Rough Narrative

Now knowing rougly what my brand image is going to be, understanding the ideology behind the lyrics and having made a decision on the fact I am going to use a narrative/performance mix I can expand on my enitial ideas and start to develop a narrative. The narrative will be linear and interwoven with the band performance, it will however be enigmatic and may not comply to the classical narrative system despite being linear. It will portray a spirit of war destroying things seemingly for the hell of it. Men will try and stand up to the spirit only to be destroyed themselves. At the end of the band performance the spirit will initiate a nuclear explosion vaporising the band and allowing itself to be destroyed as it realises what an ugly thing it truley is. The narrative is designed to change our views from hating the spirit to empathising with it in that sense that it doesnt really understand why it has to do what it is doing either, much like the soldiers of hostile countries who would rather not fight but are portrayed to us as monsters by the media anyway. In this way the spirit acts as a metaphor for the true targets of the lyrics, cutting down on contaversy and being more subtle for a more educated audience who will realise the meaning behind it. I will create a storyboard soon to further develop my narrative and how it will fit together with the performance.

Ideology

The ideology behind the song I am using is that wars are a negative thing for all concerned and that governments should stop creating wars, it also implies governments 'crave' war. This is a contravertial statement to make, though the metal genre and convaversy go hand in hand and if a band seems convaversial it can help boost sales. The message being portrayed goes against common ideology and the ideology the government would like you to believe; much in the way the genre goes against the common market and is very much a neiche. The lyrics encourage the listener to think and to challenge their views and common views on war and on the way the government does business. This very much challenges the hypodermic needle theory as listeners make an active choice about what they feel towards the subject, the bands views are not intended to be interpreted as fact and they arent. This convaversial edge and the interleectual side which makes the listners think must come across in the brand image and especially in the video I am going to create

Logo Study

One of the first steps towards creating a strong brand image is a strong logo. Something unique in style to the artist or group and that can instantly be recognised and linked back to them. For example whenever we see a golden M on a red background our mind instantly makes the link to McDonalds, thus making it a highly effective logo. Here are some logos for bands in the same genre as the band I am using:

Here "Killswitch Engage's" logo clearly promotes the band. It displays the bands name in bold red eye catching text so that you instantly link it to the band themselves and to their music, which is ultimately the product they are promoting. Behind the text is a skull on a military looking brassard, further enforcing the bands image and the genre for people who are not familiar with the band. One look at the dark patchy skull and no one is under the ilusion that this is country and western music, it clearly belongs in the metal category.

"Deicide" have opted for a gothic font which matches the theme of their lyrics. This font is unique to them and therefore makes the logo effective. It proves that a logo does not have to be overly comlex to be effective, even a band logo

This logo by the band "Five Finger Death Punch" is another example of simple and concise logos. By having the abreviated name inside of an image of brass knuckles they are creating a sort of visual metaphor for the band name.

Simplicity seems to be a good direction to go in when creating my logo. The band name and a visual metaphor for the bands spirit is the core of a strong logo

Band Image & Branding

The main aim of any marketing department is to try and create a desireable brand image. Once this brand image goes global then the profits really start to come in. Creating a brand image adds value to your product, customers will not mind paying more for it as long as they receive the disirable brand. The music industry is no different, they try to create the band they are promoting into a brand to increase the value and potential scope of their music. Music video is an excellent medium to build or enforce an artists brand image.

This picture of the band "Children of Bodom" tries to create them a brand image. Their body language, costume, lighting, background and even the camera angle have all been diliberately chosen to try and give a message about the band. For "Children Of Bodom" that message is that they are rebelious, care free, not to be messed with and 'badass'. All artists have a brand image created for them by the label no matter what the genre they will be aimed in an appealing way toward their specific target audience. If I am to successfully create a promotional music video then I must first create a brand image for my band and then use the video to enforce this image.

Hardware and Software

After laying out my rough ideas for the project it would be a good time to explain the hardware and software I intend to use to bring the ideas to life. As I am working alone I can afford to use my own equipment and software as I do not have to edit in college where the whole group would have access to it. This is lucky as college does not have the software I need to put my ambitious ideas into place and also the sheer amount of time I will have to put into post production wouldn't be able to be realistically achieved in two weeks worth of lesson time (the allocated editing time for our projects).


Hardware list :

Sony Handycam DCR-SR37E - 60gb hard drive means no need for tapes and worrying about running out of DV tape

Sony CyberShot DSC-W180 - Lightweight 10.1 megapixel stills camera

Wacom A6 Graphics Tablet - Useful for compositing and photomanipulation programmes, plus sketching storyboards

3 X 150W Halogen floodlights - For shadow cancelling on the greenscreen

Greenscreen - Large piece of solid colour green cloth for chromakey and kelight


Software list:

Adobe After Effects CS4 - Invaluable tool useful for keying out the greenscreen, sky replacement, particle effects, grading and more

Adobe Premiere Pro 7.0 - The editing software I will be using to make my rough and final cuts

Adobe Photoshop CS - Useful for everything  from creating textures for composites in After Effects to designing the CD covers for anciliary tasks

Paint Shop Pro 8.0 - A similar software to photoshop but simpler to use and offers different effects, I have many useful brush presets for this software

Cool Edit 2.0 - Professional sofware for manipulating sound. I will use this to cut and clean up my audio track

Xilisoft Converter - File converter for changing video formats to more manageable ones

Magic Bullet Colorista & 1.5 - Plugins for After Effects for professional colour grading


If any aditional software is used I will mention it in a future post with my production notes and photos.

Budgeting

The budget for the shoot is based upon zero budgeting. This means starting off with a budget of nothing and if anything is vital to the shoot then the expense must be justified and acounted for before going out and buying props or whatever is required. Paul Morricone from Poison Pen Film delivered a seminar at Bradford Museum of Photography, T.V. and Film which I attended. In the seminar he stated that are are two ways to make a good media peice when you are limited by an outside factor. He said if you do not have much time but a big budget you can simply throw money at the project and you will end up with a desirable peice. But equally and more relevant to my circumstances he stated; if you have a lot of time but no real budget you can still create a good prduct, it is not all about the money. Drawing inspiration from his words I am sure the time I put into this project will mean it turns out a success despite the lack of budget.

Paul Morricone & the seminar at Braford

Inspiration & Preliminary ideas

As a director and visual disigner many other products and designers works influence my visions on how I envision my product and helps me realise the extent of what is possible, plus what will fit with the ideologies and messages portrayed through the music and lyrics in a visualy interesting way. As the song is about war and represents it in a negative way I want the look and feel to represent this in a played out almost melodramatic way. The most horric type of war viually and physically is nuclear war. Therefore I want the encroaching threat of the band being destroyed by a nuclear explosion at any moment. Though the feel of the peice will give the impression the band is playing in a location where a nuclear stike has already occured creating a threatening environment. This is a screenshot from the videogame F.E.A.R 2

 I will try to go for a similar effect but tweek it to be appropriate for a music video and not as visually overpowering as it must be for the videogame world. I can acheive this by playing with the contrast, grading and using sky replacement techniques and using a particle generator to simulate nuclear fallout. This will give the ominous red glowing feel a nuke gives off as it explodes

The band performance however will take place in a graveyard with this feel to it, to really drive  home the point that war causes death. Metal music videos are rarely subtle with there visual messages, rellay driving home the ideals of the band and forcing the audience to see from their point of view. The graveyard footage will be taken sepearately and the band performance on greenscreen so they can be digitaly merged. This is to avoid disrespect and means in post it will be easier to apply visual effects to the band members and background seperatelly. This does mean however my project is very heavy on the post production side, but I think this is personally where my strengths lie and will best help me create the feel I am going for an ultimatelly a good product which does what is intended of it

Muic Video Analysis

In order to decide whether to inclube band performance, narrative or a mix of the two I shall look at three different music videos from within the genre I am making mine for to see the effect each option has and to hopefully generate some ideas along the way. Each video can be viewed by following the linked title.


Children Of Bodom - In Your Face

This first video is entirely band performance. Fast editing is used to match the fast tempo of the song and post production effects such as simulated camera shakes and odd exposure effects are used to try and create a peice of visual interest and to try and portraay that the bands music is powerful. Despite this the video does feel very repetitive and does not have much value for rewatches. I do like however how they give each band member a few seconds introduction at the start of the video (just them posing with their instrument not playing), this may be something I would consider incorperating into my video.


Lamb of God - Redneck

This video includes narrative and band performance. The narrative rather cleverly is a device which explains why the band are performing rather than them just being on a random stage. The narrative has a humourus undertone and is visualy rich meaning you have to watch the video at least three times to see everything. The production cost and the size of the crew and cast make this scale of video out of my reach though, although it proves that a narrative/performance mix is definatelly more interesting than plain performance.


Arch Enemy - We Will Rise

I very much like the dark styling of this video and some of the closeups of the lead vocalist have a very dynamic feel. Again this video is a narrative/performance mix as the lead singer of this particular band is female, highly unusual for the death metal genre, therefore they are flaunting their USP by including the performance.

I am stuggling to find any death metal videos which have pure narrative. This is partly to do with te fact most metal bands, especially their front men, are egotistical. Ultimately this means if I were to make a purely narrative video the audience would most likely regect it as it is not what they are used to seeing.


Dimmu Borgir - Sacriligeous Scorn

Although this band is a different sub genre of metal (melodic black metal) the video is still worth a mention. The video features the band members and the narrative is based around them but we do not see them playing their instruments (although some lip syncing for the vocal), therefore this is the closest to pure narrative I have found. The video also apears to have been shot entirely on green screen interestingly. This shows that flashy locations do not need to be sourced necessarily and means the band can be in places which would normally not be possible or do not exist. I intend to use at least some greenscreening for my music video as I like the creativity it allows

Metal Genre

The genre I have chosen is metal but metal has many sub-genres with their own fans. In order to be more diverse and apeal to as wider audience as possible modern metal usual draws from a couple of these sub-genres. Some artists even create their own sub-genres and establish their own conventions for them to try and create their own neiche in the market (for example samurai metal which has a distinctive oriental undertone). The sub genres not only affect the music however but also the bands appearance. The black metal sub-genre is rooted in satanic lyrics and very dark riffs. The band members dress to reflect this in spiked leather and satanic armour. They also wear "corpse paint" which is a disinctive face paint style intended to make them look undead. Examp[le can be found here LINK
The particular peice of music I am using is melodic death metal with certain elements or thrash metal thrown into the mix. The combination of these two sub genres gives this band their unique selling point and increases their audience appeal.

Music

I decided to use a peice of music from the metal genre, as this is the genre I am most familiar with and I think it lends to a lot of freedom with the video. I stumbled upon a band calle SeveredFilth who have released an album under "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic" details on this can be found at this link

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

This means I am fine to use any of the songs from their album for my project and even alter then if needs be, of course acrediting the band as it is their original work.

The song "Edge of Design" is perfect as it has a very dark feel to it and could make for a very interesting video.

Inroductory Post

For the A2 coursework this year I have decided to create a music video as I beleive this option will alow me to be very creative and inovative, hopefully creating a fresh and exciting product when I am finished.