Part 1

i thought i'd better put something up, just incase this got shut down for inactivity...

Part One Tom Horn

For my As task, I chose the printed press task, for his I had to create a magazine and decide upon my target audience and create my magazine to appeal to this audience through use of the correct forms and conventions found in the genre of magazine I wished to exploit. This task differs from my As task in that, instead of a printed output, this task demands that I use moving images and sound, this itself will change the way I have to represent different ages and styles of representation. The two tasks are similar in the respect that I have to decide upon and appeal to my target audience by once again using the correct forms and conventions. For the practical side of my production, I set up the different camera shots and filmed all of the footage, I also cut and edited the footage in iMovie.

For this task, I have needed to research music video’s, of all genre’s from Rap to metal, I have also created moods boards, questrionairres and created a focus group to help me discuss and finalise my ideas. For my video I choose the band Alexisonfire, a post hardcore band from Canada. I chose them because I am a fan of their music and I would be able to envisage and plan a video around one for their tracks. When it came to presenting my itch, I showed a short clip of a live performance and explained how I wished to create a live performance video with a dramatic storyline wrapped around it, which would amplify and follow the suggested lyrics in the song.

The tasks that I had to complete during the planning phase of the production consisted of a mood board, on which I put images of the band, guitars, and amplifiers, images that are a part of the “scene” that I was planning on trying to exploit. Whilst doing this, I decided upon my talent and how I wished to film my live performance sections. After this I created a questionnaire that I distributed at my place of work to 20 different people. The results from these gave me important information on how people access music and music videos. Once I had this information I began to see how I would need to present my video to appeal, not only to a small clique, but also to a mass audience. After I had done this I began to analyse other music videos, I looked at three different videos; 1 Rap song, 1 Pop song and 1 Metal video. After I had done this, and after watching many other videos, I had a clear picture in my head of how I wanted my video to look and what I wanted my finished video to look like. I then drew up my storyboard and created my animatic from this, which I then presented, to my focus group and from this feedback was able to mix and match my shots until I felt I had a decent plan and a possible video idea.

Whilst I was doing this work, I could have spent more time looking into different genres and styles involved in the making of music videos. I feel that after seeing my music video I stuck too rigidly to the conventions of a “rock/metal” music video and that I could have spent more time developing the narrative side of the video that concentrating on making the live performance look authentic. I also think that my mood board does little to explain what I intend to do in my video and appears as more of a brief introduction as to what the band looked like and not what I wanted my “talent” to look like. I feel that instead of using the bands photographs I should have posed my talent together as a band, which is what I did to the second mood board, which I presented to my focus group.

When it came to making decisions about which task I intended to carry out I had to make the decisions depending on the equipment available to me, when it came to actually constructing the order and style of the video, I used a similar style to that of the video’s of bands such as Dillinger Escape plan and Alexisonfire, to follow a pattern were in the verses, there is the developing narrative and then in the chorus the images and lyrics focus on the band and allow the audience to see the artists playing their instruments and follow the forms and conventions of a the music video of the “rock/metal” genre.

Whilst shooting the video I had to decide upon the locations of my shoots and the angles, shots and lighting. I found it difficult to arrange the lighting for the performance due to a lack of a lighting rig and my own stadium. But I felt that I made good use of the location I filmed and the lighting available to me. I think that I should have handled the decisions I had to make in a fairly intelligent way by replacing in effective narrative shots with better filmed and shot live performance shots, without compromising the conventions of a rock/metal video.

Also by avoiding the frustrations of not having the equipment I wanted and not going off into a massive bitter and self-indulgent hissy fit I was bale to get the footage I wanted and needed.