Professional Advice: Blueprint Editor Workshop

To improve our knowledge on technology and our editing skills our group were lucky enough to have a professional editor from the Blueprint Film Foundation come in and deliver a workshop.
Dave tutored us for an hour on different techniques whilst using Final Cut Pro X. These techniques included editing saturation levels, applying the luma key and being able to alter colour levels, just a few of the techniques that were mentioned.

We have applied these skills to our video and it has given the music video a much more professional look and the new results after our editing show clear evidence of how beneficial Dave was to our knowledge of media technology.

Group Post Research: Band and Record Label

Rhea researched the Arctic Monkeys and this has helped us to think about our brand identity. We obviously need to stay away from their identity and form a star image for Chase Chapman.

We also need a title for our digipak - the hit song is Old Yellow Bricks . We have seen that many first cd's released have no album name so we may decide to finally just call his first album release Chase Chapman.

Rhea's findings: Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band who was founded in 2002 in High Green, Sheffield. The band consists of 4 members, Alex Turner (lead vocals/lead guitar), Matt Helders (drums/vocals), Jamie Cook (lead/rhythm guitar) and Nick O'Malley (bass/backing vocals). A former member of the band Andy Nicholson left the band in 2006 after they released their debut album. 

The band have released five studio albums which are: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006), Favorite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug (2009), Suck It and See (2011) and AM (2013). They have also released one live album named At the Apollo (2008). The bands debut album became the fastest selling debut album in British band chart history. In 2003, Rolling Stone had ranked the album in it's 30th greatest debut albums of all time. 

Arctic Monkeys has won seven Brit Awards, winning both Best British Group and Best British Album three times and have also been nominated for three Grammy Awards. 

The band were announced as one of the first bands to have public attention over the internet, with some suggesting  they'd changed the way in which new band are advertised and marketed.

The bands label is Domino Recording Company, this record label use enforcement of copyright for sound recordings and music videos, this is so the Arctic Monkeys work is legally protected, for example from other artists using their lyrics. 

Domino Recording Company, commonly known as Domino, is a British Independent record label which is based in London. The label also have a wing based in Brooklyn, New York that deals with releases in the United States.

We emailed Domino Recording Company to ask for copyright permission on the track 'Old Yellow Bricks' as we are considering using this for our music video. To do this Greta went on their website http://www.dominorecordco.com/ and contacted them via email.

TA Research 5 Focus Group of 17 Rough Cut 2

Q1: Do you understand the narrative of the music video?
Preferred encoding reading achieved: 10
Negotiated reading: 3
1-It wasn't completely clear,
1-The song and the music video do not narrate clearly but it is understandable
1-I understand it in some respects, for example, I understand it is about a relationship and alcohol although I didn't put the two and two together.
Oppositional reading:
4 -The actual story is unclear
Action: 
Check if the lyrics and the visuals match, check continuity of the narrative (GOODWIN)

Q2: Do you understand the relationship between the two characters and how it changes?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 10 yes
Negotiated reading:
-I feel the change in their relationship isn't obvious enough or more contrasting
-Not sure how the relationship changes
-Other times it is slightly unclear
-Implied shots are sometimes foggy to understand
-The relationship is evident but not the change
-I understand the relationship but not the change
Oppositional reading: 4
Action:
Check if the lyrics and the visuals match, check continuity of the narrative

Q3: Did you notice the costume changes? Which costume do you prefer/ remember/ like the best?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 16 yes
Negotiated reading: -
Oppositional reading: 1 No, not really
Action:
N/A

Q4: Do you think the locations are effective? Which location do you feel worked well?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 17 Yes
Negotiated reading: -
Oppositional reading: -
Action:
N/A

Q5: Do you think the visuals and lyrics matched?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 15 Yes
Negotiated reading: 1
-Music was out of time
Oppositional reading: -
Action:
The reason why the music is out of time is because the sound from the original video is not extracted yet. However, we will remove it at the end.

Q6: What was your favourite shot and why?

Preferred encoding reading achieved:
 6 - Red Shoes
 3- Lyrics on cards
 1- Head to head shots
 1- In the abandoned place
 1- Myles running and Emily on the skateboard
 1- Panning shots
 1- Emily laid on the floor 
 1- Smashing the bottle
 1- Brick wall shots
Negotiated reading:
Oppositional reading: 1 unsure
Action:
N/A

Q7: Which shots didn't you like? Didn't understand?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 4- Likes all shots
Negotiated reading:
2- Clicking of the shoes repeated too many times
2- Going around the pole/ lamp post
1- Vandalism scene
2- Filming out of the car
1- Didn't understand the shots with the beer bottles
1- Skateboarding
1- Head to head
1- Close up of face shots
1- Didn't like the shots of the actors together
1- The cards
Oppositional reading: -
Action: Reduce the amount of red shoe shots in the music video. No action will be taken regarding the closeup shots as this is a promo video.

Q8: Do you understand the meaning behind the cards? What do you think they represent?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 7
1- That they're a game
1- The red gamblers, the relationship was risky
1- Taking a risk, love being a gamble
1- Is it that life is a gamble
1- Love's a gamble
1- Represents the risk of love
1- Yes, words in the song
Negotiated reading: -
Oppositional reading: 
9- No
1- Did not answer
Action: Embed a code that the love cards represent the love and their relationship, and the black cards signify the difficulties.

Q9: What representations have been created?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 
1- Alcoholism
1- Red shoes, Dorothy back home
2- Anger
4- Unstable relationship
Negotiated reading: -
Oppositional reading: 
2- Did not answer
7- Do not know
Action:
N/A

Q10: Does this music video launch the male singer as a new star? Would this video make you look online for more information about him?

Preferred encoding reading achieved: 12 Yes
Negotiated reading: -
Oppositional reading:
2- Did not answer
3- No
Action:
N/A

Improvements that need to be done:

• Embed a code that the love cards represent the love and their relationship, and the black cards signify the difficulties.
• Reduce the amount of red shoe shots in the music video. No action will be taken regarding the closeup shots as this is a promo video.
• The reason why the music is out of time is because the sound from the original video is not extracted yet. However, we will remove it at the end.
• Check if the lyrics and the visuals match, check continuity of the narrative

Research institutions 4: Spotify

Spotify is a music, podcast and video streaming platform that was set up in 2008, it provides digital rights management-protected content from record labels and media companies. Spotify is available in most of Europe, most of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. It is available for most modern devices including tables, Macs, PC's, phones, iPods and even Linux computers. 

It has roughly 140 million members, 60 million of which pay for spotify premium, although it is legal and can be seen as a safe way to consume free music many artists, Taylor Swift as one has criticised the app saying it declines music sales and increases streaming and it is bad business for the industry, which looking at the statement economically is true as music sales will be falling heavily due to the app, however rights have to be given to Spotify to use the music so a deal has to be negotiated between an artists label and spotify, therefore, the record companies themselves clearly don't see many problems with the app. 

The app also carries a huge following due to it being so versatile amongst devices, youth culture rely on technology and the fact that spotify is on near enough every modern device that springs to mind it gives young people easy access to listen to their favourite music for free. 

In my opinion Spotify is damaging the music industry however it isn't doing so to a substantial degree where the music industry is in mild peril, however payments go towards artists in order to stop commotion between the app and the artist themselves considering the artists are providing the app with its key material. 

• This has influenced my research and planning as it has shown me music can be harmful to music sales and it partially deprives artists of their royalties.
• It has also shown me how popular Spotify is due to its versitility of being on many different devices. I may choose to put our star on spotify on the ancilleries linking them to spotify due to this.

Music Video Rough Cut 2

Planning: Abandoned Building Storyboard

Planning: Brigg Exterior Storyboard

Planning: Ryan's House Storyboard

Planning: Record Label Design

The History of Music Videos

The history of music videos from RyanFrankish7

• This has influenced my research and planning as it his given me an insight on how music videos have developed and the technology I should use in my music video.
• This has given me a rough idea of the style for music videos e.g. concept, performance or both.

TA Research 4: Rough Cut

Music Video Target Audience Research: Rough Cut

1]  Do you understand the narrative of the music video?

2]  Do you understand the relationship between the two characters and how it changes?

3]  Did you notice the costume changes? Which costume do you prefer/ remember/ like the best?

4]  Do you think the locations are effective? Which location do you feel worked well?

5]  Do you think visuals and lyrics matched?

6]  What was your favourite shot and why?

7]  Which shots didn’t you like? Didn’t understand?

8]  Do you understand the meaning behind the cards? What do you think they represent? 

9]  What representations have been created? 

10]               Does this music video launch the male singer as a new star? Would this video make you look online for more information about him? 

Unable to film a sunset

In the original planning for our music video we intended to film a sunset for the lyrics "who wants to sleep in a city that never wakes up" however due to the time of year (winter) the weather has been a huge barrier as it has been very cloudy which has blocked the sun and it has been very dark and murky which has denied me getting a clear shots, therefor we need to make an alternative plan so we can film something to match the lyrics mentioned earlier.

Music Video Rough Cut 1

Research Institutions 3: Tubidy

This is my emaze of my research on the free download app tubidy, this has affected my research and planning as I am now aware of how popular it is within youth culture but primarily for the wrong reasons e.g. copying music and breaching different laws which deprives artists of earning their deserved keep for good work.

Ancilleries Research 5: Stone Roses Advert