Directors Study: Michael Bay:

Michael Bay is a film and music video director and is known for his fast edits and use of "practical effects" (using a sprinkler to create the appearance of rain). He is famous for directing the "Transformers" and "Bad Boys" series. He is involved in many other film business: He is the co-founder of production company"The Institute", Co-chair of special effects house "Digital Domain" and Co-owner of horror production company "Platinum Dunes"

Bay has done music videos for a lot of successful and famous artists like Tina Turner and Aerosmith, however he has directed 3 of Meat Loaf's music videos, one being his remake of "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through". The video stars Angelina Jolie as a runaway teenager.

The music video is a performance/narrative and looks very high budget for a music video. The narrative of the video is that Meat Loaf stands is a fortune teller who rescues a runaway teenager, stops a young boy from joining a gang and other people who are lost and lonely. The video itself has a really surreal aspect to it with very strange settings and backgrounds. This creates a lot of symbolism and the way Meatloaf rescues all these different people who are lost and lonely gives the video a message. At the end of the video, we see narrative resolution when the runaway girl returns to her family.

The video is very visual and has some great effects thanks to the high budget. It is very "film-like" in its quality and has some great swooping shots in some scenes. The editing on the video is quite fast and matches the action that is going on in some sections of the video. This is a style that Bay uses a lot, especially in his blockbuster, action films. Overall, the video is very effective and the video matches the intensity and power that the song brings.

Website analysis

Amy Mc Donald.

This popular Scottish artist arrived in the top 3 of our music charts in Christmas 2007, with her single 'this is the life' following this you may have recognised another of her popular songs 'Poison Prince' Which as a group we were contemplating using as our song choice for the music video task, because of it's upbeat rhythm and its folky undertones. However the song didn't have the kind of texture to it that we wanted, when creating our first music video, and so it not going to be used. However it is useful to look at her website, to help us when we create ours, as we will be working with a similar genre.

When looking at her website http://www.amymacdonald.co.uk/gb/home/ we can see that the colour scheme complements her pop indie/folk genre: a mellow creamy, grey, and black. A conventional photo of the artist blended onto the home page. Clear font matches the blurry photograph edges. Generally, neat and clear, with easy access to useful links including: News, Music, Live, Biographys, Galleries, Videos, Lyrics, Music store, Merchandise, Mailing list, and forum. Everything a fan would want to know about this artist available under one roof. Throughout these links the style and aethetics all match, with plenty of photos or videos of the artist round every corner. The page even comes with 8 discreet links to pages of the artist in other languages, catering for a multitude of fans. There are also links to highly popular platforms such as Fackbook, Bebo, ilike and more.

All these things combined makes for a highly sucessful webpage. We can learn alot from such a good example.

Director study

Mark Romanek.

A director of music videos, feature films and advertisments Mark Romanek's most famous music videos would have to be 'Hurt' by 'nine inch nails' for a Johnny Cash film, this is known for being a particularly moving video as Johnny Cash soon died after its production,'Closer' by Nine Inch Nails which was considered a controvercial and disturbing music video and 'Scream' by Micheal and Janet Jackson known for winning Romanek a grammy award and costing $7 million.

Romanek was born in Chicago Illinois, he attended New Trier East a public high school north of Chicago, where he studied a four year film production course, and was taught by significant film makers Kevin Dole and Peter Kingsbury. He then attended Ithaca College in New York where he earnt a degree in Cinema and Photography. After he worked with Brian De Palma, and writing a few screenplays, Romanek began focusing on directing music videos and was highly successful

Mark Romanek likes to include shots defying gravity, present in scream, cant stop, closer, and more. He also has a passion for light, which we can see in the following stills.This is somthing we are partcularly interested in, as we hope the lighing will be a key feature of our own music video. Therefore studying this Director would benefit us greatly.

Our narrative storyline.

We plan on having a narrative storyline running parallel to our performing band. So here's the story...
The idea is that within the lyrics there are denotations of searching and exploring. The narrative people with echo this concept in their actions. We hope to have at least 5 girls and 4 males involved as people within the narrative storyline. They will be searching the locations -that the band will previously have played in and left- with torches, and if all goes to plan the lighting will be darker when they are filmed, in comparison to the lighter lighting for the band. They then finally meet the band at the lake location and this will symbolise the coming together and camaraderie of people. At the very end of the video will will have a short shot of them aiming their torches in the direction of the camera which will form an X that will glow in the darkness which we hope will be very effective.

an idea on editing

We have spoken about the kind of editing we imagine for our music video. After listening to the song a lot there is a re-occurring set of beats within the song. We picture snapshots of various images that fit to the beats. This kind of editing is more of a cinematic technique, its used as ellipsis of time in films such as hot fuzz, but for us it would come in useful to getting across the meaning behind the video, it would also add texture to the music video and make it more visually interesting to an audience.
Here is an example of similar editing in a music video. The clearest example is within the first minute of the song. other examples include Rhianna's 'Te Amo' which can be viewed on YouTube.

shot lists

Website Analysis: City And Colour:

City And Colour is the "recording alias" of singer/songwriter Dallas Green who is the guitarist/vocalist of the band Alexisonfire. He has released 2 albums and has also won a "Juno" award. His website is set out like the conventional website reading right to left. When the website is first opened, there are animations; red lines that appear on the artwork of his second album stretch out across the page and the "features" section appears slowly.

At the top of the website are links to various other pages like "news, tour and store" However when you scroll the cursor over these links black lines, similar to the red lines that the links sit on, stretch out. i think this is a very good idea and it may be something we incorporate in our website.

On the left hand side of the website, there is a blog which has the 2 latest updates shown on the homepage. This helps the artist and the audience bond and feel a connection and i think it is a good idea. We may choose to make our band do a blog as it may increase the realism of our band website. Just to the right of this is a "Featured" section which gives links to City and Colour's latest video and single. There is also a "Request Song On Radio" and "Request Video" link and it gives a list of radio stations and music channels. This will help advertise City and Colour for free and it is also a great idea for free publicity.

Next to this is a link to buy City and Colour's latest album "Bring Me Your Love". This is common on most websites and it helps to increase album sales. There is also an "audio player" that opens in a separate window and plays "Waiting..." a single on the "Bring me Your Love" album. This will help give the viewer a chance to listen to some of City and Colour's music if they have not already heard it. Lastly, there is a link to join the "Mailing List" which will send information to the fans about upcoming gigs, albums and appearances.

Music Video Analysis: Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart.

(Unfortunately, I was unable to embed the music video onto the blog and could find no other YouTube links so I'll just post the URL : www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq-yP7mb8UE )

I chose to do a music video analysis of this song because I believe that the genre is close to that of the xx, whose song we are making our video to. I also chose this video because I believe that it is a great music video and that, as a group, we could take a lot of idea's from it.However, running at 8 minutes and 31 seconds, "I will Possess your heart" is more like a short film than a music video.

Type of Video: It is a performance/narrative music video.

Setting: The narrative features shots in several different locations around the world whereas the performance is located in a dark, wet and cold room.

Camerawork: In the narrative, the shots are mainly close-ups and midshots, however a few long shots are used also. In the performance, midshots are mainly used to show the band member with there instruments.

Lighting: In the narrative, it changes as the different locations of the woman are shown and in the performance, the lighting is mainly low key at the start but it slowly grows lighter as the video goes on and in the bridge of the song, the light is the brightest and is exaggerated post-production.

Main idea of the Video: A person's quest for the love a person who they cannot regularly see.

Editing: Straight cuts, growing slightly more rapid as the music builds up to build up the climax of the song.

Main characters: Band, Unnamed Woman (the love interest?)

I believe that the real brilliance behind this video is in the post-production stages, though the camerawork, lighting and other parts of production are good, the editing and lighting effects really help the video and the music blend together at the crescendo in the bridge and it is really effective.

Music Video Director: Shane Drake:

Shane Drake is an American music video director from Redding, California. Drake started work as an editor and a cinematographer in his early career but soon moved into the director's chair. Drake's first music video was "Saturday" by Fall Out Boy and since then he has directed 56 more music video's. Drake is known for directing music video's for bands who belong to the "Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen" record label.
Shane Drake has worked with many different kinds of acts like Less Than Jake, Timbaland, Gym Class Heroes and Paul Van Dyk. However he mostly directs videos for American rock bands

such as Paramore, Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy and The Almost. Drake has been nominated for multiple MTV awards and won the "MTV Video Music Award" for "Video Of The Year" for Panic! at the Disco's "I Write Sins Not Tragedies".

Music Video Analysis 1: Panic! At The Disco: I Write Sins Not Tragedies:

The music video is a performance/narrative video and the narrative of the video is based on the lyrical content of the song. The video includes a lot of props and costumes and includes many circus performers. The narrative of the video is that there is a wedding between a bride and a groom very two very different families. The bride's family are up class and wealthy and in the video we can see there metaphorical masks or facades. However, the groom's family are entertainers and performers and Panic! At The Disco's lead singer plays the ringleader. During the video we see that the ringleader is actually the groom's conscience and he persuades him that the bride is no good and leads him back to his family.

The video itself is very visually good with some great costumes and make-up and it also incorporates a variety of close-ups, pans and some very quick and snappy editing. The video also uses a lot of close-up shots on the band members performing which is a very conventional technique in a music video. I believe that Drake has matched the exuberant and animated style of Panic! At The Disco with the video and I believe he pulls the narrative along very well. it may be his past jobs in editing and cinematography that helped him get the perfect balance between performance and narrative in the video. There are some flaws to the video however as I believe that the video centre's in on the lead singer too much even though it is conventional to do so in a rock music video. However, the record company of Panic! At The Disco (Fueled By Ramen) may have asked this of Drake.

Music Video Analysis 2: Paramore : crushcrushcrush:




This video is also a performance/narrative, however in this video there is a lot more emphasis on the performance in the video. The editing in the video is very fast and snappy and there seems to be an equal mix of close -up, mid and long shots. The narrative of the video is that a group of people who live in the desert are spying on Paramore performing and then they break all of there equipment. Though not directly related to the lyrics, there are some elements of the lyrics in the narrative especially with the idea of people "spying" and being watched. drake again uses some great props in the video and makes the desert inhabitants look very scary and strange with some "hills-have-eyes esque" props.

This video is also very visually effective and is set in the middle of a desert and therefore has some great landscape scenes. There is a lot of shots on the band playing but none more than on the lead singer. I believe the emphasis on the lead singer is that because she is female she will attract the male fans (note that the male band members wear jackets while the lead singer wears just a t-shirt) and she will also appeal to female fans who will want to imitate her, especially with her bright hair. One flaw in the video may be the meaning of the narrative, though it may relate to the lyrics in a small way, it does not seem to convey any message or tell the audience any story and seems to be not very well thought out.

Costumes...

Here are a few sketches of what we want the actors to look like in our music video. We have asked them to search through their wardrobes to find clothings that match the descriptions below.. If they could not find them, we are going to go shopping for them.

Lead Male: Beads, White vest, jeans, and bare feet.

Lead Female: White smock top, dark colours shorts, black tights and old school boots.

For Male group: Dark clothing (greys, blacks and browns),simular style clothing to the lead male. Scruffy messed up hair. - All clothes MUST be Indie style!

For Female group: Dark clothing (greys, blacks and browns), simular style clothing to the lead female. Dark Heavy eyeliner (as shown below). Messy hair, all down. All clothes MUST be Indie Style!

Story Boards...

Story Boards as promised...

Lyrical Analysis...

Breaking down the lyrics and saying what they mean, if there are any metaphor's or hidden meaning behind the words..

Just a top up..

So, we have nearly finished the story boarding. We plan to finish these tomorrow, as we only have 2 of the chorus' left to do. So they will be put on by friday night or saturday. When we have finished story boarding we are allowed to have a camera. YAY!! So next week we are planning to film the scenes at the start of our music video,with the landscape pan shots of the three locations which we plan to film in. These being the dense woodland, the open woodland and the lake. We plan to film these first as it means that we don't have to worry about the actors/actresses being free as they aren't being filmed in these shots..

Also today we have have filled out our shot list. So these will be put onto the blog by tomorrow night or over the weekend.

The Temper Trap

Sweet Disposition

unfortunately, this band has disabled the embed code, and therefore this video can only be watched on youtube. Appolagies

I chose to study this music video, because this music is within the same genre, in my opinion, as The XX. It is also a simple narrative and performance based video which is what we are also doing. Although saying that, the two videos will be very different.

Camerawork: The video starts of with a long tracking shot of a glowing golden light, this is followed by an overlapping closeup shot of the vocalist's face singing. The long tracking shot is generally continued throughout with exceptions to an extreme closeup of a woman's eye, and a few master shots of various galaxies and a wide shot of the skating woman as she passes across the screen, which happens on more than one occasion. We also see later on a closeup again of the womans face and a mid shot of her as she reaches out and closes in on the star, and then another few master shots. As she is pulled away, they use a long tracking shot, this time moving backwards,they then proceed to alternate between the normal long tracking shot and the backward tracking shot. There are also moments when during these tracking shots close ups of the musicians have been edited to fit the rest of the reflected movement, as it aproaches the forefront of the screen, by use of the tracking shots.
Towards the end of the video They use a still master shot, as the woman approaches the camera, and then another midshot which moves into a closeup. The rest is then a collection of previous shots such as the midshot as she skates, the closeup of the eye, the longshot of her passing across the screen, and then begins the final sequence including midshot, longshot,closeup, and longshot.

Main Theme or Idea: The main theme some might say is never to give up, as we watch the narrative of a woman battling against the gravitational pull of the stars. Perhaps suggesting that we should try not to conform, to strive for our own opinions...This seems to match the lyrics ' won't stop till its over, won't stop to surrender'

Special Effects: Heavy use of reflection or reflected splitscreen. Green screen was also used in post production.

Editing: Straight cuts, Also use of fade in and fade out of an overlapping close up shot. They also copied shots to create the never ending musicians appearing in the midle of the screen. Perfects continuity and elipsis of time.

Overall effect: beautiful colours, somthing i'd like to achieve within our own video, lighting would be just as important aswell. overall a very impressive video, with a large amount of variation in camerawork, editing, and special effects. We can take a leaf out of their book.

Audience Analysis Questionnaire

Please note this is for presentation purposes only, the printed questionnaire results will be scanned on at a later date.

1. Do you like the band The XX or any of their songs?
2. Do you like Indie music?
3. Do you like woodlands or forests?
4. Do you enjoy watching:
A- Performance and narrative music videos
B- Symbolic or thematic music videos

5. Which do you prefer, as colours, to wear:
A- Darker blacks, browns, kakis etc
B- Brighter blues, whites, pinks and any others

6. Do you like:
A- The ‘Grunge’ look?
B- The ‘High street’ look?
7. Do you feel lonely or dissatisfied?
8. Do you feel hopeful or confident?
9. Are you between the ages of:
A- 10-18?
B- 18-25?
C- 25- 40?
D- Over 40
10. Do you ever visit Musicians websites? If no why not? ………………………………………………………………………………..............................................................................................................................
11. Where do you buy your music?
A- i tunes
B- Shops and therefore C.D’s
C- Other

Thank you for your time.

More Inspiration...

How much a Music Video Costs...



Making a Music Video...



by Hamfatter...

a few ideas in the video's about making a music video, camera work and stuff, and that making a music video doesn't have to cost much to be affective...

Website analysis - Hamfatter

Hamfatter, many people would not be familiar with this band. However, this band to me is special, as I know the Lead Singer/Song Writer Eoin personally, as he was my piano teacher when I was in prep school. They stood infront of the entrepreneurs on the BBC2 show Dragon's Den. They asked the Dragons to help them publish their band, help them create their first album to sell, and to give them more contacts within the music industry. Before appearing on the Dragons Den their single 'Sziget' achieved number 13 in the UK indie chats and 54 in the UK singles charts.


Ok onto the website. The Website is clear and very easy to use. The main colours throughout the website are Brown and Reds. The title of the band is bold and stands out at the top of the front page (and continues onto every page on the website). The Menu is very clear, with white writing on brown block across the page, this is the opposite colours to the of the title of the band, as the title is brown on a white block background. The Menu options are: Gigs, News, Press, Gallery, Blog, Shop, Videos, Contact and Biog. The back ground image of the front page is of a close up of Eoin playing the guitar. I love this idea of using an image of band member playing instrument as its simple and isnt repetitive like other websites of the image of the band..

At the bottom of every page on the website appears 3 things, as shown below in the image. These are: sending email adress to them to recieve a hamfatter mailing list, hamfatter radio - where it plays their songs constantly (good idea) and finally advertising the bands music - hamfatter on myspace.

On the videos page on the website the videos include many things. These include two music videos that the band publish including 'the girl I love' and 'Do something stupid tonight'. Also included are some acoustic performances, and out takes from the video filming. I think that these would be good for our own website, to do outtakes from filming.

Filming..

Right, so our original plan was to film during one weekend. This was until we realised a couple of members of our characters in our music video have a weekend job, making this difficult to organise dates, as the days varied between Saturday and Sunday. After realising this, we decided it would make more sense to film during the Christmas Holidays, as we will be able to film during the week...

We plan to film during the first week of the holidays, allowing us to recapture any shots that don't look right at a later date. Now, we have to make sure that our actors keep these dates free:
20th December - 22nd December.

Before we film, we still have to finish story bording, and our film shots timetable for each location..

Paramore - Decode - Textual Analysis

I have chosen to do a textual analysis of this Music video by Paramore for one main reason, as it is set in a wood/forest. This is our idea for two out of the three settings which we have chosen, two being in forest and woodland and the last one being at a lake.

Type of Video: Performance based with hints of narrative of the twilight film using both the film footage and the band reacting the themes of the film ie fast movement.

Setting: Woodland/forest - also uses clips from the Twilight film.

Camera Work: Close ups of instruments, close ups/mid shots/long shots of main singer, high angles, low angles, pan/sweep of band playing, Point of view shot in forest, establishing shot of forest.

Lighting: Enhanced lighting in the forest (done in editing), light flashes transitions between shots leading up to the chorus.

Main idea or themes of video: Performance based, with themes of Twilight within, quick movements, and even clips from the official film itself. Searching..

Editing: Slow motion of drummer, straight cuts throughtout apart from leading up to chorus with the white flashes transitions.

Main Characters: Band Members, Twilight cast.

Overall effect: The searching and lighting throughout adds a dream like effect to the video, with the sweeping movement of the camera adding to this..

I really like this music video, I believe that the video works well based in the forest (fingers crossed that ours will look as good in our settings), the lighting editing is amazing, as it highlights the band more with the surrounding lighter than it originally would be in daylight.

Lost Prophets - For He's a Jolly Good Felon - Textual Analysis

Type of Video - Performance and Narrative

Settings: Inner City Carpark, Underground Subway

Camera work: Close-ups of band member, mid shots, two shot, sot reverse shot, wide shot of band playing, hand held in tunnel, pan of car going past

Lighting: Black and white

Main Theme or idea of video: Performance/ drug dealing - the person who brought the drugs off the drug dealer gets chased by the police - Ian Watkins (lead singer) appears to be the conscience of both the drug dealer and the person buying drugs, as they can't see him.

Special Effects: Black and white, blurs a few shots of Ian Watkins singing, enhanced lighting in the tunnel

Editing: Mainly Stright Cuts, a few fade to black, shrot takes makes the video choppy and fast, which goes with the upbeat music,

Main Characters - Band Memebers, Simon, Mikey

Overall effect: very jumpy and quick due to the editing of shots

I like the use of the editing - quick and effective, very much to the point, and enabling them to use many variety of camera shots. I also love the symbolic idea of Ian Watkins being their consciences... I think the idea that they can't see him is very effective. The words are linked with the video very closely, with the idea that someone is in trouble and getting chased and caught.

Regina Spektor - Samson Textual Analysis

Performance type: Animation and performance
Setting: A formal room with a grand piano in the centre
Camera work: Close-ups, mid shots, pan movement on the sheets moving over the piano (animation), reverse zoom (animation), over the shoulder, ghosted transition between animation and performance shot
Lighting: Light shines on the left hand side of face (natural light from windows)
Symbolic element: The birds within the animation are linked to lyrics about the bible - the dove representing peace and leading people to safety
Editing: Animation, straight cuts, dissolve transtion, cutting animation into the mirror of the over shoulder shot of Regina Spektor, adding Regina Spektor to shots of animation
Main Character: Regina Spektor
Overall effect: Combination of animation and performance

I love the combination of the animation and performance shots, blurring the two forms into one shot at the same time...

We decided against animation in our own music video as animation is very time consuming.

Planning, Story boarding and other details..

Currently we are undertaking the task of story boarding, with the group working together on the written details, then I will draw the images to go with each shot.. At the moment we are about half way through the written part, and I am about to work on the image side of this... Hopefully if things go to plan, then we should have them up on the blog by the end of this week...

Also, while Hannah and I were working on a to do list, as organisation is crucial when working towards a production, Ruaraidh has done a meaning for the lyrics. Basically we printed of the lyrics, and then stuck these lyrics onto an A3 sheet of paper, and left Ruaraidh to it, he analysed each line, writting down any metaphors or meanings which lie behind the lyrics... This made it easier when we got to story boarding as we were able to link our video to the lyrics in some occasions, like the situations of the actors on each shot. However, we are not basing our music video around the lyrics. This will also be put onto the blog by the end of the week, hopefully earlier though.

Lastly, I will charge my camera tonight and take pictures of each actor/actress and put them on the blog, saying what they are doing in the video..

Lost Prophets Inspiration

In the Lost Prophets music video 'Where We Belong', along with the live performance which is dominant factor throughout the video, the band are seen backstage, doing their hair, drinking alcohol and generally mucking about, getting in the zone for going onto stage. Below are some images of the 'behind the scenes' stills from the music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6CleYqU2_o

This video is where we got the inspiration for the beggining sequence of our Music Video, where the band are setting up their instruments in the different locations, drinking, talking to each other, etc...

Lostprophets website analysis

Before entering the official website of the band, an advertisement appears of the bands new album 'The Betrayed' with links to places which the album can be purchased. such as Itunes, play.com, hmv.com, and 7 digital. All the layout on the front page before entering the website itself is centred, therefore making it easier to view and read.


On the official website for the band the key things to note are that the colour of the background is black, like a night sky, with a couple of stars scattered around the outside. The name of the band appears at the top in white, almost giving off the effect that it is a shining star up close, as the name is blurred by the white shine behind it... Also appearing at the top is a cut out image of the band, all wearing dark colours, e.g black or grey.

The menu on the Lostprophets website is also in white in a commonly known font for the Lost Prophets, within both their albums and advertising.. On the menu the options are: News, Shows, Merch, Media, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Newletter. I think that these options are varied over a range of subjects which would be good to take into consideration when creating a website ourselves... Create a facebook page... Who knows...

The 'Order 'The Betrayed' now' appears on every link on the menu apart from the Merch, which opens in a seperate window. Again, I think this would be a good idea for ours, as it advertises the album all the time when on the website.

Merch, or merchandice is a clever idea, as it brings in another form of both advertising and income for the band.. again I think this is a good idea to make a tiny merchandice, as it could be simple things such as a poster of the band...

Previous Student Work: Thurston Community College - Puretone - Addicted to Bass A-Level Music video

This video is from our own school and is from a few years ago. It is a performance based video yet through the performance the audience can see a narrative being revealed. The group making this video did very well in keeping the performance very conventional to the dance genre that the song has through fast edit's, close-up shots on the lead singer and club locations. The performance of the lead singer is consistantly good throughout and makes a very convincing singer in the video through good lip syncing and her facial expressions. The video incorperates many effects, mostly in the multi-story sequence and they use multiple settings such as a car, an alley, a multi-story carpark, a club and even what looks like a padded cell. All these features create verisumilitude in the video and help it look very realistic.There doesn't seem to be many errors in the video. One problem could be the that the lighting in some areas is very limited, and blacks out the singer's face on many occasions. However, the best feature in the video is the narrative. The idea of her "evil" alter ego chasing her around town is portrayed very well, being very subtle yet also very clear. The resolution of her accepting her alter ego's "bass-addiction" is very cleverly shown by her wearing their jacket afterwards representing her change. The combination of the narrative and the performance intertwining works very well and is a feature I would like us the have in our own video.

This video has shown me the importance of having effective lip syncing as it works very effectively in creating a very "real" music video. It has also shown me that blending narrative scenes with performance scenes is a very good idea as it helps the different themes in the video flow together very well. Overall, I think that this video has been created very well and is the type of video that, as a group, we aspire to make.

Band Website Analysis: Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles are a Canadian electronic music duo from Toronto, Ontario. They have released 2 albums and have had a lot of popularity on the indie music scene. They recently released there second self-titled album and have had international success, especially in the UK. Their website has a very simple design consisting of the artwork from their second album and 2 "youtubeHD" links to their songs "Baptism" and "Not in Love ft Robert Smith". The simple layout of the website matches the style of Crystal castles music which itself is repetitive 8-bit songs with a simple melody.


They have links located at the top of the site to many different things like Merchandise, Social Networking links (Facebook, Twitter and Myspace) and Forums. This gives there fans a chance to spend money on merchandise and support them in different ways through there social networking sites. At the bottom there are links to buying there music through Amazon and iTunes for both the U.S and the U.K. This is interesting as Canada is not an option and maybe this shows that they are looking for an international audience. In the top right hand corner of the website there is a bar where fans can subscribe and enter in there email address and receive the "latest news" about Crystal Castles.

This website seems to be very well created and I believe it has been designed very well to suit it's audience. I find it's simplistic style very interesting and this maybe a theme that I may want to include in our own band website.


Website link: www.crystalcastles.com/

Where we stand at the moment...

Firstly, Palendrome Productions has grown from last year, we now have a lovely new member, Millie Martin.

This year we have been researching music videos as well as music websites and digipaks (CD or DVD cases with the CD often with music videos as well and literary information on the artist)

After discussing heavily which music we should use from our video, and narrowing it down from the selection posted, we agreed that the song Islands by the XX would be an apt choice, as the music is has a variation of pace, tone and musical texture that we felt we could work with. We feel we feel the video would be more interesting for its audience if there was a lot of changes in pace, setting, and general visual dynamic, and therefore a narrative and the popular performance based style video suited us.

We have also discussed a rough plot line for the narrative and have narrowed down a selection of actors we will be using, although this is liable to change due to an unreliable number of filming dates and times.

We are now working on storyboarding, costume design, audience analysis questionnaires, and general date setting, setting planning and much more.

Previous Student's Work: Long Road Media - Group 52's Music Video 2009-10:

This music video is an A2 video production that a group of students from Long Road Sixth Form College created. It is mainly a performance based music video yet it does try to string a narrative together but unfortunately it is not executed very well. The group do well in keeping to the stereotypes of a pop rock music video by making it performance based and using a lot of close-ups on the singer. The editing is also quite good and the group make a good use of dissolve transitions and it really helps the video flow together. They incorporate some effects too that keep it interesting like dulling down all the colour in some scenes and just leaving the singer's red coat to stand out in the shot. This makes her stand out and makes her the centre of attention in the shot and this would not be out of place in a normal pop rock video.
However, unfortunately there are a lot of errors in the video. The changing of black and white, partially black and white and normal colours breaks the continuity of the video and make it look very amateurish. The quality of the camera work is also not very good and in multiple scenes, the shot goes from clear to grainy footage. The attempt at a narrative is not portrayed clearly enough to the viewer and even the performance shots get a little boring as they are mostly long mid-shots of the singer walking down the road.

This music video has taught me a lot and I think I have learned many things from it. For example, the idea of having shots partially black and white with the clarity of certain colours brought out is very effective and maybe an idea, we as a group, may use in our music video production. The video has also taught me the importance of continuity in a music video. The difference in camera qualities and black and white effects breaks the verisimilitude of it being a real music video production. This will be thing that I will make sure will not happen in our music video production. Overall, I think the video needs a lot of work but the essential ideas and the key conventions a music video are still there.

EXAMINATION DETAILS

Name: Hannah Fitch
Candidate number: 0114

Possible songs

Easy listening Songs:

Lykke Li - Possibility:



Fleetfoes-white winter hymnal:



The xx - Islands:



Pop/rock Songs:

Lost Prophets - Where We Belong:



Dance/Electronica

Crystal Castles - Celestica:

Music Video Analysis: The xx - Crystalised

Genre: Indie Rock

Lyrical Analysis: Some believe that the song is about drug addiction, specifically Methamphetamine or Crystal Meth. This shows the link to the title and it can also be seen in the lyrics: "I've done things in small doses" and references to "paradise" and being "paralyzed". However, one theory is it being about global warming and the impacts it has: "Glaciers have melted to the sea, I wish the tide would take me over". I believe this to be the more credible theory and it is backed up the images of the sea, the sky and the sun that are shown in the video.

Video Analysis: The music video is entirely performance-based and includes the 4 origonal members. (second guitarist and keyboardist Baria Qureshi left the group in late 2009). The whole video is shots of the band performing with a projector shining images of nature onto them and the wall behind them. The camera shots are nearly always moving and are mostly short pans from one band member to the next.
There are many close-ups of all the band members and there instruments but the singers are the main focus as with most music videos. When the rhythm of the music increases, it is noticable that the shots become shorter and are all straight cuts. However, when the music slows down, the shots linger a little longer and there are more fade outs/ fade in's. Here we can see directors Alex Flick and Masato Riesser trying to increase the continuity of the film and to try and make it flow together.
The band members in the video move away from the stereotypes of their genre, through there black simplistic clothing they try to make it about the music and not about the image, which is not usually an idea an indie band would incorperate. However, the mannerisms of the band do very much fit with there genre; moody faces, apathetic attitude etc.
Overall, I enjoyed the video. It gives the watcher a chance to see what the band look like and how they use different instruments than that normally be used ( drum machine/beat pad instead of a drum kit) Though I suspect that The xx did not have a huge budget for this video, I believe it has been executed very well and is a great example of a performance-based music video.

Previous Students Work

http://mjmrecords.blogspot.com/2010/05/finished-video.html

Unfortunately, because of copyright problems they were unable to upload the video onto youtube, but above is a link to their post on the final cut of the music video.


What I like about the Video

• The use of camera shots are very effective
• The Slow motion shots
• The angles used are very clever, making the illusion that they are flying
• Good use of close-ups
• The reversed smoking shot
• the fast forwarded shots,

What I dislike about the Video

• The changing colour scheme, between black and white to colour, would have preffered all one
• The little control on the lighting, as it changes as its outside, contrasting shots throughout

What I want to avoid in my own video

• unsteady camera work
• the way in which the camera footage does not match the music with the transactions, an awkward look to it
• The actors not singing, doesnt seem conventional to a music video, even though alot of close ups used
• Different lighting, creates a distorted look to the video, outside, therefore the lighting isnt controlled

What inspired me

• Close up on the guitar
• close ups
• angles used, showing the different power which the band members hold
• the reversed smoking shot, found this very clever, and would love to use this in our own video