Question 2

Script


What did you hope to create?
Our main aim when making our music video was to make a video heavily based around our bands image as apposed to the music they create. We chose to do this as it fits with the indie/alternative genre of our band, in the last few years bands have taken to using their image as a selling tool in music videos unlike in previous times when a music video simply exhibited the band and them playing relevant instruments.

How did your research help you?
We started by looking at music videos we considered to use this theme within their videos and analysed them in terms of certain theorists. Then we moved on to picking a song and Audience profiling, this is where we thought very carefully about the type of person that would listen to the type of music we had chosen to use, I found a website called lookbook.nu which I had used previously for my AS work, there we found images of the people we chose. Then we pitched our ideas to the class and chose our actors, this helped as during our pitch we were asked who we were using in our video, this prompted us to make a quick informed decision. Next was a moodboard we created on Animoto of things that has inspired us so far, created a prop list and conducted more research into techniques we wanted to use in our video to get a clearer understanding of how we would work. After this we arranged a day of photos before filming so that we could decide on props and hopefully use the images for our ancillary tasks, we did this so that we already had images to work with. Another form of research that helped us was looking at existing bands websites, twitter and facebook pages as well as posters, this helped us stay on track and I keeping with our chosen genre. We regularly blogged about are thoughts and ideas throughout the research stage so that we didn't miss things out, I think this idea paid off when we handed in our final video and ancillaries

How effective was your music video as a whole?
I think that our final video was very effective in its aim, it had a basic narrative that worked well between the two actors and was relevant to the song. We used inspiration from other texts as well as our own creative ideas to give the video the most realistic, professional look. We both thought that the use of the Zebra, Horse and Panda masks throughout our work was the best idea we had. There are sections that I would alter if I went back, but nothing I would change dramatically.

What did you hope to create with your ancillary task?
With the ancillary task we wanted to make a poster and digipak that had a clear relevance to our video and our genre. We used the photos taken before and during filming to ensure this was obvious.
Digipak
I thought that we should use the photo of the masks that erica painted into (at the top or our blog) to be on the front of the digipak we did this because we came to an agreement that it would be too cleche for us to use an image of Miles and Jo (our actors) on the front as this didn't fit with the image of our band. The decision to have the band name on the filp-side as apposed to the front also came from other existing digipaks. the picture behind the disk was an easy decision, if we were to use and image of the two, it would be there. The back was my idea to have the text upside down to the right of the digipak on top of the other continousing theme of masking tape, this was used to make our work seem handmade and different. The barcode idea used here was taken as inspiration from Esquire magazine as a feature they use. While our digipak is basic, I think it is effective because of the informed decisions we have made.
Poster
Our poster made to advertise the album was taken from an earlier idea we had back at the beginning of the course. We used test shots of Miles and Jo looking plain and simple, very opposite to the video. The tape, text and paper backing was used again here to keep the continuous themes flowing throughout our project. The Poster features commonly used things like quotes from music magazines and smaller images of the cover of the CD, we knew this was a good marketing strategy because we have seen it in real products prior to designing our own.

Is there anything you would change?
Yes, there is always things you would change given the opportunity. If we did, I would consider the beginning of the video again and plan it in more detail, I would also film our frames a lot more and make sure they are securely focused. We would set more time aside for editing than we did as we didn't realise it would take us so long, even with 200 stills. In terms of the ancillaries, I am fairly happy with them and wouldn't consider many changes as we carefully selected the ideas we used unlike the video were we just went with the flow of things.