Wednesday 15 February 2017

KO: RECORD LABEL: Bring Me The Horizon

Bring Me The Horizon have worked with multiple record labels:
BMTH have realest 5 studio albums, 3 of which where by Visible Noise which is a British independent record label. In 2013 their album Sempiternal was realest by RCA and their newest album That's The Spirit use two labels which are RCA and Sony. RCA is owned by Sony Music whos parent company is Sony Corporation.

Tuesday 14 February 2017

SR: Production Schedule UPDATE 6

This is the 6th update of the production schedule I created. It includes the tasks that we have completed so far, and the ones which are still to be completed. I always like to use color coding since it gives me a great overview of what still needs to be done. 
After last time it has changed only a bit, because Kristian didn't manage to edit the rough cut for the 10th of February so he will edit it for the 1st of March after the holidays, since we focused on the digipack and website more and Kristian's PC hasn't been working. The plan is that he will now edit the following dates that are below. 


Friday 10 February 2017

Podcast 17



SR

This is our 17th weekly podcast. This week we spent a lot of our classes talking about different theorists. We especially focused on intertextuality by Kristeva and discussed in which ways our music videos has intertextuality. Intertextuality is the process of creating references to any kind of media text via another media text. On our blogs you can clearly see what intertextuality we have in our music videos. The reason why we did this is because intertextuality is one of the common conventions of music videos and the first evaluation question is focusing on conventions. Next week we will be working on evaluation questions and during the holidays we intend to edit, work on digipack and website and finalise our evaluation questions. 

Thursday 9 February 2017

KO: Audience Feedback 5: YouTube: Throne Rough Cut 4

We got some feedback on our video "Throne Rough Cut 4" from some students in our class.



Summarize what there points where:
  •  Use more special effects, e.g. color correction
  • Improve lighting
  • make sure lip-syncing is good for ever shot

Wednesday 8 February 2017

Intertextuality in our music video

In our music video, there are a few cases of intertextual references.

Firstly, the underwater/swimming pool scene references and was inspired by 'This is Gospel' By Panic! At The Disco. 

The lying position from this video is something that we have replicated in our own. It is also quite similar as there is a source of light shining into the water.   

We also were inspired by 'Up in The Air' by 30 Seconds to Mars in terms of the colour powder. However, when we used the colour powder, we focussed it on the drums and the end singer rather than a large group of people. 


GENERAL CONVENTIONS: Throne

In this take of our rough cut, the cables from the microphone, guitars and keyboard are all plugged in to the amps. This is done to achieve verisimilitude and to present a convincing performance. Achieving verisimilitude is very important especially to rock/ metal bands as they want to prove their authenticity.
The guitar on the left is covered in stickers which has connotations of music, as many of them are band stickers. This signifies that the band are authentic and play their own instruments as it looks 'used'.

At 0.28 in our rough cut, we have this shot of the lead singer. The forest background has connotations of darkness and mystery which echo the genre and feeling of the song they are performing. In film and TV, especially in the horror genre, forests are depicted as scary and daunting. However, we have slightly challenged this convention by filming during the day, in the sun. We did this as typical, darker music and videos are typically more popular among men and we wanted to also appeal to a female audience.
The cross on the lead singer's neck, while creating verisimilitude and a convincing rock band member, also signifies religion, faith and love. This is also a simple design which many of their fans could re-create in fan-art or draw on themselves, helping them to feel involved and connected to the artist.

Friday 3 February 2017

SR: Rough Cut 4: Throne

This is the 4th rough cut that I created for our track Throne. It contains 2 minutes and 30 seconds worth of footage. 

Some of the things that I have changed include to switch the narrative around so that it is a more linear narrative rather than fragmented narrative

Besides that I added in some more pool footage, because it is a good element of the music video as well as the color powder. I changed the look of the pool scenes by adding an effect called Tint, whereafter I then changed the color slightly so it would look more realistic and as if it was an ocean. Andrew Goodwin's theory on 6 features of a music video outlines that one of the main features of a music video is that there is a link between the visuals and the lyrics. This is what I intended to create with the pool scenes. There are several times where the singer is singing about "lost in the ocean" or "blue", which then fits well with the underwater footage. 

Also, I took some of the running scenes out because some audience had argued that there were too many running scenes. I also tried to edit more to the beat and bring in some of our green screen footage that we filmed last Tuesday. My post on green screen goes into detail about what exactly we did that day and which type of footage we got.

Podcast 16



KO

This is our 16th weekly podcast where I (Kristian) discuss our ruff cut and new merchandise as well as our trip to the green screen room.

Audience Feedback 4: Throne Rough Cut 4

We screened our most recent rough draft to some other students, and asked them what they liked about the video and what they thought we could improve.



The points our teacher addressed included:


  • return to shots more often
  • some occasions where it cuts well to the beat - needs a few more
  • impact points where it is not visually representive
  • pool scenes are a bit all over the place should be placed better
  • experiment more with special effects
  • more colorpowder scenes because they look good
  • try to use color flicker effect/ flicker effect
  • color correction to enhance the color
  • more narrative: cooking scenes or scenes where the couple sit on a swing set

Thursday 2 February 2017

Crossword: Media Key Terms

In class, we created crosswords using key words and theorists that we have learnt about throughout the year. This will be very useful when revising, and other students can attempt the crossword too.
 
 https://crosswordlabs.com/view/key-words-in-media-studies

simulacra a signifier of an existing signifier in an endless chain of signification
carolvernallis argues that music videos derive from the songs they set
sub-genre a subdivision of a genre
chandler according to this person, genres create order to simplify the mass of available information
goodwin argues that there are distinct video conventions for each musical genre
product placement a practice in which manufacturers of goods gain exposure for their products by paying for them to be featured in a media text
intertextuality the process of creating references to any kind of media text via another media text
katiewales states that genre is an intertextual concept
experimental the first stage of the cycle that genres go through according to Metz
setofpleasures rick altman argues that genre offers audiences a...
reynolds argues that pop music has become increasingly backwards looking and referencing the past
codesandconventions a common set of distinguishing features
genre a way of categorising a particular media text according to its content and style
jasonmittel argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts
davidbordwell notes that any theme may appear in any genre
abercrombie suggests that the boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable

KO: TECHNOLOGY: Dolly

This week we experimented using a dolly. The spider dolly is just three wheels which you then connect any tripod to. Using this you can get some very smooth shots but we encountered one problem which was that there was a small crack in the ground and when the dolly went over it the camera shock a bit.  We did not use a track that the dolly was on but that might have eliminated the problem we encountered.
If you  use this on very even ground then it should work fine but if you are outside where there might be pebbles or gravels than there is on point as the footage will look even more shaky than if you where to do hand held. It was good to experiment with  and if used right can look very good.

Wednesday 1 February 2017

KO: TECHNOLOGY: Green Screen

On the 31st of January I and a bunch of other media students both A-Level and GCSE where lucky enough to be able to visit a Green Screen room in the north of Luxembourg, The facilities contained 2 rooms with green screen. 1 room had a 2 walls of green screen as well as the floor while the other room was just one wall of green screen. This was a great experience as we got to learn more about what it feels like to be in a study with big lights and professional equipment. It was very popular among students many saying it was a good experience. One student commented "Originally I didn't think I would need it but now I see it could really help my media coursework grade".

There where some complications along the way but everyone got to film what they needed and even though every one might not use it it there project it was good just for the experience and gave students a clearer idea of what goes into a film project.