Location Shots

This is the exit Bryan uses to escape before getting shot at

We use this shot to add curiousity to the scene. We did a close up on the CCTV sign and Bryan peered through the gap.

Jack's house was the perfect destination to film. The house was undergoing construction which added a sense of danger and it was also located near some woods and the car park which we also filmed at.

Bryan's path was blocked by a second attacker which he punches down to the ground. The house was quite dark in most areas but this area was quite well lit.

Before the character heads towards the kitchen there will be a close up shot of the briefcase laying on this table which Bryan picks up.

This stretch was perfect for our shooting scene. Bryan was able to sprint down whilst getting shot at. The FX was not too challenging to create and it looked realistic scattering off the wall.

Editing

 We made good use out of the Sony Vegas Pro program. There were many things Sony Vegas helped us with. One of those being camera jitter.  A new video stabilization plug-in is supposed to analyse motion on all three axes to make clips look less shaky  It has the usual pre-sets -light, medium, and heavy stabilization--and it worked really well, though we had to crop some shots. Luckily we were using a high resolution camera so we didn't have many problems with fuzziness and pix-elations  I used the Media FX menu by clicking on the the particular scene in the timeline and edited from there.

We also used a plug in called Twixtor that enabled us to create really cool surreal slow motion effects. You will see this being implemented in a few scenes, such as the Puddle shot, Dog running and the Bullet leaving the barrel.

Dubstep Target Audience

These images portray the typical Dubstep audience. It is a popular genre enjoyed by those who exercise as it its quick pace is motivational and energetic, hence it also being popular in nightclubs with a younger audience considering it is a style of music which is typically played at a loud volume to ensure the Bass is heard clearly.

Post-Production Audience Research

What did I gain from this research? 

These interviews in particular helped us shape our creative ideas for the video. It is clear that listeners get a motivated and pumped feeling from this music Therefore a video with lots of action would be the most suitable narrative to go along with as in another interview the audience member said that Dubstep videos should have a high tempo narrative. It was made clear by a number of people I spoke to that seeing the artist even for short cuts, is absolutely essential. 

Story Board out-take

Here are the 2 storyboards I am most proud of - my artistic skills are not great!

Risk Assesment

My Partner and I discuss our designs

Here is a 4 minute video of Jack and I "attempting" to go through the reasons and ideas behind our draft covers. Please excuse the nerves and slight laughing. I also stupidly referred to the dogs muzzle as a mask, forgive me!

Digipak practice with Photoshop

A few ideas for a front cover:

I really enjoyed designing this cover. I wanted the listener to be able to form a link between the dog with the muzzle and the music on the CD  even if it is only subconscious. I think the image gives off a similar impression as a warning explicit content label. The dog, which is of a stereotypically aggressive and strong nature is being suppressed from expressing himself. The muzzle acts as a cap of freedom, emotions and rights. This relates to the music we would be producing, songs that inspire ambitions and bass drops that make your mind go absolutely wild.

As a group we wanted to come up with something extreme and unusual. This was a quirky idea but after a short while, I realised it is wholly inappropriate but remains a good example of controlling creativity to what the audience would like to see. This would cause controversy and possibly limit our audience to a particular faction. I decided to leave this on the blog as a true example of our creativity and how we learnt from it.   

A mysterious isolated tree. This took me a while to draw but I achieved the results I aimed for, which was an eerie vibe. My influence for this being that Dubstep is a genre which is interpreted differently from listen to listener. Throughout my blog and in my evaluation I will elaborate on this point.

I used a very classic photo and played around with it on Photoshop. I focused on Posterizing the image to create a surreal feel of an image that is already recognizable and classic. Another reason for using this filter was to create a conventional games cover, similar to one from Grand Theft Auto. Also, the image is clearly set in a ghetto area as that is where we tend to find people carrying boom-boxes  This means that the area is notorious for gun crime as is evident in our music video.

shooting day

Our long day of shooting (7Hours) was incredibly tiring but enjoyable. My first scene I was responsible for shooting was shot 5-9 when the shooting starts outside the house gates. The biggest challenge was to ensure continuity was not affected with our various action shots that we had agreed we wanted. My partner Jack was passionate to try and experiment with Twixter and create slow motion affects, so we did close up shots of the puddle splash which went wrong a couple times! Jack and I were always supporting each other during shooting and offering each other advice which has proven to be very successful,

Shooting Schedule

DATE	TIME	SHOT NUMBER	WHERE	ACTORS	FILMERS	PROPS
25/10/12	10am-10:30am	1-4	In car park in car.	Bryan	Jack, will	Car and gun
25/10/12	10:30am-11am	5-9	Outside of house and shots around the house such as gate	Bryan, will	Tim, jack	Gun and gaud costume.
25/10/12	11am-12am	10-22	In gararg where singer is and out the front of the house.	Phoebe, will, bryan	Jack, tim	Gun, costumes
25/10/12	12:30pm-1pm	23-31	In house porch and living room	Will, bryan, phoebe	Jack, tim	Gun, costumes
25/10/12	1pm-2pm	32-39	In house living room and on street outside of house.	Bryan, phoebe, rocky	Will, tim, bryan (shots where he is not in image)	Suit case, costumes, dog (rocky), gun
25/10/12	2pm-3pm	40-49	In woods outside of house and car park and garage.	Bryan, will, Rocky, phoebe	Will, jack, tim, bryan ( shots where actors are not in image)	Dog, car, gun, costumes, suit case
25/10/12	3pm-4pm	50-59	In car park	Will, bryan, phoebe	Jack, tim	Gun, suit case, car, costumes
25/10/12	4pm-5pm	60-68	In car park, shot back to living room.	Will, bryan, jack, tim	Will, bryan, jack, tim (for shots where driving car is required and dead gauds are filmed on floor).	Car, costumes

Music Video Analysis -  Birdman 'Fireflame'

Mise en scene – very opulent. As though he has his own Mort which is linked to Castles and Monarchs. He may want us to feel that this is his empire or relate his life to a fairy-tale.

In this still we can see him having a manicure, being groomed and served simultaneously. This connotes a life of splendour and luxury. The Champagne was rated the best I the world and is well known amongst wealthy hip hop artists.

This is a close up specifically showing the tattoo of an oil rig exploding. This was to show off his attempts in the business world.

This symbolizes wealth, burning $100 notes. Many would take great care of their money whereas he is showing that he has enough “money to burn”. Which is also a popular catchphrase amongst the genre. 

Swedish House Mafia ft. Tinie Tempah - Miami to Ibiza

The video uses a black and white filter on and off to represent the past memories and experience. There is a lot of focus on the artist Tinie himself with close up shots which is not conventional of videos from this genre. When the Swedish House Mafia have their solo you don't see them but instead see the reactions of those listening to their music and partying hard. There are also numerous sexual scenes of the women revealing her body which is conventional to a club atmosphere in which the song would be played. 

Black and White - exposing female body

close up of  Tinie Tempah

We liked the style and theme of this video. It's video had an easy story to follow which is what we decided to do with ours. However the lyrics in our song have no direct connection to the video itself, unlike this one ours can be interpreted differently. 

Album marketing

 

·         Here we see a heart being crushed and squeezed to the point blood pours out and down his arm

·         This action and use of imagery connotes that the songs are about heart break but not times that love has caused substantial suffering to the core.

·         The font is clear with the name of the band being the most prominent.

·         The album name relates to the heart, so we are able to tell there is a connection between them as they chose the colour red to make this link.

·         As Green Day are already established they can afford to be unconventional and not put in any release dates or reviews.

·         This image reminds me of political propaganda from the past.

·       





        His album is called ‘A Time To Love’. He cleverly shortens this to A(CLOCK)2(HEART) with a simple drawing on the album. This may be a catchy way to viral market the album. It is short and sweet.

·         Stevie has the name of one of his biggest hits at the bottom; this may be to encourage people to buy it.

·         He looks very relaxed sitting on a chair backwards smiling.

-The advertisemet is very informative and conventional as it contains all the generic information such as "featuring the single" and the release date, however it doesnt say where I can buy it but as he already has a global reputation it is fairly obvious that it will be available in most stores.
- On my advertisement I will need to show where you can purchase it from.

   It is almost as though he is portraying himself as hawk-eyed – Vigilant, observant or watchful. However some birds have fantastic eyesight in the night which may be why he used this. The album being called ‘Only By The Night’ would make sense. It may mean his vision is no longer blurred by various circumstances in his life.

·         Again, we see the use of using successful hits to further promote the album. Potentially to attract new fans that may have heard the songs in the charts but not many others from him.

·         The release date is almost in a fluorescent font, which is very clear.

·         Again the name of the album has a tinge green shade to it as does the main album picture.

This is a non-conventional type of album advert for music of this genre.

  However the font does remain in your face and connotes confrontation.

·         The Album name is R.E.D and just about all the background is also in the colour red. His name does stand out in the biggest font in the shade of white. This is however the only thing which tells the audience that this is Ne-Yo. It is the only distinctive characteristic.

 - This close up of the artists face is clearly of himself but heavily distorted.
- The album name "I Created Disco" is in a small and discreet font but it is cleverly done as it draws your attention to it. This is because the rest of the cover is extremely bold and simple. It is the technically the only information we receive as the big font "Calvin Harris" and the image of Calvin Harris is nothing new to the audience looking to buy his album.
- The yellow circles in his glasses are quirky and in my opinion represent disco lights
- Overall I think this style of Album cover is conventional to the dance/dubstep genre and I look forward to doing something similar

- This Swedish House Mafia cover is once again slightly distorted
- They 3 band members have an equal amount of space on the cover suggesting they are all of equal importance
- The 3 members look very similar with the effects
- The album name is larger and more vivid than the name of the group.
- There is very little information on the front cover which suggests they are confident they have a good fan base who will buy their album based on what they already know about the groups style of music.






Album Cover/Adverts research.

I have looked at some album covers and adverts in the media. I decided to not directly look into the genre of Dubstep for various reasons. I feel that it is a newly established genre with very little funding therefore genres such as Hip Hop will have plenty more freedom for creativity, which we can learn from. However I have also looked at album covers from the Dance Genre which targets a similar audience as Dubstep. It is evident that every single detail has a purpose whether it be the colour/size of the font or the choice of image. Later I will then produce my own draft album covers for our group 'Adventure Club'.

What is Dubstep?

As this is not a popular genre we feel it necessary to try and explain what the genre is all about.

·         Dubstep is a Genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London. The music website Allmusic has described its overall sound as "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals

·         The term "dubstep" in reference to a genre of music began to be used by around 2002 by labels such as Big Apple, Ammunition, and Tempa, by which time stylistic trends used in creating these remixes started to become more noticeable and distinct from 2-step and grime.

·          Dubstep started to spread beyond small local scenes in late 2005 and early 2006; many websites devoted to the genre appeared on the internet and aided the growth of the scene, such as dubstepforum. The radio 1 presenter John Peel was a very early supporter and started playing the music since 2003.

·         One characteristic of certain strands of dubstep is the wobble bass, often referred to as the "wub", where an extended bass note is manipulated rhythmically. 

·         Originally, dubstep releases had some structural similarities to other genres like drum and bass and UK garage. Typically this would comprise an intro, main section (often incorporating a bass drop), a midesction, a second main section similar to the first (often with another drop), and an outro.

Audience Research:

Through exploring various online forums and websites I have collected ideas on the stereotypical avid Dubstep listener. Below are comments from Dubstep listeners about the audience (including themselves). I noticed that recreational drug use came up a lot as well as the reference to age being early adult years.

“Smokes a lot of pot, drinks a lot of cheap alcohol, describes music (and other things) as "filthy", "grimy", "dirty." Wears baggy pants (UFOs) and big DJ headphones at all times.”

“lots of college students/heavy drinkers and smokers. I'm a firm believer that dubstep was created in mind for people under the influence of a substance!”

“College freshman, a little overweight. Hangs out at frat parties where he dances by himself. Drink Mt. Dew exclusively. "Sick drop!" is the only phrase they know.” – Sick drop is referring to the bass

Video

As dubstep is quite a new genre they often do not have any high end videos to their music. Often there will be a picture representing their personal logo for the duration of songs on YouTube. This is partly due to funding and that many of the dubstep mixes passed around online are mixed by college students. Therefore we have decided to look more at drum n bass music videos for inspiration and are planning on strongly following the conventions. As we found out through audience research, they expect to see a variety of different effects over short and sudden shots. The reason why we are having many shots is to sync with the rapid beat of the music. 

We are in the process of planning and crafting our latest project. For the music video we have chosen the dubstep genre. It's going to be hard work but should rewarding.

Group Members

Jack Madden

Ollie Maclaurin

Tom Waldron

Tim Gosling

Dear Moderator,
I hope you enjoy going through and reading my blog. I have tried to make my blog as easy to get around as possible, so everything is in the correct order. There are four pages and from the start you will find my pre-lim video and then the initial plans for my final project.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Gosling

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final project?

In our preliminary task we were simply instructed to experiment with different camera angles we had just been taught. We used various angles in the preliminary task such as close-up, extreme close ups, match on action, mid shots and long shots but when compared to the quality of our final project it looks very amateur. I believe this is because we didn’t use any effects to enhance the shots in our pre-lim. Therefore in our pre-lim there are some scenes where the lighting has been greatly affected causing a yellow/green smudge blurring the subjects face. Whereas with our final project, not only did we edit out these nuisances but we also planned appropriate filming times to help reduce the light flares. I think we realized the importance of organization and preparing with our final project and recognized that a good quality scene takes time and practice. We focused on filming everything in the course of an evening to ensure the continuity flowed perfectly so we could prevent any mistakes suffered in the pre-lim. We also took advantage of all the equipment on offer by the media department, such as tripods and spot lights because we noticed that some of the scenes in our pre-lim were unsteady.

poor lighting (blurred face)

extreme close up

What have you learnt about technologies whilst constructing this product?

I learnt a lot in this project about the technologies needed, as well as the similarities with the real media world. I developed my skills on my laptop experimenting with publisher then realizing it didn’t offer what we needed. I improved my ability to use Sony Vegas Pro as this task enabled us to be more creative and free with how we wanted to edit our piece. We experimented a lot in the earlier stages of editing, such as trying out an effect called 'ghosting'  which requires layering two shots on top of ach other and changing the opacity. This is because we realized in one of the shots that I was visible sitting in the car when the ‘hooded man’ reverses so adding another layer makes me less visible whilst maintaining a natural look.

I am still slightly visible but the ghosting effect was very effective

We also use this same program to create a realistic gunshot and a spray of blood to follow. This took a considerable amount of time to perfect but we are happy with the results :

The internet also proved to be a very useful research engine and also helped us to present our work. This is the first time I have blogged but it didn’t seem difficult at all. Blogger was very easy to use and helped us organize what we were doing whilst also being a fantastic way of communicating with each other out of school regarding progress. We of course uploaded our preliminary task along with our final production onto YouTube so that it can be easily viewed by anyone, including friends and family. YouTube is a fantastic site, as it is free yet has so much influence over the media and offers useful feedback. Unfortunately we didn’t receive any feedback through YouTube but then again it wasn’t one of our aims. We also went on to the BBCF website to examine what age category our production would fall into.

This experience has emphasized how important technology is to create a good movie. When we first watched our RAW clips after filming, they looked extremely amateur and poor. It was purely because of the editing by adjusting Contrast, Brightness, Saturation etc. that the use of camera angles and mise-en-scene came to life. I now realise how much time and effort must go into a full movie as even a 10 second clip would take us days to perfect.

An example of Sony Vegas