These are a few of the shots I plan to use on My music video.

Gerbil Records

This is my record company, Gerbil Records.
after studying a few existing labels (EMI, SONY)I came to the conclusion that record labels' logos showcase their name, but not much more.(sometimes a picture, or a border)
I used these findings as a starting point when I created mine, Gerbil records.
I used a clear font which was easy to read and bold enough to stand out and included a simple picture of a small rodent, which is associated with 'Gerbil Records'

The Madness Advertisement is for their album, which I think represents Madness as a band. Their tradition is that they wear suits, which the 'formal' white and black colour scheme represents.
The font used in this advert for the header is also suited to madness, as It is not conventioally serif or sans-serif. It has strange 'wings', which attempt to attract the reader's attention.

The Deep purple advert is advertising two of their albums. Deep purple are a famous rock band, although the colour scheme and stylings shown on the advertisement (sky blue) don't reflect this. However It does show the actual albums on the advert, a convention which isn't fllowed by any advertisements I have researched so far.
Both of these advertisements however show the name of the band - the product they're trying to sell, in large text to make their product as eye catching as possible, and to make it so the reader knows exactly what they're looking at.

this is the Front cover and outer design for my digipak.

I have used a simlar effect style and font style as the inside of the digipak, and what i plan to use on my magazine advertisement. The font is eroded looking and has a significant reference to death and decay, which i think is important.

I also took care when placing the text on the cover. I also think that the colour of the text is important. It contrasts with the dark grey background, and stands out, appealing to the consumer. the Light coloured text is also Quite small, compared to a lot fo album covers, which could be seen as a trend in metal albums, which focus intensively on narratives and themes of music.

I created a draft vesion of my Digipak Model.
THe drawn pictures and boxes are draft locations fo pieces of text and draft designs.
My final Digipak will resemble this.

This is a page from a music magazine promoting a metal band's new album.

This advertisement is very stereotypical of metal bands due to the fact that the colours are very dark. This is a tell-tale sign of metal and rock music. Everything that the band are wearing and everything in the background is a dark colour. The only things that aren't are the band's faces and the text, which are the main parts of the advert that are meant to stand out. The advert does this effectively. I think another feature which gives away the fact they're a metal band is the texture and pattern on the text. The text has an eroded kind of metallic texture, which is self-explanitory.
The image shows the band, which consists of 4 'hard' looking men. I can tell this by the intimidating faces they have, and the camera angle that the photo was shot from-low angle, which emphasises the faces of the band members and maximises the shadow exposure to the camera. For this, i think that this advertisement is a typical metal one.

'The world needs a hero'

Megadeth's 'The World needs a hero' from 2001 is a symbol of Metal Music.
It combines the generic themes of metal music (which include death and corruption) with dark colours.

The main things i can analyse about this cover is it's layout.
An album cover usually consists of a picture, the artist name, the album name and in some cases, the record label.

In the case of this album, as with many other metal albums, the name of the album is very implicitly expressed, and sometimes, like this, not even shown. I believe this is to do with the big narratives which the bands try to incorporate into the album cover.



My new plan:
I will take a Panorama of my street, which i will duplicate and make one black and white.
I will then spread B&W on the outside, the colour one inside.
On the edges of the pictures, i will layer over a mid level opacity layer, which will make the picture seem to fade to darkness..

The Text on the front and back cover will strictly be black and white.

shooting

Today, I finished all of my filming, and don't have to do any more.
Now I have to do:

-Editing
-Ancillary text 1
-Ancillary text 2
-Evaluation

digipak planning

I'm taking inspiration for my digipak from the arctic Monkeys album 'favourite worst nightmare'.
this album features a house with windows filled by abstract designs. The outside of the house is dark, athough i dont think it's night time. it's an effect which reduces the qality of the image and makes it somewhat grainy and unrealistic looking.

I want to achieve this effect, because i think it suits metal more than the genre which the arctic monkeys are - Indie.

Another thing this album cover has which i want to try to recreate is perspective. I think the perspective on the houses would suit the narrative of my music video very well.

My plan is to take a panorama of a dark street and use it to cover the front, back and extra covers and the spine. the street will be snowy, which will be highlited when i Vector it. This will done with a high contrast, and i will add the threshold effect to it. The threshold effect will make it look grainy and of poor quality, but also make it black and white.

The inside will be The same image, although in colour. i think this will add a lot of contrast between the inside and outside, which reinforces the harsh themes related with hard childhoods and abuse, which is associated with metal.

These are some fonts which i have been experimenting with for use on my Digipak Cover.

The first is a serif font, which makes it look decorative. It's also quite sketchy and irregular though. This combination is somewhat reminiscent of horror films, which share some conventions with metal music.(Narrative themes and such)
therefore, Font 1 is a good choice for a metal music album cover.

The 2nd font is one which is really eroded and 'american' looking. It achieves this from blocky letters with a thick serif. This style is similar to which is used in Western movies. Another thing is the Decorative additions (the 'wings' and the stars within the letters) which contribute to an 'american dream' feeling. whilst i think the font is aesthetically pleasing, I don't think it's suitable for Metal music, as it doesn't follow the conventions of metal music.

the 3rd is a simpler font, of which the prominent feature is that it's in italics. In addition to making the text look 'thinner', Italics also infers movement. The contrast on the Font is also high, which creates a lot of shadow, which is a big part of metal culture.
I think though, that the font is too basic to be on a album cover, which is the intended purpose.

The final font is the one which most appeals to me. It combines elements of the first two fonts and is the one which i think best suits metal music. It has the sketchy and inky effect around the lettering, the letters themselves have a light weight of line and are sans-serif.
The touch i like the most is the skull and crossbones. This feature represents metal music well.

I will be using 'extravaganza' as the font for my digipak and magazine advertisement

My Two Ancillary Texts.

As part of my coursework, I have to design two Sub-texts to help promote my video.

the texts are:
- A digipak (2/3 disc folding album cover, with spines and back.

- A magazine advertisement for my digipak.

I'm about to begin reserarching and developing my digipak


This is a digipak released by Thrash Metal band 'Metallica' in 2008.

This digipak follows some of the conventions of The Metal Genre; for instance the theme is death, which is shown by the coffin shape of the picture. Death as dark as it sounds is a very prominent theme within the metal genre.

Some features of digipaks are the fact theyre a continuous picture, which in most cases continues over the 3 sides and the spines, which mean the design has to be fluent, interesting and capable of being visually appealing on all 3 of the visible faces of the cover.

Another feature is 3D effect of the coffin on the far right face. this is a technique adopted in one way or another by many digipaks, which is used to make the third face (the one which isnt the cover of the track listing)as appealing as the other faces and keep the interest of the buyer.

My shooting.

On Saturday the 13th November i started filming for my Music video, ('Danger Line' By Avenged Sevenfold).
The Editing on my video will combine multple fast shots in a montage style of editing. To help me create this effect, I filmed the shots from multiple different angles and will edit parts of them together.

I made sure the level of light in the shots was quite low, and the contrast was also quite low, which follows the general convention of metal videos by having low light, which enforces the 'dark' and grim storylines and plots that the metal genre encompases

I got about 40% of my total filming done, which i think is good progress.

On Wednesday 17th November I will shoot more footage, this time of the Performer. The location will be the green Room in The Media Area of College. This makes it easy for me to change the background in post-production, to something more fitting for the style of music.

The Performer will have a guitar ( a symbol of Metal music), and wear plain, dark clothes.

Analysis of Genre - Metal

Analysis of Genre: Metal

Metal is a very wide genre with many sub genres. The music is often very heavy, fast and thrashy. This has a major influence on the music videos which accompany songs in this genre, as in a music video, it can dictate the pace of the editing.
The narrative is often a major feature of metal videos, as a strong meaning can often be picked up by listening to the lyrics, of which have many recurring themes seen primarily in the metal genre. The quality of song in metal is much better, and generally isn’t produced by a large corporation with only money in mind, which can be said for most of today’s pop.

Themes often seen in metal videos include politics and government (such as what are seen in videos by Megadeth in particular), death, torture and suffering, aswell as addiction and mental breakdowns. While not being particularly diverse in content or subject, narratives often don't follow Todorov's diagram of equilibrium > Disruption > solution > re-equilibrium. Narratives often feel open ended, which could be said about a lot of different types of genre. Endings aren’t always ‘Cindarella’ style ending like with most types of genre. This lack of positivity is another thing that the lives of the metal band members have influenced.

These themes are all quite negative, and this reflects the style and lives of such metal bands. they have a very strong stereotype derived from the original punk rock architype, which has since branched off into many different tangents.
The videos themselves do one of two things: they either feature the artist for the majority of the video perofrming, or focus more on narrative with only a few shots showing the band. Regardless of which the video does, there are certain key features which they have which 'classify' them as metal.

Firstly, they incorporate fast cut editing to the beat of the song. this high pace fits in with the high speed music to give a high tempo feel to the video.
Because of this, effects like fading and dissolving are seldom seen, as they tend to accompany the more melodic tracks which have a slower pace.

From the metal videos I've researched, the lighting of the videos is always dingy and lowlight. This enhances the dark feel of the songs and contributes to the 'metalhead' image. The performers also have the same costumes and hair styles. The long unkept hair is a tradition with metal bands. Their clothes also often follow the dark theme and are all black. This is more often seen in the newer metal videos. In the old ones however, costumes looked very grungy; faded jeans and light tops.
Generally clothes are in poor condition with rips and tears, which signifies the rebellious nature of the band members of the metal bands. Their hair was often untreated, whilst many new bands tend to dye their hair.
I think this is a good indicator of how the metal subculture has evolved alongside the goth and new punk stereotype.

Overall, the diversity created by the different sub-genres within metal makes Metal a very wide genre with varying conventions and features. These features mostly derive from other genres and are brought together by the in-depth narrative structure and fast pace that metal music has.

My shooting script and timings sheet

Test shots.

I am taking some Test shots of different walls, to use for the main performing scenes. These walls must be plain, and one colour.

The overall aim is to have writing on the walls, which gradually becomes more and more prominent.

I'm still trying to decide on a way of doing this to make the video look as professional as possible

My Plan of action

Week benginning ------------------ Action

1st november -------------------- organisation/animatic
8th november -------------------- video Shooting/uploading
15th november ------------------ video shooting/uploading
22nd november ------------------ editing/reshooting
29th november ------------------- editing/reshooting
6th december -------------------- evaluation/Youtube/editing
13th December -------------------- editing/evaluation
21st/22nd December --------------- feedback.

Location, cast and Prop lists.

Locations.
Media Blue room.-(For performance shots.)
A House/dining room.-(for narrative shots of the man and his wife)
Humber Bridge.-(For narrative shots)
An empty street.-(For establishing shots)
A empty piece of flat ground.-(for the final funeral shot)


Cast.Main Character - (jacob fenwick)

Performer - Daniel Holliday

Main character's Wife - (????????)

Other background characters(For funeral scene) - (????????)



Items.
Props.

Electric guitar (for performance)
Note (suicide note)
whiskey
Photos


Clothes.

Performer: Khaki shirt and combat trousers. (army colours and theme)

Main character: regular everyday wear; Casual tops, jeans, trainers.
Main character's wife: regular everyday wear; casual top, leggings/jeans,shoes, scarf etc.

background characters/funeral scene: smart trousers and shirt; formalwear.

I have been working on my storyboards for my music video.

I have decided on 3 locations.
-A house
-The Blue Room
-A run down street

i will upload the pictures soon

my LIIAR

L-The mise-en scene will mainly consist of dark backgrounds, while the actors will have stereotypical 'metal' type of clothes on. One actor will have a guitar.
the weather will mainly be windy or rainy for the majority of shots.
The animation will be, by contrast, very happy and bright looking.

I will use mainly quick, close up shots for the performance parts. some of which will be in black and white, which will contrast slightly with the dark and dank shots which will be left in colour. The animations will also be quick and brief. I aim to spend as little time as necessary on the animations, as if they are too long, they'll be boring and distract the viewer from the real life story. the shots which arent performance will be still quicte short, altrhough a bit longer than the performance ones. I will use a variety of zoom measures and a series of different techniques such as match on action and continuity editing.

the openiong part of the video will be a series of parallel editing shots, which will combine the news of the man's son's death with his reaction.


I- I will be working by myself for this, and the reason i am using part animation is that i feel that aside from not having to rely on anyone to turn up for the shooting of the film as much as i could of had to, the animation better portray the ideas coming from the man's mind.
While working by myself means there's a lot more work for myself, i feel that i dont have the limitations of consent and agreement that working in a group would present.

I- the ideology for my video isnt that of a typical metal video. while some elements such as the dark and grim storyline remain the same, other aspects such as the music tempo, heaviness and listenability are much more mainstream and tolerable as opposed to soem of the other songs by the same artist.
The idea is to show the sorrow and possible mental trauma a man can go through after losing a loved one.

A- the audience im going to pitch my music video to is a typical metal audience. A metal audience consists of men and women aged 30-40, although there are metal fans that are under 20, over 40. Metal is really a wide genre with regards to audience. the issues that my video will address are about family life and values, which may appear to interest the older viewers more (the ones who are married and possibly have children).

R- The characters in my video are typical everyday people, although their son was a metal fan. Due to this, the man and his wife will dress in typical everyday clothes (Jeans/leggings, t-shirts and trainers/plimsoles. The man however will be wearing predominantly darker colours, to reflect the

My sixteen, locked and loaded
All fear has been avoided
You say the words and my weapon is drawn (1st stanza = the trigger on his suicide is ready to be pulled. one more thing will fire it.)

This one could be my last time
Some people call it war crime
I may be staring down a lethal sight
(2nd stanza = his outrage begins, and he slowly grows insane)

Nothing shocks you like a bullet hole
Leaving my fear on the danger line
Suffering a man should never know
Leaving my faith on the danger line (chorus- how he has been affected by the shooting of his son, and how he could leave it all behind if he wanted to.)

I know what you're thinking
I've been there before
So think of the times, the time we spent laughing away
So think of the times at home
(Life without a care)
(Bridge- his memories. when his life was complete)

Now I find myself in my own blood
(Never thought I'd lay in my own blood)
The damage done is far beyond repair
I never put my faith in up above
But now, I'm hoping someone's there
(Bridge-there's no going back. He's trying to Justify his choice)

I never meant to leave this world alone
I never meant to hurt the ones who cared
And all this time I thought we'd just grow old
You know, no one said it's fair
(Bridge-he's beginning to regret his decision, although he can no longer go back)

Tell my baby girl that "It's alright"
I've sung my last song today
Remind the lord to leave his light on for me
I'm free
(bridge-His 'final goodbyes' he cant face up to his daughter to tell her. he hopes he'll go to heaven. although he cant choose' he hopes he did his son justice, despite taking the coward's way out.)

My Video Synopsis

A man is greiving over his son, who was one of the unlucky soldiers in Afghanistan.

He beings to do irrational things, such as shouting at people, throwing things.

He has 'hallucinations' and memories of his son.

eventually he runs away, without a trace.

He isnt seen again. He jumped off a bridge.

There is a gap in the mourners at the son's funeral.

Conventions of the Music Video.

- The Band Performing
-There aren't many, if any videos around which don't at some point showcase the band performing the song the video is made for.

- Narrative content
-Most videos also have some kind of plot or narrative to them. Otherwise, they are bland, boring and hard to watch. Those which dont have an in-depth storyline would have some kind of abstract sub-plot-Something else in which to deter viewers away from the main performance.

Narrative is based on a cause and effect theory, where every event leads to another.

Metallica - One

analysis
This is a long video, which was the first Metallica made.
The main point wich i can draw from this video is the intertextual references and integration of other forms of media, in the shape of video clips from the film 'Johnny got his Gun' These are coupled with quotes from the movie to make the song almost feel 'associated' with it.
The film is about a man seriously injured in the war and the empty life he leads in his hospital bed.
A few noteworthy things about the video are the fact that aside from the clips from the film, the whole video is performance only, which is a convention for music videos of the time - the 1980's.
The performance in the video is in Black and White, which is synonymous with the 40's and when the film was set. Only certain clips from the film are in colour.
The room theyre performing in is also very empty, which related to the song, which describes the empty life of an injured soldier.

The camera work is slow, with many shots faded into each other. This technique represents the way someone in his situation would drift in and out of consciousness.

The narrative in this video is very ambiguous, although in the end, the main character gets what he wants; to be set free.

A technique used in this video is cut to beat editing, where the shots are edited together in time to the rhythm of the song.


The genre of this video and song is most definately metal/ heavy rock. the video narrative is an emotional rollercoaster, as oppsed to being abstract or mentally challenging.

The target audience of this video is also the average metal fan, similar to the target audience i'm trying to communicate.

Megadeth-Hangar 18


Analysis
I chose to analyse this video for two main resons, the interlude of about 50 seconds to which there isnt any music. It's also the genre in which i want to make a video for.
The theme of the video is mainly narrative, and the story is mainly about how the American army made a mess of keeping the UFO landing near Roswell in 1947 a secret. The video however, is not narrative. besides having the interlude at the beginning, there is no real continuation of the story set up.
the rest of the video is performance based, like with the 'One' video. These were released at the same time, and have the same genre of heavy thrash metal, but have very different purposes and backstories.

I think that, while having a real story as its main inspiration, its more fantastical than the other videos im analysing.

the other thing though that i like about the video is the use of the shaky camera effects and slow motion. This is done to add mystery

My Analysis videos

I will be studying 5 videos in depth and relating them to my idea and my genre of music are:

Megadeth: - Hangar 18
Metallica:-One
-Turn the Page ( a cover of the Bob Seger and silver lining band original)
Avenged Sevenfold: -Buried Alive.

Metallica - Turn the Page



analysis
The video begins with a woman talking to the camera. This is before the music begins, which is something i plan to do, which is a concept used mostly by narrative videos, which is true of this one.
The video is highly narrative with a bit of performance by Metallica, and follows the life of a prostitute woman in america, and how despite her job and her having a child who has to see what she goes through, regrets nothing about the decisions she made in her early life.
The video follows the song quite closely, which describes the story of the average day in her and her child's life.
The song has a very American feel, which is what the original by Bob Seger was like. This helps the listener associate the song with typical American life, and the fact that what the Protagonist does is harsh reality.

The woman herself in the opening shot is depicted as well off, shown by her hair style and attire which is very posh and upper class looking. Contrast is shown however throughout the rest of the video. I think this is to do with the fact she's in an interview. It however shows what she could be. this contrast and desire is shown throughout the video despite her regretting her decisions.
Her daughter is shown in the same way as she has; old, possibly 2nd hand clothes and messy unkept hair. I think an important factor about this video is that it's set in the 1990's, which is not only easy to tell by the dress sense, but it was a hard time economically for america.

The first part of the video is set in a typical American Roadside motel. this increases the Ideology of typical 90's america, aswell as increasing the ideology of the stereotype that the protagonist is of. Its a typical night for them.
it shows the daughter waking up, and getting ready to leave on her own, while her mum is still in bed. It signifies that she is mature for her age, and that she is possibly used to it, which is a saddening fact of reality.
The hotel room is typically american, wiith the ashtray, wooden tables and sides, and style of TV.

The video then progresses as she goes to work at her club, leaving the daughter behind- a sacrifice she is willing to make.
the rest of the video is studded with shots of performance and some dark scenes of the consequences of her job.

It's overall a very sad, and possibly depressing song, with a slow tempo. the video portrays this with its long shots, and continuity editing- a must with a video as narrative based as this.

About two thirds of the way through the video, the sound pauses as she says another line of the interview she started at the beginning.

The background on music videos.

This quote taken from Wikipedia:
''In 1894 when sheet music publishers still ran the music business, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song The Little Lost Child. Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneously with live performances in what became a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song. This has been termed the first music video. Even today, many music videos and much contemporary television still use series of still images accompanied by song.''
-Music videos began life as still images to go along with songs in the 1890's, and then developed into animations in the 1920's.

-Visuals developed farther with video recording tchnology in the 50's and 60's.

-the first music 'videos' were nothing more than a single shot in most cases, and often had no story to them, but were just the band or singer performing their song. They often appeared as short sections of a film. The Beatles piloted this idea in their films such as 'a Hard day's night, and 'Yellow submarine'

-As Beatlemania took over the world, they made these short videos in order to communicate with lots of their fans at once rather than performing, and the idea quickly took off.

-David Bowie to name but one artist, took this idea and used it in his 'life on mars' and 'Space Oddity' Videos, both from 1973.
-These videos may have been the height of technology at the time, but compared with today's videos, they are bland and boring due to just being the performer performing.

-In the 80's, music videos became more abstract with new technology, and featured often more than just the artist performing. An example of this is Bowie's 'Ashes to Ashes' video, which while not being overly narrative, has at least some parts in which it differs from performance.

-Gradually over the next decade, Artists started formulating narrative plots and implementing them into their videos. A good example of this is 'One' by Metallica. The backstory uses sections from a film 'Johnny got his gun' to backup up its story.

Nowadays, the majority of videos around are part narrative/abstract and part performance. Many Popular musicians opt for the more abstract as it reflects their approach to making music videos: surface without substance, recycled ideas, and style without meaning.
-these phrases are used as the majority of popular artists are inclined only to make the video look nice, without caring about what ideas it connotes and if there is a substantial plotline.

My song. (video and lyrics.)

My song Lyrics:

My sixteen, locked and loaded
All fear has been avoided
You say the words and my weapon is drawn

This one could be my last time
Some people call it war crime
I may be staring down a lethal sight

Nothing shocks you like a bullet hole
Leaving my fear on the danger line
Suffering a man should never know
Leaving my faith on the danger line

I know what you're thinking
I've been there before
So think of the times, the time we spent laughing away
So think of the times at home
(Life without a care)

Now I find myself in my own blood
(Never thought I'd lay in my own blood)
The damage done is far beyond repair
I never put my faith in up above
But now, I'm hoping someone's there

I never meant to leave this world alone
I never meant to hurt the ones who cared
And all this time I thought we'd just grow old
You know, no one said it's fair

Tell my baby girl that "It's alright"
I've sung my last song today
Remind the lord to leave his light on for me
I'm free

The Brief i have chosen for My coursework is to make:

-A music video.

and to make Two Ancillary texts:

-A cover for a Digipak associated with the song
-A Magazine advertisement advertising the digipak.




My video will consist of about 50% Animation and 50% performance footage.

Introduction

My chosen media form which im going to produce a video for is a music track.

My chosen song to make a video for is ''avenged sevenfold; danger Line'' which i've cropped down.