The narrative, as i have said before will be broken up by shots of the band performing and possibly some animation. However, with careful thought, we have decided that we will leave the idea of animation for the text I.e the album cover.
We came up with this idea from our own personal analysis of the lyrics and there will be plenty of close ups of the band and also many effects I.e some black and white colouring.The music video will follow a young man who is in love with a girl but cannot be with her as he is dead. This is a contrast to the original video as that features a living dead girl not a male.
As he loves her, he then becomes obsessed with her and therefore wants to find a way of being with her. The only conclusion he can draw from this is that to be with her, she too must be dead and so kills her.
*The opening will be a long shot of the band stood still and once the music is brought in, the shot will cut to the narrative. this will last till 0.10 seconds into the song.
*The first shot for the narrative will be a close up of his hand breaking through the ground until 0.13 seconds.
*It will then cut to a medium shot of his whole body rising from the ground until 0.29 seconds.
*Then a close up of him staggering down the streets, dragging one leg until 0.38 seconds.
*A close up of the singer as the lyrics start until 0.48 seconds.
*Then a medium shot of the whole band up to 0.56 seconds of the song.
*The shot cuts to a medium shot of the main character through the chorus. This shot will be sped up to give a distorted figure to help symbolize him being dead. This will last until 1.06 seconds.
*Cut shot to him rising from the grave again until 1.16 seconds.
*Then it will cut to a medium shot of him looking at a poster of a young woman and he tilts his head as though to recognize her and walks over to it, stroking her face. This will occur until 1.25 seconds.
*This will be broken up by an extreme close up of the singer until 1.32 seconds.
*Cut to a medium shot of another member of the band up to 1.37 seconds.
*Then a medium shot of another member till 1.43 seconds.
*Then a medium shot of the main character looking at her picture. This will be sped up and last until 2.02 seconds.
*Then the camera will cut to a medium shot of the young woman sleeping while he watches her. Her movements will be sped up to help suggest he has been watching her all night. This will last until 2.21 seconds.
*Then a medium shot of her with white contacts in and she will look as though she is dead. She will mouth the words "What are you thinking about" until 2.24 seconds.
*Then a close up of the artist until 2.30 seconds.
*Then a medium shot of the band until 2.35 seconds.
*Cut to a close up of the artist until 2.43 seconds.
*Then a shot of her waking up and being shocked until 2.49 seconds.
*Then a close up shot of him taking her hand until 2.54 seconds.
*Cut to a medium shot of her in his arms and then him strangling her till 3.02 seconds.
*Medium shot of the band till 3.07 seconds.
*Shot of her sped up and distorted until 3.21 seconds.
* Then as the music ends, a shot of her and him dead together.
The main characters will be played by people who we know for example our friends. There are only two characters (the young man and girl) but we may require more people for the background to make it look more professional. The band will also be composed of people we know and we will shoot them playing in one location.
Friday, 22 October 2010
Synopsis of the narrative.
Outline of technologies
We shall only be using standard filming equipment - eg. camera, tripod, ect. As for editing and post production we shall be using Final Cut Pro editing software. Visual effects we are considering using include a black & white filter.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Original video and lyrics.
The song we are using already has a video but we hope to change the narrative but so it is still relevant to the song. We plan to use the style which Rob Zombie videos incorporate but make it our own so it has a uniqueness.
This is the original video.
Rob Zombie-Living dead girl.
The video has intertextual reference to the film 'The cabinet of doctor Caligari' which we do not plan to use. Also, the music at the beginning is taken from Wes craven's trailer for 'last house on the left'. Instead, we will produce our own ideas on the narrative of our video.
To do this, we need to carefully consider the lyrics which are:
Rob Zombie Image
As you can see, the logo is rough, quite scratched and this produces the image that he is quite rough and the 'zombified' image is enhanced. Rob Zombie portrayes different images of himself in different albums.
For our video and album cover, we plan to keep this image going by either using someone who resembles rob zombie or use animation. The logo and other text, we will remake but again, in the same style as the original.
This image will act as a case study for us to gain an idea of how we can create our own image through performance, logo and costume. We will use this to create our own artist and individual name, logo etc. Monday, 18 October 2010
Feedback
You have made a good start here and covered quite a lot of ground. My main comment is that you need a bit more depth in places?
A few pointers:
- Action plan - needs a bit more detail - add comments on what you are going to research into and what planning you will do
- Conventions of Genre - make clear in title this research is into chosen genre of music video - you need to start really by adding a post about Goodwin's ideas about all music videos - what are his conventions...Then in your two posts, apply Goodwin to the videos you have chosen and see how metal videos uphold these elements or do them in their own way... Matt you talk about uncommon MES - give egs please! Francesca - Korn - specify how narrative etc flows contrary to lyrics by giving an eg and explaining how the visuals cut to the lyrics...A bit more analysis is required to add depth.
- Album Sales - add source and what type of album sales it reflects. What is the significance of these sales - that there is a market and this justifies a video being made because they are pricey - how much? How are music videos used - their purpose???
- Audience - need more definition - do a full GRASS and psychographic analysis - what features characterise the typical metal fan? From your survey - you need to explain who you asked - did you go fro a typical student cross-section or just target likely metal fans to get some useful research - you have already proved an audience is there? Analyse too what you have learnt about what please metal fans in music videos and what this implies for your project?
- Institution - what do you know about RR Records - what type of music/ artist do they promote? How does Rob Z fit in? Do they do videos?
- Branding - the brand is not RR Records but Rob Z - the band itself! You need to explore what their image is, through band shots, album covers, previous videos and their logo... you need to comment on how you will use this to inform your version of them....
Friday, 15 October 2010
Branding
A brand is not the actual product itself, it is a particular make of the product for example, shoes are the actual product but DCs, doc martins and Adidas are different forms of shoes.
This has occurred due to mass production, people find it easier now going for one brand and then trusting that one brand.
However, due to this, competitive branding occurred and do each product now is given its own personality or (usp) in order to make it stand out from the rest and sell more. Branding is how the market creates an image which people link to a particular product.
The brand for our case study would be Rob Zombie who is the a product of the label, 'Roadrunner Records' which is where we obtained permission for the song we will use.
Audiences tend to trust roadrunner records and this is why the artists within the label have generally large sales.
The image for this brand is supposed to frighten people to an extent for example, album covers such as 'Hellbilly Deluxe' shows Rob Zombie himself as a zombie which is his common image on stage etc.
However, for our product, our own brand will be an artist we created ourselves with it's own unique image but still following the idea of Rob Zombie. That is, the unique image he has and we will do this by looking at his performance, logo and look as you can see in the image below.
He portrayes a dark image, darker than most other artists within this genre and we can use his image, enhance it to create our own artist and so they will carry similar properties as our case study.
We will then use this person to create an alternate performance style and logo for the digipack I.e album cover.
The name will consist of 'play-on' words taken from Rob Zombie's logo and we will exaggerate the font, style and colour of it to ensure our product is as individual as possible when compared to that of our case study. However, we will make aure that the idea behind it is still visible through our work.
His image is created through his music style and costume as he usually dresses as a zombie to appeal to his audience and his style is easily recognized by his use of font and album covers, for example, the album on the right. He uses dark colour schemes and text and disturbing imagery which we will apply to our product with our own unique artist we will create and text.
We hope to create our own artist and individual name. The artist will be called "Patchwork Undead" and the artist we will create will be played by Matthew Pick and he will look as though he is deceased which will mirror the narrative. The rest of the band will consist of people we know. they will also be in costume to look like they are dead. this will give an alternative to Rob Zombie and a more individual image but we will still use dark, low key lighting and dark text for the album etc.
Institution
Roadrunner Records also make music videos. Examples of such can be found using the links below:
Save Me by Killswitch Engaged -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4oR878BNu8&p=BEB3E014D34EFA52&playnext=1&index=69
Let the Guilt Go by Korn -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5gjoTBkmfo&ob=av2n
My Dark Place Alone - Murderdolls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucsJiKGHXtE
Target audience
Target audience is the main group of people the product is aimed at. Although the audience for the metal genre is small, it is still considered to be mainstream which is a wider audience compared to a niche audience.
Our product is targeted towards younger people, it will be a limited number of people however as the genre tends to attract a minority compared to those who follow the mainstream music.
G-both male and female but more likely to be male.
R-any race.
A-younger people, teenagers or people in their early twenties.
S-C1 to D
S-Alternative lifestyle for example, fashion or art. Possibly part of a gothic culture for example, interest in horror etc.
A typical metal fan would usually wear dark clothing and possibly have tattoos, piercing etc. The names or "labels" people tend to give these individuals is 'moshers'
To help us identify what the audience expected to see in a music video, we created a questionnaire to gain feedback which we could then analyze and apply to our own video.
For this we asked our peers who are generally into the same genre of music as us, metal being one of them. This helped us gain clear feedback for our research.
This is just one of the many questionnaires we sent out and the majority of answers we received were that people liked the metal genre and they all expected similar things from music videos for example, a narrative but enough shots of the artist performing within, artistic shots and interesting camera angles and possibly some CGI.
From this, we can create our video to suit the needs of the audience. Artists also do this to sell their products by pleasing their audience.
What tends to please typical meta fans is seeing the band performing but also there can be some background to the song i.e a narrative or an idea of one. The music and visuals must coincide for example, the pace and the sound must go with the editing and lighting. This means that if the song is quite heavy, the lighting should be low key.
The song we have chosen is quite a moderate song in relation to metal and so we could use both low and high key lighting. Also, since the pace is slow and so we could use slow paced editing with touches of fast paced editing.
Album sales
As you can see from these figures below, the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal genre does sell respectively, all of which are selling in the millions. Also, the more popular the artist, the more they sell and this is clearly demonstrated.
Sourced from http://www.rocknrollview.com/blog/2009/02/07/best-selling-heavy-metalhard-rock-bands-of-all-time/
This shows there's a definite market for our music pack, and that hard rock/heavy metal is a majorly favoured genre.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Research into other videos.
In order to gain ideas for our music video, we have decided to study and analyse three music videos each to show how the genre we have chosen can take many different forms through video.
To save time, we both agreed to make our own posts on this topic.
Korn-Freak on a leash.
I chose this video first of all because it has mostly animation throughout and a little clip of the band performing. I find this quite interesting as you normally just see the band performing in the video.
This video hoes against the theory of Goodwin as the lyrics or music don't match the visuals and there is no voyeurism. However, there are like i said many close ups of the artist.
Although this is a good video, we do not wish to take anything from this to apply to our product.
Avenged sevenfold-Bat country.
This video demonstrates another form in which the genre can sell itself through. It uses the narrative from the film "Fear and loathing in Las Vegas" and alters it to allow the lyrics to compliment most of the visuals. Like Goodwin states, some of the typical conventions for music video are that there are likely to be intertextual references to films etc. It also uses alot of CGI to make the lyrics stand out and the use of women in the video attract the attention of males and therefore the band can make more profit due to this.
In the video, the band are performing through the narrative unlike other videos such as "Freak on a leash" by Korn.This is so the audience can see as much of the band as they want and can therefore see the talent it has and this helps promote their music. For example, the singer is performing in the car at the beginning of the video and the amount of close ups of the band members to exaggerate their skills as musicians and aid to getting more people to listen to them.
Like Goodwin states, some of the typical conventions for music video are that there are likely to be intertextual references to films etc which this video does as it refers to "Fear and loathing in las vegas".
We could probably take some ideas of the special effects featured in this video for our music video. The original video for 'Living dead girl' also has intertextual references but we do not wish to copy that idea. However, we do hope to use some narrative.
Metallica-Whiskey in the jar.
This cover of the famous song "whiskey in the jar" is fantastic. This music video shows the band performing which is typical, despite this, it does show a form of narrative, that being that there is a party with many young people. This may be useful as it would appeal to people of a young age and so help promote music as more people would then listen to their music and watch more of their music videos.
It shows the band being in a sort of equality with the audience as they are not on any form of stage but among the young people who are drinking. This will make the audience feel as though they are not being judged and will then like the band more.
The use of camera angles and effects create an image of power typically recognised with this genre as the singer (James Hetfield) is seen to be almost in a fighting stance throughout.
You can apply Goodwin's theory because the video shows many close ups of the artist, has its own music style complimentary to the genre and there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals for example, the music is quite fast in pace and so is the pace of the editing. However, it doesn't have a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The fact that you see a lot of the band performing is good and an idea that we will use for our video as it is a typical convention for metal.
Research Into Other Videos
In my research into related music videos for the heavy metal/hard rock genre I found that they contain various intertextual references. Those references are outlined and discussed underneath their respective video; however, I have also picked-up on other uses of mise en scene and cinematography:
Slipknot's 'Spit It Out' music video references and parodies The Shinning - it copies the plot only make the most horrific scenes of the film, eg. Jack Torrance chasing his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny, with a knife; and making them humorous with manic movement and strange costumes. The humor broadens its appeal to another audience, offering them both self-satisfaction (from guessing the intertextual references correctly), as well as humor. This video also uses both live and recorded material, but both contain the band. Both contain discontinuity editing with repeated jump cuts, but also the live performance seems to have a low colour contrast.
'Honey Bucket' by The Melvins has a performance within a narrative; however, the narrative isn't clear and is also humorous with its zany, sometimes dark jokes - eg. they spend the entirety of the performance in a sheep pen (presumably in a slaughterhouse) only to end it by enjoying a large lamb steak.
There is a relationship between the lyrics and the video because they're nonsensical...
"Eight times of fel-an-fo-fi
Like cobalt cast and clean
I got a mojo felt the wheel
Real fashion feel
Tri-Jack it, black it for more
Handcuffs with special keys
Triple locked and been down defiled It's a V. S. I."
'Coming Undone' by Korn uses a high level of CGI (Computer Generated Images) throughout the entirety of the video.
In conclusion, I have found that music videos use a number of techniques to attract attention, including; intertexuality, humor and CGI. I can select and chose to use one or all of the above to broaden my audience and add to the success of the video.
Conventions of music videos
Goodwin states that typical conventions for music video are that; there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics. He states that the music also has to have a relationnship with the visuals.
The typical conventions of the metal genre in music video is that they are normally based more around live performance.
The videos tend to involve dark lighting and uncommon mise en scene, which gives an alternate representation of war and other global issues which tend to be ignored in mainstream music.
Some elements that would typically be seen in a music video for the metal genre are;
*Dark lighting
*Shots of the artist performing
*Fast paced editing
*Special effects
*Vague narrative (if any)
This is a music video from a more mainstream artist and we are going to use this to compare it to our chosen genre (metal).
Lady Gaga-Paparazzi.
As you can see from the video, it has more of a narrative and the visuals clearly match the lyrics and this follows Goodwin's theory. For example, the song is about a famous person's private life being invaded by paparazzi and the visuals are of the artist having her privacy taken over by men with cameras.
Also, there are many close ups of the artist and a lot of voyeurism towards her to aid in selling the song.
It has some intertextual references for example, the narrative represents a film style. these mainstream videos and artists tend to convey theories such as Goodwin. This helps sell to the majority. However, our genre, doesn't necessarily follow these ideas but are able to sell just as well.
This is similar to our chosen song and its original video as the visuals mirror the lyrics to an extent. However, in most videos for our genre, the visuals do not compliment the lyrics and the main shots are of the artists performing. This does follow Goodwin's theory still because there are close ups of the artist to aid selling albums.
The video to "Paparazzi" is clearly different to videos which follow the metal genre because it is more mainstream and so targets a different audience type. Despite this, they can express Goodwin's theory also but fits into a different pattern which mainstream artists do not chose to do making the metal genre more unique and interesting.
Permission
We have recieved permission from Jeremy Rosen to use the song Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie. Our corrispondence should feature, below:
Sent: 12 October 2010 09:21 AM
To: webmaster
Subject: Permission
Cheers.
Last minute changes.
Due to creative differences in the band which we were going to use, we are now unable to use their music. therefore we decided to email roadrunner records to ask permission to use a song called "Living dead girl" by the artist Rob Zombie.
We chose this song because it will allow us to express as many skills as we can and also create a variety of videos to suite it.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
General conventions of metal.
Usually, metal bands have a male vocalist but
this artist allows a alternative image as there is a female vocalist instead.
The album covers found for metal are used to give the impression that the artist is alternative from the common society and also there is usually an image which expresses fear or hate. For example,
What we can take from this is the fact that we can also use the dark image that metal has for our product. This includes the dark text and disturbing imagery. We will take these conventions and try to apply it to our music video and artist.
Monday, 11 October 2010
Action Plan
We will research our chosen genre and illustrate this with videos which we will then analyze and also analyze a music video of a different genre to compare it to metal. This will help us outline specific and general genre conventions.
Then we will identify target audience with aid from an audience questionnaire and use the feedback to apply what the audience wants to our video.
these posts will be split equally between the two of us and so will the planning and practical work such as filming and editing etc.
We plan to use a song from a local band we know and create a video with a form or narrative broken up by shots of the band performing and possibly some animation. However, in case the band is unavailable, we will conduct research into other artists such as Rob Zombie.
For planning, we will produce both a detailed synopsis for the video as well as a storyboard and possible alternative ideas such as the use of animation.
We will plan filming schedules, location and band shots which will also help when we make the album cover.
Project Ideas
We decided that a music video would be a good idea as we both share a very similar taste in music and think that our skills would be useful. The genre we have chosen is heavy metal and we want to incorporate both live preformance as well as vague narrative and possibly some form of animation. We have a few examples of such music videos:
White Zombie - More Human Than Human:
Although the narrative is abstract and non-linear, the video still uses both preformance and an embedded narrative. We can take ideas and alter them to suit our own music video.
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to our blog. Our group consists of myself (Francesca Shaw) and Matthew Pick.
