Welcome!



Hello, I'm
Matthew Romo (1660) from Group 2. The other embers of my group are Harry Kettenis (0390), Josh Stevenson (0796) and Ysabel Hudson-Searle (0331).

Hopefully navigation should not be an issue on my blog; 'labels' on the right hand side near the top will direct you to groups of posts from specific areas. Research and Planning, Production, and Evaluation work should all be available to see under their respective A2 labels. The other labels will direct you to work from my AS level and preliminary activities for A2.

Also, by clicking on the "Latymer Music Video Blog" link above the labels, you can go back to Latymer's main music video blog where all other blogs from my class can be accessed.

Finally, I hope you enjoy observing and assessing my work as much as I did creating it.


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Tuesday 16 December 2014

Shoot Day 5 - 11/11/14





Telling the boyfriend to leave her alone



This shoot day was used to capture footage for the club scene (first take), Tasha's dancing, the drumming shots, and the hair flick shot.

We confirmed our cast for the clubs well in advance by speaking in person and via texts to remind them. Since this day was when the school was celebrating remembrance, all of sixthform were dressed smartly, fitting our idea for the club scene; we did not have to organise everybody's costume or worry about some forgetting. Just in case too many of our extras dressed too similarly i.e. white shirts and black trousers, I brought two extra shirts in  two shirts and a pair of 

jeans, however these were not needed                                                                                                                                                             
Arriving at the club and greeting friends
We used the minimum amount of people possible to reenact a club environment so with the 9 we had it was important to fill the frame so it wouldn't seem empty. To the right is one of the practice shots with Harry and Yssy just arrived at the club, Josh on the camera, with me directing outside the shot using hand gestures aiming to get people close enough to the camera that it did not seem staged, before acting in the real shots.

Setup started at 1345 and we were shooting by around 1425 and finished with the club cast at 1545 as planned so we kept them content, leaving the possibility of reshooting (which we did) since they had confidence in our planning to time. Next were the silhouette shots starring Tasha, who was scheduled to arrive at 1630, allowing us to prepare the infinity-white backdrop and reconfigure the lighting. The track's complex beat make it difficult to dance to, but because we had sent Tasha the song 2 weeks in advance she was able to work out a few routines.


She showed us a practice run without the camera, and then we took 2 takes of her showcasing what she had planned (with 10 minute breaks for rest as this was very intense), and we were really pleased with the result.



Harry pointed out that it would be useful to capture some more slow, fluid dancing to fit the calmer parts of the song, and Tasha agreed to two more takes of this. The gif just above is an example of this, and a mixture of vigorous and smooth dancing made the final video.


Prior to this shoot I had already put myself forward for the drumming, while Harry, Yssy and Josh all gave directions. We set up the camera and lighting together and blacked out the studio again aside for spotlighting the individual drums, and faced the playback monitor in my direction so I could see what it looked like water cling film spray bottle





























Sunday 14 December 2014

Shoot Day 7 - 22/11/14


This shoot day was used to retake our performance shots, acquiring a greater variety of angles, framing and bringing in some camera movement, since prior to this we did not have this. We also wanted to bring in more artist movement, because despite having good performance shots at the time we wanted to try and do more than solely lipsynching.


On this shoot day we had far more power to do this, since we were using a different tripod that had wheels attached - this gifted us the ability to achieve more different types of shot, having the freedom to experiment a little more.We were also using the higher quality Canon 5D camera, so the key performance shots that we were retaking had a far sharper resolution, making them more powerful and Yssy's emotions could show far stronger.



Camera movement using the advanced tripod and higher resolution



Subtitled Josh and I directing Yssy to use strong facial expressions


The first shots we took were the performance shots holding the roses, wearing the blue jacket. We really liked how the colours looked so striking the first time round, but on that occasion we shot it at the end of the shoot day where there was less time to really get the best out of it. While directing, I raised the idea of Yssy scornfully tossing a rose aside on the line 'chipping away at boulders' and it seemed to fit particularly well, so much so that it ended up in the final video.


Despite only having the studio for half a day as group 1 used it for the second half, after lunchtime, we shot some highly successful lipsynch performances. We did not aim to get a huge quantity of footage but we did well with what we did shoot; Yssy acted very effectively in conveying emotion so overall it was a successful day of filming. 


Shoot Day 4 - 10/11/14


On this shoot day we started midway through lunchtime, and shot the ice with a rose frozen inside being shattered by a hammer. We also took the shots with writing on my back and the first take of Yssy holding the rose and wearing the blue jacket in front of the black backdrop.



Above is the shootboard we planned for this day, organised in a group meeting. We were quite well organised for time so we managed to fit in the back-shots, thinking smart on our feet and using time to the best of our ability since the spotlighting and black background setup for of this day's shots were reasonably similar


           
Footage from the Canon 5D (left) and the HF G30 (right)


The rose in ice shot was first, and was part of the concept aspect of our video, representing the destructive nature of the love that she experiences.

I prepared the rose in ice, which took time and effort to prepare - to freeze ice and keep it transparent I had to boil the water in a pan and once putting it in a container and into the freezer it had to be shaken gently every half hour to remove air bubbles. The result was very visually appealing as the rose had accidentally dyed the ice pink, which actually looked good. I brought the ice in a box by car into school so it would not have time to melt and we started shooting straight away, making the most of the moment by shooting it with GoPro, the Canon 5D and HF G30. This gave us a variety of angles, frame rates per second and image quality. Josh, Harry and I each took charge of a camera while Yssy smashed the ice, as you can see above. The main problem was that the only the GoPro could film footage designed to be shot in slow motion as we desired, but the angle we shot from with it showed the tarpaulin laid out on the floor as it shoots with such a wide lense.


Despite the effort needed to create it, this shot did not make our final cut as the 5D's footage had too low a frame rate to use in slow motion, even with its image quality. We also could not find a place in the video where it would work well and not seem like a random and irrelevant shot.


Next were the back shots. I was the most comfortable to act in this shot, and there were no objections so I was happy to take on the challenge of conveying emotion solely through posture. Before setting out the lighting we prepared my makeup:












Since I have quite pale skin the tonal makeup was necessary, or the spotlighting on my back would have reflected too much light, as you may be able to guess from the image above and to the left.

















I wrote some of these words down with Yssy on a notepad during a group meeting where we planned the back shot, allowing us to save time and delve straight into shooting it:





Some footage of my group writing the emotional words over me in the semi-permanent tattoo marker we bought:

          

The shot was designed to very literally express the countless emotions Roza feels in her relationship. I came up with the idea for this shot in an early group meeting when we were listening to the song and coming up with conceptual shots to work with the lyrics. I had a quite arty vision of how to interpret SZA's song and this is one of the shots that made it from idea to screen.


Until 5:30 where our studio time finished we tried some practice shots of Yssy holding the rose and wearing the blue jacket, so we could save time shooting it properly in terms of knowing the best way to configure the lighting. We wanted to spend more time getting it right and with greater variety of takes and framings than we had the time to shoot on this day, so practicing it was a useful way to spend our time.


Website Flat Plans and Development


During group meetings we looked at websites from some of our inspired artists and found a lot of things we liked from the contrasting websites of Jhene Aiko and The Weeknd.


Josh laid out a digital rough plan of the pages once we'd decided the key elements (colour, style, pages to include):


The basic outline plus the content and layout of the homepage - Roza's image and style being sold by her twitter, her music being sold by the album cover and her tour tickets being sold by gig advertising. Everything in mind to bring our artist success and give the audience opportunity to consume.






The gallery page allows the audience to get involved even more, and get a sense of style and personality in tandem with the Twitter account. Some of the proposed behind the scenes sections would have a similar effect.




The news page would be not only giving the latest in Roza's activities but also helping to sell her performances and music - this works with news since the album coming out and the tour that would follow is upcoming, the release and tour are product but also an event in their own right. Plus, any opportunity to consume must be given to the audience to aid our artist's success. The bio will give a clear sense of Roza's character and personality, so the audience can feel more involved and have a personal connection. Her entire persona is sold as well as her music, all together in one. Just like with Beyonce or Lady Gaga, the music is only one part of why their fans are so passionate.





The contact page is also an easy way to get involved, inviting the audience to interact with the artist - even hinting that they could be involved in one of Roza's own songs. This makes them far more likely to take the opportunity to do so, and allowing her own close fans (that become so in this way) to self promote using word of mouth and social media sharing as members of our audience definitely would if they had any involvement with an artist they liked.



7 out of 10 of the most followed accounts on the whole of Twitter are music artists. Their number of Tweets show that they are active users and the huge number of followers shows that their fans are also active users and want to hear from the artist. Regardless of genre, the fans of these artists are most prominently in our core audience age; mid teens to young adults.

A quick search instantly found a tweet from an audience member stating their 'claim to fame' with any involvement possible with the artist



Yssy and Harry proposed the idea of, like The Weeknd keeping to a fairly simplistic, bold, black and white style like that which we had used for the album cover, meaning the two could work in synergy as part of a consistent brand, which we all agreed on. This is reflected in Josh's plans (above) that came after this, right down to our final website.


The colour scheme and effortless style of this website was something we drew inspiration from:
Our navigation indicates clear inspiration from The Weeknd's website. The style is similar so we made the navigation link to the page you are on highlight itself...
...whereas on The Weeknd's, when you enter another page subtitle on the banner changes to let you know.


Josh and I were also quite fond of Jhene Aiko's website's more personal touch, which we felt The Weeknd had less of. I believe this reflected the trend that female PBR&B artists were more in touch with their emotions, mentioned back in my artist post earlier into the process. In particular I personally liked her written bio on her homepage as it gave an extremely strong sense of what the artist behind the music is actually like. 




Emotive writing on Jhene's website, her personality promoted as an important part of her as an artist.
I took charge of writing Roza's website bio as I am a fairly confident writer
I felt able to write in a style that was not my own because, working on Roza's Twitter I had a good sense of what some similar artists would write like, including Jhene from her bio. It is highly cliche and quite 'soppy', and made in a way that audience members can relate
A quick compilation I made exhibiting some of the ways PBR&B artists write on Twitter similar to the bio I wrote for Roza, inspired by this sort of style as well as Jhene's, which is also full of cliche



Another thing we planned (and executed) was a landing page for our artist. This also shows resemblance with Jhene Aiko's website and many other music artists' websites:

  • When you open the Weeknd's website the first thing that you see is the music video to 'Often', his most recent song being promoted. This must be closed to take you to the rest of the website
  • For JMSN's website his tour is advertised straight away, the first thing appearing on entry being the dates and locations as well as the tour's running image (of the artist)
  • And on Jhene's the album cover comes up first with a link to purchase it, this again is what you face before entering the rest of the site

JMSN advertising his upcoming tour, which starts in January and runs until March


Friday 12 December 2014

Publicity Shots


 We took promo shots during periods of our final 2 shoot days and edited them on Adobe Photoshop in school alongside the album cover, video and website. We used these for our Twitter page





The original image



The studio set in the background was edited out first, deleting everything around Yssy 




The magic wand tool on Photoshop sometimes selected too much and deleted chunks of hair, making it look unprofessional - so we undid the deleted sections and used the quick selection tool to go round and edit more specifically,




It
















Tuesday 9 December 2014

My Music Consumption



How/where/when do you consume music?


I listen to music very regularly and frequently, as someone very passionate about it. Prior to owning a car and driving routinely, I listened to music on my phone or iPod on the bus, either from albums I own that are uploaded to my iTunes, songs/albums from artists downloaded from YouTube via a converter, or directly from YouTube using 3G internet and WiFi. When this was the case I could listen to relaxing hip-hop, slow/soft rock music or 'liquid' drum and bass.


Since owning a car I listen to radio far more, particularly in mornings where alongside music I can be updated on recent news. My car allows 6 radio stations to be saved, so for variety I have Absolute and XFM saved for a variety of rock music, Kiss for some popular house and garage music, Radio 1Xtra for urban genres such as grime and hip hop, Metro Love Radio for reggae and West Indian styles, and RadyoUmut for cultural music which I enjoy occasionally. However radio coverage limits the genres available to me which is the main downside apart from advertising every few songs.

Most nights I relax to music in bed as part of a sleep routine, to calmer songs with slower, more consistent tempos. Also but less often, I go to gigs (a few times a year) for the spectacle of witnessing artists I particularly appreciate, or out of recommendation by friends whose taste I trust. As well as this I sometimes go to clubs for the social side of enjoying music, but arguably the most enjoyable way to consume music (despite being the least frequent) is at a music festival, which I have had the pleasure of doing at Reading Festival for the past 3 years consecutively. 'Fesitval season' in the Summer fields a huge variety of music in many festivals across the UK, although I find myself limited to more commercial festivals due to the music taste of my main friendship group. However, Reading has increasingly become more diverse in genre content and audience in order to expand, which benefits me.



3 tracks that mean something to me:

From my childhood I have distinct memories of listening to Queen's first and second greatest hits albums on car journeys, and around aged 6 my dad bought me a Walkman, I think for my birthday. These were the first moments of listening to music with some independence - I could listen with headphones on my own and not just have to be in the car; I could enjoy music anywhere, which I absolutely loved. In those years my favourite song was 'I Want It All', during which I would unashamedly air guitar my way through the intro and guitar solo, perhaps due to not understanding the concept of dignity. I shared a love for the song with my best friend in primary school, and at eachother's houses we'd thrash around to it in our early appreciation of the rock music we grew up with through our parents.





Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers became one of the most important songs to me in my early/mid teens, helping me get through tough times through sympathising with Anthony Kiedis' lyrics. I had always liked the number of songs I knew by the band, which I could count with my hands, but with curiosity that later inspired me to look much further into all artists I discovered all kinds of music ranging from psychadellic funk metal to softer, emotional acoustic music all from one band. Within days of exploration they became my favourite band and remain in that position. I bought Anthony's autobiography Scar Tissue which was one of the most influential, eventful reads I have ever experienced and really furthered my knowledge of musical history from the 60s to the early 00s. It taught me the inspirations and meanings to many of their songs, and I was particularly moved by Under The Bridge. Looking just beneath the surface of a band known for generally soft rock songs of their later work taught me that to many bands there is so much more worth knowing, a lesson that can be applied to all aspects of life. This band made music mean more to me than just an enjoyable listening experience.




A song that has become a recent favourite of mine is 'I Gave You Power' by Nas, from his second Album It Was Written. I was (am) in a phase of listening to more hip hop, exploring early influences and roots of the genre so Nas being one of the most important rap artists of all time was someone I wanted to get to know better. I fell in love with the chilled out, point of view focused music of his debut album Illmatic, which was clearly influenced by his father being a jazz musician, and was perhaps even more impressed with the direction of It Was Written as it lyrically became more of a social commentary, looking at issues in urban-American society. In 'I Gave You Power', Nas uses a powerful extended metaphor in portraying himself as a gun. It strongly impacted me in its insight into the violent ghettos of New York and its unconventional use of symbolic, autobiographical poetry.





Monday 8 December 2014

Current Trends and Gaps in the Market


Producing something completely original in the music industry today is widely considered impossible, and rightly so. Previous decades' styles of music have been reinvented and marketed to new audiences or in new ways.

A trend I have noticed is bands with older members forming or reforming and releasing music videos as this media of music promotion was far less common in their early years or twenties. Red Fang are a good example of this, a heavy metal band comprised of middle-aged men only forming in 2009, unusually late in life for a band to enter the music scene or reinvent themselves. There is more scope for bands to find their audience and achieve recognition due to the exponentially broadening avenues to market their music, especially the creation of YouTube in 2005 which now hundreds of thousands of songs and music videos of all types can be found, those with even tens of millions of views easily in the thousands.






Middle aged audiences who are more likely to relate to and connect with bands with older members are one of the main target audiences for music festivals such as Glastonbury, where 'Dinosaur Jr' played in 2014. These festivals have become larger through the years achieving great commercial success, and particularly for ones like Glastonbury this can be attributed to their ability to target multiple audiences through a huge variety of styles and eras of music.
Dinosaur Jr were performing between 1984 and 1997 before reforming in 2005, now having access to promoting themselves via infinitely more platforms such as social media.



Despite this interesting trend I am unlikely to use it as major inspiration, simply because I have far less knowledge of the audience by growing up in a different era. Technology such as the ever expanding internet, web 2.0 and social media will still however play a huge role in promoting my artist in this project, but most likely for teenagers/young adults.


Hard rock has also made a huge comeback in the UK with bands like Drenge forming in 2011 Royal Blood in 2013, whose eponymous debut album reached number 1 in both UK and Ireland. I have also observed bands such as the Arctic Monkeys changing their style, either realising the changing trends in music popularity or contributing to them with their own enormous popularity. Their latest album, AM, released 2013 furthered their transition into the hard rock style, with flagship songs such as 'R U Mine' and 'Arabella'  moving away from their fast paced, garage/indie post punk rock roots.

These bands are closer to the potential artist I might create as part of this project, largely due to being in their core audience.






Despite US born music being immensely popular in the UK, for example mainstream artists like Eminem, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake, UK artists accounted for 60% of the Top 40 album sales and 80% of the Top 10, indicating our exports are successful enough to not be dominated by overseas competition. Promoters of music such as Simon Cowell play an important role in this with reality TV, in particular The X Factor, giving birth to Olly Murs, Sam Smith, and international pop sensations One Direction. Its involvement in popular culture today is undeniable, with 9 out of the 10 above artists having either been a contestant or performed on the show, the Arctic Monkeys being the anomaly, with lead singer Alex Turner slamming the show, saying it churns out "sh**y pop music". They break the mould in more ways than one, their past 5 albums (every album they have released) going straight to number 1, which has never been done before right from a debut album. AM  was the second fastest selling album of the year behind Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, selling 157,000 copies in its first week, making history as they fight for the place of independent artists in success.

As I would have expected, the 3 highest selling genres are currently dance, rock, and pop. I expect this due to what I observe people around me to be listening to. Although there is always a strong correlation however, most sales does not always show exactly what is the most popular - certain genres may be more likely to be illegally downloaded. Pop and rock are often more commercial in recent years whereas so much of dance music is quite underground despite this scene being huge. Some artists like Daft Punk have been huge in the dance genre but the increase in popularity shown by the table below could be down to artists like Duke Dumont and Disclosure breaking out into the mainstream recently. There is also a fine line between some dance and pop music, making analysis less simple than face value.


Sunday 7 December 2014

Semiotic Analysis


The View From The Afternoon - Arctic Monkeys

One of my all time favourite songs and music videos, which after research I rate even higher than before. I found out that it was based on the story of Buddha, who meditated under a tree for days while devils attempted to distract and seduce him, represented by a girl wearing devil horns and thuggish men threatening and intimidating him.
 




The video, shot in black and white, begins with a closeup on a shopping trolley wheel being pushed along a dirty street in a grey, lonely daytime, representing the world around as troubled and negative. Pushing the cart is shortly revealed to be by a young man - our protagonist.

His cart is filled with drum kit as we are shown a set of high rise council flats in wide angle extreme long shots to further display the dull, lifeless and seemingly unpleasant landscape. It cuts to a high angle MCU of the boy's drum kit, now set up in the middle of a circle of the high rise flats, as he wraps his hands in preparation to play. He takes a deep breath as his hooded face is unveiled and we cut to a symbolic shot of his head in looking up to the night sky, 'up to the heavens' perhaps. Cut back to the present and he begins. 


A series of slow fades and zooms, as well as a cut to the same setting at night clearly evidence that time is passing. Locals above watch from their houses as the boy is quite harshly lit by street lights, indicating the idea that he is being watched all around and in focus, giving an agoraphobic feel of the empty space around him. A fox passes, glancing at him as well as a teenage girl eating a chocolate bar and wearing devil horns, passing with a confused expression. These represent mischief and sin, as well as the thuggish, evil looking men who later attempt to intimidate him up close, throwing food at him and staring him down.  Although the boy appears fearful, he continues drumming intensely through the pain, and with emotional closeups such as him wiping sweat off his face and seeing the blood on this hands we are made to genuinely sympathise with his determined character. 

Ever more time passes - the moon is unveiled by moving clouds in the sky and a cut turns the shot to daytime again. Another young girl approaches, who feeds him milk after a shot of her in closeup displays her with bright like behind her in a saintly, angelic manner, and unlike the others who come to the boy she provides him with sustenance rather than being an obstacle. A shot of him relaxed further relates to the Buddha's story as it represents enlightenment and the cleansing of sin and the embrace of nature as he stops in the 'real world' to catch his breath. His final obstacle is a man with a baseball bat, possibly symbolising the devil himself as he looks up at the sky and the moon explodes, imagery that shows his destructive nature and removing all light as he becomes shrouded in shadow. He prepares to swing the bat but the boy looks up to the sky in the same shot as just before starting, maybe indicating the end of his journey either from some kind of full spiritual enlightenment or by sacrificing his life in dedication to faith, his face and closed eyes and embodiment peace and relaxation as he embraces heaven. 

Saturday 6 December 2014

Idea Inspirations


Here are some music videos I liked and as a result may influence the direction in which I take my A2 music video project. Both the songs and videos will be within the currently quite broad lines of styles and final products I would like to create. 



Enter Shikari are one of my favourite bands as they ambitiously mix genres of music. Their sense of humour as well as serious view of the world is displayed in this video.

Things I like about it:

- New/contemporary

- Mixture of band performance and acting with symbolism (things going wrong while acting as though all is well)
- Comic/parody style
- Uses costume unlike many normal videos
- Multiple genres in one song
- Revolution themed lyrics; "we'll take you down!" (in the bridge)
- Progressively goes from normal and sane to more erratic, with quick cutting, flashing lights and white noise/no signal TV effects on screen
- High energetic, quite insane male performance; I could picture myself in a similar role
- Achievable yet effective special effects

Difficulties:

- Multiple sets
- Sets in public locations







A recent video from a song I heard not too long ago through being on an advert, I really liked it and watched its music video to find it quite inspiring
Things I like about it:

- New/contemporary
- Powerful, moving music
- Simple yet powerful closeups
- All in one set
- Lyrics relatable to an audience I know and can use due to coming of age theme; people around my age

- Really strong symbolic concepts and imagery; struggling with life as it literally pulls him away, woman acting disproportionately unphased by boy's suffering but he cannot even hear her offering him help, she also eventually leaves him to his suffering
- Impacting but achievable effects such as slow motion

Difficulties:

- Shot in public
- Symbolic images like boy being pulled may be difficult to recreate. However I like the challenge of thinking of other ways of displaying symbolism







An all time favourite music video. This band have no limits too humiliating themselves for the sake of comedy and love of music.

Things I like:

- I'd love to create a similar ridiculousness and effect on my audience as this had on me
- Has some ambitious parts to use in an A2 piece but nowhere I can't take inspiration from or do similar
- Simple concept
- Plays with costume in a way that I would consider doing for a comic effect
- Unique type of performance; not a standard 'band trying to be cool' video

Difficulties:

- Some expletives and inappropriate parts

- Minor pyrotechnics and physical effects
- I really like the concept of an audience who become in awe and hysterics but having to cast multiple people can be problematic
- A similar bar&stage set may take some work to create
- Limited sub-genre to choose music from as it is obvious comedy







Another favourite video from my childhood, it combines all types of music videos in a hybrid

Things I like:

- Mixture of concept, narrative and performance
- Excellent storytelling and easy to sympathise with protagonist
- Draws emotion both from the lyrics, music and story combined
- An appropriate style of music that I would be confident in generally working with 

- Quality grading
- Use of imagery and symbolism

Difficulties:

- Multiple sets, quite complex setups
- Difficult to maintain lighting due to it being set a lot outdoors







Things I like:

- Very strong sense of performance
- The idea of band members strung up like puppets is a cool idea
- The lighting and grading is very stylistic of pop punk/emo genre and particularly effective
- Becomes increasingly passionate/crazy; an idea I'd like to take on, building up to either a climax or a final chorus



 the pretender misery business gives you hell bite my tongue playing god

Friday 5 December 2014

Music, Band and Styling Inspirations


Some artists rely heavily on a genre-led fan base, with a large niche such as Bring Me the Horizon, Pierce the Veil and Black Veil Brides within a part of the popular post hardcore scene, being known for their tattoos and specific type of clothing, eg band endorsed clothes such as Drop Dead being popular with my age group but I would like to keep a broader spectrum open with a cool but mild, wipe appeal type image. A mixture of modern, fashionable urban and a hint of slightly 'hipster' clothing would suit a fresh new band whose image is likable but not extreme nor a major part of them as a band.



Above are You Me At Six and below are Enter Shikari, with a wide appeal in terms of style, not necessarily making themselves specific to genre but appealing to generally teenagers and young adults who like a mixture of genres.


The music I would like to use could be anywhere in the grounds of alternative/indie/heavier rock with an element of mainstream commercial appeal without being 'pop' or too heavy or too niche. Something that an audience can connect with either through being energetic and upbeat, or with emotion-drawing lyrics, or a song with both like Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner. Like with The View From The Afternoon (referenced on semiotic analysis) the music does not have to necessarily relate hugely to the video we produce but would preferably have a significant audience reaction whether it be to make them head-bang and air drum, dance or feel moved. The songs below have a mixture of these but all have effected me in some way while listening, and are all types that I'd consider using for my video.

Some examples of musical style I could consider:
Infectious, unique drumming pattern combined with a rough, rugged style of voice that has been extremely popular for the Kings of Leon.


Fast paced progressive rock that had a huge role in Biffy Clyro's rise to popularity


90s punk that started out being played at small gigs where die hard fans would mosh to, ironically positive sounding with it being about the singer being bullied in childhood


Funk that makes you pull faces and jump around the room with lyrics of a submissive male in a relationship where he is head over heels for his love interest


Lyrics of an abnormal, flawed yet romantic relationship with ironically contrasting upbeat pop punk on this track

Thursday 4 December 2014

Website Inspirations


I like this website's extremely clear band branding, which is synergistic across their marketing such as fonts, colours and their logo with the inverted triangle and circle, which, if you saw them live would behind them. There are clear links to social media and big, bold navigation to everything important such as merch, music, and ways to follow the band.




An even more visual website from Green Day, full of branding related to their most recent album; Uno, Dos, Tre! Kerrang magazine is featured large as they recently made the front cover, and things related to the band such as the broadway musical based on their album American Idiot is advertised. The striking visuals are also synergistic throughout their current marketing, indicating their drug infused, upbeat punk style.





Extremely colourful and again obvious promotion to Muse's most recent album, The 2nd Law. The multiple language options, images of huge gigs and some figures are used to proudly present their international popularity and the fact that they are a real stadium sized rock band.

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Art Inspiration


In researching to get a better idea on how to aid the promotion of a new artist with their debut album cover, I looked at albums released at a variety of lengths into artist's careers. 












I like these for the simple yet powerful use of faces in CU with editing effects on them. There is a very strong sense of colour and striking image without loads going on. Many famous album covers have used faces in this way including those above. Some would not take huge effort to produce but can still be striking images; this is something I would like to do, not necessary having a minimalist look but not over-edited or immensely intricate.





I'm a big fan of the surreal, cartoon nature of Alright, Still, however it could prove difficult to make unless it was simplified, and would require a lot of artistic ability which I can't personally claim to have. It fits more with urban genres of music but I love the style.




Unknown Pleasure by Joy Division and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd both have uncomplicated, symbolic, and hugely iconic, album covers - I would consider using simple imagery in a similar way if I came up with something that could look great like these


Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You has a similarly minimalist cover with an image that the band have admitted is supposed to draw multiple, varied meanings in people's minds, and idea I've grown fond of





Paramore's Riot clearly connotes the punk rock genre and is a well known album cover, and Sum 41's Underclass Hero uses similar style with graffiti in a punk font, with more of a high school twist. They appeal to my age group, having a rebellious idea to them.



The Battle of Los Angeles has a powerful and clear message of uprising, common with protest music and punk, the sort of which I'd really love to use if it fit the eventual choice of music



Never Mind, The Sex Pistols' debut album is one of the most iconic albums in music. Unlike more modern music in an increasingly commercialised industry where reality TV and the charts work symbiotically and in tandem, this album cover is unconventional in that it does not have an image of the artists themselves. It does however tell you something about the artist, like all debuts should. What I find so interesting is that it does this solely through its title - use of expletives and the dismissive 'never mind' strongly connotes anti-establishment ideas.

In some ways you could argue that it displays an arrogance associated with successful artists' album covers further into their careers, where many are very minimalist, like I'm With You   or Beyonce's eponymous 2013 album. The impression is that they don't need to make as much effort because 'you know who they are'. This may have contributed to what established the Sex Pistols so strongly on the music scene, as they did this from the beginning.





Regardless of the type of music I might work on, I'm quite keen to make something with a similar confidence. I say this because with an effective and synergistic marketing and release strategy on every platform, (such as social media, websites, promotional material eg music videos, etc) a self assured cover with simplicity in its design can really work in the music industry. It has been effective in the past and continues to be in the present like with Jake Bugg's debut (above); giving the impression that you put in less effort and still are successful, even if marketing works very hard behind the scenes, creates a positive and very cool image of an artist.