Graveyard opening sets dark tone for relationship drama

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We knew we wanted to open with a graveyard scene as the video is mainly set in an around the graveyard. To create the effect of an actual graveyard scene, we kept everything very simple and everything slow, this was all planned before the filming of the graveyard, we knew we wanted it at the start to really set the scene of our video. During the editing process we desaturated the clip to really give it the black and white typical funeral feel, and also increased the brightness levels in the clip, the cloud’s almost chasing the sun looked fairly dark but after increasing the brightness levels the natural light really shone through. The graveyard's layout is very wide, so when we set up to film, straight away the whole group knew a slow pan across the graveyard would work well. Lighting was a tricky issue for when we filmed the graveyard scene, being outside there wasn't really anything we could do to manipulate the lighting to how we wanted it to look. However the way we caught the light on the day was surprisingly very good, the strong natural sun light moves across the whole sky and the clouds follow it, almost like it’s chasing it. Before setting off to film we knew wanted a very slow shot and then eventually we came to the conclusion of a pan, we knew the position of where this shot was to be placed, certainly at the start of the video and at the end. The music is very slow and almost peaceful in parts, also, towards the end of the video where I am showing regret and visiting Claire in the graveyard, the music becomes very coral in parts, with slow mellow singing through out. This tied in very well with the church/graveyard connotations. Shot 1 – Intro shot

The mise’ en scene was very important for when we were filming the happy scenes, we had to get the props and the clothing right for both characters, the two characters featured heavily in different outfits and also different personalities, so it was important that our target market you knew about the character that was on screen. We did this two ways, the first one was clothing. I wore a vibrant check shirt and jeans, and Claire wore a long white dress. The two outfits matched the personality's at that time in the video, we were happy and laughing and our clothes represented that. On the other hand during the argument scenes and when Claire was depressed we changed our outfits to darker clothing. This represented our moods and our aggression to one another, with me wearing a dark shirt, the audience can see me as a changed character with my new dark clothing, and my dark personality. Shot 2 – Happy scene The way we showed myself and Claire’s relationship was very important for the balance in our video. The camera attached to the tripod was the best way of filming the happy scenes, if we used handheld to film these parts it would look shaky and wouldn’t match the music, or the rest of our video’s look. In terms of lighting the happy and romantic scenes we used natural light, the natural light gave us a normal scene that you would expect to see with any couple, we didn’t want extravagant lighting creating shadows. During the scene where Myself and Claire are walking along the road holding hands, the sun light became to bright and overwhelming and became quite a big problem, we watched back what we had filmed and the sun light completely destroyed any good footage we had, to get around this slight issue we changed the direction of where we walking and adjusted the camera position on the tripod.

Cyber bullying was one of the main themes in our video, it is a huge talking point in today's modern society and certainly one of the key shot’s in the video. The lighting used to film the cyber bullying messages on Facebook was just the natural light from the window and also the light from the computer screen. We wanted to keep the authenticity of a normal cyber bullying scene that would happen in day to day lifestyle, this was simply because we really wanted to reflect the cyber bullying victims. However when filming Claire receiving the text we used a portable plug in light, this was extremely effective and very useful, we could plug the light in anywhere around the room and the light was extremely bright creating a wonderful shadow which we used on other scenes as well, the shadow gave the effect that there were two sides to Claire. The camera angles used to film the cyber bullying scenes were vitally important for the success of this part of the video. When we filmed Claire reading the text messages we used a high angle shot with the use of a tripod, this created the look that I was looking down on her, and also that she was weak and defenseless. The mise’ en scene used for the cyber bullying was very important, we needed to keep the continuity of Claire’s appearance from earlier scenes, during the argument for example. We did this by dressing her all in black and also using black eye shadow, we used minimal make up for these scenes as well, if she wore foundation or lipstick it would look out of context and couldn’t fit the theme that we had built up. Intertexuality was a large part in the process of building our video, we did like the idea of having something to relate to, something that we knew was already successful, however for this scene I think our video has introduced something new onto the music video scene, I can’t think of any video’s that have clips of cyber bullying and that actually bring it to peoples attention. Shot 3 – Cyber bullying

To purvey Claire as an isolated and lonely character in our video we shot all of her depressed scenes on her own and most of the time we were above her. We used the tripod for all of these scenes and filmed using a high angle shot. Filming from above her gave the audience the impression that my character was looking down on her, and it also created the effect that she was trapped. When it came lighting these scenes we wanted to keep the dark, gloomy, black and white feel running through out. We wanted our audience to easily distinguish the difference in Claire in the happy scenes and in her lonely scenes. We made the room pitch black and then used a very bright desk lamp, it did the job very well creating a mysterious and alarming shadow behind Claire, the shadow worked very well because it looked she had two sides to her, a happy one, and a lonely one. These scenes of Claire were during the slow parts of the song, when she was contemplating about her history of the relationship, but we also used them during faster parts of the song, especially when she was angry and also when she threw the phone away after receiving the text from me, we wanted the phone to land just when the music mellowed down. Claire wore all black clothing and minimal make - up during the filming of her depressed scenes, the make up that was applied was only black make up, we had to keep the dark and black vibe running through out these unhappy scenes, if we suddenly changed to a more colourful vibrant outfit, our target market wouldn't understand. We had to keep the continuity of these scenes through out! Shot 4 – Claire’s depression and isolation

Shot 5 – The rose The rose is a very important icon that is portrayed to the audience through out the video and also through the two ancillary tasks, it represents the love between the characters, the loneliness and the hate. The rose is used on many occasions through out the video as a metaphor to represent the love of the characters, and also to represent when the two characters split up, Claire uses the rose to remember me by. When filming the rose it depended on which scene and which mood the two characters where in, for example in the happy scene where I first give Claire the rose it is very free and loose and we film it using a medium shot then tilt as we walk together, the tilt captures the happiness of the two characters whew they walk away together. However if you look at the camera angles of the rose in the more dark and depressing scenes, where Claire is alone, the rose is filmed head on using a medium close up, filming it this way it show's Claire's isolation. The camera work when filming the rose on top of the grave is also a medium close up, we didn't want any distractions to draw the audiences attention away, we wanted them to view the rose alone, like our actress now is. When filming the rose on the grave we used natural light, we wanted to keep the realness of that show the best we could. When filming Claire on her own picking the petals of the rose and also ripping up the rose, it is a dark gloomy time in the song, and the lighting represented that well, we made the room dark and shone a small bright desk lamp towards Claire generating a wonderful shadow behind her. During the research into our video we realised the video love the way you lie by Eminem and Rihanna shared with us a lot of inter-textual references. For example in our video we have the rose that the actress cherishes and loves but then however eventually destroys, and that's the same with Eminem's video, however this time it's a small teddy bear that the actress is given and that she loves but then eventually destroys.

Shot 6 – Argument scene The argument scene was a very important stage in the video, it show's the actor's splitting up and crucially their reactions of one another. To convey the power and authority I had over Claire we filmed it from a low angle and had me shouting into the camera like it was Claire's face. Filming from a low angle really represented my power and dominance over Claire, in comparison we filmed Claire using a high angle shot, this showed the audience her helplessness and how dominant I was over her. We filmed the argument scene using natural light from where we filmed, we wanted to keep this scene as natural as possible just like a normal argument. The mise' en scene for this scene at the time was very important however after uploading the footage and watching it back we agreed it would look better if we desaturated the whole argument scene, because the argument is dark and depressing time for the actress. However at the time we still wanted to keep the dark gloomy feel to these argument and depressing scenes. Both characters wore all black to represent the gloomy mood of this scene.

Shot 7 – Rose to pills The rose to pills scene is very simple, but beautifully effective. It show's our actresses life in a simple couple of seconds, happiness to depression. Which is what the video is truly about. To light this scene we used natural lighting for when we filmed the rose petals, we wanted to keep the real life situation has real as possible. However when we filmed the pills on the table we made the room a little darker, this enabled us to show the characters feelings and depression at this point very subtly. To film both the pills and the roses we used a medium close up, we felt this gave us the best and clearest view of what we were showing our audience.

Shot 8 – The opening of the eyes To commence the start of the argument we have a desaturated medium close up of Claire laying down with her eyes shut in , then the music crashes in and the clip turns into a sepia effect and she opens her eyes. The opening of Claire's eyes is like the opening of the misery that will eventually unfold before her. When editing this clip it was very important that we were in time with when the music crashes in, the opening of the eyes doesn't work as well if it hasn't got the music behind it! We used minimal make up for this scene as we wanted to keep the depressed black and white theme through out, however we did use black eye liner to enhance Claire's eyes, and her dark feelings at the time.

Shot 9 – Cross dissolves This isn’t actually a specific shot in our video, but with the amount of cross dissolves used in the video, I certainly feel it is an important factor. With The Funeral being a slow song we had to make sure our transitions matched the pace of the music. If we had used cuts the video would seem very quick and jumpy, we wanted a slow balanced pace through out. I think we used cross dissolve's best at the start of the video, the song starts with a very slow pace and it is also sung very lightly with almost coral notes in parts, using cross dissolves for this part of the video certainly reflected the pace and the mood we were trying to achieve.

Comparisons between real media products

With our video being called The Funeral it came with some obvious connotations, depressing scenes, emotional people and regret however the one we felt was the biggest was the use of black and white. We used black and white for many scenes, for example memories of the relationship and the happy enjoyful times the characters shared, the graveyard scenes and also the characters entering the graveyard. Black and white scenes are obviously used in many video’s however I think the video that our specific scenes relate to the most is Amy Winehouses Back to Black, her video features a typical funeral and her graveyard scenes are in black and white. During the production of our video we were inspired by hers to create some graveyard scenes that she had in her video. Ours Real media product

Our actress’s different sides and emotions is a key element in our video, she changes personality many times, from happy to sad, then lonely, then aggressive then eventually death. We were happy with what we had filmed of her as an isolated character, for example on her own from above her giving the impression we were in charge over her. However we were stuck for idea’s for when it came to what we could film to show she was really scared and lonely, that was until we watched a video by Eminem ft Rihanna – Love the way you lie. It was a similar story in their video with a isolated, scared and lonely actress, we were inspired by how the actress played that part so well, the next we filmed we tried to reproduce that that same pose for our video, I think it’s very clear to see the similarities! Ours Real media product

In our video the main icon is the rose, it is used as a romantic icon between the two characters, it is then used as a memory for our actress of her boyfriend, and then finally it is tore up and thrown away by our actress showing her aggression and anger towards her ex boyfriend. This sequence in our video is a very similar story in a real media product, Love the way you lie by Eminem ft. Rihanna. However in their video a toy bear is used as a symbol to represent their relationship, their memory’s and then eventually the hatred of the two characters after the bear is burned. The bear is used in the same way we used the rose, it was something the characters loved and was special just to the two characters. Ours Real media product

Making sure our visuals were in sync with the music is one of the most vital components to a music video, I think our best clip to represent this is when our actress opens her eyes just when the music comes crashing in before the argument! Whilst looking for the screenshot for the post before this one I suddenly realised another similarity between our video and Love the way you lie, again! The similarity we share this type is the opening of the eyes by the female actresses, the actress in their video also opens her eyes at the start of when the music builds louder and louder and suddenly comes in! The opening of the eyes in our video commences the start of the argument and also the start of the hatred between the two characters. Ours Real media product

Another similarity between our video and a professional music video is when the rose is firstly given to the actress at the start of the video, this is our main icon in the video with the rose being such an important figure through out the video. This is very similar to Love the way you lie by Eminem ft. Rihanna, however in their video it is a toy bear that it is used as the main icon to represent each other in the video. But like our video and their video the main icons are eventually destroyed, in ours the rose is ripped up but in theirs the bear is burned. These are icons are used to represent the characters in both videos, happiness and eventually aggression between the characters. Ours Real media product

Black and white house style. We had to keep repeating the rose, it was our key icon through out the video and really represented the characters relationship at each stage. The graveyard played a huge role in our video and it was another key element to reinforce our brand identity. During our feedback from our target market it was something they really liked about the video. Band name and album title located in the bottom right of the page, we felt our front cover image really reflected the video and we didn’t want to draw peoples attention away from it, also in our research we found that most band titles are located in the corners, away from the main image. Song titles in the same font as everything else, we really wanted the continuity to flow through out our digipak. Font: You won’t bring me down. Authenticity played a major part in the production of the digipak, we wanted our target market to pick up the digipak and to feel like it was Band of Horse's real album! We did this by adding a bar code, the band’s website and also music awards that the album has won.

The panels from the digipak below are from Two Door Cinema Club, this band has exactly the same target audience as ours. So having similarities between our panels and theirs was vital, it’s something our current target market can relate to in other media brands, such as Two Door Cinema Club. For some strange reason Two Door Cinema Club’s main icon and their brand identity for this album is a cat. However funnily enough there are some strange similarities that our digipak’s share! Our icon’s are used frequently theirs the cat ours the rose. Band name and album cover located on the CD. The Two Door Cinema Club’s front panel for their digipak has their band’s name in much larger font and takes up a much bigger space on their front panel. When you look to buy an album the customer will always look for the band not the album name. So I would change the font size on our front panel and make our band’s name bigger. We lit this scene my making the room pitch black and then have Claire sit down in front of a white wall. We used a very bright desk lamp and shone it just to the right of her to create the shadow. However we then manipulated the image in Adobe Photoshop and used the Brightness and Contrast tabs to bring down the brightness in the image, this made the whole image a lot darker which represented the dark gloomy mood that we were trying to achieve during production of our brand identity.

Both of our digipak’s used the same font, during our research into creating a successful digipak we noticed nearly all of indie/rock digipak’s used the same font through out. We were trying to create our won brand identity and I think font plays a huge part in doing that. Connections between images and album titles play a huge part in a digipak. Our pictures had to represent our chosen band’s style and most importantly their music. For example Two Door’s inside panels really represent the album name Tourist History, with the classic stereotypical South East Asian tourist pose. The background of the famous landmarks also represent their album name, the London Eye the most recognisable. Our digipak also represents this, the album name being Cease To Begin we had to have images of a graveyard with the obvious connotations from the album name being death and depressing scenes. To generate a house style through out our digipak we had to make sure the colours linked through all of our panels, for example Two Door’s digipak features a lot of blues and whites. Our digipak shares that similarity however with reds and blacks being the most prominent colours.

During the research into magazine adverts which had us visiting many bus stops and music stores to have a look at famous artists adverts, we realised and quite obviously the album title was located at the top of the page, it really draws attention to the album name and it is something our target market will recognise instantly. Through out the video we showed Claire in a lot of different moods and personalities, for example happy, lonely, depressed and also aggressive. I think having four images instead of one big image really represents our song’s main idea. I especially like the one in the bottom right hand corner, I said before about Claire having two sides and that image really shows it, we created the image by Claire shaking her head really quickly, luckily Alysha caught it very well. The rose being the main icon in our video and something our target market can really relate to the brand we created, it had to be the main part of our advert. The rose’s position isn’t purposely their because that was the only space for it, it hang’s down representing the relationship between the two characters like it’s draining away. When Alysha took that picture it wasn’t obviously that detailed and that crisp, she edited it in Adobe Photoshop using tools like the smudge tool to wipe away any imperfections and she also increased the brightness of the rose, specifically so the luscious red petals shone off of our advert! During the research process into magazine adverts we saw a lot of the time that famous magazines, radio stations and television channels gave ratings and quotes about the album. We wanted to make our whole brand authentic and especially our advert, therefore we also added quotes and ratings. The use of colour during the production of our advert was vital to the continuity process that we were trying to achieve. We made it clear that we all wanted the black and white theme to feature in our ancillary tasks, so the use of a black background and white text in our advert is an effective one. However if we had done the whole advert in black and white it would look to dark, so we decided to compliment the rose petals by making the stars of the ratings a similar shade of red. Using the same font through out the production of our ancillary tasks was a very important factor. Using this classical and gothic type font for every part of our ancillary tasks that needed text really reinforced our brand identity.

Bold album name at the top of both magazine adverts really catches the eye of the reader! Same font for the big important text in the adverts, generating that viral brand both artists are trying to create! The artists websites for more information about them, tour dates and reviews. Quotes from famous music magazines and companies. The main extravagant image on Cullum's advert being the piano relates to one of is most successful songs, his version of Rihanna’s Please don’t stop the music, where his piano explodes in the video. Our advert also shares that quality, on our advert we have mainly featured one of Band of Horse’s songs with the images and colours we have chosen. It is there most successful song and therefore the most popular one, the Band of Horse’s fans will be able to relate to the images just like Cullum's fans on his advert! Jamie Cullum's slow pace of music is represented in many way’s in his advert, the clothing, the font and also the minimal text on the advert, however I think the colours on his advert well and truly support his slow pace of music, the light mellow blues and whites are certainly in connection with his music, however myself and the group making a music video for a rock group we knew our colours were going to have to be dark and have quite a dull mood to it, apart from the luscious red that represents the rose petals. After analysing Cullum’s album advert I think the only part of our advert I would change is to mention the release date of the album, this would add to the authenticity to our product.

Graveyard opening sets dark tone for relationship drama

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