Update on the CD Cover

This is how the inside of our CD Cover is looking. We hope to add a photo of the band who will appear in our music video on the left hand side next to the Bio and above the checkerboard pattern. We have used the warp tool in order to bend 'The Specials' text around the shape of our CD slot. We have decided to use a different font on the left hand side of the CD cover in order to allow a professional look.

Recent news from the band

We have been studying more of the website of the band, and this is one of their most recent posts...

“A FEW VERSES ON THE SUBJECT OF TUITION FEE RISES”

Money spent on devastation
Should be spent on education
Same degree for rich and poor
No selection any more.
Most people never get a chance
Their lives are planned out in advance
Poor education by the state
Means they can’t differentiate
Those in power know the score
They never wanna educate the poor
Those in power know the story
Never educate the poor
The right is wrong the left is right
Education is our might
A means to help us find a way
To welcome in a better day.
JB

Audience Feedback of Music Video

We received feedback from peers in our media class on our music video they rated our music video on the following sections;

Overall Creativity: Good
Holding a shot steady, where appropriate: Excellent
Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate: Excellent
Shooting material appropriate for a music video: Good
Mise-en-scene appropriate for music video: Good
Editing making the meaning apparent to the viewer: Good
Varied shot transitions, captions and other effects that are appropriate: Good
Matching sound with images and editing to the music: Good
Overall the music video so far is: Good

Our audience feedback shows that overall our music video is good :)

Advanced Portfolio Critical Evaluation (Plan)

Over the Christmas Break we have the task of completing the evaluation of our music video, this evaluation is separated into four, 250 word sections. These sections are;

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

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

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Differences between modern and old music videos

As you can see both videos are extremely different. Not only is it the amazing difference with the music, but also the whole sexuality, image and look of the video. The brightness and colour and change of technology makes the videos also contrast. The 30 year gap between between the two videos explains a lot and also the differences in genre. But then if you were to compare Lady gaga and Madonna you would see many differences;

.

The 30 year gap in these two has the obvious differences in technology but the general story line and look is amazingly similar

The CD Cover (Latest)

The CD Cover is currently under production in Photoshop, we are looking to produce something very simplistic yet a product of which stands out to the rest. We believe by using the same font as the website, visitors of will be remembered of our website and then hopefully buy our CD. We need to complete the actual CD design and also the inside of the case designs.

The Website (Latest)

Here we have the latest screenshot of our website. We have used a black and white checkerboard effect of which is common to The Specials and also we have used one of the bands images as a template for a photo from our production, we have made the image look old with the help of photoshop and added crease lines again using photoshop. The red font of which we have used for the links to certain sections of our website we believe stands out, as red is a very standing out colour, we believe using the colour red will direct visitors to our sub sections in the website.

Filming...

This week no filming has been completed due people being ill or absent. The snow days 2 weeks ago also affected our filming as in our first shooting of our music video snowy weather didn't occur. The forecast for the following weeks looks hopeful so we should be able to get the rest of our music video completed before the deadline in January.

The Website

The website is near complete. We have used the colours black and white of which are the official colour of The Specials. The colours black and white have been used together on our website in a checkerboard effect, this effect can be seen in The Specials albums. This effect has been used along with a bold font with each letter of The Specials occupying a square of the checkerboard background. We have used photoshop to produce the checkerboard background and we have also used photoshop to make a standard photo of The Specials look vintage/ old fashioned.  We have used a black box along with a white font so that we can supply some information on The Specials band in terms of their history and success. A white shadow has been used around the black textbox. We have website links at the centre-left of the screen, The word 'Link' occupies a black square in a white font and the links below occupy a white square in a black font.

Filming...

In the coming weeks we will be filming the next part to our music video, which will depict the main character continuing on from his tough day at work, and finishing the day at his home. This will show him having his dinner, and having a generally boring night before going to bed. In the new year we will be filming the final sequence to our music video, the band performance - more information on this will follow.

Here are a few screen grabs from the early stages of the editing process of our music video in the iMovie program:

As you can see we have just finished editing the first half of our video, and have been experimenting with some FX. We are so far pleased with our progress.

CHANGES TO MUSIC VIDEO

After our first day of filming we have decided to change the fist scene within the house. We have switched it so he starts at work then goes home. This will show what he does when he gets home. We can also integrate the dreams into a shot of him sleeping.  As a group, we have decided that this will work a lot better, and help the video to become more fluent. That's it.

Website Design

In this lesson we began the basics of designing our band website for The Specials, here is a screen grab of the beginning of our work. We decided to use the main colours associated with the band, black and white are the usual colours used on The Specials album covers, the red, we believe goes very well with the black and white, the colour stands out and is very in your face and relate to The Specials as their messages are usually very powerful in their songs and related to political instability during this time. We needed a background of which allowed text to stand out and we believe by using a fill effect of black and white we have achieved this.

Music Video Analysis

In this video Mark Ronson uses bright neon colours and the image of the New Romantics of the 1980s. There is also a relationship to the electronic era of the 80s with the use of digital clocks, relationship to star wars can also be seen. The image relates to the cd covers and website by using a variety of styles. The image of sunglasses in Mark Ronson's album 'Record Collection' can be seen in this music video due to the fact that the female in the video is wearing these.


Mark Ronson - The Bike Song from Kairos Mosaïque on Vimeo.

MARK RONSON CASE STUDY.

Visual Style :
Image of singer himself, although the cd is made of a mix of people. Quite individual style, trying to make a point with it's creativity.

Colour:
Bright, stands out. The bold colours represent aggressive emotions. In your face.


Connotations:
the fact the cd cover is ripped implies how he is ripping off other peoples songs.





Visual Style:
This CD cover uses a range of Vinyl record covers places on top of each other. Each cover contains different colours and styles of font. The cover have been put together to create the image of his face of which is shown in different styles and colours.

Colour:
In this cd cover the col
ours used in this are very contrasting. there is the use of bright neon colours against dark colours. It represents the electronic era of the 1980s.

Inspirations:
This album is very inspired by the single 'Rio' by Duran Duran . The left hand side of mark ronsons face uses the same style of painting as the painting style used in the Duran Duran single.

Filiming

Our first day of filming will be on the 14th of November. This is a sunday, we would have prefered a closer day but due to commitments (such as work and birthdays) we were unable to do it on any other day.
ON THIS DAY
- we shall film in the office location
- the house location
- and the bit where he's having fun in the leaves.
  we chose to do the leaf scene by trent bridge

All places marked with an x are our locations. Apart from Bilborough (where our pefromance will be) they are all reasonably close to each other.

The current weather forecasts are;

Although the weather is mostly wind and rain, this will possibly add to the lonely effect he is suppose to have.
The aim is for people to feel sorry for the character which will look more effective with horrible weather.

Website design

when designing the website we took into account all the things which relate to two tone and scar for example the fred perry and black and white checks, this was easy to to as we had researched all of these previously. The information put on  the website is clearly the most important and so the previous website research we did was useful. Even though this is not the final design we have tried to achieve a good idea as to what the website will look like and what information will be included we have also tried to achieve a good representation of the genre.

Locations

This is a picture of where the character will be sat. It's simple and what we were looking for. Another good thing is the large blind outside the window, this will stop continuity errors, e.g. wrong time of day and also stop people from appearing in the shot. We will also add a computer to the desk.

This will be one of the main places for our location, we feel it's going to look really good and realistic. We got permission for the office use due to my uncle owning it. There are no real dangers there.
Our other locations will be by trent bridge (the leaves scene) a field for football, bedroom and a room/ hall for the performance.

                  

Written Storyboard

Here we have the written storyboard for our music video production. The following pages give detail on camera shot types, camera angles, duration of shots, the in point of the song and details of what will be seen in each shot. Our music video consists of a series of 54 shots all ranging from a number of seconds. In the written storyboard we have tried to incorporate performance with a narrative. The use of Close-Ups of instruments and characters will allow us to promote the band in the best possible way.

Storyboard

Here we have the drawn storyboard to our music video of the song 'Rat Race' by The Specials. I misread the fact that only the key shots had to be drawn so there is slightly a bit too many drawings here but the more the better :). As you can see my artwork isn't the greatest but basically shows the visual sequence of our music video. We have tried to incorporate a variety of shot types, angles and movements from the camera. The basic background to our music video is following the life of a business man who is 'working for the rat race' and 'wasting his time'. At the end however the business man is seen playing in a band with his friends leaving all that business life behind him and enjoying his life. Throughout the first part of our music video the business man will be seen either wearing a 'rat mask' or 'rat make-up' of some sort.

Cd cover analysis

THE JAM-
English punk rock band formed in 1972 (five years before the specials) hits include Town called Malice, Going Underground and The eton rifles. We really like the simpleness of this case and the fact the band is all shown. Also the clothing is quite good, along the lines of stuff we would like to use.

MADNESS- pop/ska band formed in 1976. Early in their career, madness were linked to skinheads that the media throughly disliked and linked to skinheads. The bands relationship with the skinheads varied and band members were unhappy with the skinhead link. Again we loved the clothing in this picture, and also the fun style, and how the band look like they're having a good time. 

Permission to use: The Specials - Rat Race

In order to use Rat Race by The Specials for our music video, we are required to request permission from the artist or the artists label to use their song, therefore we sent and email to Jason and Peter of '2Tone Records'. 2Tone Records is the record label that own the rights the The Specials, and all of their material. 


Here is a print screen copy of the email we sent:

Website Analysis

We looked at some different websites relevant to our artist and the styles behind the ska music genre. 




Here are a few websites we analysed...

http://www.fredperrysubculture.com/featured_mainpage.asp

• Firstly we looked at the subculture section on the official Fred Perry Nottingham Website. Fred Perry is one of the pioneering fashion labels in terms of the 'rude boy' style associated with ska music. This section of the website gives information on new music, the history of Fred Perry and the culture that surrounds it.

• Here you can see one of the bands that is featured on the website, 'Funeral Party'. Funeral party are an American Indie Rock band from California. Indie Rock music is relevant as it is a genre that is heavily musically influenced by the rude boy era in the eighties. Also this proves the effect that era had in the USA, when Ska music began to emerge there in the 1990s.

http://www.clubska.com/

• The second website we analysed was the 'Club Ska' website. Club ska is a night of high quality ska music organised by Roy Ellis

• Roy Ellis is a man well known to those on the UK reggae scene.  For many years Roy lead and sang with The Pyramids producing hits like ‘All for you’,‘To Sir with Love’ and ‘’ Stay with him’ on labels like Trojan, Dr Bird, JJ and many others.

• In 1969 Roy and Monty (Ellis' band) scored big with their terrace classic - ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’ with which ‘Skinhead Reggae’ was born.  Described as “the forefathers of 2Tone” by Jerry Dammers - SYMARIP are the real deal.

http://www.thespecials.com/index.php

• The third website we analysed was the official website of the artist of our music video, The Specials. This website features all sorts of information and media from the band, including tour dates, a forum and the bands music videos.

<< Here is a picture of an official image of the band, entitled '2Tone'.

• The fourth website we analysed was the official Madness website.

• Madness are another ska band from the eighties who where pioneers in terms of the ska resurgence that occurred in the UK in that era, and are regarded, as well as the specials, as one of Britain's great ska bands. 

• Similarly to The Specials website, the Madness website is heavily based around media, images and band news which includes forthcoming gigs, releases etc. And also like the Specials website, it became a lot more active since the bands reunion in the 00s. 

http://blog.madness.co.uk/

http://www.2-tone.info/

• The final website we looked at was the website of 2tone records, the record label of The Specials, which was in fact founded by former members of the band.

• As you would expect, the website shows images and information regarding the artists on the records labels, which, as well as the specials features other popular ska bands such as Madness and Bad manners.

We did this website analysis with a view to gaining more of an insight into the culture of The Specials era, including fashion, the ethos and similar music. Therefore we feel this could be beneficial in how we approach making the music video and the conventions.

CD cover research

We looked at recent and older cd covers. We particularly liked the Madness one & Sex pistols. Although both are very different we really liked the use of colours and layout of both. For instance the graphic simple details of the sex pistols cover is really effective and to the point. I also really liked the "BLEACH HOUSE" cd cover. It's simple but gives off a really nice "indie vintage" effect. Although i didn't know the band i was drawn into looking into the band because of their cd cover. This is something we must keep in our minds when making our own cd cover.