Matty Muncey/ Media Blog

After having the audience feedback, I took into consideration everything they had said and with that, I constructed my second digipak. When Making it I had the website in mind. I added text in the spine and took away the scratching. I then added different songs that didn't sound as sad so people wouldn't assume it's a ballad or a sad album. I then also put the tracks on the back page. This was the outcome: 

Here was the first mockup of the digipak design that I had constructed. I met with Guy, our performer and had a shoot in a photography studio. I had shot some portraits and with a black background as I was trying to make the album cover quite dark and simple. I didn't do much to the text and I layered scratching on it to add to the digipak theme.

Main points from the feedback: Here are the notes me and Maya wrote down whilst going through the audio recording of the feedback. Digi Pack:  "Nothing on the spine" The name titles in the wrong place (Layout problem) “It’s just quite confusing because it’s not your normal layout” “I think it’s quite good, quite professional, because all the colours match all the same scheme” “The colours go really well together” “I’d expect to see the trackless on the back” “It would usually be, if you think of it realistically, it would be sealed so you couldn’t open it to see the tracks” “More close ups” of the actor (needed) “I think it will look nice when it’s bigger” “Maybe something on the spine” Second question “Sad””Depressed” ‘Lonely” “Can’t tell because it’s quite vague” “Dramatic” “Rough” They think it’s like “Maroon 5” “Nick Jonas”  “works quite well together because they all link up together nicely” “The words link to the scratching which links to the pictures” “Sh...

As a group, we have carefully thought out a set of questions we want our presenter to ask the focus group (As we won't be in the room). Our main focus is on the website and digi pack as we can't change the video because it has already been shot. We designed the questions with fluidity in mind. We want them to all relate to each other and fall under the same theme. With that in mind here are our questions: What do you think the Digipak can have more or less of? Based on the Digipak, what words would you pick to describe the image of this artist?  What style of music would you expect on this album based on the Digipak?  What do you think the Website can have more or less of?  Do you think the colours on the website work well together and why? What do you think the Music Video can have more or less of?  What do you think the editing says about our song? Do you like how this video has been edited and why?  Do you think all of these products fit together? ...

For some big companies, if they are releasing new content weather it's a new TV show, Book, Advert, or Product, they would normally hold a meeting with selected people that fit into their target audience to test how their product performs with their target audience. They give feedback and ideas about what they would like to see more of and what they think is something that the company should change. This process is proven to be a very successful way of refining your product and making sure it is suitable for your target audience. Our group are going to hold a focus group meeting to get an outside opinion from our target audiences. This should help us get an idea of how we can improve our digi pack, website and music video and to know how they all flow together and all link into one big product.

Morning shoot:  Luckily, nobody had forgotten anything to bring in. So this made it easier when it came to shooting from the get go. We started off with Guy leaning on the speakers doing the lip sync as well as other basic shots to make sure we had a selection of lip sync stuff before we get to the more interesting visual shots which would ultimately take up more time. Matt, our supervisor described it as eating the meat and veg before you get on to the tasty dessert. We then made some progress with the visual, more intricate shots. Which a lot had just come to us in the moment and wasn't planned. For example, We put guy on the dolly tracks and made him lie down. We then placed the camera on top of a bridge that we made out of a plank of wood on top of two of the blocks. We would then shoot guy back and fourth on the dolly whilst lip syncing. Things like this took up most of the morning and before we knew it lunch had come around. Apart from a few shots, we had only really used G...

The day before our shoot day, we all went to the studio to set up and prepare for our shoot. We tested all the speakers that we had collected to see which ones worked and which didn't. This way we would know what we could use for display and what we could actually use for shots with the powder and paint etc. We then also painted the floor plain black so the set would look more slick and professional. We also had blocks that we planned to put the speakers on. So then we painted them black as well...

As I am creating the Digipack for my group, I will have to compose a handful of photos and edit them into 4 pages to form an album digipack. In order to fully understand the general guidelines and process that you go through to make a digipack. As well as some that Phil had given us, I researched into digipacks to try and find a pattern in the different covers. Here is one I gravitated towards that Phil had shown me:  Something that is clear when looking at all of these, is that there is always an overruling theme in each digipack. Each page is flowing and they use the same colour schemes and general motif. This is something that I will be making sure I have when I create mine. Every photo that I use must come under the same umbrella so nothing looks out of place or odd - they all need to cohere with one and other.

To make sure that our idea would work about squirting ink into water we tried it out using a syringe we took from the science department and food colouring from the canteen. I also used the Glass box from the photography department to put the water in and then a whiteboard for the background. This was the outcome: The outcome was very good considering we couldn't properly light it. We now have a better understanding of the best way to do it and we can also use different colours and use a higher frame rate to get a nice slow motion shot using the black magic cameras. 

This was the last week before our shoot so we made sure that we ordered all the props by the end of the week and we now have everything ready. Maya and Mima got these props and I got the balloons as well as Holi Powder that arrives on Monday. Maya tried out the UV paint for the shoot so she could work out what colours worked well together.

After our test shoot viewing. We wanted to work on the feedback and how we can add to what was said to make changes and tweak things. For example one of the things that was said was that guy needed more interaction so Mima suggested to add a few other people in some of the performance shots to make it more diverse so it's not just guy the whole time. We thought it made sense to use the extras that we had in our first initial test shoot as they got on well and there wouldn't be a sense of awkwardness when filming. Mima made a sheet explaining what changes we planned to make : 

To help us develop our idea further by seeing what works and what doesn't, we showed the class our test shoot and asked them for their feed back. Heres what they said...

To make it easier for us when filming, we have made a rota for each job that we al do so we all get an equal amount of time doing every job throughout the day.

Today whilst I was absent, the others had got Guy for a rehearsal to see how he had progressed since the test shoot. We gave him the lyrics and sent him the song so he could practice in spare time.

At the time of our test shoot we did not have access to everything we needed for certain aspects of the music video so we used stock footage so you know when each strand is introduced. We also found some new ideas that we are going to be incorporating into our music video so that it's more filled out and has more variety of shots and strands that relates to the theme. The video was filmed and edited by me and Aidan although as Aidan is going to be editing the music video I let him do more of that. I was more focused on the neon scene with guy and the photos at the start. We now plan to show the class and get some audience feedback.

Having Heath and Guy in our video for a day means that they wouldn't be able to attend class. To make sure there is no miss communication between us and the actor teachers and to ensure that on the day they don't get pulled back into lesson we have asked them to get the teachers to sign a blue card giving them permission to leave for the day.

This visual mood board represents most aspects of our video and while they may not be 100% accurate it highlights the style and theme that we are going for... Each picture relates back to each shot that we want, this will help us to visualise what we plan to have in our video and will make more sense now for when we shoot our test shoot. 

After discussing and going through each song in detail and taking into account how good it is to edit to, the drop, the singer, and the length, we decided to go for Wethran's remix of Falling by Opia. This is because it's easy to cut so we can make it into a shorter edit. Also the voice is easy to cast and we wouldn't need to cast a band.

When choosing a new song, we had to keep in mind that it had to be one with a certain amount of bass that was featured in the song. So after looking for songs, we narrowed down the options to just our top 4 songs: 1. 2. 3. 4.

After deciding to change our idea again, Mima and Maya went up to the edit suite where they could talk to Matt - Our music video advisor and consult him on our initial ideas for our new concept. The song had changed from a hip hop track to a Future Bass kind of track. We said we wanted a bassy kind of track because we had an idea for having a wall of speakers for one of our strands. He agreed with our decision and felt that the speaker idea was possible, but we should try to look at taking it a step further in terms of development with it because it was quite a simplistic strand and not much could come from it without development. He suggested something like powder in the speakers so when they are bouncing, the powders flying up. We researched into it and found things we could apply to this idea: Paint on the speakers: Coloured powder on speakers: Now that we have one solid strand for our new vide...

After evaluating our idea with each other and asking people outside the group what they had thought - we came to the conclusion that our current idea was going to be very difficult to put together in the short amount of time we had to plan. To get a rapper from outside school to come in for a day was not only hard to plan but also risky in that we are relying on him to come through on the day because if he didn't turn up, we wouldn't have an idea and the final product contributes to our A level grade. So with that in mind, we decided to start fresh...

Phil has worked in the industry for over 20 years and has worked with Jamariquai, Spice Girls and many more.   These were his main points that he made: The music industry in the uk is worth 4 Billion pounds   Music videos came along in the early 80s and unblocked a constipated film industry   Music videos were a creative playground for directors and producers   Music videos played around with the extensions of film itself   Music videos were made to promote the artists and their most recent music He then showed us a bunch of music videos he had made before and what surprised me a lot and the most valuable thing I learned was that sometimes when things don’t go to plan and you deal with whatever you have, you can often have better outcomes. It showed me that I still have time and if the new idea doesn't stick it doesn't mean that our video won’t be as good because we haven't had so much time.  

After deciding to change our idea, I came up with a few visual representations that would imply questioning religion.   My first idea is to have a close up of a bible and have someone open it, but as it opens there is black paint all across the pages. This could symbolise that the bible isn’t truthful which would apply to our theme. As well as this I would have our rapper wearing a neckless with a cross at the start but then towards the end have extreme close ups of him holding the neckless with black paint dripping down. Something Mima came up with was to have a line of girls praying and as they look up they have tears coming down their eyes.   Whilst these initial ideas are good they only take up about 10 seconds each max. So we came up with performance strands for our rapper to fill in as well as coming up with more visual ideas.   Strand 1: Rapper in a church performing to the camera   Strand 2: Rapper in the studio with dark lighting rapping to ...

After changing our song, we decided that the concept of our idea really needs to evolve to suit the song better. With this in mind we all sat down and discussed where we go with it and to help c us come up with ideas, we wrote down the main themes that the song is based around for something to go off. What we mainly got from the themes were family problems and religion. We felt that going down the route of family problems could very easily become generic and fake. However there is a lot to talk about for religion. So with that in mind, we listened to the song again and figured out what it was the artist was saying about religion. To sum it up, the artist is questioning religion and explaining how all these bad things have happened to him and he is still expected to believe that there is a god. We then went off and researched and came up with ideas around religion that we could use in the video. I wanted to be able to visually represent these themes and ideas. After thinking about this ...

After we all had a discussion about what songs we could do we all put forward our best song that we found and listened through all of them and then came to a decision that Loyle Carner was the most suitable artist and was the best fit voice for Guy. There were many factors that we had thought about such as what he was rapping about, what accent he had, the amount of views his music video had got, if he was swearing a lot and generally how his voice sounded. This is the official music video to 'The Isle of Arran' Now that we have our new song we can further develop and mould our idea around the song. Next week we are going to have another test shoot with our new song in the studio so we can truly have an idea of what the music video is going to look like.

We spent a lesson on finding new songs and all came up with our top 5 songs that we found. I started off by listening to related tracks to Egyptian Joint but didn't find anything that was accurate so I started searching and going from name to name until I found only a few that were good enough to use however I found one artist that stood out from the rest and that I thought guy could really pull off the voice. This was Loyle Carner - I found him through a track by Tom Misch - Crazy Dream which Loyle Carner was featured on. After finding this I searched Loyle Carner on Spotify and has a listen to his top 5 songs. One that really stuck out for me was the song; The Isle of Arran. The sample used in this song was really nice and was quite similar to Egyptian Joint. The song wasn't a really fast rap and the subject wasn't about Guns, violence, etc. Which meant it would be realistic for Guy to rap as Guy clearly isn't a 'Gangster'. 

Instead of buying a brand new multi lens Camera that uses film to produce the wobble effect on photos, I decided to experiment a method using my own digital camera. However using a digital camera requires a different method and is hard to make seem-less. You have to keep the model or subject your shooting still for it to look realistic. You only need to take 4 photos and each just needs to be moved to the side very sightly. After trying it, I found that the ones I took weren't effective so I'm going back to do another shoot after learning what works and what doesn't.

Phil felt that whilst the performance is very good, the actual voice isn't suitable as he didn't find it believable after showing our class the test shoot for some further criticism. Some felt that it could work whilst others didn't. After a long discussion with our group about the direction of the video we decided to change our song and possibly the concept with it. We now need to find a song that fits with guys look that's by a rapper that we could believe is guy wen he performs it.

(Unfortunately I couldn't make it) But Aidan, Mima and Maya went to the local village and shot a test shoot with our main rapper; Guy Newland and some of our extras, they only filmed a verse just so we could all get a general feel for what it would look like but more importantly how guy is performing in front of a camera. Whilst our lip sync is good the general B roll footage is slightly off as we won't be shooting skateboarding and the editing wont be so full on as it has been a bit overdone. This has been helpful because we can now keep this in mind for next time.

Something we didn't want to happen was to shoot the video, edit it and upload it only to find out that the video has been taken off for copyright. So I sent the artist an email requesting for his approval for us to use his song in our video.

The 'What if I go?' music video shares many of the same aspects that we aim to have for our music video and we have partially shaped our music video concept from this. The idea of youth culture in London is something that I feel is important and get's mis-interpreted a lot of time. This video breaks away from this and the viewers get an insight of what it's really like to be a part of the London youth culture. It also explores young love with the flirtatious couples in the video. The video has a very raw, gritty feel to it. It doesn't seem set up and has a genuine feel to it. This combined with the way the video has been shot and the aesthetics each shot leaves the viewers with a very clear and accurate idea of what the London youth is about. It's clear that the outfits that the people are wearing are clothes they wear everyday and haven't been asked to wear something that they feel uncomfortable in. It's also very clear that they are comfortable...

I have been researching into how to get the wobble 3d camera effect that you see in mura masa's music video for 'What if I go?'. This seems to be more of a complex process than I had initially thought. To help gain an idea of how we would do it, I youtube searched 3d camera wobble effect and this came up: After watching this I looked into the Nishika cameras to see if that would be something we could buy or something that is too expensive or too unreliable so I went on amazon to see what the reviews were:   These reviews basically explain that whilst the cameras are good if your using them for a bit of fun then they can be okay, however if your spending a fair amount of money on it and have high expectations, then you will be disappointed. Also something that we need to keep in mind is that because they are film cameras, we have to wait for the film to be developed. So after seeing that the actual vintage film cameras might look like more of a complic...

I looked at a series of music videos from the hip hop - house producer from Montreal. I looked at all the aspects in each of his videos and put it all in a slide show presentation along with other artists that each member of the group also researched about. Here is a quick video of the process of making the presentation: Here is the finished presentation point: This has helped me to understand about the different strands that I need to have in my music video and that they have to be able to link one way or another. Weather it's through the style, narrative or themes - as long as it links in some way it will make sense cut together. I also have realised that we have to keep in mind that we have to do something that would be appealing for our audience, and not just what we think would be cool. After seeing how much help this was for me, I'm going to do an in depth video analysis of another music video in essay form. 

Whilst we aim to have more people, we have put together a list of people that we defiantly want to feature in our music video. Some are from in school, and some are outside of school. Guy Newland Shane KG Marcus Woodhead Daisy Jelley Isaiah St Jean  So far these are the possibilities of cast members for our main features. However we are still looking to bring more people into it once we have a better idea of how many people we want in it. 

Luckily for us, Luke was keen on our first idea so we didn't need to pitch our second idea. However he did flag up some things that we need to look into before committing to this idea. Below, I have made a table in which I have simplified his concerns and then given a possible solution for the problem so our group can discuss and talk through each point easier. Now that we are clearer on the things we need to watch out for and keep in mind when preparing for our music video I feel that we are a step forward in the right direction. Now we have more things to do in terms of planning.

Our 2nd pitch was produced by Myself and Aidan whilst the girls worked on the 2nd one. Although we did do these separately we still all constructed the main points together. 

For our first pitch one, Maya and Mima designed it whilst me and Aidan helped them promote the main ideas and give them any additional information they needed.

At first we decided to use t a combination of ideas for our 2nd concept however since then we have coe up with something completely  different to our last idea. This is what we had came up with before, heres a brief description  Aidan had wrote on his blog. "After combining our two previous ideas into one, we were now left wi a large gap to fill. This was a whole second idea we had to come up with and further develop. We took a lot more time thinking about this idea and making it different enough from the first one. However in the end we had decided on a final idea. Our second idea would incorporate my silhouette idea, and Mima’s animation idea. It would be a much more simple idea as it would involve only a rapper in the studio. He would be on a green screen that we would turn white or possibly just a white background and be rapping and dancing etc. Similarly to Bruno Mars’ music video of “That’s what I like” small animations would be around him or on him. Possibly ...