Star Analysis

In earlier posts we have already looked at many professional musicians and described how they influenced our work, these have been musicians such as Lily Allen to bands such as McFly and Fall Out Boy- but I have decided to do a full analysis of a band that has heavily influenced me personally though our journey: Kings of Leon.




Kings of Leon is an American rock band that formed in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee in 1999, consisting of brothers Anthony Caleb Followill (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Ivan Nathan Followill ( drums, percussion, backing vocals) and Michael Jared Followill (bass guitar, backing vocals), with their cousin Cameron Matthew Followill (lead guitar, backing vocals). The band's early music was an upbeat blend of Southern rock and blues influences, but it has gradually expanded its sound to include a variety of genres and a more alternative rock or arena rock sound. Kings of Leon achieved initial success in the United Kingdom with nine Top 40 singles, two BRIT Awards in 2008, and all three of the band's albums at the time peaking in the top five of the UK Albums Chart. Their third album, Because of the Times, also reached the 1 spot. After the release of Only by the Night in September 2008 the band achieved chart success in the United States. The singles "Sex on Fire," "Use Somebody," and "Notion" all peaked at #1 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks. The album itself was their first ever platinum-selling album in the United States. It was the best-selling album of 2008 in Australia, being certified nine-times Platinum. The band's fifth album, Come Around Sundown was released on October 18, 2010.

Filming 3

We have now completed our office-scenes and will film our exterior shots in Oxford this Friday. We have started editing, but getting the filming finished this week will allow us to concentrate completely on the editing process to get optimum results.
While filming yesterday evening will managed to capture scenes that we created from scratch as we try to improve upon the original video, these consisted of a tracking-shot down a flight of stairs, an ariel shot of Paige ascending stairs and extreme close ups of us clapping. We did this as we want to make this video our own and put our own creative ideas into it.

Easter- Eggs

A virtual Easter-egg is an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program, web page or video game. The term was coined- according to Warren Robinett- by Atari after they were pointed to the secret message left by Robinett in the game ‘Adventure’
I first discovered the concept of an Easter-egg in the film ‘Dead Silence’. The film is based around a young man who is followed by the ghost of Mary Shaw who has died but lives on in her ventriloquist dummies. The director of this movie is James Wan who also directed a selection of movies from the ‘Saw’ franchise. In a scene of Dead Silence where there are over one-hundred dummies in a room, the director has placed the infamous ‘Jigsaw’ doll from the Saw movies in the foreground of a shot that focuses on the background. This is a common example of an Easter-egg where the director has linked his past work into a current film.

Here is the scene from 'Dead Silence' where Jigsaw can be seen in the fore-ground in front of a pillar.

This inspired me to discuss with my group about the possibilities of putting an Easter-egg into our work. We decided we should do this through the changing of Liam’s tie colour (as his is the least visible as he wears a waistcoat). So through filming Liam has been bringing in different colour ties from the original baby blue to an electric blue to a classic black tie. I think this also mirrors our mise en scene of adding somthing a little-different to our political environment.

Mise en Scene

Mise-en-scène, defined as ‘An expression used in theatre and film to describe the design aspects of a production’ has been called film criticism's "grand undefined term" because the term has many different meanings. In simple terms it why we used the set and props we did and what they represent. In Fresh it literally translates as ‘putting into the scene’ and generally consists of:

Setting

Decor

Props

Lighting

Costume

Make-up

Colour

And Character Body Language and Movement

 

 

The Mise en Scene props and costume of our piece is formal attire with a comical twist, me and Liam have achieved this by wearing suits while Paige wears a formal jacket and skirt. We have done this is promote our serious message of voting and having a say in who runs our country, intertwined with the comical approach of our video that will grab the attention of our teenage target audience.

The Setting and Decor was that of a stereotypical office area with computers and props such as the flip-board. We then added posters with the band name ‘TNB’ (The Midnight Beast) around to compliment our colloquial twist.

Lighting and colour was also stereotypical of an office with greys and blacks to set the scene, which was a direct contrast with the energy of ‘fun’ of our dancing and lyrics. We used a flashing light technique for Liam’s rap which is typical of rap videos. This was achieved by leaving his TV on, muted, behind the camera.

Body language and movement was the key element used to portray the message of our video. Comically we reverted from the ‘office’ norm with our dancing and singing to show the political system can involve the younger generation. Hopefully this provoked a reaction from our audience while getting our point across.

Other props used have included cheese, wine and posters. Goodwin's second point is to use props to make a relationship between visuals and lyrics, an example of this is when I spin on my chair and sing 'We'll welcome you with the Cheese and Wine' and show the camera cheese and wine.

To achieve our 'office' and 'London' sets we have used filming locations (reccies) in school ICT rooms and Oxford.

 

 

Goodwin's Points

Goodwin’s points

1.      Music Video demonstrates genre characteristics (e.g stage performance for metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)

Our Video demonstrates its comical genre with its contrast of political mise en scene and humorous lyrics and dancing.

2.      There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)

This is a shot of me holding cheese and wine as the lyric ‘We’ll welcome you with cheese and wine is heard.

3.      There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)

The music is upbeat and reflects our dancing.

4.      The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (visual style. eg Michael Jackson's single white glove)

We do not have any recurring motifs as this is our first video, but there are close-up shots of us as the artists.

5.      There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes ect) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

We have many shots of Paige dancing throughout the video.

6.      There is often inter-textual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos ect)

The whole video if a reference to the real life political system, this is shown though our costume and locations. We also reference the Midnight Beast’s original music video by putting their name on many of the computer screensavers.

Filming 2

We have now done three nights filming and just about finished all the 'office' scenes and will start filming in London. We have managed to film a range of shots with Mid-shots, Close Ups, Zoom Ins and Pans to name just a few. The Mise en Scence has been consistent with us wearing suits and the use of 'TNB' posters.

Auteur Theory: Phil Harder

To further analyse the Auteur theory I have researched Phil Harder as an example. He is an established music video director who has worked with artists such as the Foo Fighters and Prince.
He is a director who follows the Auteur Theory as he likes to have full control of the video he is directing. He tells the musicians and actors where to be and he films the shot types he wants, he then edits them with his company as head of production.
Phil has first hand experience of the music industry, as in the 1980's he was part of the band: Breaking Circus. It's from here he retired from the music band scene to produce music videos, he has also directed television adverts and short films.

This is the music video 'Next Year' by the Foo Fighters, directed by Phil Harder.

Mise en Scene

The theme of the video is the Apollo 11 moon mission and cuts between real USA NASA footage to shots of the Foo Fighters in space suits and acting as the crew of the shuttle. There are many mise en scene 'easter eggs' such as the band planting a 'Foo Fighters' flag on the moon rather then the American Flag.

Camera Work

As with many rock genre videos, there are many close-ups of band members aswell as tracking and mid-shots of the full band. Taking advantageof the 'zero gravity' effect of space, there are many shots of the band members 'floating' towards the camera. A lot of the footage is original NASA footage and to work this in a lot of the band footage is filmed in this style, with 'classic' looking camera works.



Editing

The editing of the Foo Fighter footage fits in with the original NASA footage. As the band are working in 'space' there are faster edits to represent the important of their work. It is a delicate matter, as when this work was done for real it, it was important NASA work.

Filming 1

This week we started filming. We met up after school and used an I.C.T room to simulate an office. We brought all our planning and research together to get the best out of our filming and created the mise en scene by putting up ‘TNB’ posters we had made and wearing our suit costumes. We used one of the school cameras with a tri-pod and filmed a range of shot types such as zooming in a mid-shot to a close-up.
It was an enjoyable experience and we managed to film the first 40 seconds or so of out video which was most of the office scenes.
We’re going to carry on filming this week before we load our film on the computer and begin editing.

Digipak Photographs

These are our final Digipak covers, the black and white outside covers contrasted with our colourful inside covers with depict us imitating the three political party leaders. Inside the Digipak will be our CD and our poster as bonus merchandise, the inclusion of our poster was influenced from Digipaks we earlier researched.

My Digipak Photo

This is my Digipak photograph where I am reflecting Gordon Brown using the Reflection Theory. I will now have to add this to the other photos and create the final Digipak. The whole piece uses the Reflection Theory as we reflect the real world situation in our work.

We took this photograph in front of the green screen and then added in the red background with a programme called Photoshop.

CD Cover Analysis

Whilst looking at my CD cover examples, I have noticed the similarities between one of the CD covers we researched and took influence from, and our own cover:

    

Lily Allen has a similier CD cover to us because they both use the colour black settings however they are the other way round, such as Lily Allen's cover uses the colour black for the lettering and the title however our CD cover uses the colour black for the figures and the background. Even though they have different sources of light within the pictures they both get the full effect of the black. I think black is a very useful colour to use within Cd covers and Posters because it helps the rest of the photograph stand out and express the artist/artists.
We have studied and analysed many other artists and their ideas, to create our own cover and digipak but we hope showing these two album covers together that we have proven to be at the same level as one of the most influentual artist.

Improving the Video

We chose our video, 'House Party' by The Midnight Beast, because we enjoyed it's contrasting themes of humour and politics and felt it cleverly got an important message about voting out to a whole new generation. We liked the sets and costume and wanted to be part of the revolution, but from the eyes of media students- we would like to improve on the filming and editing for our final piece.

 

 

This shot is a prime example of a shot with half a face left in. What would be a clean mid-shot is ruined due to something that could have been re-filmed or edited out.
Also, there is a lack of transitions in the video which we would like to improve on. In our storyboards we have already improved a scene, where we will firstly have the camera focused on 'Big Ben's' clock and zoom out to show us dancing to our song.

Poster Analysis

This is an example of a magazine advert that influenced our own, the powerful contrast between the band and the setting colours creates a sense of juxtaposition and suggest something exciting is about to happen. The magazine album also reflects on the band reinventing themselves to.

Another example magazine I found that influenced our own, is the Stereophonics posters the powerful contrast between black and white and the gold logo also creating a sense of juxtaposition.

The use of shadow in these posters is a key photographical feature used to highlight features, for example, the shadowy black tree in the background makes our foreground faces more visible and a centre piece. Our poster will also match our Digipak to bring continuity to our theme of the project.

StoryBoards

These are the finalised story boards Alex drew, scanned and uploaded. He drew stick-style figures and annotated the papers for shot types and transitions. We can refer to this in our filming and editing. As well and shot types and editing suggestions, our story boards include elements of mise en scene such as our suits and props.

Analysis of Example Videos

The three examples below are all targeted at our target audience of the teenage to young adult demographic, though despite this they are all different and have different sub-targets. Video one is targeted at the 17-21 demographic whereas video two is not aimed at a specific age demographic, but at a social genre in this case rock/emo scene. Example 3 is aimed at teenage specifically girls. This shows, that even though we target a specific audience, that audience can hold within it many different types of people and sub-targets. We think our video will reach a wide variety of people as it has a political narrative that affects many people’s lives, entwined with humour that many will enjoy.

Video Target Audience 3

Video Target Audience 2

Video Target Audience 1

Target Audience

Our target audience are teenagers to young adults, we decided at 13 – 25. There are many reasons for this decision, but the main one is the whole message and narrative of the video. It is a comical way, to serve its purpose to get the youth interested in politics and voting as their views and decisions will determine the kinds of people that run our country.

Another reason is the comic nature of the video; it is a clear style directed at the youth audience and takes inspiration from comic bands such as ‘Tenacious D’ and sitcoms such as ‘My Family’.

There is evidence of the Auteur theory, which I have previously looked at, in the Midnight Beast Video as it’s director’s key-aim is to get this voting message across. Though, there is also evidence to dispute Auteur’s theory here as the band had key input into the lyric writing.

Analysis of Amateur and Professional Video.

The Midnight Beast cover by - Three Teenage Girls:

· Lip syncing was out of time
· No clear narrative
· Very unprofessional, for example- laughter over the song
· Could have been better planned out
· Simple shots e.g. Two Shots. All filmed within same house

Goodwin’s points:

1. Selling the artist- Not really present only positive would be it seems relatable to the audience.
2. Voyeurism- We were able to see them being themselves
3. Genre characteristics- Fun, playful, enjoyable: Indie and Rap.
4. Visuals and lyrics- Lip synching was awful; out of time.
5. Visuals and music- Editing was very basic but evident and goes with the song
6. Intertextuality- Does not fit into any many genres the closest relation that could be made would be Indie.

The Midnight Beast version:

· Uses a better standard of camera
· Storyline follows the narrative very well
· Good actors, their acting allows us to relate to them as they are just three guys having fun
· Better lighting and editing
· Well planned out

Goodwin’s points:

1. Sells the artist - Shows their view points through their comical side
2. Voyeurism- Audience feels involved
3. Genre characteristics – Rap, indie, topical
4. Visual and lyrics - Lyrics followed the storyline fully
5. Visuals and music- Editing fits the music
6. Intertextuality- Fits the genre and makes light of current issues

Professional Video

Amateur Video

Digipak Outside Covers

We decided to keep an on-running theme with the poster we earlier designed. The professional black and white designed is contrast with the vibrant colours represents the juxtaposition in our music video between governmental business and youthful humour.

 We used a range of shots on these covers, with a two shot for the front-cover, mid-shot for the back cover and a close-up for the middle cover. This shows variety in our work and comment on the variety of our video.

However for the finishing touches I need to place a photograph of me onto the Digipak.

Magazine Advert

This is the magazine advert we have designed using Microsoft Publisher and PhotoShop.

We used black and white contrasts in the background photo of us, as it allows the audience to focus on the lighting and stand out features, such as our faces that give an element of mystery. This contrasted with the bright orange and green writing represents the contrasting themes of our whole video: the juxtaposition of suits and government themes with the humour of the song.
The information is prominent in its bright colours so stands out to the audience, while still getting the message across with minimum words and a large visual.

Inspiration for this has come from black and white photos such as old wedding photos that use the effect to create a classy atmosphere. We've given a modern twist to that effect in my design, which we are sure will attract our target audience of teenagers to young adults- who stereotypically challenge what they know to find new ways of representation.

We will experiment by using this design plan on our Digipak cover to see if it works as a running theme for the promotional merchandise.

Digipak Design

This is a mock design for our Digipak before we commence with our photoshoot and upload our own images onto the real thing. Putting the images together in this way gives a better visual understanding of how our real Digipak will look. I have annotated it to show where the CD and poster will be kept as, well as what order the covers will be in.

We still have more ideas on how to improve the Digipak for our final piece, such as matching the front and back covers colour scheme, and possibly have us standing in suits rather than casually.

Schedule

After checking the Action Plan, it is apparent we are ahead of schedule which is excellent and meeting targets with our research, planning and designing stages. We are progressing well with our Digipak and on track to have our photoshoot and begin filming our music video.

I think it is important to keep checking our Action Plan so we keep this up, it also gives us a solid course to follow as we continue our project.

Digipak and Photoshoot Ideas.

We have been discussing ideas for our photo shoot, so that we can put our images on posters and the Digipak. For the inside covers of the CD we think it would be appropriate to use photos of us copying these poses of the three party leader, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg, as they looked running up to the election. These pictures found by Liam, demonstrate some poses we could use while imitating the leaders. This would be relevant to our theme and song, as well as bring an element of humour and we parody these three men.

 

 

Storyboard 1

Here is a storybaord, created by Alexto aid our planning and filming. It shows the first nine shots of our music video and is annotated to help determine between shots, focuses and angles. Having a hard copy of this will be extremely useful, so during filming we can refer to it instantly. Alex sketched this out then scanned it through his computer so we could all upload it onto here.
Throughout the duration of the film making we will be making more of these so we have every shot planned out and fully analysed for filming.

Planning to Film.

As a group we looked at and discussed the mark scheme for filming and looked at the type of skills we will need to perfect. Aslways pushing ourselves, we decided to work at the highest degree, Level 4:

'Level 4

The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

. Holding a shot steady, where appropriate
. Framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate
. Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate
. Shooting material appropriate to the task set
. Selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting, object and setting
. Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer
. Using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately
. Using sound with images and editing appropriately for your task

Where a candidate has worked in a group, an excellent contribution to construction is evident.'


As a group we will all contribute to all these factors and develop our skills. But to be effective we have developed a tactic and plan to stick too. As we have four members in our group and there are eight key points, we will each focus mainly on two and give 100% in our field. This way, we will gain key group skills and communication and together produce a music video of the highest standard.

     I have chosen to focus on:

. Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate
. Shooting material appropriate to the task set

This is clearly aimed at camera work as these technical skills interest me.
Using a variety of shot distances will keep our video varied and fresh with a mix of Long Shots, Mid Shots, Close Ups and Extreame Close ups. I have already began to look at these and there is a 'Shot' section on my blog.
'Shooting material appropriate to the task set' will have me keeping the equipment prepared and right for each scene. An example of this will be a tri-pod for a steady shot.

As well as my selected two, I will still be heavily involved in all aspects of our music video, including all eight sections of the Level 4 mark scheme.

Back Cover Design

 

This is a back-cover I designed for our Digipak. I have kept it simple yet effective, with the four tracks clearly labeled. The background design is a blotched purple design that I feel represents teenagers through its abstract approach. A small image of the band is well placed and relevant while the barcode and price keep it looking realistic and professional.

Liam's Album Cover

As a group we have continued to develop album covers for our Digipak, using the inspiration we have received from our research into other artists and their album covers. This particular design, by Liam, has a large visual image that should grab audience attention with its bright colours. There are minimal words, but the main message is still conveyed.