Editing

After the production stage of our video we had 8 weeks to edit our piece. Over this time I attended the edit suite 2 afternoons per week. I used final cut pro 7, Adobe after effects and blue screen effects to create a final product. Firstly we created a first assembly closely following our digital storyboard that we uploaded into the project before the shoot day. The weeks following this final assembly were used to tweak and polish off what we had done, this included adding new shots that we filmed that we thought fitted better or were more appropriate to our storyboard, fixing shots in time with the beat of the music and generally correcting mistakes. For example, a shot of the drummer was correctly in time with the beat and was the correct shot we intended to use however he was hitting the wrong drum as there was a different drum pattern (beat) to the second chorus than the first, this kind of mistake is easily corrected and I simply scanned through the shot to the correct part of the song and cut it so that the drummer was hitting the correct drum at the correct time. After all the shots were in the right place and the correct order we looked over some of the shots that we took impulsively in any time left over on the shoot day, there were some shots that we thought were more fitting and appropriate so we placed these in the video in the place of shots that were either less attractive or had been used a lot already in the product, this was for a number of reasons, firstly because we wanted to keep the video interesting and not make it to repetitive and also some of the shots we placed in later better fitted conventions we were following, leading the eye, rule of thirds ect. After we had a line of shots that we were happy with and all agreed on we used after effects and blue screen effects to finalise the product, we altered colours, texture and also lit up the light bulbs in the performance element as we did not have them connected to power on the shoot day.

Shoot Day

We set up the studio the night before the shoot day in order to have as much filming time as possible. We began our studio set up by firstly fixing our blinders together and connecting them to a power source, after testing the blinders and making sure they weren’t in contact with anything that could have caused a risk or fire hazard we used a cherry picker to hang light bulbs in the appropriate spot that we marked out using white duck tape.

After we were happy with the lighting we spread out bags of dried leaves again making sure they were not in contact with the blinders or slippery on the surface of the floor, after the leaves were evenly spread and the blinders were functioning properly we drew the blue-screen curtain across the back of our studio and laid down lights to illuminate it. Finally we set up the instruments such as the instruments (drums, mic) and did a final check of power for the speakers and the CD player for the playback.

For our planned shoot day we assembled in the morning at around 9:00am. Once everyone who was needed was present we gathered the band together and gave them instructions on what they needed to be doing throughout the day, for example who was needed at what time and how we wanted them to perform, the band then got changed into costume and took up positions while me and my group bubbled the tripod and set up the camera and looked through the camera in the main shots to see that there was nothing in the shot that wasn’t supposed to be there, for example on a few occasions leads and lights for the blue-screen could be seen so we combated this problem by simply moving some of the dried leaves so that they could not be seen ,this did have a risk of causing a minor continuity issue.

We used a JVC-1500 E to capture our shots. Once we had light up the blinders and blue-screen lighting we played the track and started filming. Once we had captured all the shots in a fixed position we laid out the tracks and captured the tracking shots we wanted, after this we brought out the cherry picker and set up the camera on it so that we could get hi-angle shots. Once all the shots that we had planned we had some time left over to film any extra shots, at around 1:00pm we started to collect the equipment (tripod, red-heads, generator, light bulbs and leads, tracks ect) however, due to the weather we could not go out to film and waited to see if the weather cleared up so that the conditions for filming were good. As the weather did not get any better we decided to postpone the performance filming to a later date. The conditions were much better a few days later so we gathered anyone involved in the performance element and decided to film the following day, this was so we could avoid any inconvenience to clashing commitments. The following afternoon we gathered the appropriate equipment and drove to our desired location in the Peaslake woods, which was conveniently close.

After arriving at the location we set up the light bulbs and generators, as this would have been difficult to do later on at night as the leads were black.

The temperature was very cold and we had a limited time to shoot so we set up the light bulbs and box so that we could shoot and then simply move the camera a short distance and quickly start filming again to efficiently use the time we had.

Once the sun had gone down and the light conditions were good we started filming our actress was already in costume as she changed before we left again for timing efficiency. The performance shooting lasted around 4 hours and we used torches and the red-heads to light up the location wile we packed up.

Theorists –Tom Ryall

‘The master image for genre criticism is the triangle composed of artist/film/audience. Genre may be defined as patterns/forms/styles/structures which transcend individual films and which supervise both their construction by the filmmaker and their reading by an audience’
Ryall says in simple form that every thing is affected by everything,

Theorists- Stephen Neale

Genres are ‘systems’ of ‘expectations and conventions’ that circulate between ‘industry, text and subject’.
Audiences, therefore, have certain expectations of genre films, based on previous experience and familiarity with similar films which have repetition at the heart of the genre. They will derive pleasure from genre films. And this pleasure often comes from fulfilled or disrupted expectations. There must also be some sort of innovation or variance of one or more of the generic elements to keep the audience interested. This is why we can see develop alone a cycle. This movement is usually from the mythological towards the revisionistic.
The generic elements and conventions:
• Setting (time and place)
• Iconography
• Overall narrative form, plot
• Narrative events
• Representation of individuals and collective
• Stars (actors who appear in a certain type of role or film)
• Themes and ideology and universal myths
• Filmic codes and conventions

Theorists –Richard Dyer.

Richard Dyers theory is in context to star image. Dyer has written extensively about the role of stars in film, TV and music. Dyer states that irrespective of the medium, stars have some key features in common, a star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials, for example advertising or magazines as well as films. Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings. Stars depend on a range of subsidiary media- magazines, TV, radio the internet –in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences.
Some common values of music stardom:
• Youthfulness
• Rebellion
• Sexual magnetism
• An anti-authoritarian attitude
• Originality
• Creativity/talent
• Aggression/anger
• A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour (eg. The sex pistols)
• Success against the odds

Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, that is incomplete and ‘open’. Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes.
Paradox 1.
The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer.
Paradox 2.
The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer.

My group and I have used these paradox’s in our star image with regard to dress and behaviour, the group are dressed fairly plainly but still in sync, this is also fitted with a not to violent performance on and off stage.

An example of a unknown aritst using facebook to reach a market.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Sinclair/171966714833

Facebook, the current leading competitor in UK social networking sites

Myspace logo , a social networking website disigned for music lovers

Multi-media Campaign

We constructed our multimedia campaign around the target audience. As we have a target audience age range of 16-25, terrestrial channels would be ideal for marketing our band at certain times of the week and day, as this is a vaguely young age group channels such as MTV, ITV and T4 are ideal as well as such shows like Jonathan Ross who hosts a very popular show on the BBC Saturday line up, this show is very popular within our target audience and is known for its very high ratings and introduction of new bands, actors, directors ect. Another method of good marketing for this audience is popular music magazines which specialise in music and especially new ‘faces’ ,magazines such as NME, Rolling Stone and Q. The demographic of teens who read these magazines are the perfect market in contexts of our audience (alternative, indi, music lovers). And finally the internet holds huge possibilities as 16-25 year olds are currently spending more time nationally on social networking websites than any other form of media. WebPages such as Myspace and Facebook are two of the leading competitors which have the most profiles. Myspace is especially relevant as it is based around music and new bands.