Ancillary task research

For our first ancillary task we are going to make a CD cover to accompany our video and promote the band etc.
Our ideas include using simple, yet vivid colours and shapes, with a fairly basic layout in order to avoid the cover becoming too complex and crowded. A good example of this sort of album artwork is American Idiot by Green Day, as shown below:

Another good example, which has inspired us is the album cover of Billy Talent's first self-titled album, which features the band members silhouetted against an explosion. Again, the colours are very basic, but have a dramatic effect:

Feedback 6.12.09

Guys, you need to scan one of your completed questionnaires in and post on blog. Also quantify some of your results in charts etc. Your discussion of this is too broef and there's no evidence that you've even done this. You also need to discuss your actual video ideas/concept in detail and post your track on here. You need to be filming this side of Xmas to allow plenty of editing time and time for ancillary tasks. Don't assume you can have equipment over Xmas unless you've already booked it as it is being booked out already!

Mrs A

Questionnaire Results

rom our Questionnaire which we tested it upon a group of students from different sections of the college and the results are as follows.

The majority of the group we tested were aged 16-18 which is the lower end of our projected audience age range and the majority of the people who took our questionnaire were male, which is a disadvantage as we are aiming to tar

get both genders so if we had time to do it again we would make sure it was an equal balance.

The channels watched include VH1, Viva, 4Music, Kerrang and Scuzz. These are channels that associate with the kind of music we are using to create our product which is a positive for us. The audience for which we targeted said they would prefer a Mix between a narrative based product and a performance based product.

The majority of the people tested prefer a genre of music with a Rock influence, with a lot of different types of Rock being mentioned and only a few saying the preferred things along the lines of Pop/RnB or Rap music. When asked what platform they view their videos on it was a very mixed decision. Most of the audience also said a video would not influence them to buy the CD/DVD but it would make them download it, however, a small minority said they would stull buy it.

Taran

Research Questionnaires

Location Shots

 

         

These are some shots of the Dance Studio in our college's Dance and Drama Department which we will be using for the Performance based part of our Music Video product.

The next set of photos are from the second location, the derelict power station near to our home town, this is the location we are using to add to the 'punk' image as it is a typical location in most 'professional' music videos.

Studio Shots During Recording

These are just some simple shots from our recording time in the studio, they show some of the equipment we have used to record our track and the guitars the band members are going to be using.

Feedback 24.11.09

Well done Guys. You have got off to a good start with this research. You have uploaded some music videos but you need to say how they use the same genre - what are the conventions? You also need to iclude some information on branding - what constitutes a brand etc. See your notes. Use the checklist for guidance. You need to conduct some primary research into your target audience - their music tastes, interests etc. Try to use audience profiling terminology when defining them etc.

Mrs A

Draft logo

Just a logo I designed quickly whilst I had some spare time to see what the rest of the group are looking for from their logo designs and to spark off discussion.

Preliminary thoughts on the video

We have all decided that the video should contain a mixture of both band performance and narrative. Simply for the fact that the band performance side is very important to our brand image and for portraying the band as an bunch of energetic performers who love what they are doing. The narrative side of the video makes it more enjoyable for repeat viewing by including enigmas and being visualy captivating. If we can come up with a strong theme for the narrative side and blend the two factors well our video will appear very professional and will portray the band in the correct way.

Alex

YouTube Music Videos matching our genre.

Here are some music videos that match our genre: 

This video uses both a performance approach and a narrative approach. The theme is fairly 

gothic with dark colours to suit the theme of the music, as it is set in a gothic-style church location. 

There is a narrative story to the video which suits the lyrics and theme of the song. The performance

aspect of the video shows the band playing, but in an active manner, moving around energetically

and being more interesting than just playing instruments. The camera shakes suit the crashing 

energy of the music and movement and canted angles also suit the mood of the music, that 

something is not quite right.

This video by Green Day takes an unusual view on a music video, as no band performance is 

involved, it is purely all narrative. The three members of the band are shown walking down streets aimlessly, with the lead singer singing and the other two members looking around as if bored. The other narrative of this video is an interesting idea that shows different people's lives, and switches from person to person as they see each other through windows or from a distance. For example, when one character is focused on, they see another character and the focus of the narrative then changes to them. The narrative switches between this story-line and showing the band.

Sorry You're Not A Winner by Enter Shikari: (embedding was disabled so I had to put the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcI-Yh75WrQ

This video is purely a performance video, with the band members of Enter Shikari performing in

a lively atmosphere that is true to the style of music, expressing their youthfulness and the theme

of youth parties in limited spaces- the underground music scene. It is important to note that this

video is more realistic to our capabilities for shooting a video, as massive resources are not

needed and the video on a whole remains fairly simple.

Alex

Speak Of The Devil's Brand Image and Examples of Logos from Similar Bands

Speak of The Devil's band image is that of a group of young individuals who are rebellious and enjoy what they are doing with their life and their music. They are put across as a 'real' band, not as a generic pop group that are repetitively churned out by common media producers. While being rebellious they are also put across as very intelligent and talented as they are capable of writing their own songs and performing each aspect of these themselves, whether that be playing their own instruments or singing the vocals. The band come across as very energetic and we plan to portray this as much as possible in our Promo Video.

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These logos are of bands Speak Of The Devil are very similar to and we plan to take ideas from these to create our own, we are currently in the process of designing this logo and it will be uploaded in the next post.

Taran

Our Group, Chosen Brief and Intended Product.

Our group consists of, from left to right,  Taran Draycott and Alex Holden.. 

The brief we have chosen for our project is the Music Promotion brief. This consists of a promotion package for the release of an album to include a music promo video. Along with this we will be creating two of the following three ancillary tasks: 
- A website homepage for the band.
- A cover for it's release as part of a digipak.
- A magazine advertisement for the digipak.

We have decided to base our project around a college Punk Rock band called 'Speak Of The Devil', of which Alex is a member. Along with his twin brother Joe who both play guitar and perform vocals and Ruari McGlone the drummer. Our product is a music video to promote their band and we plan to make a CD cover for the Digipak as well as a Magazine advertisement to further promote the band. Our product is to be aimed at people from either gender aged 16-25, the generic conventions we plan to base our product around are that of the 'Punk Rock' music which at the moment is quite popular on music channels such as Kerrang, Scuzz and MTV2.

Alex and Taran.