Filming difficulties

As posted previously my group intended to film on Sunday the 16th in Valentines Mansion in order to gain some of our narrative shots. However we weren't able to film this section of the narrative(or anything) on Sunday because of issues to do with filling out the form.
When we first asked to film in valentines mansion we were required to fill out a form explaining what it is we were doing and who we were etc. one section of the form asked us for insurance information and a copy of the document. This is where the problem first arose as we were unsure of what exactly was needed, in the end we asked the school office and sent it off, however a few days later we were told that the wrong document had been sent, so again asking the office we got another document to send off which agin tuned out to be the wrong one, we were told of this n Friday afternoon and subsequently spent the rest of the day working out with the office that the second document showing the boroughs insurance was the right one and as such Rhian from valentines mansion would need to discuss, with the person that had sent to us the boroughs document(Steve Gibson), just what it was that was needed. In the end however Rhian was unable to get through to Steve meaning that we were ultimately not allowed to film within Valentines Mansion however we are able to book another day to film provided the insurance problem can be sorted out.

Valentines Mansion- Filming problems

Here I am including a copy of the email correspondence between my group and Rhian Sharpe.
As a group we decided that we really wanted to film a section of the narrative in Valentines mansion (A building of heritage in Ilford). We felt that for our footage to really be interesting and look different to the rest of the footage that we had as well as to properly show the character of that band member, using this house was essential. however as the emails above show, we were unable to film here on the date that we wanted to. Rhian was a representative of the company that held legal rights over filming in public locations (such as this house) in and around Redbridge.  In order for us to film in valentines mansion we needed a copy of the schools public liability insurance, however as the emails state, we couldn't get the correct document in time. As such we plan to film (if possible) in valentines mansion next month after the Christmas holidays. 

Filming day 2

Today my group completed the filming for the performance aspect of the video meaning that now we have gotten what is possibly the hardest section to film out of the way. Though this wasn't managed without problems. Firstly we had an issue with instruments as one group member as a musician asked the music department whether we could use a drum kit after everyone left the school and he was told that this would be ok. However upon going up to get the drums at the end of the day he was informed that he wouldn't be allowed to use the drum kit after all. This would have been a major issue if not for the fact that another group member had a drum kit at home that we might be able to use. This meant that filming was put back by about 2 hours, and we were no longer able to use the pre-booked drama room to film since we'd end up staying for a lot longer than was originally planned. In order to overcome thins I spoke with the receptionists at castle green to check if Boothroyd hall (the schools main assembly/performance hall) would be free for us to film. Luckily it was and we then used that for as long as we needed to, this did mean that it was a bit more difficult to film though because the room was a lot bigger than we wanted originally. Initially we wanted a smaller room so that we might be able to link the setting with the 'elevator' theme of the song and make it feel more enclosed and personal. However we did manage to get all that we wanted filmed. 

We used two cameras for this section of filming, one team member used the handycam while another used the HD camera. This meant that we were able to get a larger variety of shots and do a lot more in terms of movement and camera focus. We generally used the handy cam for more free flowing shots that would follow individual band members, while the HD camera was intended for better quality shots that we would refer to more often for a majority of our music video.In the end we had 8 serious takes on each camera and 1 take where the band members just did whatever they felt like for the length of the song so that we had some spontaneous/incidental shots. We left at about 20 to 8 which is a lot later than we originally planned which meant that I had to take the HD camera home to bring back tomorrow morning, but we are generally very satisfied with how today has gone. 

Filming day 1

Today I was unable to help my group with filming the Drum Narrative as I had other commitments that I needed to keep to. So my group filmed the smallest and easiest section of footage as it would require less people and therefore be more appropriate for them considering they were a member short. 

This section of filming went well from what I have seen and been told, they managed to finish all of the necessary narrative for the drummer and also completed some of the elevator/lift shots. 

Digipak designs

Here I have decided to include some images of sample pictures and ways in which I might manipulate these images in order to put them on my digipak and have the design appeal to fans of the genre. As such I started with an image of a 4 panel digipak net so that I could start off with a simple design for the images and their positioning/layout. 

Here is the image I found showing a group of boys similar to those intended for my actual digipak and in a position reflective of the one I want to get the actors in for the photos (webpage or digipak).

For the image below I have used the picmonkey editing software in order to adjust the saturation of the image as well as make changes to the colour balances, and add in borders with fade effects. I Have chosen these effects as I feel that they add to the effect of mystery and the idea of being 'lost' therefore relating to the  band name and adding an extra layer to the digipak. I have also chosen red, white and blue as the border colours in order to enforce the suggestion of patriotism.   

Here I have added a Warhol effect coupled with a focal soften in order to again enforce the patriotism of this band and make it quite easy to match clearly with the other images used therefore being synergistic.  

Here I have shown the two sample images that I have managed to complete within the lesson today, this helps me to visualise how my final product may look and also check that the images do match and relate to each other as a result creating synergy across this platform. I have selected to include an image of the London eye in this practice digipak as the picture I have used has a Ferris wheel or something similar in the background and doing this means that I have made connections between the images in more ways than just the use of colours and effects. 

Planning for filming.

Our filming schedule is as follows:

• On Wednesday the 12th of December the group will be filming our Drum Narrative shots.
• On Thursday the 13th of December we will be filming the Performance shots with the whole group.
• On Friday the 14th of December we will be filming the Guitar Narrative.
• On Sunday the 16th of December we will be filming the Bass Narrative.

We have chosen to split up all of the narrative shots and the performance as we felt that to complete all of the shots for our narrative within one day might be somewhat difficult and also would mean that a lot of our actors may be waiting around and doing nothing whilst we film a particular part. A lot of the scheduling difficulties we have faced are due mainly to other commitments meaning that group members may be away for certain days however we have decided that we will be using days where our band/group members will find it easier to get together and on days where one member might be unavailable the others will just continue to work in their absence.

We have also decided on our locations, costumes and props for the filming:

Location

• The school Drama Departments green room (props room) for the Drum Narrative.
• Valentines Mansion house (in Valentines Park Ilford) for the Bass Narrative.
• A Giant Chessboard (made by the group) within a rom with white walls.
• Drama Room 3 for the Final Performance shots.
• The schools lift

Costume

• Black and white clothes for the guitarists chessboard sequence (black and white clothes for all other members)
• Casual wear for the drummer and lead singer for the drummer sequence
• Smart modern (suit jackets) for the lead singer, drummer and Bassist in the bass sequence.
• For the Final performance they will each wear the clothes from the part they were intorduced in.

Props

• Mop
• Cupboard props
• Guitar x2
• Amp x2
• Drum kit
• Bass
• Mic

Final idea

We have decided on our final idea which is based somewhat on our focus groups want for the video to link to the lyrics. We based it very much around the more common lyrics/themes of the song such 'Lost' and 'Space' with 'Elevator' being another major component of the video. As such our idea is:
We first show the lead singer as he is getting into a lift (Elevator) and arriving at several different and seemingly random locations. The narrative of this video will be to get all of the band members together, so the lead singer needs to find them at each location he arrives in they will then proceed to the next location with him. This relates very much to the idea of being lost in that to the lead singer all of his band members are lost and he needs to find them in order to unify the band once more. These shots will be inter cut with images of the final performance which will take place in the last location after all band members have been found. We have decided to stick with the theme of colour as an inmportant aspect of the video as we felt it would help to make it much more intereseting and aesthetically pleasing for the viewers.

We have decided that we will be using 5 band members in order to ensure that we are showing a variety of people in the video as we are sure that we will be attempting to show the diverse nature of the typical audience members for indie music (according to our questionnaire research.)

Digipack Analysis

Digipack Analysis

Development of ideas

Here I am including some scans of the sheets of development that we used to work out our ideas and map out our thought processes in order to develop an idea that we felt incorporated all of the best elements of a large variety. This would help us to create an overall idea that was most fitting and batter equipped to show exactly what we wanted our video to show/suggest. In the end we didn't really use a lot of what we had written down on these sheets however they were incredibly helpful to us in selecting the very best elements and picking out the ideas that would be more effective in the long run to use.

We felt that creating individual brainstorms for the narrative and the performance would be useful to us in that it makes it easier to separate ideas and therefore work out what would work together better and what would create a more effective final product. 

Here I am including the final brainstorm we had which was about the word that, based on the word summary I created previously, came up the most often in the song. This meant that we would be more able to relate the song to the lyrics as a result of deconstructing the song  and looking more closely at the lyrics themselves and the ideas relating to them. 

Space Elevator

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my bones
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head
Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my mind

Well space elevator won’t you take me so far

Sun navigator won’t you take me to the stars

Take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

 

Can’t hear what you say, You’re so far away

Say you’ll see me later, Wanna ride my elevator

If it’s possible, I feel insufferable

I feel the talk of the towns and never come back down

 

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul

Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head

Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my bones

Sun spinning inside my bones, Inside my mind

 

Science is trying just to figure out the facts

And I’ll be lying if you’re crying, Coz nothing’s making sense

Space is calling out to be a friend

All the stars are falling, But this is not the end

 

Space elevator won’t you take me to Mars

Sun navigator won’t you take me so far

Well take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

 

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space, Are we lost in space

 

Decisions and plans

What I have so far and what I intend to do on Prezi

Logo designs development

I have decided that the final logo design should and most likely will be a combination of the two ideas featured above. I think that this will help me to create a much more representative and interesting logo for our band. Combining the two ideas would be quite simple and will look very effective in the end I think. 

The image above includes 4 different ideas that I have developed from the 2 at the very bottom of the page doing this has meant that my ideas have been realised more and are expanding to cover more bases. This idea shows the main themes and ideals that our band will uphold and present (patriotism and the music being the most important factor). I feel that these designs are quite appropriate and accurate in their portrayal of the bands themes and ideals. In all of my ideas I am challenging the conventions that I found when looking at the logos of indie rock bands and as such am keeping the logos quite intricate and detailed so that they are more interesting and appealing to a wider audience. Doing so suggests a degree of adaptability from the band and makes it so that they will be more noticeable and recognisable because they are more unique and interesting overall.  

Music Video Analysis

Franz Ferdinand Music video analysis

Questionnaire Results

Last lesson my group compiled our questionnaire data and began looking at trends and various other pieces of useful information.We have combined aspects of our results in order to make them more useful and relevant to us in deciding on our target audience members and therefore more useful when developing our ideas. The data we have collected is a combination of Quantitative and Qualitative meaning that we have a broader selection of data results and are able to gain a better understanding of what our audience like and want to see. 
As a group we managed to collect a total of 18 responses on our questionnaires,  of these responses 16 were fans of indie music and therefore more useful to us. 
We found that 5/16 (31%) of our responses, from indie fans, were from males while 11/16 (69%) were from females this means that we should be attempting to direct our video towards females though not making it solely female directed. This is especially helpful to us since our focus group was mainly made up of females and therefore reflects our needs more, and helps us to work out how we should be making the video.
The ages of our responses were very similar fitting only within two of the categories, 15/16 (94%) of responses came from people aged 15-19 while 1/16 (6%) responses came from within the age range of, 25-29. This suggests that our video should be mainly aimed at teenagers but appeal to all those within the ages 15-30. Again our focus group reflects this as all of our participants were between the ages of 15-19.
The responses when asked whether they prefer narrative or performance in a music video, were quite evenly split. With female responses being at 50% for narrative and performance, while male responses were at 60% for narrative and 40% for performance, this shows that our video should be almost exactly half narrative and performance, so my group will need to ensure that our attention is properly divided between the two when developing ideas and when creating the video itself.

The results that we have gained from our questionnaires have been overall fairly diverse in the bands that they like as well as in gender and age. As such my group have decided that it might be better for us to present this diversity through clear presentation of the band members individual personalities using mise-en-scene. Therefore we intend to, through the band members costume in the performance, present a different character for each member and therefore subverting the typical characteristics of the indie genre in which bands are presented as a unit rather than individuals. We feel that presenting the individual personalities will appeal to fans as it will give a more personal effect and create a bigger sense of relation between audience and band, also presenting the diverse nature of the audience themselves symbolically.  

Flatplan iweb website

Today I went on from creating a sample webpage to create a flat plan on iweb that would show exactly where everything that I want to put onto the webpage would be situated. The flat plan created on this programme is actually different to the plan that I drew out and shows that I have taken on board some of the critique from my peer assessment. I have created not only a sample first page but also a sample splash page to show how the main site would look but also how people would enter the site and interact with the fans. I feel that this sample shows a much more effective website layout and design than my initial plan did as it will appeal to a wider variety of people and may therefore attract a wider audience.  

Website practice

Today I used the iweb programme on the mac and have created a sample webpage as a means of practising the process. I have found that the programme on the whole is very easy to navigate/use and looks quite effective. I feel that the end result is very professional in its appearance and looks very good as a website design. Today's practice has meant that I have implemented some of the skills necessary and as such am now aware of what I need to do to change colours, fonts, add in images, include YouTube clips etc. In doing so I have become more aware of the limitations of the programme and as a a result I not know what is practical about my design and what may need to change. As a result of this activity I know how to best implement the widgets at the side of the programmes page, I am also aware of the jobs that the icons at the bottom of the page do and as such know how to best create an effective webpage. 

Initial logo designs

Here I have included my initial design ideas for the logo of the band. Our band name is clearly the lost boys and when creating my logos I was attempting to reflect either the 'lost' aspect of the bands name or the patriotism of the band as a reflection of their ideals. I have also attempted to show that the music is at the core of their ideals in some of the logo designs also. 

The first idea makes use of a viola clef which is quite an unknown/unrecognised musical clef, I felt that using this would help to make the band appear more unique and interesting, it would also make the logo look more interesting and definitely show that the music is very important to the band. I feel that though effective this might be too complicated/difficult to read, as such I either need to adjust the idea or disregard it completely. 

The second logo on the page is in the shape of the yin-yang symbol for light/dark or good/evil and shows the bands peaceful ideals and their want for peace, To further enforce this I have included the peace symbol. I feel that this helps reflect the bands brand as we want to present them in mod styling and also present them as being very harmonious and at peace with their surroundings.  I have use a slightly scratchy font (in its appearance) and feel that thus might reflect the 'lost' part of their name. I feel that this idea is in fact quite effective at what it is doing yet it doesn't reflect the ideals that it should really and as such I am not going to use it in my final design.  

The third logo design I have included shows the union jack with music sheets and a heart formed from a treble clef and bass clef. I feel that doing this makes the band appear very patriotic and very much concerned with the music. Showing that the music is at the heart of their ideals and even at the centre of their logo. The font again is quite scratchy in its appearance as a reflection of being 'lost'. I personally feel very happy with this design and would very much like to use this idea, I may however make adjustments in terms of sizing and spacing.  

The next logo shows a much clearer and more simple font with the colours of the flag appearing like shards of wood behind the logo as a further suggestion of the band being 'lost'. It also serves to present and enforce the patriotism of the band. This design is only somewhat representative and I feel that it is much less effective on the whole than the other designs that I have created. 

The next logo design acts as a clear presentation of the being lost and I felt that a good way of showing this would be through forest/woods imagery, I feel that this has been quite effective in that it does appear to clearly show the idea of being lost. I feel however that the band ideals would be much better to present for the logo and as such I don't think that I will be using this particular design. 

My final idea reflects the patriotism more than anything and is much more personal in appearance as the font is intended to look much more like handwriting (and is in fact my own handwriting) and therefore appeal more to the fans as it creates more of a connection. I feel however that this doesn't fully present all that I would like it to nor does it look particularly effective.

Focus group and Questionnaires

We have, from our questionnaire responses, gathered together as many people who gave answers that were relevant and useful and used them to form our focus group. We showed these people three videos that we felt were very different yet still quite typical of the indie genre and would gain us the best responses.

Having conducted our focus group I've found that the most popular vide we showed to them was 'Take on me' by Franz Ferdinand, and the reason of this was generally because the video was different and interesting. -Because it made use of animation and did it in a way that was effective and exciting to see.
However the music video for 'I predict a riot' by The Kaiser Cheifs was also fairly popular, the reason for this was that while having little/no narrative the video was fun for the viewers to watch.
Our focus group also let us know that we should include some form of interesting narrative or story but the performance should be the main aspect and should be quite fun in it appearance.

Below I have images of a sample of our questionnaire questions, I am showing 4 of the 20 answers that we recieved.

Genre Research and synergy within bands

Genre Research

Webpage initial design ideas.

Here I have included a copy of my initial design idea for a webpage for my band, 

This is my initial design idea and as a result of Peer evaluation I am aware that it will need some slight adjustments and as such intend to change some aspects of the layouts in order to make it somewhat more appealing to the masses rather than just fans of indie music. Making it more widely appealing would mean that my design idea becomes more appealing for a larger audience therefore attracting a larger audience. 

I have attempted to, in my design, account for the typical conventions of indie websites and as such have made it very simple in appearance, as well as very personal and easy to navigate. I have tried to include everything that fans would like to see and what they would want to make use of. When making changes I think that I will put in more images and fill up some more of the space in order to attract a larger audience. I might also adjust some of the placement of text and dates and also include a tour countdown to keep fans even more involved and up-to-date. 

Audience research questionnaire

Below I have a copy of the questionnaire that my group intends to distribute and use in order to form our focus group and work out what it is audiences would like to see from our group for the music video. 

Questionnaire

Initial Group ideas

As a group we looked through everyone's ideas and decided which ones we thought would work the best and were the most interesting. We decided on the following as some preliminary ideas to adjust and work on;

• Show the band playing a gig, they have only one fan watching them at the moment (this would all be shown in black and white) the band wish that they have more fans. This wish is granted and they end up with a huge fan base who they then go to play for in a different venue (this part would be filmed in colour). The fans however all start to become nightmarish and turn into monsters and keep the band kidnapped, (the footage at this point goes back into black and white). The bands one fan from the beginning then comes into the venue and saves them and the footage goes back into being in colour, the band return to their original venue and play for their original fan.
• Colours- Great British flag
• Band are inside an elevator/lift- make it look like its lifting off- lots of colour.
• Similar to above with a narrative about escapism.
• Green screen- show images of space behind the band as they perform
• Band are performing in front of a small community- narrative shots- showing band and good community spirit, they re doing good deeds within the community picking up litter helping those in need etc.
• Intercut performance shots with shots showing the outside of a lift with muffled sounds of performance from the band.
• Show parts filmed at different speeds- band come together and start playing together at the same time/speed- this causes the surroundings to become sped up/showed down- they go unnoticed as this happens.
• Juxtapose- lead singer shown in the same way as a typical pop artist (beauty shots etc) while the rest of the bandare typically 'indie' in their interpretation. The rest of the band work together and take the lead aside and make him into an indie singer.
• Each member of the band is assigned a colour, as they travel through areas they bring that colour to life within the area, when they meet up and start playing to get her their colours are spread all over and everything is returned into being colourful rather than greyscale/black and white.
• The lead singer is seeing things and thinks that he is hallucinating everyone else believes so too however by the end of the video he finds them and realises that they are real.
• Colour focus.

Mood board for band identity and digipack

Some of the images used have been created by me using Photoshop, i.e. the background, and the flag.

Here I have created a mood board that encapsulates the main themes of our band and portrays their band identity most clearly. I have included an image of the British flag (union jack) in order to present the bands patriotism, and the suggestion of their united stance as we decided from the beginning that they would be presented as a whole unit. I've also included an image of a sign post and compass as I felt that they better relate to the groups name of "The Lost Boys" The use of this sign post and compass should suggest that they're finding their path or perhaps even paving their own. Also I've included images of space, this relates more to the name of the song that we are using for the music video, I felt that including this might help me to work out some of the imagery etc.  that we could use in the video itself. I've included the peace sign to relate back to the 60's mod era that we intend to portray and to promote their ideal of youthful innocence. This promotes the idea of youthful innocence as its bright and colourful, therefore suggesting the vibrancy of youth, the innocence is presented by the suggestion of peace reigning free. I have included the doves as a further suggestion of innocence and freedom, again as a means of reflecting the themes and ideals of the band themselves. Finally I have included the image of a rainbow with musical notes and the bass/treble clef forming a heart shape, this has been included as I felt that the images would best show that the music is at the heart of their band and they care most for the actual songs and music that they are producing.

I have also included some initial ideas as to the font in which the logo could be created, the fonts are all quite different however I feel that they are all relevant and representative in some way. 
Artist representation mood board

Initial ideas

Upon watching some music videos from well established 'indie' bands I have found that typically the videos focus on the performance of the song rather than any real narrative, they also tend to have some feature that will make them appear more quirky and interesting.

One initial idea that I have had for my groups music video is;
to set it in what appears to be a club/cafe with a small stage for the band, the camera would focus almost entirely on the band as they play the instruments but also pay attention to the audience as they mill around the room. I feel that in order for the video to appear more interesting it should have some colour focus, with the focus of the shot being particularly vibrant and visually striking. for example waitresses with really colourful aprons of holding vibrant trays/mugs/glasses.  The video would also make use of colour filters or some form of coloured spotlight to add to the visuals.

A second idea is for the video to focus on the idea of freedom and not quite fitting in with the crowd but enjoying that fact. Symbolic shots of birds (an animal that to me seems to be the most free) mixed with a lot of outdoor shots showing the band as they act in an unconventional manner but focusing on their expressions and showcasing the enjoyment and freedom that they feel. It will cut between these shots and shots of the band as they perform the song.

A third idea that I have had for this song, is to have a continuous shot of the band performing the song but also showing a few close ups and other angles of the band with the location remaining the same and the band being the only movement within the video at normal speed, all other shots showing the band with something else in shot would show the other object or creature moving in slow motion. This video would also make extensive use of colour.

A fourth idea would be for the camera to show a wide variety of shots of the band backstage/out and behind the scenes, and cutting between this and shots of the performance. The shots would use really saturated colours and make some use of black and white as a throwback to the mod era (most images of which are shown in black and white). The quirks of the band would be seen when showing backstage and behind the scenes behaviour as well as through the use of colour.

A fifth idea is to play on the 'space' lyrics and the idea of being 'lost' in space, showing the band as they are either literally lost or emotionally and figuratively lost, it would result in their eventual finding their way (they would do this in a way that is particularly colourful and vibrant in appearance). The images of being lost would be inter-cut with performance in the place where they feel at home or safe. This area would be vibrant and use especially vivid colours.  

Artist representation

Here I have shown a presentation of some of our artists values and what it is they will look like and stand for.

the people shown are all dressed fairly similarly and this shows that they are a group, a unit, they work together and are all equals, and consider every band member to be equally important.

There is also a splash of colour somewhere on each member showing that while appearing as a unit they are all still individual and unique, which also presents symbolically their music which while fitting the genre of 'indie' also stands out and sounds unique/interesting.

I have also given the band members a halo each as this presents a symbol of innocence, the innocence we intend to play on mostly is that of youth.

The image I have used is of 60's style mods, which is what we intend to dress our own band like and how we feel they should be presented.

in order to show that our band will be down to earth I have used an image of a crowd of people and whilst they stand out due to their splashes of colour they are still a part of the crowd and as such just like anyone else. Further to this I have included an image of a white rose suggesting the earth and connoting innocence.

I have show the bands musical focus by including the musical symbols in the shape of a heart, suggesting that at the centre of their core values is the music.

All of the mentioned values I have attempted to incorporate into the image below.

Both of the images included here I have created myself using Photoshop. 

Filming a band (Practice)

As a class we filmed a band today in order to see how our teacher directed them and also to gain further firsthand experience about the best ways to gain good usable footage. We all took turns using the cameras and working with different shot types, we had static shots, several roaming shots, shots from back stage and dolly shots using a wheelchair in order to gain a smooth movement from the camera.

I've found that filming in this way where everyone is moving at once and several different shots are being filmed simultaneously is really helpful to me in that I've now worked in a very different way to how I worked in not only the AS but also in my GCSE. It means that I know realise that it is feasible to film with more than one camera at a time and it's ok to have people or objects get in the way of some shots sometimes as it creates interesting cuts and unusual shots.

This process is completely different to any other way in which i've filmed before and allows for a lot more creative freedom for the camera people but also for the band  members. It means that there is less need for every shot to be exactly the same and allows for more movement. And all of this means that the overall footage will be more interesting and cause more interest from the audience members.

As a result of this workshop I will now try to include a much wider variety of shots and create a more interesting video. I will also try to use more interesting methods to gain a range of aesthetically appealing shots.

Website analysis

http://www.franzferdinand.com/

The Franz Ferdinand website is aimed at  primary target audience of reformers (psychographic) who are more interested in values than in status. For example they make decisions based upon the morals and values of themselves or companies that they might choose to associate themselves with. They unlike Aspirers are uninterested in the appearance, fame and fortune of their artists, instead caring more about the music itself.  

The website for Franz Ferdinand is primarily white with a bold logo that continually changes in it's style/appearance, for example appearing as orange or black orange and red etc. It makes extensive use of white space and appears very uncluttered. The simple yet stylish layout of the front page is engaging to the primary target audience because it doesn't try to make itself stand out or seem overly glamourous, it focuses entirely on the music instead of the band and as such appeals to the reformist target audiences values. It also makes wide use of interactive buttons in order to direct people to other pages for example the buttons surrounding the title button all swipe away and change when scrolled over and lets people know what is on the landing page connected to that image/button. 

The website itself appears to go against all of the typical conventions of successful artist websites, it has no real use of a typical hero shot, with the main image on the front page being a black and white performance photograph that moves aside when you scroll over is and becomes a button that takes you to information about their shows. 

The website links to several landing pages, for example, it links to a landing page which discusses their shows, one for their music, one for film and one for their shop. It also has a landing page called personnel which would provide the audience with background information on the band as a whole and the individual members. This has been done in order to cater for the fans interest in the band members and applies to Blumler and Katz's theory of surveillance as one of the reasons for people to consume media texts.   

The website itself shows no real types of convergence and stays solely focused upon the band and their music with no advertisements of other bands and the only offsite links being to their Facebook, Twitter and Myspace pages. 

Primary Research- Focus Groups

Today my group decided to work out which types of research we would be conducting, how we would conduct it and what we intend to find out. It was decided that I would be creating the questions for the focus group as well as research which videos I would show to the group. We decided that we would be conducting internet research as the project progressed and questionnaires we would distribute before conducting our focus group as the questionnaire responses would help us to choose our sample. We also discussed the benefits of conducting some interviews and have decided that overall use of interviews will greatly help us to gain some in depth understanding of what people like to see in music videos as well as what it is that hey expect to see. We've decided that we would benefit most from asking a music teacher a media teacher and someone who considers themselves to be a big fan of indie music.
We split these types of research up among the group members and decided that;

• I would write up the focus group questions and sort out the samples that participants would see as well as work out how to best record the information we gain.
• Ryan would write up the questionnaire questions and work out how best to distribute them in order to gain a variety of results. 
• Jamie would work out what we would ask our interviewee's in the interviews and who best to use in order to gain the best results.
• Teni would conduct the bulk of the internet research and look at some other bands of the same genre as comparison to our own band in order to see what it is we need to achieve. 

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For my part of the primary research I am working out the details of our focus group, I have decided with my group that the following are the questions we will be asking the group.

• Which of the videos that we have shown you is your favourite?
• Why did you prefer this video?
• What was it about the video that you felt was most appealing?
• What would you like to see in a  video of this genre?
•  Why do you think this would fit in with this genre?
• Why would you like to see this?

We are going to show at most 2 music videos of our intended genre (indie-rock) the following is my full potential list which I will be reducing in due course. 

Lip Syncing task

I recently completed a task in lip syncing, wherein I chose a song that I felt I confidently knew the lyrics for and proceeded to mime the song in front of the mac's camera. This exercise was intended to teach us the difficulties of lip syncing and also prepare us for the process of editing together the performance with the lyrics.

At first I chose a video with the lyrics of my song so that I would be able to hear the song and read the words as I went just in case I had any difficulties with the words. I had chosen to lip sync the song "All I need" by 'Within Temptation' as this is a song that I am very fond of and I'm sure that I know the lyrics well enough to accurately lip sync to them. I decided to do two takes showing me at different angles but with no incidental shots as I felt that generally they would be inappropriate based on the nature of the song. I then converted the audio from the same video I used for filming into an audio track and put it along with the footage into final cut I proceeded to sync the audio with the imagery and moved the footage onto different tracks and cut out the parts of the 1st track I felt were not as good as some of the shots I had in my 2nd lot of footage.

I think that overall the filming went as well as could be expected and the results were fairly good as I did sync with the words quite well. This meant the the editing process was also much more successful and in fact the end result showed decent syncing with the words and showed good syncing with the two different pieces of footage. I think that this activity has helped me a lot with preparing me for the actual coursework that I will soon be producing.

The main difficulty of the exercise was getting past my shy nature and actually performing the song even just to the mac. However I was able to overcome this and film the song twice. The other main issue was ensuring that the footage was in sync with the audio and cutting away from one footage track to the other at the appropriate time.

Song Choice and Permission

Today my group came to a decision as to which song we would be using in our Music video, We have chosen to use "Space Elevator" by The Smiling lies, who are a new independent band.

We, have also requested for permission from the band to use their song on the website ReverbNation. com

Richard Dyer's star theory- Mika

MIKA Richard Dyer

Iconography

Coldplay Iconography

Artist representations

Representations Media