Promotional Images

Filming Process

For the last two weeks we have been filming for our music video, Although we neglected to photograph much of it, we spent this time trying to find solutions for many of the issues we had in filming the shots we wanted. As shown above, we used a skateboard to get a tracking shot from the side, because we could not afford a dolly and walking was not steady enough. Another issue was filming in the car, something we had discovered difficult because of space. This involved attaching a camera mount to the back seat to keep it steady and centred on the actor, as well as hanging mostly out of the passenger side window to film a side profile of the driver. Using what we learned from the test shots, we lit the car using a camping light diffused with baking paper.
The walking shots were slightly easier, and we got these simply by using the camera handheld with the strap stabilising it as best we could. We will attempt to stabilise them as much as we can using the warp stabiliser in Premier Pro, but from my previous experience of using it I doubt will we use it.
The only shots we have left to film is the party, which we will not be able to do until after the winter holiday.

Social Media

In the world of today, social media plays an enormous role in both private lives and business ventures. It is the most accessible and widely used source of information available today, and artists frequently use it to promote music, their brand and build a following. Especially as our target audience of teenagers and young adults are considered Global Natives and will likely use social media extensively.

Instagram is a very popular app among our target audience, and allows people to share images and videos. Our band could use Instagram extensively to publicise our brand and share visual media with our audience, expecially as our ethos includes aesthetic appeal. Videos and images posted can contribute to building a brand image based around the aesthetic values we hold. Due to its nature as a mobile application, our audience have constant access to it using smartphones, and are likely to check it on a daily basis, allowing for constant interaction and connection.

 Although it has begun falling out of favour with a younger generation, many now sneering at the idea of constant connectivity, it is still a very popular site that the majority of young adults, and our target audience, are likely to have.Our band could effectively use Facebook to post more detailed updates, tour information, longer videos and such. As Facebook is a browser site, rather than an application, Facebook would allow us to post links to other sites, something Instagram cannot do. This means we could share articles, venue websites and YouTube videos easily when relevant.

Website Update

We have decided to change the website design slightly so that it connects better to our digipak. Rather than using an image of the musician, the website will now use the ink patterns of the album art, and the whole site will be on one page that you scroll through, in order to increase accessibility by reducing the amount of links the user needs to follow.

Digipak Analysis

Band Profile

Now that were far on creating all our products, we felt it was necessary to finalise what our band would actually be. We decided to make it a duo, as it emphasises the gender neutrality of our music and target audiences, and having a male and female member helps to appeal to both.
The duo is the members of our media group, Myself (James Morrison) and Beatrice Douaihy. This prevents us from having to rely on outside people if we need promotional material such as images.
The band would produce varying experimental electronic music. We don't want to narrow the genre down too much, as it gives us more freedom in terms of promotion if the band is not super specific music wise. The band members persona's and personality will not be stressed, as we feel that in an age where people share so much online the enigma is likely to draw attention.




We used an online random ambient electronic band name generator on the Rigel7 music blog (http://rigel7.com/bandomizer/) to produce a series of random names. One of the names that came up involved 'Xerox', and we liked the idea of using this in the name as it fits the idea of nostalgic futurism, with the strange futuristic word yet the actual physical thing being a now outdated technology. As we went on, we tried it out with other suggestions, and eventually settled on 'dreams' as the abstract noun combines with the concrete Xerox to create a surreal, unusual impression, as well as emphasising the longing associated with nostalgia.

Digipak First Draft

We have changed our design to be more original, instead using only the base ideas from Mount Kimbies designs. Instead of using the geometric shapes, we are using parabolic curves, another element of geometry.

Whilst calling back to Mount Kimbies designs this is different, and we used this as the starting point for our design. Using this principle we then thought about how we could use this geometry in a cover. One idea is to overlay these curves over an image, but we didnt think this would look right or work properly.

Instead we decided to make the curve a main focus of the image, and mocked up the rough idea to include the curve in a v shape. To make it more interesting we decided a second element was necessary and thought that a circle of some kind would be fitting as it would match the curve. We had a few ideas for what to include, such as images from a microscope, paint patterns or a 3D panelled sphere. Ultimately we decided on paint patterns, as it was gave us the option to try many different colour scheme and ideas.

Digipak Ideas

These are our initial ideas for the Digipak.

These rough sketches show our main ideas. They are inspired by Mount Kimbies actual album art, and so we followed similar conventions by using geometric shapes and vibrant colours in the designs.

This was a more detailed mock up of a main idea. The principles are in place, using strong colours
and shapes. the designs for all three pages are consistent giving the digipak an overall look.
It emulates the geometric designs of Mount Kimbies past, but ours is more three dimensional and adds a more complex interaction of the shapes and colours. The shapes will be shaded to give them an appearance of physical existence, but there will be varying light sources and angles to create a surreal, unreal appearance that reflects the style of the music. The back cover mimics the front, but is more subdued in order to give room for the text.
On the inside will be an image of the artist, which connects it to the website and video as well as humanises the band. We will not use an image though, as to still remain somewhat removed from the music, and as this was not something favoured in our survey. Instead we chose to use a line image, which will not be hugely realistic; this creates enigma and interest in the band.
Personally I think this is too similar to Mount Kimbies albums and doesn't properly show our creative abilities. It also isn't as reflective as I'd like of the music video, and we want to make it more consistent with that.

First draft, Music Video

This video was my best attempt at making a draft of our music video. we are missing a lot of the shots we need, as this was only one of four locations we will be using, however it gives a good impression of what the video will tonally end up like. There is a lot we want to change. For one, the actors didn't seem expressive enough and we still had stability and noise issues, although reduced. we fixed most of the noise problems by using better equipment, and tried to reduce shake by using a stabilizer in the car and by skateboarding for the walking shots. Because of this we want to try to re-film these parts.

Sitemap

Website Drafts/ideas

After referring to our survey, we began sketching our rough ideas for the website. Naturally, we will be restricted by the tools provided by the Wix website designer, so we kept our ideas rough and subject to change.

As most people considered the aesthetic design to be the most important part of their appreciation of the site, we put heavy emphasis on creating a sleek, appealing look. As the most popular designs were that of XYLO and James Blake, we looked to these for inspiration. We ended up producing for rough sketches, all using a dominating main image, sands serif font and social media links in the form of icons. Because, as our survey revealed, social media is now the preferred way of keeping up to date with the band, we made sure these links were prominent in order to easily provide them to those who have little further interest in the site.

After discussing the options we felt that this design was our favourite. Its simplicity is in keeping with the ethos of our brand, and the uncluttered design makes for easy navigation. The central placement of the text and information enhances the aesthetic appeal. It also allows for the photo to have a more interesting and unusual appeal, with its focus being shifted to one side instead of central. this unusual presentation is likely to appeal to our target audience as defying conventional ideas is something that the subculture were appealing to appreciate. The photo will be the bands front-man, which connects it to the music video. It will be monochrome in order to keep it from distracting from the text too much.

Test Shots: Driving

We gathered these shots for the driving sequences to see how we could improve.




The most obvious issue is stability. We want to try to help this by using stabilizing equipment like mounts or rests, although it will not be easy. As I have discovered, premier pro's warp stabilizer makes the footage look too strange. This means we will have to stabilize the shots as much as possible. The other issue was how noisy the footage is. The solution is to adjust aperture and ISO settings, as well as using a more advanced camera and lens, something we have already arranged with a friend.

Test Shots: Walking

These shots we got in the Al-Hitmi area and show the concept of walking scenes in this area. We have an idea for how effective the shots are and what certain lighting looks like. The quality of the footage is not up to scratch, so we are going to try and get a better camera and lenses to correct this. Stability issues are apparent, and so we will have to find a way to film with more stability for the piece.



These shots we got for the same reason, to test out lighting conditions in West Bay Lagoon. These did not come out as nicely as we hoped, so we dont think we will focus as much of the video here, as the Al-Hitmi area provides more diversity in lighting and atmosphere.

Costume and props

Although our costumes and props where essentially limited to what we had available, we still did our best to make costumes an extension of our characters. This is especially important as there is no dialogue in our music video, so characteristics have to be conveyed entirely visually.

Our initial idea was to use the imagery associated with films our target audience enjoys, like drive and Nightcrawler. In these films, the characters wear distinctive unusual jackets, and we thought about trying to emulate this as to refer to something our audience enjoys. However, we felt that it would most likely just become distracting and messy, and in only 5 minutes would not acurately portray our character.



In the end, we chose to portray him in a stereotypically 'cool guy' way, as a visual short hand for his characterisation. He wears entirely black, reflective of his dark character, but also reminiscent of 80s action heroes. Overall, his look calls upon cultural touchstones of what 'cool' and 'hero' characters look like, in order to give the image of him as fitting into this set of people; even though his actions in the video go against this. He wears the classic biker jacket, a symbol of youth rebellion since the 1950's, and such a cultural accepted symbol of 'cool' that esquire made a list of the 11 coolest leather jackets in film, and this style appeared 3 times. The boots also call upon this look, described on the caterpillar site as 'Exuding classic charm, the Orson captures the era of James Dean'.
His hairstyle furthers this characterisation, being simple and classic, tying his whole look together as being someone who presents themselves in a cultural accepted way, but to a point of aggressive determination that comes off as insincere and try-hard.

The props he will use throughout contribute more to showing his self destructive tendencies. The cigarettes he smokes are a reference to James Dean type characters and the rock n' roll Zeitgeist of the 1950s, but to a contemporary audience come across negatively due to the cultural shaming of smoking. He will also be seen with a beer and a bottle of Jack Daniels, exemplifying these tendencies.




Our female protagonist mirrors the males design choices in order to visually comment on their similarity and to show that they equal each other. We link them visually in this way so that the audience understands immediately they have a connection of some kind. like the male protagonist, her dark colour scheme reflects her own personality, eve with a dark red shade of lipstick. the jacket she wears is slightly more distinctive, and we chose to do this to show that she is more comfortable in herself than he is, and more confident to present her style the way she wants to, whereas he is trying to present an image of himself. the dyed blonde hair also builds into this, as it mirrors her ability to change and move on. the darker roots are to insinuate her personality of not maintaining any specific look, showing her character as much more free and uncaring.

Video Storyboard

Production schedule

Filming schedule:

Friday 12th November

Test shots: Driving and Walking

Thursday 26th November

Walking shots in West Bay Lagoon
Film final driving shots in West Bay Lagoon
Travel to Al-Hitmi
Film walking test shots in Al-Hitmi

Friday 27th November

Begin preparing/decorating set for motel scene in West Bay Lagoon
Film motel scenes in West Bay Lagoon
Begin preparing set for house party scene in West Bay Lagoon
Film house party scene in West Bay Lagoon

End of November into beginning of January
Edit music video footage

January

Design website

Late January and Early February


Design digipak

Shot List

This is the finished shot list, created by going through the song and matching up our ideas for shots and narrative to the tone of the music. Whilst we may not follow this exactly it will mostly dictate filming and editing.

Survey Results

We distributed the survey over Facebook and Watsapp, gathering a total of 33 results. as shown below, the vast majority of these results are within the bracket of our target audience. We also have a few older and younger answers, which gives us an idea of what other perspectives on the genre could be.

The answer to this is very mixed. The majority said no, however the disparity in answers shows that it may not be overwhelmingly true. We will, however, go with the majority, and our album art will be reflective of the artistic design previously shown in Mount Kimbies releases.

The majority answer is that they do not want to see the artist. This fits with what we wanted to do, and with Mount Kimbies album art. There is a significant maybe answer, but this only means they can appreciate both kinds of cover.

The overwhelming majority of people preferred Mount Kimbie's album art to any of the other options. From this, we are going to create our album to be similar to theirs in that we will use bold colours and abstract geometric forms to create a cover focused on form.

For this we received a mixed decision between painting and graphic design. This fits into our plan to make the album art abstract and appearance based. We have decided that graphic design is more appropriate than a painting as it fits the modern nature of electronic music.

From this question it is very apparent that aesthetic design is the most important factor in the design of a website. Functionality remains important, but from this we will make sure to focus on the aesthetic design specifically.

As this question received an even split between XYLO and James Blake, we will look at the layouts of both these websites and try to create a compromise incorporating the best features of both of these websites.

Clearly from these results websites and Facebook are the most important ways to distribute information. We can reflect this by including important information on our website, and by prominently linking the Facebook page among other social media.

From these answers we will take the most frequently mentioned information and inclde this on our website. This seems to be Photographs, concert dates, merchandise, a biography, new releases, press and a blog. We may not include all of these: for example a gallery of photographs is unnecessary given the functionality of social media.

Filming process

Today we filmed the first part of the music video. We filmed all of the car shots in west bay, making a third of the video now filmed.
It proved difficult to film in the car, as we had learnt from the test shots. we used a shoulder mount, attached to the rear seats of the car, to film forward, and for side shots of the driving we attached the mount to the door, with the window open, in order to get a far enough shot.

We stuggled to get a good shot of walking from the side, and ended up using a skateboard to roll along; it is still not as steady as we'd like, but it is less jerky than the walking.

Audience Research: Survey

We decided to get feedback on the digipak with a survey instead of another focus group. This would allow us to get much more responses with considerable less organisation, as well as removing the limitations on the people asked that previously constrained us.
It would also allow us to much more easily show the media we want responses on: images, website links and such can be easily linked and embedded in a survey.
We decided to us multiple choice for most of the questions so as to save time, as people wouldn't want to type large paragraphs. it also gives us a simplified and easily used format to asses responses.

The survey begins by asking for basic personal information, so we know where the respondent falls within the target audience. We then ask the following questions concerning digipaks:

• Do you think it is important for bands to maintain consistency throughout all their album cover art?
• Do you prefer to see the artist featured on their album cover?
• What kind of picture do you prefer seeing on an album cover?
• Which of these album covers do you like the most? One is chosen from the three below.

The following questions concern websites:

• How would you like to receive news from a band online?
• What information do you expect to find on a musical act's online page?
• What is the most important factor in how much you enjoy a musical act's website?
• Which of these websites' layouts/designs do you like the most? One is chosen from the three below.

And the final survey:

Focus Group

We only managed to find 4 people willing to do the video. This consisted of three boys and one girl, all aged 16-18. The gender imbalance is unfortunate, but the age fits the target audience well.

Feedback on Electronic music videos in general:

What do you associate with electronic music videos?

Because of the associations of the video with an abstract but high definition visual style, we will focus on emulating this in our own piece.

What is your opinion towards narratives in music videos?

The group seemed to agree that music videos do not need to have a linear, cohesive narrative, but they do need to adhere to the music in some form, which is what we were planning to do anyway.

What do you think of having the artist in the music video?

We received both a positive and negative response from this question. For this reason we will choose to go with what we think will be best for the video, which is to not feature the artist performing. This fits both the conventions of electronic music videos, as well as being in line with what we want from the video: focus on the music

Do you prefer realism or surrealism in music videos, and why?

Although we again received mixed opinions, the scope and budget for our music video means we will be limited to realism, not surrealism.

Do you enjoy music videos that follow genre conventions, or challenge them?

Once again, we had mixed responses, but the general idea seems to be that we will make use of genre conventions as well as challenging some of them.




Feedback to the music video:



How did you feel about the lack of a clear narrative?

From this we received a positive response, and will proceed with our original plan to not include a clear narrative.

What did you think of the use of alternative editing techniques such as light leaks, or low quality film?

We received a positive reaction to this as well, and may experiment with some of these techniques, which we previously didn't really plan to include.

How do you think the colour scheme reflected the mood of the video?

Considering the notice they took of colours, this confirms that our target audience is aware and affected by colour schemes, something for us to focus on.

Do you think this music video effectively matches the song? Please explain.

One important part is that they noticed how the on screen action matches the pace of the music, something we want to do anyway, but will make sure to get right, as it is clearly a very important part of music videos.

What benefit did the locations have towards the tone of the video?

The group took note of how the locations fit the tone of the music. Unfortunately we are more limited in our choices than a full music video, however we have selected potential locations based on adherence to the tone of our song.

Location Planning

For our video, we want a lot of the environment to be urban and run down. This will provide a visual metaphor for the feelings of the protagonist, and the harsh mechanical lighting of construction sites and street lights provides an aesthetically pleasing colour scheme.

for this we are going to use the area called Al-Hitmi. This provides the environment and is easily accessible to us.

We went out to this area to scout out locations that we can use, and came back with a few potential choices.