Logo Design

 My friend has recommended an app for cool editing effects, called the Vaporcam, there are a few filters, so I tried to use this app to create the logo.

Ideas:

Relationship of Sun and communism

The name of the band is Communism, and the song is January Sun. Therefore, I try to link this two elements together and have a clear concept for the production of the music video. 

In order to design the logo of the band, I have done some research on the Sun and communism, to see if there is any connection. A Chinese contemporary and political artist Ai Weiwei came up to my mind. Toward the later 20th century, he led societal movements challenging the Chinese Communist Party. Ai has left the presence and pressures of the society that the Chinese Government has imposed on the peoples, and that is generated into his artwork.” From a very young age I started to sense that an individual has to set an example in society.”

His art installation “Sunflower Seeds” was first exhibited in Tate Mordern Art Gallery, the art installation includes over 100 millions porcelain sunflower seeds that cover 1000 square meters. Sunflower seeds were a common theme in the Chinese Communist Party’s political propaganda during Ai’s childhood. Leader Mao would often represent himself as the sun, and the people of the China as seeds of sunflowers in artworks. Ai also explains that when he was growing up, even the poorest families in China could share seeds as a treat. The seeds represents optimism during the difficult times.

His artworks inspired me a lot, so I looked for some symbols that are related to this concept:

Online Research

I found an interesting website about  ‘How to make a music video’，which is posted by Julian Langham, he started his career in media in 1994, shortly after Julian was invited to join the BBC where he was quickly promoted to editor. Julian’s key strength is his ability to produce strong visually-led stories. In his work, he shares his passion for creating powerful synergies between story content, visual rhythm and music. His website below listed 18 creative and technical  points to consider:

https://julianlangham.co.uk/how-to-make-a-music-video/

1. The Music track

Choose the one you like and believed in, contact the artists and gain permission.

2. A concept to base your visuals on

3.An idea of the videos look and style

4.Locations to film

5.The talent-actors, performances and artists

6. A team of people worth organisational, technical and creative skills

7. Lighting 

8. Props

9. Costume, hair and make-up

10.Hired in equipment (School provided)

11. Graphics, editing and post-production

12. Delivery and broadcast

13. Promotion

14. Making of video

15. Budget 

16. Funding and support opportunities 

17.Schedule and planning

18. Protecting your work

There are some other useful blog posts

An introduction of being an Videographer :https://julianlangham.co.uk/services/freelance-videographer/

Motion Control Cameraman: https://julianlangham.co.uk/motion-control-cameraman/

Test Video

 Dylan

Confirm Shoot Day

 

Jack sent an e-mail to notice everyone the time table for the shoot day, Dylan is in the same house with the band, so he needs to make sure they are not going to be late.

Roles of Shoot day

We distributed the roles for the shoot day according to our personal preference. I love photography and I am interested in the digital cameras and lens, also the compositions and colour of the image, so I will be the camera person. 

Dylan is familiar to the band members, so he will be the person in charge of the actors(Director of Actors). Jack will be the Art director/Playback, and Charlotte is the floor manager.

I was confused about what is floor manager, so I had a look on Google, and found some professional signals:

http://www.thepresenter.net/common-floor-manager-signals/

Production Schedule

 Production Schedule 

I made the timetable for the shoot day, so that we can get well prepared and clear about what to do and not going to waste the time. I put a short break between the shoots so they will not be too tired, also during the break, the band have a chance to think about the performance design.

Editing Workshop

We have an editing workshop today, and refreshed the skilled we have learnt from last term, like the function of rush bin, remember to rename.

The sequence of editing 

1.Rename Footage(Instruments, angles, shots)

2.Ways of sinking(Picture sinking & Sound sinking)

3.Performance Cut

4. Final cut

Clap Board

-The Clapboard(iPad) shows the time code that can help with editing, so the image fit with the sound perfectly, and we know the part of the song the band are performing. For example, if the number on the iPad is 00:50:50:15, then you should find the right point of the soundtrack and the image that match with the clapboard.

-At the beginning of the editing, we should add in beats, to make sure the soundtrack plays with the image accurately.

Finally, the rules for editing MV are:

1. Listen to the music, illustrate what you hear. 

+Song Structure

+When the lead singer sings the first line of the music, show the face!

2.Group your shots Together

+Bring in another shot 

+Do not look random

3.Follow the movement

+Do best 10 seconds, and another 10 seconds...

Costume request Update

 

Today, Catherine from the theatre department has sent us an email about the costume request, and kindly asked about the shoes. Jack is going to ask the two casting of police and get confirmation from them if they are available to be in out music video.

Test Video shoot 1

Today, we met in the top car park in the school after lunch, and selescted a place in the forest to shoot the test shot. The weather is not very good, the light is dim at the time, and it was raining, so we have to finish the test shot as quick as possible. Dylan was the one the shoot, and I played the song on my phone, because the band is not quite familiar with the song yet, but they are good musicians and they can really play, so I trust them, if they could do more rehearsals, also get use to perform in front of us and the camera. I can see they posessee great potential of performance, they are energetic and their styles fit the genre of the song very well, and do not feel weird when they are playing the music.

Dylan took several different camera positions and will edit them together. We need to take additional shots for the police shot and other shots with the props and setting. Especially the idea of glass bottle, we have to do an experiment if it works safely and show good effect in the scene.

Analysis of conventions of album covers in rock(Album Cover 1)

The Fangclub is the rock band I am going the analyse, because the band is not very famous, and it is a relatively new band that still need to out a lot of concentration on promoting their artist image. Also, they are organic musicians, these points are similar to our band, so it is a good example to analyse.

The album cover include :

1. the name of the band/logo

2. Title of the album

3.The Record label

Generally, the basic and most crucial information have to be show on the album cover, and the style of the design should fit the genre of the band and the soundtracks in the album. For instance, the album cover of the Fangclub used a combination of red and black with complicated patterns, which created a sense of bloody and mysterious. The design is not simple, and red* is a typical colour that attract attention visually. The image of the three members are shown on the bottom of the cover, which have interesting design on the figure, there are white lines and scratches on the picture,that make it like a collages artworks, which is very cool. 

Red*

Research: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00212/full#B28

“Modulation of the lateralized components revealed that the color red captured and later held the attention in both positive and negative conditions.”

However, the names of the artists are not on the cover, which is a limitation that, audiences who are not familiar with them might be difficult the know about them.

Ablum Cover 2

 

This is the ablum cover of Lower Than Atlantis, it is a English rock band formed in 2007 as a hardcore punk band and gradually shifted into a melodic rock. The band consisted of vocalist, guitarist, bassist and drummer, which is similar to our band. The album cover shows four musicians in the band, and they all wear black or white T-shirts and black jeans, which is pretty ordinary. The colour of the album is black and white too. The name of the band is on the bottom of the image, which would not affect the general effect of the design also give information of the band. I quite like the frame of the ablum, the scratches is one of the key elements of the design that make the style of the album look cooler.

Album Cover 3

The Queen is a famous British rock band formed in 1970, it is fusion of heavy metal, glam rock. The ablum cover have the name of the band open the up left corner, with classic type of fonts and dedicated design, a crown in the capital letter Q is the connotation of the band and represented the Queen. The lighting and colour is quite dark in the image, toplight directly hit on the faces of the four members, and emphasised their contour, rather than a clear image of the face, which make the image look sacred and mystery. The two hands put in more elements and make the image look balance. I like the design of lighting of the ablum, because it gives some of the messages to the audience, but still concealed some of the details that allow audiences to know more about them.

Conclusion of album cover conventions

Overall, as the record label, the key points to produce a cool rock album cover for a new band are

-Well use of colour that could attract attention(Red)

-Texture of the album (Scratches—>insane)

-Do not show all the details of the band (Lighting—>show the contour—>make the audience feel curious about the band)

Researching Social Media Campaigns

Today we have done some researching on the social media campaigns of upcoming band, I investigated ‘The Pale White’ as an example, which has similar genre to  January Sun, which is rock, punky.

First site on Google

The first thing came up when I searched for ‘The Pale White’ on google is the bio of the band, which could make it easier for people to find information about the band. Also, there are direct links to their sites to look for their tracks on YouTube, Spotify and Deezer. In additional, there are also links to the  websites on instagram, Twitter and Facebook, that posted many recent information of the new released soundtrack in order to promote them.

To construct the image of the artists, the style of photos posted on different websites are quite similar. Many cool images with instruments, members wearing cool T-shirt and jackets, leather jacket and long hair greatly fit their genre. Many black and white, red pictures make the general style more obvious. For most of the images, they used the style of film camera and increased the amount of grain in the pictures, which make them look vintage.’ 

For the promotion of the new single ‘Take Your Time’, the poster and trailer are show on various sites: 

Homepage of the band on Twitter:

Facebook:

Instagram:

Website link on the instagram page that can go to the sound track in different websites:

Website of the music festival: https://thisistomorrow.co.uk/lineup/the-pale-white/

YouTube Music:

Sound tracks on Deezer:

Generally, the rock bands are pretty wild and wacky. In terms of costume, cool jacket like leather jacket is good for the genre. Also, colour elements could help to build the style, for example, red(which represents crazy and blood), and B&W are the classical colours to make the image look cool and simple. 

Tasks of the week

Costume request for police

 

Prop list

Because the bigger size of prop guns are difficult to find, so I think we could make this easier, small ones would be fine for the shot.

Master Document

 Today, we finished our master document with all props and costume that we need to prepare on a list.

Pre-production

Today, I asked the accessibility of the idea that using smoke in the shoot to Matt.

It is difficult to achieve. However, we could use some other methods to create the effect, for example using glass bottles to produce the smoke. One thing I m worry about is the fire alarm in the studio, is it possible to turn it off for the shooting period.

Dylan sent an email to the record label of the song ‘January Sun’ and asked for permission for using the song in the video, and promised it’s just for education, no commercial usage.

Also, Charlotte asked Ali (the head of Department), if we can borrow some paints, like acrylic from the art studio. And he permitted us to use the materials.

Inspiration from Music Videos

I have looked at several music videos this afternoon, and found some examples of the lighting and elements that I think will look good on our production

In terms of editing, we could put on some colour filter(Dylan is good at this) to add in more elements that make the images more interesting 

For the lighting, effect of touch light could light up the performer and make the background dark, which allow audience to focus on the artist. Also, I like the shadow on the wall, that helped to build the sense of mystery 

Stuck in the plastic bag—>struggle

Also, there are some elements that we could put in:

                                                                                      

                                         

                                              Props: placards, banners

                                         

                                              Taking selfies 

Set designs

Today, we produced a new works list, and I will work on the scene design(Posters), props list and the logo of the band in the next few days. 

Jack suggested us that the light from above that helicopter fan spinning will show patterns on the floor, and we decided to design a logo of the ‘Communism’ band base on the symbol of communism.