HERE IS THE FINAL LINK TO THE FINISHED VIDEO ON YOUTUBE!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvzTVsobV7Y

ALSO HERE IS THE INTERVIEW WE HAD WITH THE BAND AS PART OF OUR AUDIENCE RESEARCH.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=v2HqmhujaWI&feature=channel_video_title

Here is just some photographic proof of the group working in class and some screen shots of the programme, IMovie, which we used to put the video together.

Other information on the video is:
the overall cost of the video was £16
there were some disagreements within the group about what should go into the video
all members of the group are very pleased with the final outcome.

Q.4 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation sheet?

During the research stage where we looked at a number videos from our chosen genre to try and get an idea of what normally goes into them. the main sources I were Youtbe , as it is free and easy to access, and Kerrang TV as it a devoted TV channel only showing Rock and Metal videos and so was of great use.

I also had an advantage when working on this genre as it is a genre of music i listen to a lot and so had a good choice of bands and other videos to draw inspiration from.

To actually film the music video we used a Sony digital recorder (more than one in some cases). This was better than other recorders as it record onto an SD card rather than a tape. However it seems these recorders do not like loud noises as when we were filming the concert for the live footage the camera i was using kept freezing when i moved closer to the speakers were the music was coming from.



The printing was done by a professional printing company. This made the finished poster and CD cover a much higher quality than it would have been if we had done it ourselves. To edit the images for the print work we used a combination of the programmes Photoshop and In Design on the Apple Mac computer. These programmes were very easy to use and so this cut the time it took to finish the project.

Finally there were a number of bands in particular we sued as inspiration for our video, the main ones we focused on were:
Black Veil Brides
Bullet For My Valentine
Black Stone Cherry

Q3. What Have You Learned From Your Audience Research?

These are the graphs showing the results of our audience research.
The first question was Would You Watch A Metal Music Video?

We got mixed answers for this with the majority saying that they would not mind watching one if it came on but would not actively go and seek one out. Others gave a categorical yes or no answer which references to the idea of Metal being a love or hate music genre. Many bands often play on this idea of love and hate by making themselves very outlandish. this will make them appeal to a smaller but more devoted fan base and will show that metal bands as a whole are still a cult or have cult like qualities. Recently a band that has become known for this is Black Veil Brides.

Question 2. What is your opinion of the Metal music genre?

This is very similar to the first question and the results show that. Again as with question 1 the majority of people were indifferent and said that they would listen to it if it came on but would not choose it out of preference. the other people we asked were split 50/50 of loving and hating Heavy Metal Music. This ties in with the results from question 1 as Heavy Metal being a love or hate genre and having a cult like status. normally it is easier to tell someone who is into Heavy Metal (such as Myself) as they will often wear T shirts of there favourite band, its a bit like the Hells Angels VS the Outlaws or rivalries between football clubs, except without the violence.

Question 3. What Is Your Favourite Music Genre?

This was a much more general question and so gave a clearer idea of how large our Target audience would be for a Heavy Metal video. We found the most popular genres to be multi-generic or rock. This apparent liking of Rock gave us an impression that many people who like this would also listen to some Metal Bands. This shows that while Rock is still one of the most popular music genres but Metal is still lagging some way behind. I find this odd as Heavy Metal was spawned out of Rock and Hard Rock Genres so you would think that the fan base would have remained the same. I think one reason why it hasn't is that heavy metal bands tend to focus on volume and look as well as their music and so some Rock fans found this hard to get used to. Two Metal bands that this applies to are Black Veil Brides and Slipknot.

Question 4. What Would You Expect To See In A Metal Video?

The most popular answers for this question were shots of The Band and motifs of fire. I  guess this is because many people assume Metal is very fact paced and aggressive. A Cd cover that follows this Idea is Set The World On Fire by Black Veil Brides, which has been mentioned before in this blog. Not many people thought metal videos would contain female representations, meaning that the male gaze would be more to with fire and more action related themes. However if the band contains a female then the video will tend to focus on them more than the other members, two example of this are Evanescence and The Agonist. However Black Veil Brides go along with these facts with the music video for their song Knives and Pens, which contains no female representations.

Question 5. Do What You See In Music Videos and Bands You Like Influence You?

This was a question designed to see how much music meant to our potential audience. there was a straight 50/50 split between people answering yes and no. Personally I am very much in the yes category. This question also links to the first 3 questions as it shows how much of a cult status Metal and Metal bands have. What we see and enjoy will influence all of us no matter what it is. Even if it does not change the way we look it might change some of the ideologies we hold about life ad other topics.

TO GO ALONG WITH THIS HERE IS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE BAND AS GODS WHEN WE WENT TO FILM THEM LIVE FOR TEH VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2HqmhujaWI&feature=channel_video_title

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I feel that both parts of our practical project, (The music video and the print based work) are very effective. The video is very unnerving as we do not know the character behind the mask until about 3/4 of the way through the video. Also the idea of a character being chased by themselves is a very odd idea and suggests not only a sense of guilt but also an unstable metal state causing their own mind to project other forms of themselves, this is very similar to the film Fight Club.

 The poster and print work give a very haunting look to the audience, again as a means of unnerving them. The idea of the mask is the main motif for the video and so was the obvious choice as the backdrop for both the poster and CD cover. Below is the finished poster.

This poster is similar to the cover for the film, The Decent, which uses the idea of a face, in this case a skull to unnerve the audience and hint at the film itself, much like our entire project. There is an interesting point here as from this it looks like our poster is more influenced by film posters. the way our poster looks is very cinematic and so this is why we found it easier to use some of the techniques from them as opposed to more music based posters. Another thing was that we found it very hard to find CD advertisements that used the same sort of style as our own. Most Music advertisements, no matter what the genre is will feature one of two images. Either they will feature the same picture that will appear on the CD cover or a picture of the band/logo itself.

The CD cover is very similar to both this film and our own poster as it uses a similar image.

1. In What Ways Does Your Media Product Challenge or Develop Conventions Of Real Media Products?


I feel that first and for most both the music video and the print based work have been a massive success. To begin with the music video does go along with many normal media concepts from both metal music and music videos and also films in some cases, an example of this is with the trunk shot that we used as part of our video. The main example of this is when we used a Trunk Shot, which is shown below. This shot was a favourite of Quentin Tarentino and as well as our own, many examples of his have also been shown.

Here are some of the other shots we used from the scene where we see why the main charcaters conscience is chasing him in the rest of the video.

The actual base for the video was to use both a narrative and live footage of the band. this worked very well and it also goes along with many other music videos of a similar genre, for example:
Black Veil Brides - Rebel Love Song
Bullet For My Valentine - Tears Don't Fall

The Video did also challenge some aspects of media products as well though. The use of handheld camera is very rare in music videos and also the fact that no green screen was used, meaning all the footage was shot on scene.

Much the same can be said about the print work. the CD cover featured motifs from the video such as the mask and also contained band thanks and the song lyrics. The poster was simple and yet very effective and also featured the mask motif used in the video. Below are the main images that represent the video, CD cover and poster.

You can also see on these images that they have been through a process of editing, for this we used Photoshop and were put into the correct shape and size using In Design.

The CD cover itself is very similar to the Album Slipknot by Slipknot as it uses masks to hide the identity of a person. The different here is that this the band hiding their identity rather than a character in a music video, which is the case with our work.

The poster isn't really similar to anything in particular but it does use the same techniques and similar photographs to the CD cover which shows they are from the same group. The poster is shown below.

All of this put together shows how the package we have put together does for the most part keep to media concepts as this is what has shown to be successful particularly in the world of Heavy Metal Music.

Well the practical work has now been finished and so we can begin the uploading of evidence to the blog. The video link will be posted at the end of this post and the images used in the print based work will be uploaded once they have been gathered into the correct file type. the video itself comprises a mix of live performance and narrative.

The live performance was filmed at a local concert hosted by As Gods in Bristol. The band played Faith and so this made it easier to put the right sections of song with the right sections of video. The live performance has been separated in the video as it is in black and white while the narrative is in colour.

The narrative part of the video depicts the story of a man who has to live with the guilt of killing someone else. we used this guilt to great effect by portraying it as a masked character. This also goes along with the idea that Heavy Metal music as a sinister and nightmarish edge.

The idea of the mask was also used to great effect in the print based work as it become both the CD cover and image for the advertisement poster.

Here is the link to the Video:
http://www.facebook.com/rosie.may.green/posts/142534599184261