A2 Advanced Portfolio: Main Task- Music Video

A2 Advanced Portfolio: Ancillary Task 1- Digipack

A2 Advanced Portfolio: Ancillary Task 2: Website

http://thegreatnorthern.wix.com/home

Evaluation: Question Number 1: How does your Product use, challenge or develop conventions of real media products?

Music Video:

Whilst creating our music video we were vastly inspired by numerous different Auteur film directors as well as various music videos that related our genre. In the initial stages of planning we were inspired by the 1989 gothic thriller ‘The Crow’ which helped us conclude that we wanted to make a music video with dark and gothic elements in order to keep in fitting with the lyrics and tone of our song ‘Call and Gone.’ Following this we looked at different gothic directors, specifically at auteur Tim Burton and his film ‘Alice in Wonderland’ which helped us with the concept of our lead protagonist ‘Eve.’ We were also inspired by Alice in Wonderland’s cinematography and how powerful the contrast of black and red can be. In terms of direction style we were also heavily inspired by that of auteur Lars Von Trier who likes to utilise long close-ups in order to create surreal character development, in terms of setting Von Trier’s ‘Antichrist’ was also especially inspiring to us as it showed how eerie the woods can be made to look. We were also heavily inspired by the music videos of other bands within the same genre. To exemplify Radiohead’s ‘Fake Plastic Tree’ was an inspiration in terms of deciding to film the performance portion of our video in black and white, however we felt that we developed many of the ideas in this video through the use of close up shots on the instruments in order to illustrate the importance of the guitar in particular for creating the dark tone of the song. We believe that through the editing of our video we were able to challenge the conventions of real music videos. We did through stepping away one of the main conventions present in mainstream and alternative rock music videos, which is to have a lot of cuts and never stay on the same image for a long time. Within our video a lot of our shots last over six or seven seconds which we believed would be effective in creating a more compelling narrative for the audience as well as helping keep with the dark and slow tone present within our song ‘Call and Gone.’

Website:

Used and Developed: We also used conventions of real media products from gothic/ alt-rock genre in the process of making our band’s website as we thoroughly researched a variety of newer and older artist’s websites such as The Cure, Nick Cave TBS and Toy. This was to ensure that the website we created for our band ‘The Great Northern’ was a conglomeration product which would appeal to both our primary audience (specifically 17-25 year olds) and secondary audience, fans of the genre of rock / alt-rock and gothic rock as they might recognise aspects from artists from the gothic/alt-rock genre. To exemplify the way in which we used conventions of real media products in the making of our website is through the style we employed on the website. This included the fonts that we used for different articles and headings in website that were inspired by the different styles of other bands websites, most specifically The Horrors and Toy. Another way in which we used the conventions of other real media products was through the use of a Splash page, which is present in the website of Alternative Rock Band heavyweights ‘Alt J’. A splash page is a simple homepage in which the different headings are given and the social media the band is involved with is shown. We believed that by using a Splash page with the eerie image of a hanging apple, we could draw the viewer in through this simple but effective technique. We were able to develop the inspiration we took from the websites of these various bands to develop the style of our website so we could distinguish our product from that of other alternative rock bands. For an example we noticed that a recurring theme present within the websites of other bands in our genre (imagery from album covers. We also attempted to challenge the conventions of real media products in our website through the use of symbolism and by using imagery from a specific music video. We decided to heavily involve images from our music video in our website layout as we believed the images contained within the music video were more intriguing and visually stimulating to an audience than simple images of the band members or the band performing, which we discovered was a recurring theme in the websites of others. We also believed that the use of our music video for the website layout would be an effective way to market our actual music video to its potential audience. Another way in which we were able to challenge the conventions of other real media products was through the use of religious symbolism within our websites, such as the ‘tree of life’ apple. We believed by doing this we could create controversy and intrigue concerning our music video and band.

Digipack:

Whilst creating the digipack for our product we were also able to effectively use, develop and challenge conventions of real media products in order to achieve the best result. In terms of using real media products we were heavily inspired by two pieces of artwork, the album cover for Pearl Jam’s album ‘Ten’ as well as the poster for Australian horror film ‘The Babadook.’ Whilst looking at the album cover for ‘Ten’ we were specifically inspired by the idea of hands reaching towards something and we decided to develop this concept by relating the digipack artwork with that of our music video. Within our music video, a recurring theme is that of a woman trapped in purgatory who is reaching the afterlife and a better world this inspired us to make the hands reach out towards a cross. Similarly to the website we believe that our use of religious iconography within the Digipack challenges the conventions of real media products. This is because in modern day music it is considered taboo to reference religion to music if it isn’t in support and or in keeping with the religious beliefs being portrayed, such as Madonna did with her ‘like a prayer’ music video. We believe that by doing this we could draw intrigue to our product as it could be controversial and as Cinema theorist Mark Kermode states ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity.’ We also decided to use imagery from our music video as we believe that the video will be the focal point of advertising our band and promoting them due to the vast audience range it could attract, therefore the images from the music video in the digipack with attract audience to watch the video.

 

Inspiration for our Website

In terms of inspiration for our website, we thoroughly researched that of other bands in relative genre's to that of our own. Following this research we were able to come to a conclusive structure as to how we wanted the layout of our website to look and what content we wanted to have on our website. In terms of the websites style, we decided we wanted to go for a similar look to that of bands Alt-J, in terms of using a Splash page, Toy, In terms of the content we wanted on our page and The Horrors whose colour coordination and imagery was appealing to us.

A2 Advanced Portfolio: Final Evaluation

Finalizing Our Digipack

As we did with the editing of our video, following the creation of our Digipack we decided that in would be wise to work to view the Digipack together as a group and critique and edit it in order to get the best possible final product. We made less significant changes this time than we did with the editing of the video, but again we noticed mistakes and implemented changes specifically in terms of tightening up the cross shape in which Eve is being consumed by so that her body was more central in the image in order to get a smoother final result.

Creating our Digipack: Step Four

For the final panel for our Digipack we decided against simply having an image of the band in an attempt to challenge the conventions of real media products and instead decided to have scrawled handwriting, again using a font from DaFont.com called BasicSharpie Regular, in which we took inspiration from the writing inside Jennifer Kent's book within the film the Babadook, heavily inspired by abstract and conceptual art which keeps in tone with our music video. Following our group listening to various different lyrics we found on the original bands sound cloud, we chose various different lyrics which we believed to be best suited in terms of coinciding with the themes and tone present within our video. Following the addition of these lyrics onto our panel we distorted the lyrics using the Transform and Warp button on photoshop which allowed to us to achieve the surrealist edge we had previously hoped for.

Creating our Digipack: Step 3

Following the creation of the main content of our Digipack we decided to overlay the images within our Digipack with Writing in order to the inform the audience of our band name, album name and the name of our tracks. We searched on line and researched into the stylistic endeavours of other bands albums and decided to choose a font called 'Baron Neue' from online font website called 'DaFont.com,' which we employed for the digipacks titles as well as song list on the gravestone. We decided to make the font white in order to contrast that of the album cover before adding the titles onto the first and second panels respectively.

Creating our Digipack: Step 2

Following the installation of our initial base background panel images we now began to edit images over the backgrounds. Using photoshop we edited in the images of a gravestone, crosses, a set of hands holding and a set of hands pointing upright. We then reduced the contrast of these images in order for them to blend and keep in tone with the background images. Next we focused on improving the panel consisting of the hands, a pivotal point of our marketing as this was to be the album cover of our product. We enlarged the image of the three hands together (which are meant to be symbolise our films three protoganists) and then centred them in the panel, before adding the other set of hands (which resemble the 5 musicians in our band) which we put at the bottom of our panel.

Creating our Digipack: Step 1

We began the process of our digipack creation by collecting the various different images we had decided to use from our video of Eve, Leaves and The Forest and rescaled them down to the right sizes to the fit the three bottom panels. Following the rescaling of these images we adjusted the tone of them and using the adjustment options and the changed them into Black and White in order to recreate a similar image and tone to that of both the performance section of our music video as well as the edited forest shots of Eve. Furthermore we attempted to add the image we'd used from our music video of the apple, but eventually decided against it as it was not circular enough and didn't look the way in which we wanted to, therefore we imported a more appropriate image from the Internet and rescaled to fit the upper central panel, before layering an image of a vinyl over it in order to mirror aspects of both the Beatles and our own music video.

Audience Feedback: Number 1

I found the different plot lines, pieced together in an abstract fashion, perhaps the most intriguing element of the entire video as it gave the song an abstract edge in conjecture with the aesthetic. The opening shot that suggest mourning figures visiting a grave is contrasted with the plot line of the girl awakening in the forest forced me to consider the relationship between the two occurrences and the dark, almost religious nature of the song, worked perfectly with these mimicking ideas of death and renewal. These ideas of religion and renewal were exemplified most perfectly in the apples hanging from the tree, emoting both ideas of sin and of death. The short feature of this scene made it even more powerful in my eyes as it gave me a glimpse of the theme that was running throughout while still allowing open interpretation. The reverb of the chorus, ‘Gabriel’, was perfectly pitched against the whiteness of the dress of the young woman.  Gabriel is intrinsically linked with ideas of Christianity, further reinforced by the iconographic cross that opens the video, and the purity of a woman in white lying amongst nature is emblematic of the chorus. Perhaps the most jarring part of the music video were the clips containing the band playing live and the dark chiaroscuro nature of the lighting for the frontman was extraordinarily moving and often off-putting but in perfect unison with the darkness of the music playing behind it. Further than this, the black and white and high contrast lighting was reminiscent of renaissance ideas of art and, most strongly, early Caravaggio frescos so this idea of religion and purity is more subtly planted in my mind as I view the video in an even less direct sense but even more powerfully.

Inspiration for our Digipack: Group

Following our Group's Individual Research, we all came together and discussed our various different ideas which proved to be very profitable in terms of deciding what we wanted our product to look like. The group liked the idea of having hands reaching towards something and agreed with the black and white 'Babadook' approach in terms of style, but also had some very valuable ideas which we were able to colaborate together in order to improve our product. Their main ideas were incorporate Religious Iconography and Images from our Music Video within the product

Religious Iconography:
-Crosses
-Gravestones
-Cemetry
-Angels

Benefits: Keep in tone with the themes of our music video, cause controversy due to religious backlash (Like A Prayer, Black Sabbath).

Images from our Music Video:
-Eve
-The Woods
-Apples

Benefits: Help market our music video.

Inspiration for our Digipack: Individual

Prior to the creation of our Digipack as a group we discussed the different concepts we had thought of to create our album cover and artwork and concluded that seperately as a group we would all go off and do individual reseach in order to grasp a more well-rounded piece of work.

These are two pieces of Art that I personally drew inspiration from in the initial stages of forming our Digipack.

Pearl Jam's Album Cover Ten:

Whilst researching for inspiration, I tried to specifically look at bands from similar genres to that of our artist 'The Great Northern,' which led to the album cover of one of my personal favourite bands 'Pearl Jam.' Whilst viewing this album cover I particularly liked the concept of having hands reaching towards something which I believed could be an effective method of marketing.



The Poster for Jennifer Kent's 'The Babadook':

Another piece of Artwork that I drew inspiration from was the poster for 'The Babadook,' as an avid cinefile and collector this is one of my favourite posters and the black and white design relates to our music video due to our desicion to film our performance section in black and white. I believed that bu having aspects of our digipack in black and white, we could also keep in fitting with the dark tone of our video.