Climbing up the walls by Radiohead - Music Video

Final Version of Digipak

Final draft of Poster

After a lot of editing and changing we finally finished our poster for 'Darwin in Eden' we decided on using the same image as the album cover so that they look exactly the same for fans to know what they are looking for when they go and buy the album. They can even visit the website as it is posted at the bottom all the information they need is on the poster.

Task 1 - How have you used new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Task 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Task 2[1]

Task 3 - What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Modals of audience – Three Models of Audience

The effects Model

The Uses and Gratifications Model

The Encoding-Decoding Model

The Effects Model

- Derives from an early piece of audience research – The Payne Fund Studies

- Implies that audiences are passive recipients of meaning and values of a text

- Also known as the ‘hypodermic model’

Also implied:

- Media effects are cumulative

-Media effects are long time

-Media effects are revealed through both attitudes and behaviour

Can you think of three examples of media ‘debates’ which use the Effects Model as their basis:

1.      Sexualisation of children for example Rihanira coming on to a family program such as the X Factor wearing something inappropriate. Also the racy underwear for children such as padded bras and inappropriate underwear.

2.      Eating disorder for example magazine images of models and cloths size

3.      Video games/TV/Films for example Grand theft auto, Manhunt child’s play

Can you think of three arguments that would contradict the effects model?

1.      There up bringing

2.      Eating disorder’s have been around for a long time before any models

The Uses and Gratifications Model

- Derives from research carried out in the 1950’s – the Personal influence study by Lazarfeld, Blumler and Katz.

- Audiences are far from passive in their approach to the media; rather they actively choose and consume the media to satisfy particular needs and gratifications which they exhibit

Give an example of any media genre might provide the following gratifications:

Diversion: Romcom, comedy, Disney

Personal relationship: Sops; Hollyocks, Big Brother 

Personal identity: Music video

Surveillance: News

Encoding-Decoding Model 1

- Derives from the work of Stuart Hall at the BCCCS

- A theoretical model, which is based upon the notion that the audience do not act as a ‘mass’, but rather as a collection of smaller groups defined by social and ideological elements

-Media texts are ‘encoded’ (both consciously and unconsciously) with the values of their producers – generally white, middle-class, men

- However, the audience is not made up exclusively of these groups and different groups are likely to ‘read’ the text in different ways

The ‘decoding’ process has 3 possible outcomes:

- A preferred reading

- A negotiated reading

- An oppositional reading ( miss the reading and saw it in a completely different way)

Task 4 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products?

We used new technologies in our research, planning, construction and evaluation to recorded are comments and ideas for our music video. One of the main technologies that I used constantly through out the process was blogger, one of its really useful aspects was the fact that I could use it to keep a permanent record which has enabled me to review the production and produce this evaluative task:


Research

New technologies were really important in research through the use of Internet; I looked into genera and target audience. When looking at genre, I started off by using the Internet to look into the codes and conventions of band images and what conventions we could use in producing our music video. Using YouTube meant that I could look at other music video to research into what sub typical codes and conventions for an alternative rock bands. The Internet was also helpful in looking at similar bands in genre, for example muse and blink 182, these were just a few bands I looked at to get an idea at what made the band into alternative rock. YouTube was also helpful and looking at a target audience for this type of genre, comments on the music videos blow showed what an audience liked and disliked about the video and the type of music so that I knew what worked and to make sure that I reached the right target audience. For example on a Muse music video of neutron star collision a fan put ‘This song is the combo of classical piano playing, hardcore drums and guitar and unique vocals.' This comment really stood out and showed me that this type of audience liked the creative and original feel to the band, which I felt would help target the right audience. 










When it came to research for the narrative of our music video I used the Internet to look on Google for other music video that used ambulances and how they used the camera to get the right angle and positioning. This was important as we weren't able to use a real ambulance, so we had to make do with a white car with a blue light on top. The videos that came up where one such as The Fray – You Found Me and Radiohead – Just, both these videos showed an emergency situation and how the camera captured the scene, this helped me plan what position of the camera would be right for the day of the shoot so that I could you the time efficiently. I looked into lighting designs for a band performance; we wanted lighting that would reflect the band image as well as contrasting well with the narrative performance. I used YouTube to get images from Muse – Neutron star and creating a mood board on Microsoft word of the style that we felt would reflect the bands image and narrative. The lighting for the music video ended up being dark and mysterious that hide the identity of the band members, I felt this reflected this alternative look that the band have.

Planning: 

The planning preparation for our music video used a lot of new media technologies to plan what we were doing for our shoot day as well as making sure we targeted our audience in the right way. Producing different ideas for what style of music we wanted to make a music video for was an important stage of our planning process. Using YouTube to looking into different genres of music I decided on three different genres, I then used PowerPoint to present my ideas to get some feedback on all one of my three ideas. This gave me a chance to show what my idea was in a simple and easy use of technology. Another way we presented our music video idea was through the use of movie maker. This enabled us to use footage from another video but put a different song to the images so that we could give a visual understanding of our concept. For example we used we used footage from another music video about skins with Effy but put the images to our track idea Radiohead – Climbing up the walls. This showed a montage of images over lapping creating this dramatic narrative, which we were aiming for. It was also quicker to create, less artistic skill required and meant that we got a chance to see accurately envisage what the final product would look like.

 We did the storyboard in two different ways to show the change in the way we use new technologies. First of all we made an original story board through drawing pictures and explaining the camera, sound and editing transition. We then used a digital camera to take a picture of the story board to then put up onto our blogs to show what our idea was all about. To extend our understanding of new technologies we decided to make an anamatic where we used a NX5 to film the each different image of the story board in turn and then use Final Cut Pro to put the images together with the sound track. This meant we got a rough idea about what we were aiming for in our end product and was more effective putting it together on movie maker rather then just watching the video.

When it came to planning camera shots and style on capturing the performance of the band and narrative, I thought an effective way of doing this was by teasing out the angles of the shots we wanted by using a mobile. This would gave me a limitless amount of photos meaning I could try different angles shot types and then finally on word put them into a mood board. We could see how they fit together and what worked before filming. That was a lot more effective and gave us more time on making sure the shots were quality. For example we used a camera phone to capture different angles and ideas of how we would shoot the narrative, so that an audience could get up and personal with all the drama that is unfolding as one of the characters tries to save his brother. This turned out to be very beneficial, as we sued a lot of the shots in our final piece.

Another way we used a camera phone was to record a band practise to see how the band looked all together on camera. This gave us a chance to get a first look at what we could expect from our actually shoot day out come. It also gave the chance for the band to get together and practise and perform.

 Construction

When finally coming to put all our planning and research together on the shoot day it made it easy and an effective use of time we used loads of new technologies to create a professional music video.  Through three different types of camera we were able to get the footage we need to create our music video. For the performance we used the F3 in the studio which is a high quality camera, this enabled us to capture the band in the best quality possible and in the low key lighting that we decided on so that we didn’t lose our footage because the lighting was too dark. For example when we used close ups we could use precise control on how close the lead singer was from the camera so that the focus was clear.  For the narrative we used the NX5, handheld and in slow mo to create tension and panic as the drama built up. The slow motion on the NX5 gave us a chance to slow down the action in high quality, which also added to the drama that was unfolding. The slow motion footage also contrasted well with the performance element and the tempo of the song as it is a slow, trippy and calming song that needs a music video that reflects this mood.

                The other camera we used was the Go Pro, which is a small and easy to use camera that can be put in places that a NX5 can’t get too. For example we were able to stick the GO Pro to the top of the car that we turned into a pretend ambulance. We did this by placing the camera so you can see the blue flashing light and the car travelling forwards towards the scene of the crime. This let us get a different prospective on the scene but also added to this dramatic scene. If it wasn’t for this development of new technologies we wouldn’t have been able to capture the ambulance scene or slow motion as the cameras weren’t as developed before. Today we are able to use the new technologies such as cameras in a more precise fashion. No need for types and your able to keep recording for much longer with the new development of cameras.

                When it came to producing a digipak and poster for our band, I used Photoshop to produce a high quality, professional product that would target the right audience as well as reflecting the band image. I started off by using Google to look at similar pictures we were thinking of for our design idea, which was nature or blurred images of people. This helped us fit the images to a template for a digipak and poster to get an idea of what we wanted for the end produced. Once we had this idea I used a cannon digital camera to take a picture of a tree in my garden that would work for the front cover of the album.  We then used Pacassa to create a grinning affect on the image that gave it this old fashioned which was dark that once again reflected the band image. Then using PhotoShop I created the other four panels of the digipak using the same grinning affect so all four panels matched. We designed the cover of the album in an alternative way so that it would stand out in shops as being creative, original and hand made feel to it. To make sure the font fit I used an on line website called Fonts.com, I used a font called ‘dead postman’ that gave an original look to the alternative digipak.

Evaluation:

Getting feedback on our final products so that we could evaluate also used new technologies so that we could record and document what we our target audience thoughts were. Using a mobile phone we recorded a focus group that we made to get feedback from, helped to make sure we captured everything that was said. It was easy and quick to use a mobile to just record everything instead of writing down each comment. For example one of the comments made was that ‘both elements of the music video make you want to continue watching, also so that you can get to know the band more’. YouTube was also a good way of getting feedback through comment at the bottom of the music video. This let the general public comment instead of friends and family, so we got honest feedback as they we didn’t know them. This was very helpful as we could have people honest opinion. For example ‘I liked how the narrative was in slow motion, it works really well’. This also gave us a chance to reach a bigger audience as well as our target audience.

                Another new technology I used to reach a target audience and get feedback from was FaceBook. I posted the music video on my home page for all my friends and family to see so that they could also give helpful feedback. This created word-of-mouth, so that friends would tell other friends and there family which would help boosts views and feedback. A persons called The Life Agency said ‘solid sound, intriguing video. Well done!’

Looking at other Bands Poster

Before we started on our poster for our band I looked into what other bands have created to promote their CD being realised. I found a few images that could help with us creating the right poster for our CD. The poster normally has the same image as the CD has on it but with different information. The poster normally shows; the artists name, what the CD is called and when it is out. Extra things would be websites of the band, where you can buy the CD and possibly when the band is next touring.



second draft of digipak

These are some more photos I took and then edited to help us decided what idea we were going for with our digipak front cover.

We ended up deciding on using an image of a tree to put as our frount cover of our digipak, as we could edit the image to a style that we felt represented the satr image of the band.

First drafts of Digipak

Colabrating all the ideas that we came up with for this distored image we found an image that colabrated all these ideas on google images. We will now go and take our of picture and create this similer idea and concept to help us produce our front cover of our Digipak. These are just ideas to help us.

We decided on the name of 'Dawin in Eden' after we decided to create this confussing image of the band, we had to decided on an album name but we haven't quite decided wether or not 'ignorance' gives the same message as the band name and cover gave off. It needs to also connect to this concept of a distored image.

We are trying all different desighns, from people to nature to trees:

Digipak - Ideas

 Our idea for our music video developed from a skins video from YouTube, they used distorted images to show what her life is like in Skins. So we asked ourselves the question that the people who edited the video would have looked into, 'How does it feel for someone who has lost everything?'. Looking into this concept of losting everything we got the idea from both our music video and the Skins video that we are trying to capture this blurred world and images that are surrounding both our characters in our music video and Effy from skins. They  both use distorted and shattered images to create this world that they are living in.

So for our Digipak we looked on google images for some ideas of blurred images, we came across blurred lights and blurred figures that create what we wanted to capture. This lost, confused and broken look through someones point of view. So we will take away this idea of distorted images and create something using lights,shadows and people that will make a confusing front cover to our Digipak.

Digipak and Advertisement

On Campuse Perfomace - Shoot

Monday 8th November, the day of our Music video shoots. We started off on campus in the studio, starting with our performance element. We had three man band Charlie, Oscar and Freddie who listened and cooperated very well with what we chucked at them. At 9 we started setting up the camera and putting the band in place to get them rehearsing. As we were setting up the camera and making sure everything was ready to start shooting, but as we were just about to start band practice, Freddie our basest of the band had to be taken out to do a November assessment which he wouldn’t be done until 10 which meant pushing back our performance shoot till then. Which didn’t really matter as it meant we got the chance to properly rehearse the other two members.

 
At 10 we got started straight away with a wide shot of the whole band, Due to our set and the way our lighting is set up we decided it would look more effective with the bigger camera that was slightly more technical but after getting the hang of it we felt that it would give us a great outcome.

                                    

                                     

So far we were getting all the shots that we wanted and decided for our final few shots on performace that we  would use tracking to pan round the band to capture different angles and try something different to try and get more interseting shoots to add to what we had produced all from the morning shoot. We layed out the track and had the chance to sit on a chair and cotrol what we wanted the camera to do by follwoing the bands movement.

After we were happy we got all the shots we wanted of the band we did a last check that we got all the shoots we wanted, by going through the list of shots we wrote down. We finally finshed shoot the perfomace at 12.30. We were ready to set off for our location set in guildford and shoot the narritive.

Guildford car park - Shoot

After spending the morning shoot the band shoots we needed, we moved too our location shoot at about 5pm. We packed up the bus with all the equipment we needed camera, tripod, paramedic uniform, fake blood and all the cast members. It took us about half an hour to get there but didn’t start shooting until 6. We had a few problems with getting one of our cast members their as he had to drive in his car so that we could use it in the shoot and the directions weren’t very clear but he finally arrived and was ready to start shooting.

          

We used the smaller camera this time as the other camera was better for our performance shots. The majority of our shots were done in slow motion so that we could capture the drama and reactions of the event that was unfolding I feel this worked very well as it captured what we really wanted which was the emotions of the shots.

Our cast was made up of 5 people and we asked a few other people to step in when were there. Connor and Pete were the main characters with Rose and Henry as on lookers at the last minute I had to step in with Henry so we could act together. Charlie who was our fifth person actually wasn’t need in the end due to the way things were shot in the end. Phil who is a teacher at school acted in the video as well to give us a different age range between the main characters and the extras. These worked well and give us a great contrast.   

Not only did we use the normal camera but we also used a smaller camera that could be put on top of the car to try and get the effect of a paramedic coming into the scene. It was too expensive to higher out a real ambulance so we used a teachers car and put a blue flashing light on top of the car to try and capture this idea with out actually showing the car. The camera got some good shots of the car coming in at speed and creating a panicked atmosphere.   

Music Video - Setting up and Shoot day

As a group we decided a good way of showing how we set up and decided what the set would look like would be a video diary, so as we set up and got ready for shoot day we used a camera and our phone to record and take pictures of our video set. We enjoyed doing this as it was a different way of recording the events that happened and its more interesting then just simply putting photos up.

The video shows all the different things that had to be done before the day of the shoot to make sure everything ran smoothly. We first of all cleared out everything from the last shoot and took down all the lights so we could have a blank canvas to start over again. We then decided what position our lights should be in so that we got the setting we wanted. Once the lights were up and checked we started to move in all the instruments and put them in place ready for the band members on Monday. We were then ready to shoot what shots we wanted of our performace side to our music video.

As Imii struggled to put it up on blogger straight from her computer, me and her decided that if I created a YouTube account We could put it on to YouTube and then upload it on to our blogs. This was a lot easier as it didn't take long to set up an account and it also means we can share our experiences with other people on YouTube.

Band practice

To get ready for our shoot day we decided on do a badn practice to make sure everyone was clear on what part of the band they will be playing and that they new the chords and lyrics and deffenetly heard the song before the day. That was important as we couldn't have them turning up on the day not knowing anything they were do let alone not knowing the song. We did this pactice one evening to make sure we were all free at the same time so that we could record it:

As it was quite difficult to get Freddie who is in another house over to our house we asked Oscar (the drummer) to learn his part so that if he had a chance before Monday he could teach it to it which made the process a lot quicker.

Charlie who is our lead singer and Guitarist he had to learn both lyrics and guitar part ready for Mondays shoot. Learn the lyrics wasnt that difficult for him as we had to cut down the song any way from 5 minutes to 3 minutes which meant charlie didn't have so much to lear and could consantrate mroe on the guitar part. He took away the chords and came to the shoot on Monday ready to get on and shoot.

Oscar worked on the drum part for the video and found it easy to learn and we were pleased with how well he got into his part.

Narrtive practise

As our narrative element of our music video was very intense we decided that we need to get the two main characters Connor and Peter together to have a practise so they didn't get embarrassed or awkwardness; that may happen on the day. We needed them to get it all out before the shoot so we could get on the shoot as quickly as we could. So we did it in a room with just those two and Me and Fergus and we just practised doing compressions so that Connor wouldn't hurt Pete.

Videos that worried us about our idea

This was a video by radiohead called Just that we looked at on youtube that worried us as it had a very similer concepts to our first idea. After looking at it and going away and adding some different elements to our video we felt a lot mroe possitive and felt we could pull of our new idea.



Too double check that there were no other videos similer to our idea we googled 'ambulance music video' to see what else had been done. First oen we found was this:

Then came across this country track which had a slight comdy factor to it:

and then this one by Nikelback

We knew that nothing would be completely original that we came up with but it was mroe the way we executed our idea that will make it a sucess and give it its unique identity.

Quote from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996):  “Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements:  a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.”

Other quotes on creativity:

"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997)

"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)

Final Decision on Location

 Guildford car park was our final attement at trying to get a public place to shoot at, after trying so many times to ring up south west trains for permission to shoot at Horsley station we decided that it would be a safer opposition to use the contacts the school had and asked permission from Guildford bough counsel to shoot in Guildford station car park, we got the all clear for shooting on Monday 7th November. This is a perfect location and it meant we could have public reactions watching this scene unfold. We could use huge amounts of space and set the scene perfectly in this quite car park in the early evening.

We felt a lot better now that we had finally sorted out the off campus location. Guildford is a perfect location as it only takes half an hour from school to get to and it meant that our cast could get home easily as it was close for them as well so it was very convenient.

Extra props and cast

Cast List

A2’s	AS’s
Charlie Lindsay – Lead Vocalist Oscar Jackson – Drummer Connor Vickery – Performing CPR Rose Salvage – Passer by Charlie Manton – Passer by	Freddie Dixon – Bassist Peter Bergin – Collapsed guy Henry Hammond – Passer by

As a few cast members we had origanally decided to use were busy or had other priorities, we decided to use Charlie Lindsay as both the Lead Vocalist and Guitarist. This would make it easy to contorl as well only have a three man band.  

Props List

School will provide:	We will provide:
Fake Blood Blue flashing light (ambulance) Paramedic Outfit: fluorescent jacket, green trousers and green shirt Mic Mic stand Electric Guitar Bass Guitar Business Suit - Phil	Bag of shopping (things that can roll and be visually interesting) – can of baked beans, oranges etc. Drum kit – Oscar Jackson

 

Due to the fact that an ambulance would be too difficult to source, we have decided to just get a blue flashing LED light. We have looked on amazon at possible blue lights that we could buy cheaply.