Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Mise en scene - Friendly Fires
Hummer - Foals
We like the close ups used within the first 30 seconds of the foals - hummer video(above). We would like to recreate elements of this in our own video as it would match the song well.
ROASTED STUDIOS
Monday, 21 September 2009
Junior fencing club - Recording
Presentation Feedback
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Institution Research
An music institution that I think would suit 'Junior Fencing Club' is Wichita Recordings. This is a independant London based record company who have similar less main stream bands signed to them, such bands as 'The Cribs', 'Bloc Party', 'Yeah Yeah Yeahs', 'Bright Eyes' and recntly signed 'Simian Mobile Disco'.
I think that 'Junior Fencing Club' would fit in well to Wichita Records as its has simialr bands already signed to it, so would know how to market and advertise the band well. It will also understand the aims of a smaller, less conventional band as it will have dealt with similar situations before with bands that are also looking to go against main steam conventions. As an independant label who deals with smaller bands it will be able to give the band more space to produce music and videos that will appeal to maybe a more refined audience.
Research/Influences for magazine
We are looking to create a magazine that features alternative rock music, examples of this style of magazine may be 'NME' or 'Q'. We want to recreate a magazine such as these as they have a similar audience to that of which we are appealing too.
We are looking to attract a smaller audience that would enjoy a quirkier style publication that features smaller, less comercial bands. A good example of a less main stream magazine would be 'Spin'. This is a smaller publication that features smaller bands ans artists, such as 'Muse', 'yeah yeah yeahs' and 'M.I.A'.
In my opinion 'Spin' is a more sophisticated example of a music magazine as it is more asphetically pleasing to the audience, the covers above have been put together well and have an arty look to them. 'Spin Media' is owned by 'The McEvoy Group', which publish other magazines suchas '7x7', a top end lifestyle magazine in San Francisco.
Monday, 14 September 2009
Research for Magazine
We are looking to create a magazine that features alternative rock music, examples of this style of magazine may be 'NME' or 'Q'. We want to recreate a magazine such as these as they have a similar audience to that of which we are appealing too.
We are looking to attract a smaller audience that would enjoy a quirkier style publication that features smaller, less comercial bands. A good example of a less main stream magazine would be 'Spin'. This is a smaller publication that features smaller bands ans artists, such as 'Muse', 'yeah yeah yeahs' and 'M.I.A'.
In my opinion 'Spin' is a more sophisticated example of a music magazine as it is more asphetically pleasing to the audience, the covers above have been put together well and have an arty look to them. 'Spin Media' is owned by 'The McEvoy Group', which publish other magazines suchas '7x7', a top end lifestyle magazine in San Francisco.
Research for Album Covers/Artwork
For the album cover of our song we intend to make a simplistic image with the band name and song title also on the front. When researching and looking at album covers I thought that the simlpler examples were more effective, also bands which feature a funny edge to their piece made their album look far more astheticaly pleasing. We are aware that consumers are as much swayed by the asthetics of an bands album as they are by the music. Our target audience of young people, interested in alternative, quirky music will be drawn to an attractive album cover that offers an arty edge to the photo. Examples of covers that we believe are succesful in producing the features I have diuscussed are:
I think these are succesful because they look cool and appeal to our target audience as they are asphetically attractive and look different to the conventional album cover. One of the main conventions of the style of music we are using is a quirky album cover, for example the cover of the album 'antidotes' by the Foals is interesting and different and appeals to their target audience of a more alternative person.
Our target audience of young people, aged between 14 and 25 who enjoy alternative music such as bands I have featured in the blog (the foals, arctic monkey, editors etc). They are less mainstream then fans of more comercial music and stereotypical indie rock bands, for theses reasons they look for more in an album cover than just an image of the band. Covers such as the ones I have shown not only act as a interesting way to promote the album, but they also serve as artwork that a true fan would enjoy and feel they needed to have, almost as a collectable piece. All these aspects of breaking the stereotypical conventions of an album cover support the bands who break the conventions of the music they play, they also act as a way for the audience to prove that they also dont follow the generic conventions of choosing music and are making a point of buying different, quirky style album work and music.
Introduction - Idea
We have decided to use my band for our music video and have a friend fill in my position as I'll be filming with Niall. We play songs similar to 'the foals' and 'bloc party' and recognise ourselves in the genre alternative/experimental. The song that we will shoot is a song written by the band called 'Artist vs Art', it is a fast paced upbeat song with changes in tempo to give the song edge. To match the track we will use the common conventions of a music video and video the band playing from a mix of angles and tie in a number of other quirky shots of the band without instruments.
There are three possible styles of narrative for a music video, all narrative, half narrative and no narrative. Music videos with all narrative show just a storyline throughout e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF978AgLyaY - The Arctic Monkeys, View from the afternoon.
Music videos with half narrative show some storyline and some of the band playing e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGrZkUQ6_r8 - The Foals, Balloons.
And finally some videos have a full narrative throughout e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21-TCoFRgy0 - We are scientists, Great escape. For our music video we are planning to use the half narrative-half band shot convention to mix up it and create a more interesting and quirky feel.
Laband x
Representation/Mise en Scene
In terms of setting up the mise en scene of the video, we want to create an antique feeling to the room using old furniture and equipment. We aiming to portray an antique 1940's British household with a clash of modern instrument and modern dress patterns. An example of what we would like to try and recreate is in the Foal's video of 'Balloons' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGrZkUQ6_r8. As you can see from the video, the entire song is played within one room and uses a mixture of the band actually playing and then other settings, such as sitting round the table.
We would like to be able to create a set for our video that mimics something like the image above, using retro, antique like furniture to give a 1940's era feeling. Props such as old sofas, large lamps, type writers and old televisions would all help to represent and portray the era we are trying to recreate. The 'Foals' have succeeded in representing an anitque feel to their video by using the mise en scene, for example the 1940's wall paper helps to create a retro setting. The randomness of sitting round a table drinking tea adds a quirkiness to the video making it interesting and gives an auterist edge to the video.
We would like to set up props in a similar way to the image above, with alterations to the furniture we use. For example we are using a red sofa like the one below as the focal point of our set.
We think that this give a sophisticated antique feel that we could utilise in our filming, it also different to conventional music videos that tend to use modern settings to go along side modern music, as opposed to our aim of contrasting modern music with an antique mise en scene.
To represent the vintage, 1950's mise en scene we are looking for, i have created a mood board. The board shows objects and settings that in some way we would like to mimic in the mise en scene of our video.
Research/Influences for Video
Bands we most take influence from are such like the 'Foals', 'Arctice Monkeys', 'We are Scientists' and 'Bloc Party'. We would like to be able to create a video similar to the videos that these bands make as we find them interesting, quirky and amusing.
Bloc Party's song, 'Helicopter' follows these forms and uses a simple idea to make the video effective, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R6S5CJWlco. The fast pace movement of the camera and flicking from shot to shot mirrors the fast pace of the song and compliments it. I would want to use this feature in my video and match the pace of the song to the pace that the video will run.
Arctic Monkey's video to the song 'when the sun goes down' is succesful as a video because of the way it tells the story of the song and again the speed of the shots mirror the speed of the song, a feature vital in our video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R6S5CJWlco. A mixture of story telling style and the actual shooting of the band playing the song would work well as a video as it covers both conventions, for instance Arctic Monkey's video for 'Teddy Picker'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2XBoxtcUA.
This works as a video as the audience, as fans, are interested in how the band would record a song in a studio and it also shows funny outake style shots of the band interacting normally with each other. These outake style shots within the video are a good introduction to the actual song and add a funny, quirky element to the song that make it more interesting. Other features that we intend to recreate in our video is the setting up of the equipment, and also showing the equipment openly in the song.
We would also like to add a quirky edge to our video, this would make it more interesting for the viewer and would also make it more fun to produce and would make us think more creatively when producing the video instead of just following the generic conventions. A band that has been succesful in making an intersesting, different video is We Are Scientists, 'Great Escape' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAxp4I6Nre4&feature=channel. This video is entertaing due to the variation in shots and the main idea behing the story that all three men are one person, this makes it quite funny and more enjoyable.
Introduction
As a pair, me and Jack Laband have decided to complete the music video brief. This includes a music promotional video as the main task and two sub tasks, the two we have chosen are the CD cover and magazine advert. We have decided on this brief as we did a music magazine as our task in the AS section of the media course, this has helped us gain knowledge needed for this task, and will help us know what will be succesful and how to target our video to a certain audience.
The band we intend to use in our video is a friend's band, 'Junior Fencing Club', the music they play is a math rock style, similar to such bands as 'Bloc Party' and 'Foals'. The song we are choosing to film is called 'Artist vs art', which has an upbeat rhythm.
For the video to accomapny the song we want to keep it simple and include the generic forms of music video yet still add some quirlky features to make our pice a more off the wall production. We will use the conventions of music video by taking shots of the band playing along with some narrative based shots, then add in some experimental and different shots of the band.