James Bolton - CD and Digipack Research

1. Razorlight - Razorlight - 2006

The digipak found in this album is very appropriate for the band and the indie genre. The handprints, as seen in the picture above combined with the "about me" information below it adds a very personal and authentic touch to the bands image. Also included in the digipack are live pictures of the band performing at a gig as well as recording the album. This mise-en-scene again adds an authenticity with a focus on playing their own instruments and writing their own material, something that is important to fans of the indie genre.  The font used on the front and back of the cover is just plain, block lettering, which combined with the simple, dark clothing being worn by the band creates an image that suggests they are not flashy or flamboyant and dont need to hide behind anything. The album artwork and its digipak could suggest that the album is about them, the music and the fans.

2. The Enemy - We'll Live And Die In These Towns - 2007

This album artwork and its digipack is very dark and very plain. As you can on the back cover (top right) it is simply a black background with the tracks listed in white. The front cover adopts the airport departure/arrivals board but with the band name and album name their instead. The digipack, like the back cover, is very dark with the lyrics to each song listed in a beige/white font. The picture (bottom right) in the digipak presents a dark and mysterious image of the lead singer. It is very similar to an image that The Beatles used (George Harrison and John Lennon below) and could be an intertextual reference. The indie genre is not always light hearted and upbeat, bands such as Glasvegas and The Enemy sometimes focus on serious topics with more emotional songs, and this dark colour scheme could be selling the band as a serious and mature band, which, although different to some sections of the indie genre, is still appropriate and not uncommon.

3. Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads - 2008

This album cover from the Kaiser Chiefs is a much brighter and more colourful artwork compared to the two previous examples. This was the Kaiser Chiefs third studio album and their first two album covers were fairly dark and plain. The second album "Yours Truly, Angry Mob" featured all five band members in black and white, much like way The Enemy have photographed their lead singer in their digipak in the previous example. During that time, Kaiser Chiefs music changed, with more focus on electronic sounds, which has connotations of brighter colours, something you could argue is reflected in their artwork here. This makes the brighter artwork appropriate for the genre and the shift in Kaiser Chiefs' music. In terms of the mise-en-scene, the front cover design is almost like a logo or crest. This could connote Kaiser Chiefs have established themselves as a popular band with their previous two albums and they therefore are represented as an establishment with the use of this symbol. The back cover has almost sticker like logos that resemble anything from food stickers, to barcodes to sports team logos. Each sticker corresponds to a track on the album, making it look a bit like a collection of tracks and all the stickers have been collected. The font is pretty standard, with block letter being used throughout. In the digipack, the lyrics of each song is featured, as well as black and white photos of the band in the studio, similar to those seen in the Razorlight album. It seems black and white photographs are very typical of the indie genre and are frequently featured on artwork and in digipacks.

4. Keane - Hopes And Fears - 2004

Again, this artwork from Keane's first album features a dark background ( a black/green colour) and light text to contrast it (a white/beige colour). Like many of the digipacks I have looked at, it features the lyrics to the songs. This seems to be very important to the indie genre, as lyrics are often the heart on soul of their songs. Also in this digipack, we see an image that is very typical of the indie genre. We see firstly, that the photo (above) is in black and white. We know from previous examples that black and white photographs are frequently used in the indie genre to add an almost dark and drab feel. This combined with the industrial and working class location where the subject is walking is also very typical and the black and white adds to the bleakness of the place. The man appears to be lonely, holding a fooball but with no one to play with. Maybe this man has "Hopes and Fears" (the name of the album) and that also fits in with the theme of the bands music. It sells the band as a serious band who aren't intending to make jolly, jokey music, but they're taking it seriously.


5. The Fratellis - Costello Music - 2006

This artwork, unlike the others contains sexualised images, even if these women are cartoons not real people, they are dressed provocatively and their body language is too. The three of them are sat listening to a record player as well as drinking and smoking. The albums and drinks bottles featured on the cover have 'The Fratellis' or and 'F' (the same one that is on the actual CD), which suggests the girls are listening to The Fratellis. It promotes an almost rebellious image, something that could appeal to indie fans as they don't like to 'follow the crowd' or be mainstream. It is also an instantly recognisable album cover and artwork, which makes it memorable. These types of artwork and videos etc sell the band, as fans of the indie genre like something different. It may also encourage music fans to pick up the CD in a music shop or click on the album online, because as this is the bands first album, the name 'The Fratellis' will be fairly new to most people. The digipack also contains the lyrics to the songs, and the beige and brown colour scheme adds a nostalgic touch to the images, which fits in with the old style record player.

Alex Beale - Artist's Non Verbal Communication

This is the music video for 'Decent Days and Nights' by The Futureheads. The costume in this music video fits with bands indie image that they have, as they are wearing quite dark plain clothes. The clothes are quite casual which fits with the indie image of the band.

Their posture and body movements throughout the video are as you would expect in an indie video, they are dancing and jumping around and being generally quite energetic; this matches the tempo and feel of the song. 

The facial expressions that the band members use in this video are again as you would expect in an indie video, they are nearly always making eye contact with the camera except when the camera moves behind them for example. 

The distance that the band are from the camera varies, as the song is very upbeat they are jumping close to the camera and away. This makes the video seem a lot more interesting and lively, it would be very boring if they all stood still throughout. We will make sure our band moves around like this in our video.

The pitch and tone changes slightly for the chorus of the song, this is good because the song would be fairly boring and it would just sound the same if the singer had a monotone voice throughout the song. 

James Bolton - Character Test Shots

Above is a character test shot for the girl who will be in the house and discover the robber is trying to get into the house. Her role will involve calling the police and she will need to look alarmed and scared when the robber breaks in.
The character is just a normal girl, so there will be nothing special in terms of costume, make up or hair needed.
In order to make sure the actor is reliable, we are using a group members sister, so we dont have any issues.

Twitter Feedback from The Futureheads 2.

This is the feedback that we received from The Futureheads after they had replied saying that we could use the song, we then sent them the link to the blog. 

Permission To Use "Sun Goes Down"

We "tweeted" The Futureheads and asked them if we could use their song called "Sun Goes Down" for our media music video. They replied within an hour and said that we could use their song, and that they'd like us to send them the finished product. The Futureheads twitter account has over 8,000 followers and they're very fan orientated as they've shown by tweeting back to their fans.

Non Verbal Communication - Beginning Of The Twist - Andrew Jobe

This is a music video called "Beginning Of The Twist" by The Futureheads. I chose this as an example because it's the most famous song from the band which we're doing, The Futureheads. In terms of costume they've changed their outfit in order to keep the viewer interested. They kept the same type of Indie clothing, but changed the outfit. They have a very confident posture in front of the camera and the move around, instead of just standing still, which makes it a lot more interesting.

They also use a lot of gesture, and they exaggerate their instrument playing to add excitement to the video. They also pull a lot of facial expressions to show that they "feel" the music and mean everything you're saying. That also helps you get engrossed in the music video and makes you want to continue watching it.

The space us in the video is also interesting. The band very rarely move backwards or forwards but the camera is moved to create the feeling that they're moving. The change in distance makes the video more interesting and keeps the audience interested.

The change in tone shows that the band mean everything they're saying. If everything was in the same tone it'd be too boring and it'd seem all rehearsed without feeling.

James Bolton - Artist's Non Verbal Communication

Above is The Futureheads video for the song 'Heartbeat Song'. It is important to analyse the way in which non-verbal communication interacts with the audience and helps develop a relationship between artist and viewer. This video uses non-verbal communication in the following ways:

1. Costume
Throughout the video, the host of the game show in this video is wearing a flashy suit and tie, which is typical of a game show host. The band are also wearing fairly plain clothing, which is in keeping with the  our band image research when we first did our pitch. This helps the viewers, who are likely to dress in a similar way to the band, feel part of the 'indie look' and genre. In contrast the opposing contestants are dressed in a rather 'uncool' and old fashioned way, which juxtaposes them and makes the band have a more appealing image.

2. Posture
The singers and guitarists often lean into the microphone when they sing, which alters their posture. It suggests that they are engaged with the song and putting effort in to the song. It promotes they are a bit more entertaining band to watch and they dont just stand their robotic. This helps to sell the band as it makes people interested in seeing them live and may even encourage people to go to the gigs.


3. Gestures
The 'glamourous assistant' character in the video waves her hand as the magic wheel appears, again, this is exaggerated and is adding more humour to a light hearted video. There is lots of cases of exaggerated emotions and gestures throughout the video, whether is banging a fist on the desk, putting your head in your hands, or celebrating wildly when they get a question right.
When the host is holding the tennis racket prize, he pretends to play tennis as well as pretending it is a guitar. It makes he character seem appealing and humourous which makes the video more entertaining to watch and is likely to prevent people from either changing channel or clicking off if they are watching online.


4. Facial Expressions
At the very beginning of the video, the game show host does an exaggerated smile, probably making fun out of the media and people on television. He does this on multiple occassions throughout the video, especially when he is dancing around the band as well as holding the prizes, which include an old tennis racket, which is a pretty rubbish prize for a game show.


5. Space (Use of location and distance between performers and camera)
During the sequences of the band performing, the most common shot is a mid shot that features all or some of the band members. There are quick cuts and zooms to close ups of the singer, from the front and from both sides.


6. Voice (Change in pitch and tone etc.)
The only really noticeable change in pitch is during the choruses, during the line "Your heartbeat song" and the facial expression of the singer noticeably and he almost lifts his body as the pitch of the singing increases. This makes the lip synching and performance look a lot more realistic and convincing.

Permission Form

This is the permission form which all our actors have signed to say that we can use them for our music video.

Website Research & Analysis

As we're making a website to go with our music video we had to do research on other music videos which are similar to the band we're doing. I chose to look at the current Futureheads website and four other websites of bands that are in a similar music genre to us. I had to look at 8 different areas when analysing these websites.

Images and logo’s:

The Futureheads: The Futureheads have their album logo from Chaos in the background, which dominates the whole of the website as it’s their latest promotion. They also have their signature “block writing” that they have on all of their CD covers and now on their website.

The Arctic Monkeys: They have the black Arctic Monkeys block title in a special font which is something that they are known for, but as the bands site is very simple it doesn’t have much else.

Mumford and Sons: They have a logo at the very top of the page which cannot be missed and below that they have Mumford and Sons in white writing.

Biffy Clyro: Once again the website has the band’s name at the top in capitals, but they do not really have a logo on this specific site. Behind the writing is a picture of the band playing live, which is something that brings the website to life.

Kasabian: The Kasabian site has a spinning logo at the top of the page which catches your attention straight away, they also have “Kasabian” underneath in writing which stands out from the background.

New technology and links:

The Futureheads: At the bottom of the Futurehead’s website they have lots of links to other websites and new technology. They have links to Banquet records, Amazon, Last Fm, iTunes, Recordstore.co.uk, play.com, Facebook, myspace and flickr.They also have a live Twitter feed down the left hand side of their website, which is quite important for their promotion. They have video’s at the top of their site to of previous video’s they’ve made.

The Arctic Monkeys: Arctic Monkeys have links to their store and a forum on their navigation bar; they also have a video at the forefront of the website. In the bottom corner they have links to Facebook and Twitter and it also has a button where you can follow the band.

Mumford and Sons: Mumford and sons have links to stores and videos; they have links to tour dates where you can buy tickets. Also they have a button where you can “like” them on Facebook.

Biffy Clyro: Biffy Clyro’s website has a lot of new technology on it, they have videos which you can play. Also on every article you can either like it via Facebook or share it with your friends on Facebook.  You can also view their Facebook. They have links where you can follow them on Twitter and a Twitter feed on their website. They also have a mailing list.

Kasabian: They have links on their website to an online store, also at the top of their page they tell you how many people like them on Facebook and tell you which friends of yours do. You can click on the like button and then like them yourself. There is also links to buying tour tickets.

Written Content:

The Futureheads: They have very little written content on their homepage, it’s mostly links sending you elsewhere for information. They do have a small news section with a very small article on there. They have tour dates on there, also.

The Arctic Monkeys: They only have small articles of a few lines on their website and links where you can expand. They also have tour dates.

Mumford and Sons: Mumford and Sons have more written content on their website, with four articles all on the front page with a few lines sampled. You can then click on them and they expand into a full article. Down the right hand side they also have tour dates.

Biffy Clyro: Biffy Clyro also have tour dates on their website and small article which can be expanded into full articles.

Kasabian: Kasabian have tour dates on their website as well as three or four articles which can be clicked on and expanded into a full article.

Target Audience:

The Futureheads: They have a range from around 16-40 year old males, they’ve been around for a while and they’re themselves older so they attract an older target audience as well as young.

The Arctic Monkeys: They have a target audience ranging from about 16-30 year old, they can be either male or female.

Mumford and Sons: They have a target audience of around 16-40 year olds as they’re quite a mature band with a more mature sound of music.

Biffy Clyro: They have a target audience of around 16-40 year olds and they can be from either the male or female gender.

Kasabian: They have a target audience of around 16-30 year olds and they’re from either gender, they’ve matured as a band as they’ve gotten older so attract an older type of fan.

Genre:

The Futureheads: They’re quite an indie/alternative band,

The Arctic Monkeys: They’re an indie band, they’re more mainstream than Futureheads which means they play on the radio, and are more popular.

Mumford and Sons: They’re an indie/folk band who are beginning to get quite popular and they’re now getting radio plays on their music.

Biffy Clyro: They’re an indie/rock band who are quite popular with the older fan as they’ve been around for quite a long time.

Kasabian: They’re a rock band that gets a lot of radio time as they’re quite popular.

Colour and Style:

The Futureheads: They have a very plain colour and style on their website, they have their grey and blue album art as a background and all the writing is in black or grey, which isn’t very bright.

The Arctic Monkeys: The Arctic Monkeys website has quite a plain style of just black and white colours that suits their laid back style as an artist. They have a clear old fashioned style to the website.

Mumford and Sons: The Mumford and Sons have a website with a black background with white blocks with writing on. They have quite an old fashioned style like their type of music.

Biffy Clyro: Biffy Clyro have a very upbeat type of website, it’s also very outgoing like their band members and their music. They have a picture from a gig behind them, with the band performing live. They have a very colourful website with white writing over the top of it.

Kasabian: Kasabian have a very old fashioned style website with Black writing on a white background which is something which is very popular the minute with indie/rock bands.

Font and Layout:

The Futureheads: Their title is a black block titled font which stands out and it’s recognisable as that is the font they use on everything that they do. They have a simple layout with a navigation bar at the top, important news and videos on the top of the page and links to elsewhere towards the bottom of the page.

The Arctic Monkeys: The website mostly block writing or just normal plain back writing. That’s because it suits it’s plain website style. They have their band name in their special recognisable font which is on their albums.

Mumford and Sons: The site has a very plain layout with a black background, they have a white block down the middle of their site where they have plain black writing.

Biffy Clyro: Biffy Clyro’s website doesn’t have a set layout really, they have things everywhere and you don’t know where to look. That makes the website interesting to look at. Their font is quite a simple font which fits well on top of their good background.

Kasabian: The Kasabian website is very plain, very much like they Arctic Monkeys website. They have a font which is very much like a type writer, it’s something which I don’t think really fits with their website.

Advertisements:

The Futureheads: They don’t really have any big advertisements, but they do have links to the likes of Play.com and Amazon where you can buy their albums from. They also have a link to a store on their navigation bar.

The Arctic Monkeys: They do not have a great deal of advertisements on their website, They have a link to their store, but it is very low key at the top and it doesn’t really stand out.

Mumford and Sons:  They have links to iTunes to buy their music, if you click on the picture of their album cover which is on their website it takes you to iTunes and gives you the option to buy the CD. They also have links to their tour tickets, also.

Biffy Clyro: They don’t really have any advertisements, they have a store and they mention how you can buy their merchandise. They have an advert which pops up at the top of their website about buying their new album which is album live from Wembley.

Kasabian: Kasabian have links to buying their gig tickets and they also have a link to their online store which is their only ways on advertising on their website, which I was surprised about.

Website Research & Analysis 2

These are the websites I looked at: 

1. The Futureheads      

2. The Arctic Monkeys

3. Mumford and Sons

4. Biffy Clyro            

5. Kasabian             

                             

See below for analysis.

Production Schedule - Locations

This is the production schedule which includes the locations, their addresses, and what equipment we will need for each location.

Production Schedule

This our production schedule, with contact details of our actors and what parts they will play. We need to collaborate with all parties to find and appropriate date.

Practice Filming

We have planned to practice filming some of our shots that we are going to use in our actual music video, this is to test them and to check that we will be able to acheive the desired effect. We are going to be testing two different aspects of our ideas, the first is the stop motion effect. This is when you take a shot, stop the camera and have the person move a little bit, then start the camera again and so on. When this is edited together it should flow but not look completely natural. The second aspect we are going to pracitce is the speeding up of a shot. We will have one person moving very slow and everyone arround is moving at normal speed. When the shot is edited the person who was going slow will be at normal speed and everyone else will be moving very fast. We plan to film this on Thursday 27th October.

Andrew Jobe - Artist Research 2

Activity 1

Part 1

The Futureheads normally use quirky elements of their song in their music video, and they try and make them funny, which is something which only works for certain songs. Their music video for “heartbeat song” is a quirky video which is set in a game show environment. That’s what makes it memorable for viewers, and making a video memorable is the best way to promote your band.

They have a lot of performance in their videos which is a good way of making themselves them very authentic and it shows that they play their own instruments. It also insinuates that they write their own songs and they’re not a manufactured band. It also makes you think that they’d be very good to see live, that’s another way which bands make themselves identifiable.

Both of them aspects which I’ve mentioned above are very often used in Indie video, which shows that they’re fitting the genre that they’re currently in.

As the band have got older and grown up since 2000 they’ve started to produce deeper and darker songs, rather than their more quirky style they had when they were younger. For example Beginning of the twist is very different to Sun Goes down, as Sun Goes Down was produced as they grew up a bit more and their style altered slightly. That’s why we’re doing their newer song and going with a slightly more serious video.

I don’t think the film style has changed that much over time; they’re still very focussed on filming the band playing their instruments.

Part 2

The main mise-en-scene focus in their videos is the inclusion of instruments and props that match their “indie/alternative” genre. What I mean by Indie props is the clothes that the band wear, they wear quite dull outfits, either black or grey. This is very popular with Indie bands as they’re not looking to be outrageous with big outfits like Lady Gaga and other pop acts they’re looking to be as down to earth as possible.

Also like I’ve previously mentioned they have instruments in their videos to make them seem like a band who are very talented and not just a band who was everything handed to them on a plate, with writers and backing tracks etc.

The videos all have quick cuts and straight cuts, that’s done to make them seem as down to earth as possible. 

This allows fans to feel close to the band and feel they could be like them.

A video which I’ve looked at by the Futureheads links in with TV in a small way. The song is “heartbeat song” and it has the band on a gameshow and it shows them performing live on the show. The link with the TV show does not have a meaning that I know of but it’s a way for the fans to remember the band.

CD Cover conventions? -  Track names, Album Title, Band Name, Parental advisory if needed, a picture of band or something related, Barcode, Producer, Record label.

Police Car Test Shots

This photo is of the police car which will obviously be driven in the music video by the policeman, he will turn up at the scene of the break in after the main character is inside the house and the girl who will be upstairs has rung the police. When he arrives at the scene he will enter the house through the same way that the robber came in, through the back gate and back door. When he is inside he will arrest the main character and then put him into the back of the police car. We wouldnt of used the idea of a policeman if we didn't have this police car that we can use because it would look unconvincing if our policeman had no car and simply turned up and then had nowhere to put the criminal afterwards.

Policeman Test Shots

This is a photo of my dad who will be playing the role of the policeman as part of the music video. As he is a policeman he already has all the props and the costume that we will needed, this is good as it will look more convincing as it will all be real. Also this means that we wont have to find a convincing looking costume which could potentially look light fancy dress. He will also not need an make up for the shoot. 

The scene that he will be involved in is the scene which is filmed at the house, the main character will be seen breaking into the house and then we will show the girl calling the police. Later on the policeman will the come in and arrest our character and put him in his car.

James Bolton - Artist Research

Activity 1: Music Video Analysis

            Our band is The Futureheads. They have released 5 studio albums entitled:

·         The Futureheads (2004)

·         News and Tributes (2006)

·         This is Not the World (2008)

·         The Chaos (2010)

·         Rant (2011)

Over this time, The Futureheads haven’t gone through a major change of image. They wear pretty plain, dark clothing, typical of the indie genre. Indie bands tend to be split in two in terms of image, the more indie pop bands wear brighter colours, whereas the indie rock bands, including The Futureheads, tend to wear darker colours.

Unlike some bands, The Futureheads dont do anything particularly special to identify themselves in their videos. One thing that they do is to highlight the fact that they play their own instruments. This is very important as an indie band, as fans aren't interested in bands that don't play or write their own songs. It adds an authenticity to the band and encourages fans to attend gigs, because there is a heavy focus on playing live music. An example of this is in The Futureheads video for 'Beginning of the Twist' (Below).

If you look at the image of the band in this video in terms of their clothing, it is very similar to other bands in the indie rock genre, such as Kasabian, they too have a similar image, with a focus on playing live. A good example of this is their music video for their song 'Underdog'. (Below)

These videos fit the conventions of the indie genre. There is very little in the way of 'flashy' or extravagant effects. There are some, but they're rather more modest. In indie music, it is very much about the band and the music, and that is often the focus of music videos, because that is what is important to the fans. There is usually an honesty to indie videos and in many cases are often memorable, with bands willing to do querky ideas and make fools of themselves, because that is a good way to 'sell your band.' For example, in The Futureheads video for 'Heartbeat Song', they create a game show, like Family Fortunes or The Generation Game and below in a screenshot from that video.

These conventions are something that we will aim to recreate in our video for The Futureheads. We will have performance elements, with the band in appropriate clothing, to conform with conventions and appeal to the target audience. However, our dark narrative may call for a more serious tone, atmosphere and style, which is different to the lighthearted indie video that is often seen. We will though, attempt to make it memorable and effective in creating the dark atmosphere, which too will help sell the band while still fitting with the feel of the song.

Activity 2: CD Covers

As well as producing a music video, we too must create the bands album artwork in a digipack format. This includes a front and back cover as well as the inside sleeve and CD design. Below is 4 examples of The Futureheads' album artworks:

As you can see from the designs, the fonts are simple block texts that is clear and easy to read. In keeping with the band's image of being fairly plain and dull, these greys, blacks and reds are reflected and used in their CD covers as well as their clothing. This is something we will have to conform with when we select our CD cover designs. The covers that do feature the band don't actually show all of their faces, they are hidden or replaced in some way, this is something we will have to match if we choose to feature the band on our artwork. However, our CD cover is likely to relate our video, so the two go hand in hand and are recognisable. To do this, we'll take relevant photos while on shoot and use Photoshop and its relevant tools and effects to create the look we desire. Below are some ideas I have drawn for a possible artwork idea.

James Bolton - Summer Music Video Analysis



Band: My Chemical Romance

Part One: Genre

            In the band’s latest album, it has a narrative which is where the band members are living on planet Earth in the future, in a sort of dystopian way of life. Each band member has their own comic book style character, name and outfit, which helps to identify not only the band from other bands, but the members within the band.

            When My Chemical Romance released their first album I Brought You My Bullets and You Brought Me Your Love in 2002, the band weren’t massively well known. But after their second studio album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, which was released in 2004, it reached number 34 in the UK album chart, compared to 129 on their first album. There hasn’t been huge change between these two albums. The musical genre of Emo Rock remained the same, while the bands dark and “gothic” image of black clothing remained. The bands logo was often black, and the two album covers portrayed depressing and violent images, often relating to suffering. The artwork contains the band name, album title, parental advisory warning where appropriate as well as the releavant iconography.

The band’s third studio album The Black Parade, released in 2006, was a lot more popular and showed the ever changing image of the band, portraying the members as “The Black Parade”, a group of almost undertaker like characters. This album showed continuity in the bands dark music and lyrics, as well as their image, which changed to black civil war style military clothing, shown in the screenshot from their music video for the single Welcome to the Black Parade. This image, while not necessarily appealing in a mainstream point of view, and almost certainly off putting for many people, fits clearly with Emo Rock genre conventions of a dark band image to match the emotional and shadowy lyrics.

For the bands fourth and most recent album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, the bands image went through a massive transition, from the dark stereotypical “gothic”, to a lively, bright comic book style set of characters. The band said this was an attempt to move away from what they had been used, and if they were to be inspired to write a fourth album, they needed a whole new concept, and, from looking at the image, they have achieved that.

Part Two: Visual Style and Image

            In previous music videos, as seen earlier with the screenshot from the Welcome to the Black Parade video, the bands common iconography and mise-en-scene was military clothing, dark colours and things like skulls. However, with the fourth album, there is much brighter props, such as masks and ray guns, that link in to the bands album concept of rebelling, which is often the view of rock music as a genre. The screenshot below comes from the band’s first single (Na Na Na) from the fourth album, and shows the new comic book image, as well as the new typical iconography. The album launch was so anticipated among fans, the band sold a Deluxe Edition of the album, which included a replica mask and ray gun.

            In their recent music videos, the band has used quick cuts in terms of editing, to fit with the quick tempo of the song as well as their new lively image. The text and titles are bright, in block font, and appear with the onomatopoeic sounds often found in comic books like “bash” and “boom”. The video also adopts, in places, such as below, a panel style, often seen in comic books.

James Bolton - Ideas Grid 2

Above is a scan of my second ideas grid which ended up being our final idea. We decided that the original idea for this song wasn't plausable, especially after the comments and feedback we received from our initial pitch. I came up with the idea of having the main character as a house robber, rather than a hitman. This has solved a number of problems we were facing:

• A chase scene that we proposed for the hitman idea was a risk as it could have looked unconvincing. A house robbery is easier to film and it will still create the desired effect we are looking for, as well as representing the main character is the same way.
• Location wise, we were struggling to think of a place where we could film a chase scene. It was likely it would have to be in an open area where there would be public interference, but filming in a house gives us time, flexibility and we can get the continuity of the video spot on.
• Actor wise, we were also struggling to find someone who was the appropriate age for the hit man (around 25-35), so having someone rob a house means that we can use a teenager, rather than an adult.

Artist Research 1 - Andrew Jobe

Part 1

Mumford and Sons first video was quite simple, their debut single was “Little Lion Man” was mainly just of the band playing their instruments. They’re shown in a room with hanging light bulbs and they don’t leave that room during the video. That suggests to me that it was a low budget video because they were a new band, but it may also be because Mumford and Sons have quite a laid back style to their music, and the video really fits in with what the band is, quite simplistic and chilled out.

As Mumford and Sons became more popular and a bigger name in music – for their niche market – they kept their videos as a chilled out style, but they did more with them and their was obviously more funding and a different idea of the band wanting to be portrayed. “The Cave” showed them performing their music while they were on Mopeds going through towns and cities, They also have more people in their videos and make them more of a production, but there is still instrumental shown in them.

Another one of their videos is “Winter Winds”, this is more of an upbeat video with a lot of things happening, even a small bit of fighting. Very much like all of the other videos it still shows instruments and the band playing, along which would be something that would have to be incorporated if I was to use a Mumford and Sons song as my song.

I wouldn’t say the band has changed that much over time, but they have only released one album which may be why I cannot see a change in them, their next album may allow me to recognise something different about the band.

In every video they have the band members playing their instruments, they also have laid back videos and often slow motion clips in the video, so if I was to choose one of their songs I would have to follow the pattern that they have already used on the songs that they’ve made videos for.

A different range of camera angles is more evident in the later music videos, I feel that is because they are more outdoor and action filled unlike the first video which is just the band members in a dimly lit room playing their instruments. They also seem to always wear Indie, or even farmer type clothing, this is something which is a trend throughout all of their videos, because that is the image that they’re trying to portray.

Also their videos seem to most of the time have dark rooms or darkly lit places in them, when they’re playing the instruments, I’m not sure what this is meant to signify, but it is something that I have noticed while studying the videos.

Part 2

Mumford and sons in all of the videos that I have looked at (Little Lion Man, The Cave, Winter Winds) all show the band wearing Indie clothes and dull colours, this is because it matches their laid back look and it fits the indie style of music that they aiming for in their niche market.

Also as I’ve acknowledged earlier I have noticed a trend through their videos that they’re always shown playing their instruments and singing, and it’s rarely a story told in the video, it’s normally just them singing, It would be interesting to challenge the conventions and relay a story through a video.

They use simple camera shots in their earlier videos, like in their debut single “Little Lion Man” the main camera angle is just a long shot of the band, which shows their whole body playing their instruments, Some close ups were used on the instruments (piano’s and guitars) and of the main singer singing. Also side on views of the band members, are used, but with darkened out faces.

Straight cut editing or continuity editing as it is sometimes known to create a sense of realism, so you can imagine being in the video, also it suggests the band are just like normal people which can raise popularity.

There is one of their videos, “The Cave” which seems to have a deep underlying meaning of poverty, this is portrayed in the video, and through the song lyrics.

What’s on an album cover?

Track names

Album Title

Band Name

Parental advisory if needed.

Picture of band or something related.

Barcode

Producer.

Record label

Andrew Jobe - Ideas Grid 2

This is an ideas grid which I put together for the song "Sun Goes Down" by The Futureheads. This was an alternative idea to our more serious idea. Our classmates said if our first idea was too complicated we could change our idea into a bit of a joke, and a less serious idea. Although we weren't that keen on the idea we decided that it'd be a good idea to give ourselves another option to do. We thought we could maybe develop a super-hero and have his "double life" as him as a super-hero.

Alex Beale - Ideas Grid 2

This is my ideas grid for the song 'Sun Goes Down' by The Futureheads which is the song that we are going to be making a music video for. This ideas grid includes the ideas that we had when we first finalized this as the song that we are going to use. Some of the ideas on here will still be used such as the whole idea of a character with a double life and the themes that will be in the song such as crime, sins, deceit and lies. However some of the ideas that we had have now changed such as the idea that our character would be a hit man, we have changed this because will felt that it was a fairly complicated idea and that we could do better with a different idea.

Andrew Jobe - Ideas Grid

Alex Beale - Ideas Grid

This is my ideas grid for the song 'Don't sit down cause i've moved your chair' by the Arctic monkeys. I chose to do an ideas grid for this song because i knew we would be doing a song from the indie genre so and i thought this would be a suitable song as there can be plenty of ideas for this song as i feel that the song have a good clear narrative behind it. I looked at different ideas that could be used that could be used to match the lyrics, narrative, theme, instruments, audiences expectations and the overall tone and feel of the music. I think that this was a good song to chose as it covers lots of areas on the ideas grid and it could possibly help us with our ideas.

James Bolton - Ideas Grid

Above is my first ideas grid for when our group were looking for a song and an idea to accompany it. The song I chose was 'From the Stars' by the band 'White Lies' (see video). My idea was to follow the very clear narrative that the song has. It follows a man who is returning to his old town to go to a friends funeral, and he is struggling to come to terms with his loss. The lyrics are very literal in places such as "took a car back to his hotel" and "put the Do Not Disturb on his door." We would have the visuals matching the lyrics during these lines (and others) to convey the narrative. We would also have had performance sections in the video, as that is important in selling the image of an indie/rock band, and would also split up the narrative. Unfortunately, despite all group memebers liking my idea, we felt that the song was too long (nearly 5 minutes) and the locations and number of actors we would require would pose us with logistical problems, and the who idea may be rather too ambitious. However, we intend to keep searching within the indie/rock genre for a suitable narrative song.



Location 2 - The house

These are the location photographs for our second location, this is where the break in scene will be filmed. The main character will break into the house going through the gate and then the back door. The police will be rang while he is inside and then he will be arrested. This scene is towards the end of the song so it is part of the 'double life' this means that we will be filming in the evening/night. We dont need any extra lighting as it is light enough inside and the outside is supposed to be dark anyway.

Location 1 - The Office

In our music video we're planning on having the beginning of the narrative shot in an office. Below is a picture of the office which we will be shooting that part of our music video in. The office is available to film in at weekends, and nearer the time a date will be sorted when we can film. That should not be a problem as the office is at the work of one of my parents, and they've granted permission for someone to film a media piece there before.

We felt an office was an imporant location for our music video as the main narrative is based around a double life and having a normal 9 to 5 office job is something which can be portrayed as one part of the double life. We're planning on filming around 30 seconds of our music video in this location. One of the main shots we will use is a shot of the main actor going at normal speed but everything around him going really quick, this will be done by using the editing software and making our main actor do everything slowly.