Photos from the shoot day

We chose to have limited lighting with spotlights so that it created a more secluded atmosphere around the band members. Additonally, we had a routine of the lighting changes and when a button was pressed on the lighting monitor, the spotlights would alternate on and off. When setting up the lights, we made sure that the spotlights were in a position so that the individuals could not be fully seen but rather strikes of light lit them up.

Our idea was very conceptual and so we experimented with the use of slightly absurd and random props. Therefore, in this picture, Jamie (our drummer) played the instrument with a rose and club (which got thrown in the air at the point the photo was taken). Having these quirky alternate revealing shots will create an artistic edge to our music video when edited. We wanted to focus on what is revealed in the dark with the minimal spotlights and felt that showing the randomness of what we shot would be a good way of presenting this.

In this photo, the band members have changed roles and we used this as a way of playing with the audience's mind because when edited, it will be cut quickly so it looks as if there are multiple drummers, singers, bassists and keyboardists. Ryan is the singer in this photo but is actually the keyboardist. It also gave the band members a chance for them to change what they had been doing because the chords needed to play the instruments were very simple. I felt that the idea worked well and it showed an original concept.

Diary of shoot day

9:00-10:00 : set up lighting, making sure that each spotlight is exact in the positioning and that it lights up the individual band member exactly. Set up camera in a fixed position so that everyone can be seen

10:00-11:30 : band comes in and we begin shooting with light sequence -when filming use full length of song in the background-

11:30-1:00 : individual band member shots

1:00-2:00 : lunch

2:00-2:30 : use props and shoot conceptual shots AND shoot band members in different positions (e.g: drummer move to bass)

2:30-3:00 : extreme close ups (keep band in the same positon)

analysis of an album cover

Analysis of a digipak

EELS...further research

Eels are an American Indie-Rock band and their music is used regularly in films, an example being "I need some sleep" which came famous from the animated blockbuster, Shrek. The majority of their songs focus on the singer's generic voice and are usually quite quirky-giving us the inspiration to go down a more conceptual route. However, unlike 'Baby Loves Me', songs such as 'I Need Some Sleep' and 'Mr E's Beautiful Blues'

It is clear that there is a difference in the type of music between these particular songs and 'Baby Loves Me' and that is the fact that the band has experimented with technology more in 'Baby Loves Me'. However, a recurring theme within all of the Eels music is that they continue to make sure their lyrics are meaningful and that they discuss topics that can be identified with the target audience such as loss, love and deceit.

Searching for the music tabs

In order for the band members to know completely what they are going to be playing I wanted to give each member of the band the tabs for their specific instrument. I made sure that in order to quicken the search in Google and limit the unnecessary excess of information I used quotation marks to focus on the search as a whole.
However, no matter what I typed into the search engine, there were no results for guitar, bass or piano tabs on 'Baby Loves Me' because although it is from the Eels who are relatively well known, that particular song is one of the few that is much less well-known than others. Therefore, in order to give the band members something to help them rehearse, I sent them all the track that they could use to determine the basic chords needed to play their instrument because although they will not be heard playing the instruments we want it to seem realistic. 

Codes and conventions of a digipak

A digipak is an essential part of creating a musician's image as it helps determine who would buy the product and what the band/artist represent in terms of their music. It is a modern approcach to CD packaging and often looks similar to this:

For our band, our brand image is alternative/indie rock and that needs to be conveyed on the digipak, so I researched into different bands simialar to what we want to portray and it was clear that they did not focus on the band members the images used were slightly obscure and usually related to the title of the album, such as 'Science and Faith' by The Script

It is important that on the front of the Digipak there needs to be the name of the artist in large clear font, which is evident in The Script's album cover; the font needs to be the same throughout the digipak to keep it cleaner and easy to read for the buyer. Additionally, the font reflects the type of music produced and also becomes a recognisable symbol of the artist, for example Metallica are a band that produce metal music and that is why they chose to have this particular font in each of their digipaks:

On the back of a digipak

there needs to be a promotional sticker to help draw attention to the recent tours or special features in the album, production information regarding the copyright, the year of production, web address, record label and the band/artist's logo. It also NEEDS a list of the tracks within the album. The colour scheme is VERY IMPORTANT and needs to echo throughout the digipak in the same way the font does. Overall, it should only use a maximum of three colours and must create a visual link with the way the band wishes to be advertised.

The inside of a digipak is where the band/artist usually place their acknowledgements to those who have helped or inspired their work and another list of the tracks with more specific detail indicating who is playing what instrument in what song.

The advertisement for the band/artist needs to reflect the same colour scheme, font and graphic design as the rest of the digipak but it must include these essential details reffering to the band:

• release date
• artist name and album title
• image of digipak
• tour dates
• review quotes from magazines and newspapers
• record label logo and website

Casting the band

After several of our band members dropped out, we were only left with the drummer and so had to search for new members of the band that could play the specific instruments. In order to minimise our search for our lead man (whom we decided would play guitar as well as sing) I took the inititive to note down a list of all the people doing guitar and singing lessons in the school. We compared the list and found that an AS student called Kyle Foreman took up both, so once he confirmed he would like to be part of the video I sent him an email, with the song and the lyrics so that he could learn the chords before the rehearsal..

I chose Ryan Heenen in AS as the keyboardist based on his talent and the fact that I knew he would fit into the target brand image we are looking for as he usually wears similar things to what we want the band to wear.

James Troughten was also chosen because he was a good basist and like Ryan related to our target audience.

The main problem with our casting was that they all look significantly younger than we were hoping for and together they unfortunately look similar to a boy band. However, this was a cause of limited casting after our initial band members were unavailable on the day of our shooting, so we were forced to create an image similar to the one we were looking for originally and when putting them together we realised they looked like a band together so decided to keep it the way it was.

email to dave parsons

We had to ask permission to use the band practise room and so I sent this email to the Head of Music in my school:

Hi Dave,
I was wandering if it was possible if we could use the band practise room to rehearse our pop music video. We are not definite on the day for our rehearsal but the times would be:

Monday: 2-3:20
Tuesday: 3-5:00
Wednesday: 2-5:00

Thanks,
Emma, Anoushka and George