynamics of an advert. To corrent this i have added reviews from magazines along the side as well as moving my main image from the centre to the left to provide room for them. I have also made sure that these reviews are in bhright white as one of the complaitns was the colours of the text weren't bright enough in comparison to the dark background. However i have kept the same background and general colour scheme as this was viewed very positively in my feedback, fitting the genre of the band perfectly as well as including the Heartagram logo in the backdrop. Overall i am very pleased with my advert, i feel i have improved massively on my first effort and that it fits the band's image perfectly.

 

Unfortunately i couldn't find any past example of adverts for rock albums to analyse. This surprised me as i remember the music magazines being full of them, but after more thinking i realised that as we live in such a digital age of music magazines aren't really the place to advertise anymore and the print advert for music is dying out and being replaced with viral adverts across youtube and magazine websites.

Cast - The Band (and costume)

The Band

Tim Smith - Lead vocals and guitar

 I was in a band with Tim for three and ahalf years, so when the time came to choose a frontman for the video i was on the phone to him straight away. With so much stage experience in rock and metal music i knew he could deliver the words so much more effectively and believably than anyone else i knew, arguably the most important role in the entire video so it was vital i found someone who could play all the parts with ease and confidence. For his costume i told him to wear the same kind of clothes he would have worn when performing in our banD,  a heavy metal band t shirt (preferably black) jeans and hsi beanie, as this was also for a while something that Ville Valo lead singer of HIM famously wore.

Oli Pierce - Bass

 Oli also has stage experience aswell as having a beautiful Fender Precision bass guitar, these two factors were enough to choose oli to play bass in the video. for his costume i simply told him to not wear anything to light and cheerful as he would usually wear but instead to wear as musch dark clothing as possible, resulting in him wearing a black t shirt and black jeans.

Tom Farmery - Drums

A good friend of mine, Tom doesn't have much experience on the drums but his exhuberance and enthusiasm were unarguable and unmatchable, resulting in a great shoot. I told Tom to wear whatever he chose as i have found, certainly in HIM's case too that the the drummer is often an oddity at the back, with his own style and fashion, so i felt no need to give him any sort of uniform.

Cast - Storyline (and costume)

Pete Losasso - Johnny

 Being one of the most talented actors i know, as well as a very good friend of mine, i chose my friend Pete Losasso to play the lead character in the video, as filming would be alot easier and i knew he could interperate what i was telling him to do very quickly. I told Pete to wear a hoodie as originally i was going to shoot a sequence in which he would have his hood up covering his face, but other than that i told him to wear regular grunge style clothing to showcase Jonny as a normal guy.

Tom Roberts - Drug Dealer

 I chose my friend Tom Roberts to play the drug dealer, purely and simply because he looks shifty. This part was originally going to be a much bigger one, with far more interation between the drug dealer and Johnny but unfortunately i had to cut it due to time restraints. In terms of Tom's costume i simply told him to wear his regular clothes as the image of how he usually is, is the exacxt image i had for the drug dealer in my video.

Josh Martin - Angel

Another very talented actor, choosing Josh to play the 'nemesis' in the video was a no brainer. Specialising in expressionistic and grotesque acting styles again i knew that he would be able to encompass the idea of his character so well and so easily. Josh's costume was a tricky one, originally i was going to make him wear a suit but he was also going to be joined by a group of people wearing suits and on it's own it didn't really provide the same effect, so in the end i told him to wear regular clothes but to black up one eye so that he has a relatively subtle imperfection/signifier of his character.

Photo Experimentation

This is the main photo i am going †o use for my ancillary task, i have deliberately taken it in a near pitch black room because i like the shadows on the face and feel that they would artistically represent the band and their music perfectly. Here you can see i have started to edit with colour gamma and hue settings, by the end of it i hope to create an entirely new image with this face a s the construct.

Making of HIM video (Bam Margera)

Throughout Pre production, shooting and Post production i was hugely influenced by Bam Margera's work, directing some of HIM's previous videos including Solitary Man, And Love Said No and The Sacrament. The video i'm showing here is the making of the video for Buried Alive by Love, another single from the same album (Love metal) which soul on fire also features on. In this video Bam and his crew explain many techniques i have tried to include throughout, most notably shooting the close ups on the vocalist at twice the speed and then slowing them down in editing, " The slow mo effect just fits Ville's lyrics so good" and the emphasis on the beauty of the bands performance and their location, being paramount to the video and infact taking precident over any story line;

Format Research

Format Research Front Covers

EMO- The Emo front cover shown here is typical with other such genre related albums. The cover shows an ink blotted sketched drawing of a black and white tree with a squeezed surreal looking heart growing from it. The symbolic and deliberately odd drawing fits with the music and therefore does work well as an album cover.

The text is also quite genre generic as it is rough looking handwriting as opposed to fancy lettering or block words, giving the cover a raw feel, an unpolished look so to speak.

ROCK- Very different from The Used’s album, Feeder’s 2006 release ‘The Singles Collection’ has a far more generic rock look to it. It’s very simple, the black and white image in the background of Grant Naylor playing guitar shows the audience what the album is straight away, guitar driven rock music. It’s also very uncluttered with just the one central image in the background. The text is simple, block capitals in a contrasting white over the greyscale background, looks cool without being too inventive.

GRUNGE- Nirvana’s Nevermind is a great example of a grunge album. As the genre wasn’t around for as long as many of the others, it’s hard to say that grunge had a generic example of an album cover or even an image, it took a lot of influence from the punk movement as well as rock and roll, but often they tried to make a point, even if as in this case many aren’t sure what this point is. Nirvana and grunge were known to shock, which is why this cover of a baby chasing a dollar is such a good example of the grunge movement. The text is very simple in their trademark serif text, unimposing, doesn’t remove focus.

METAL- Rust in peace by Megadeth The album's artwork was created by longtime Megadeth artist Ed Repka. It shows band mascot Vic Rattlehead and the leaders of the five major world powers (at the time) attending a secret meeting in Hangar 18, with Vic in the foreground presiding over the body of an alien. The world leaders, from left to right, are former British Prime Minister John Major, former Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, former Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, and former American President George H. W. Bush.

Rock

Emo

Grunge

Metal

Story Outline + Script

The story part of my music video takes place in a run down urban area, following the life of one Jonny Edwards. Jonny is a low life, young homeless drug addict who has coasted through his life, messing up every decision he has made, constantly pushing people away and driving himself down into this pit of self destruction. The main cusp of my story is to explore the idea that Johnny's life is not entirely his fault and perhaps there is somesort of force, guiding us down the paths we take.This first part of script would act as a voiceover at the beginning of the video, over the top of establishing shots.

Meet Johnny, society has passed him down to the lowest of the low. Now some cynics may say that johnnys done this to himself, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, others like johnny may argue that the world is an unfair place and that bad things happen to good people. But what if there was more to life than that, what if there was somebody watching…

 The second stint of dialogue would take place in an abandoned warehouse or car park, that this 'soul reaper' has dragged jonny too, after stalking him throughout the video.

What are you doing? Wha.. where am i?

You’re at a turning point in your life jonny

Don’t give me that crap! Where am i??

You’re safe jonny, this can go two ways, you will either walk out of here a new man, a happy man, or you will carry on down the same path that he been laid down for you

What do you mean laid down for me? Who are you?

Well I can’t possibly tell you that, but the world has called us by many names, ancients, soul reapers, vampires or my personal favourite angels.

Angels? Am I dead?

Are you breathing?

Okay am I going to die?

The question you want jonny, is are you going to live? And only you can answer that.

Copyright Letter

 Before commencing work on the project it was important i check with the copyright holders,as to whether they have any particular reason they wouldn't want me to use the song, unless they reply with a reason however i shall continue with this song.

Dear Sony Bmg & BMG Finland,

I am an A level student and I am writing to request your permission to use one track by one of your artists HIM entitled Soul on Fire.

With your permission I would use this track in my current A-Level Media Studies project that involves writing and directing a music video for a popular music track, as well as producing an album case digi-pak and a magazine advert for the chosen artist. 

If I received  your permission, this track would ONLY be used in an educational context and be viewed by my Media class, my teachers and the OCR exam board moderator. It  would NOT be released to a large audience or uploaded to any public video websites.

The artist and your company would of course be fully recognised throughout pre-production and the final video itself. A copyright notice with wording supplied by you or the artist can be included in the records of the project, if this is required please send full details.

Regards

Sam Mitchinson

HIM Bio

The band H.I.M also known as (His Infernal Majesty) are essentially a gothic rock band, formed in 1995 in Helsinki Finland. However the true genre of their music has been greatly debated in the rock music world, some saying it should be classed as heavy metal, some as blues rock and some as pop music. In answer to this HIM named their own genre Love Metal in 2003, a term which has become synonymous with their fans ever since. HIM were somewhat of a cult hit throughout europe and america up until 2003 when their aptly titled 'love metal' album skyrocketed to success both here and, when re-released in 2004, in America. They had gained a lot of popularity through Bam Margera of Jackass and CKY fame, who has since become great friends with the band, but even when he was just a fan he filled his films and videos with HIM's music broadening their audience ever further and particularly opening them up to arguably their largest target audience, besides swooning women, skateboarders. Arguably more famous than the band themselves is their logo, the Heartagram (a heart crossed with a pentagram) which Bam Margera being a business man, now owns half the rights to.

Song Lyrics

These are the lyrics to the song Soul On Fire by Him which i will be using in my music video.

"Soul On Fire"

There's a flame that leads our souls astray
No one's safe from its tender touch of pain
And every day it's looking for new slaves
To celebrate the beauty of the grave

We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverance
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire

And again we're falling for disgrace
And hate will shelter us from the rain
We are enslaved by the sacred heart of shame
And gently raped by the light of day

We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverence
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire

Addicted to our divine despair
The venom of the cross we bear
The guilt will follow us to death

We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverence
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire

With a soul on
Soul on
Soul on
Fire

Soul on fire

Original Concept for Music Video

Basic plot structure,

A Junky is walking the street; he buys some drugs, ingests them and then walks off. He sees a scary suspicious looking man; they make eye contact and then FREEZE (narration with techno remix)

FLASHBACK to his childhood, where Jonny accidentally killed someone, at the age of about six or seven. Since that point his life has taken all the wrong turns, he has been walking down the wrong road etc, because his soul is on fire

The song begins with Jonny RUNNING from this man, camera pans back to the man smiling and turning away

Cuts to band for the beginning of the verse, alternating between the band and the storyline as Jonny attempts to evade this man and other people walking slowly in identical suits.

Eventually the group capture Jonny and take him to a basement to interrogate him on his life. The conclusion being Jonny hasn’t been living at all he has just been pushed around by them like a pawn in their game, but they offer him life if he is a man enough to take it.

Initial Mind Mapping

These are just a few initial mind maps  chronicling my early ideas for my music video. Outlining a simple idea of the research i need to do, the potential actors i plan to use as well as the band and song choice. The second mind map shows my progression and  homing in on the song and band i want to use for the video.

Video Inspiration No.3

My 3rd and final video inspiration is Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold. This video really shows the combination of shots of the band playing and the concurrent story line that i want to emulate in my music video. As well as this it has a horror-esque feel to it, aided by the shots used, alot of low angle and high angle shots looking up and down, rather than the linear position, combined with POV shots adds to the feeling of uneasiness and surreality in the video. This is something i will investigate further and try to incorporate in the story part of my video. There are alot of fast transfers of shots used aswell as the song is quite fast paced, again this is something i will have to explore in my editing process.

Video Inspiration No.2

Upon researching videos for my appropriate genre, it became apparent that the 'band scene' is an essential part of any rock band's music video. This video, like many of HIM's videos, concentrates mainly on the look, accentuating the beauty of the location combined with the poetic nature of the song. One thing i picked up on is the effect Bam Margera (the director) has used on the shots of Ville Valo (the lead singer)'s vocals. He shoots the close ups of the singing, and some of the other band shots, at one and a half times the speed and then slows the video down again in editing to match the audio, causing a slow motion effect. I think this, not only generally looks cool, but also suits the vocals of the band incredibly well and is therefore an effect i would wish to use in my video, as i will be using one of their songs.

Video Inspiration No.1

When we were told we had the chance to make a music video for this years coursework task, i immediately thought of this example as one i would want to emulate. The video is far more than a generic music video, instead it takes the form of a short film, including sections of unaccompained dialogue and narration to introduce and tell a story alongside the track. This idea is what particularly interests me about this video and i also decided from an early stage that i would make my music video take this form, if perhaps not to the same extent as my calibre of actors, locations and cameras would not be able to match theirs. The style of short film is very clearly influenced by the action movies of Guy Ritchie even using the actor Alan Ford who famously played the character Bricktop in his film Snatch (practically the same character as in the video). I also like the mixture of playback speeds on the video, using the slow motion effect to create tension and 'hype' during scenes of the lead character when on his own. The idea of using a remix of the initial song behind the introducing narration is also one that i may look into, as i believe it's super effective in setting the right mood for the rest of the video.