Album Cover Ideas

As our group draw ever close to the shoot day, we have started to consider the digi-pack element of the production phase of the coursework. In order to do so, I've researched a few album covers which I think of as inspirations for my band's digi-pack.

The use of bright colors and interesting styles make this album cover from 'Egyptian Hip Hop' an interesting and inspiring album cover, we feel that it successfully portrays the band and their individual styles, while also proving interesting to look at, and eye catching.

A slightly duller album cover, this digipack from the band 'Everything Everything' shows the four way split shot that we would want, although the cover and styles of the band members is fairly bland, the principle remains the same.

We feel that album covers that show a band as unified as opposed to covers that show the singer as the main area of focus, and the band as simply a backup for the individual, were not the image that we wanted to portray within our digipack. 

Meetings With Artistic And Lighting Directors

After our meetings with the Artistic and Lighting directors that came in to visit us for the day, they gave us some advice while also giving their opinions on our video idea and the song itself. We met with the Artistic director firstly, and we discussed the idea of a tattered teenagers bedroom. She liked the idea, as well as saying that it would be relatively easy to do. She suggested that we use stained cream carpets and empty pizza boxes, as well as other items of junk, to demonstrate the rebellious attitude we want to convey. She said that the school would be able to source the bed, chest of drawes and the wallpaper and carpets. However we would have to source the band posters, however we checked on eBay and we were able to find posters that we likes for fairly cheap.

We then met the Lighting director who also said that he liked the idea of the teenage room, and gave us suggestions on the different lighting that could be used, he suggest using Gobo lights in the break of the song, to add some variety to keep the audience interested.

Questions For The Animatic

We decided that in order to make our interviews with the public more effective, we would invent a few specific questions that we could ask, regarding our music video. These were the questions that we devised:

• Does this storyline make sense? If so, what do you think is happening?
• What kind of person do you think would enjoy this video?
• Were there any elements of the video which you think you could improve?
• What did you think of the record shop idea? 
• Do you think that the style suits the genre?
• Do you think it's entertaining?
• Is there anything you see that is unconventional?
• Do you think that the band we have chosen are convincing?

Set Designs

We decided to draw sketches of our ideal setting for the performance element of our video, we felt that a punky teenagers bedroom would be the best setting, as it embodies the sense of anarchy and rebellion that we want to portray within our video.

We decided to make a quick rough sketch of our ideal setting, we felt that placing clothes and beer cans around the room would help demonstrate the rebellious attitude, which the use of band posters demonstrated music's influence in the band's life.

 This was our final, we felt that using t shirts from bands such as 'The Sex Pistols' would connote the punk culture and rebellion that we wanted to include subtly throughout the video.

This was our rough sketch of the inside of Ben's records, we mainly wanted to show how our band members would be dressed, we would want to incorporate a sense of individuality in each member, while sticking to the rough punk style.

This was our sketch of the outside of Ben's Records, we drew this to mainly add some perspective on where we would be filming, and how it would look.

Confirming The Band

This was our email to the students that we wanted to cast as the band in our video, so far Jamie and Sam have both said yes, and are in the process of emailing us with a confirmation.

Animatic Video

Confirming the Location

After talking to Ben on the phone, he was more than happy to let us use his shop for a section of our shoot, we emailed him to get written permission, and to give him some dates, he seemed fairly flexible with dates on the phone, but we assumed that we should give him a rough guideline.

Emily Teadrake Notes

                  ·         Polydor, subsidiary of Universal Records.

·         Video Commissioner- Oversee over the whole music videos.

·         Timelines, treatments, how a video is pitched.

·         Receive the budget, track, and deadlines.

·         Discuss with artists and managers, decide what they want to do with the video, a lot of people managing, and make sure that the brief is good, portrays the right image, while still allowing the directors enough creative freedom to work with.

·          MATCH THE ARTISIT TO THEIR VIDEO- e.g. Ellie Goulding, a beauty performance.

·         Narrative storylines are very popular, project their skills as a director of film.

·         Rudimental set a heavy president for what music videos should be like.

·         Newer artists are more likely to choose a smaller video with better ideas.

·         Directors commonly take ideas from things they’ve seen on the internet.

·         No more than 5 directors have briefs sent to them.

·         After the briefs are sent, the directors will send a treatment, envisioning their ideas.

·         Industry has changed, now, as soon as a track is played on air, then it is released. As opposed a 6 week run up on air, after which, the single would be released.

·         YEARS & YEARS VIDEO- Treatment summarises the video idea, and the elements of choreography around the video. Given the director’s spin.

·         Keeping it as concise as possible.

·         Breaks down idea and references, then goes into more detail.

·         Directors take images from the internet. However directors that are signed to record companies will be give financial backing and the facilities to make their own ideas.

·           Sometimes permits aren’t necessary.

·         Average budgets- UK- £30,000 International- £100,000

·         Director will sit with editors while they cut. A lot of the time, lip sync and performance isn’t usually involved very much.

·         Polydor are very strict on their pre-production phases.

·         A lot of directors use VICE and NOISEY for their inspirations, such as cultures, fashions and rituals.

·         [Insert Wiley Here]

·         Instead of hiring, just ask around, people know people.

·         Very small budgets, use natural lighting, it doesn’t matter if you have a good setting.

·         Start as interns. Start from the bottom and build up.

Filming Location

Ben's Records

After little positive response from a handful of the shops we emailed, Angel decided to ring Ben's Records in Guildford and approached him about filming in his shop. To our delight he said he would be more than happy for that, now all we need is written permission and we will need to visit his shop to make a risk assessment.

Storyboard

Animatics

After completing our storyboard we went upstairs to the media studio and prepared to film our story board, aiming to get around 10 seconds on a page, before turning over. We started filming and the process took us roughly 20 minutes to film everything, and we are now preparing to edit the footage together.

Epitaph Permission Requests

Before we started to plan the shoot, we needed to ask the record company who released the song 'Memories'. After some quick research I discovered that the record label was 'Epitaph Records', after searching through their website to find contact addresses, I found various addresses that I could email, and took liberty in emailing all of them. None of the addresses were valid, so I checked on their Facebook and other social media sites to see if there was an alternate address, which there was not. After asking Jason what to do, he told me that we are not responsible for the emails being invalid, therefore, permission was still asked, and we would still be able to use the song.

Location Inquiries

As a task of urgency, we have emailed various record shops near and around Guildford, inquiring as to whether we can use their establishment for filming a segment of our music video. We emailed several stores. Here is the record of the email that we sent to them.

Band Member's Instruments

For our music video we are also considering the style of the instruments that we could use. We would want them to extenuate the image of the band, while still looking professional. After talking to Joel about the instruments, he told us that he had several stylized guitars at home that we could choose from.
Here is an image of the guitars that he has:  

While the school owns a drum kit that we could use, we would consider what style of drumstick that we would want to use, as they can say a lot about the drummer and the band in question. Having played the drums myself, I have a collection of sticks that could be used. And I feel that using my carbon drumsticks could demonstrate that, despite being able to play the instruments, the drummer plays the drums with such passion that he would have to consider breaking his drumsticks.

For our singer's microphone, we would want to consider whether we would want a classic microphone, or a vintage silver one. I feel like the silver microphone would be aesthetically pleasing to an audience watching the video, while also incorporating the vintage image into the video:

Band Member's Style

As your music video come closer and closer to the production process, we are beginning to focus on the image and members of the band. While the band 'Weezer' incorporated the Geek-Rock image into their star image, we feel that we would want to include a grungier element into the bands image, yet keeping them stylized. Instead of focusing on their individuality as band members, as we originally planned, we feel that enveloping their own style within the image would display a unity within the group, and the similarities, to portray them, not only as influential artists, but also as friends.

 We feel that an incorporation of the Grunge style would be effective within our group. Bands such as Nirvana and Bush, who have a strong teen following, would be something that we would want to emulate. While we would not want the style to be a carbon copy of these bands, we feel like incorporation the styles into the star image would encourage a teen following, due to the empathetic dress sense.

We also feel like an addition of a more formal attire could be interesting, this would allow the band to keep their individuality, and a unique style, while also encouraging a different fashion sense. We would want this formality would reflect the serious nature of the band as an artist. However, the blend between grunge and formal would keep a warmth and an identifiable atmosphere to their image.

Music Video Timeline