Thursday 22 October 2009

Album cover ideas






An idea we had for our album cover was an image of a fiery skull, which unfortunately didn't turn out as we had hoped. Weirdly the image turned out blue on here though its suppose to be red fire -_-. Our picture was based off an image we found on psd.tutsplus.com (pictured left).

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Tuesday 20 October 2009

Problems

Because we have essentially no footage the editing is rather sparce and there is little that can be done at this time.

Final cut Effects


Some test footage where we had a look at different effects that could be used.

Sunday 18 October 2009


A short animation I did over every individual frame of a short video of me on macromedia flash, this looks cool and works well and is an effect that could be used in our video.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

ideas

An idea me [luke] and josh had was Stephan [as he volunteered at the start of the project- which we're holding him to] to be the main chararcter in the narrative preparing for a fight, and as Vonnie is the only female in the group it makes sense for her to be the girlfriend/partner trying to stop him going. Because we dont know alot of the words of the song me and josh would perhaps be guitar and drum players which would be more focused on than the main singer.

Further planning

We are struggling to find all the instruments for our music video and actual instrument players to be in the film: because of this we are thinking that it would maybe be a better idea to do much more of a narrative film which we could be in ourselves which will make it less complicated to put together.

We are probably going to show a male preparing for a fight of some sort a different locations with certain lyrics being used as pointers on how the person in the video is going to act. We do not have a solid idea exactly of what we are going to do but when the whole group is together and with the help of Vonnies first draft story board we are confident we will be able to put together a decent enough music video.

Monday 12 October 2009

Problems with filming.

Because Vonnie was busy on sunday and the others were busy on saturday, the camera was given to Stephen, Luke and Josh to film parts of the music video that they could over the weekend.

More photoshop effects


More photoshop effects. attempted using this tutorial - http://www.developertutorials.com/blog/design/photoshop-design/creating-energy-spheres-in-photoshop-119/

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Possible Location for the Performance parts


Some photos of the outbuilding of my house which could make an interesting studio for the performance part of the video.

Photos of the lighting equipment we have.

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Photoshop Effects 2


An attempt at copying the fire hair effect on photoshop, using the same tutorial and photos from flickr. Works really well and was rather easy to do and remember.

Monday 5 October 2009

A study of Jonas Akerlund

Jonas Akerlund is most well known for his music videos having made successful music videos for people such as Madonna, Pink, Lady Ga Ga, The prodigy etc.

He started as a member of a Swedish black metal band and directed his first music video in 1988 (Bewitched – Candlemass) and in 1998 he directed his first big hit (Ray of light – Madonna), which won the 1999 grammy award for best short form music video.

Recently he has moved away from music and is starting to make it as a film director, his first film being an independent film called Spun (2002) a film shot in 22 days. His film works are few and far apart so he still makes music videos.

Jonas Akerlunds more recent videos seem to often have a dark subject matter along with dark/low key Mise en scene. He also has a tendency to mix very surreal imagery into scenes with realism. In the smashing pumpkins video Try, try, try the subject matter is the sad truth of the effects of drugs addiction on life and love but an incredibly trippy surreal scene is added in during a drug trip. The video for Sober (P!nk) shows scenes of a party which aren’t particularly unique but the images and scenes of Pink with herself that are put in are surreal in a more subtle way. The video for Paparazzi (Lady Ga Ga) also follows the dark subject matter of murder but instead of adding surreal scenes the scenes are presented in a very surreal way.

Jonas Akerlund seems to use the theme of drug abuse a lot, or as a main focus. In Try, try, try the main theme is drug abuse and he produced a short film based on this video. His other film Spun is also a film that focuses on drugs (Methamphetamine.) Another, more broad theme, is vices, desires (drugs, sexual desires and indulgences). As seen in quite a few of his videos all different sins appear (lust the most common), Paparazzi shows lust, greed, envy and wrath.

In terms of Mise en scene one aspect that seems to appear a lot is the make up on the eyes, the eyes quite often stand out on the female actresses/singer, examples of this are in Papparazzi, Sober, I miss you (Blink 182) and Try, try, try. The eye makeup is often very heavy and on paler women or background it contrasts well and really stands out.

The lipstick style has appeared a few times as well, where the women have had lipstick that is in a very definitive shape that doesn’t match their actual lips.

The lighting is quite often very dark and not very colourful, although in Try, try, try it is just dull colours that become very bright in the drug trip scene. The women in the video are also portrayed as very pale so there is a lot of contrast. In Sober, Pink wear’s white underwear as she isn’t particularly pale. The women are also highly sexualized as is a common theme of music videos, and lesbianism and bisexuality tend to feature heavily.

The video for Try, try, try is very conventional of the music type itself. The music has quite a sad and slow tone and so the shots are quite long and the movement within the scenes is quite slow, it’s not filled with action, the one sort of fight scene is very dreary and they characters move like they are drunk. Toward the end it becomes more tense and speeds up as the music’s beat and style speeds up slightly and this tension build up to the long slow scene at the end as the music fades away. The video also has shots of the lead singer singing to break away from the story, this is another very common convention of music videos. Because he is the main star of the band the video shows only him and the shots are very often close ups to promote him, even images of himself overlap others.

The relationship between the lyrics and visuals is quite subtle, in that the video shows the love between the characters and the lyrics talk about love, but there is a part where the lyrics say ‘try to hold on’ and the male character takes a pill in his hand and holds it.

Although the female character isn’t as strongly sexualized as they usually are in his videos, there is the implication that the girl was selling herself as a prostitute when the car come by them and she gets in. However the sexualisation was not what they were trying to promote in the video so this is most likely why it doesn’t feature heavily.

The makeup on the girl is quite heavy despite they’re very poor circumstances, and at the beginning she is shown applying eyeliner, again showing the focus on Jonas Akerlund’s use of makeup and his focus on eyes. During the scene the girl is imagining the shots cut back to her eyes.

The video for Lady Ga Ga’s Paparazzi shows a lot of relationship between the lyrics and the imagery, for instance saying ‘snap, snap.’ And the camera angle changing to match the beat of it whilst being very short shots makes it look like camera shots. The use of reporters and paparazzi type figures at the end also fits with the whole video.

The whole thing is promoting Lady Ga Ga and so therefore almost the entire video is always her. There are lot’s of close ups featured, as very short constantly changing shots in order to match the way a camera takes photos from lot’s of different angles very quickly.

The entire video is incredibly sexualized, with the scene of what is a sort of orgy, this mirrors the way she is shown to be much less in control of a sexual situation at the beginning, in comparison here she seems very in control as everyone is pleasuring her, catering to her whims (lust), as well as how when she is using crutches she is also in a very skimpy outfit. The way she seems to (as implied) kill all these other women shows her general control and wrath. The theme of voyeurism is also very strong in the way they show Lady Ga Ga being watched and photos taken of her.

The video uses quite bright colouring, which for the whole video is unconventional of Jonas Akerlund. But the surreal and dark tones of the video fits more to his style. There are quite often very short flashes of strange and scary images during the video. Mostly to the corpses of dead women, all killed differently, this makes the video seem much darker compared to the rather upbeat music and brightly coloured scenes.
There is a lot of use of contrast and black and white, with the makeup for one, and in the costumes. Examples are the white and dark blue suit, and the black latex outfit that contrasts with her skin, similar to how her hair, skin and eyes contrast.
At one point the video starts showing flashing images of Dalmations (black and white) this is a tad strange, but after you see a maid walk in to a room wearing black and white showing how she is meant to be nothing but a lowly dog that’s in the way to Lady Ga Ga’s character.

Jonas Akerlund’s use of surreal and dark themes is particularly interesting and his videos are very effective in cause an emotional response in the audience.

Friday 2 October 2009

Photoshop effects.

http://speckyboy.com/2009/02/25/28-incredible-photoshop-image-manipulation-techniques-and-tutorials/
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/41-nicest-photoshop-photo-effects-photoshop-tutorials/
- These two sites have some fantastic effects tutorials that we could use. The dripping pencils one is personally one of my favorites that would make a fantastic result if done much darker. (Some examples with effects I particularly liked)

Roots Manuva - Witness The Fitness

This video is more inspiration for our music video , although its sort of a comedy it fits in with our video type of preparing for a fight scene.

Never Back Down fight scene - ideas

This is a fight scene from the popular film never back down, the main thing we noticed was that the music in the background was very similar to our song. This is good inspiration for our music video because in it their may be a small fight scene.

Mood Boards


I've done two moodboards. one with elements that look more suitable to the video, stereotypical imagery to this style and example shots from other videos.


The second features mainly album cover examples of bands I was reminded of while listening to No looking Back. Two of the images however are posters for Bullet for my Valentine and Avenged sevenfold. These were the album covers that looked do able by us or had elements we could use. Some of them are nice and simple like 3 days grace's 'One-X' others have a very cool effect that could be done quite easily if based on a photo like the two Bullet for my valentine posters.
A lot of the album covers have very interesting text as well, this could give us some examples of how the text/logo for Anti-Social Burnouts could look.

Thursday 1 October 2009

Fighting film examples


One of the most well known scenes from a fighting film, used in intertextual references all the time, some small elements from this would be interesting and even reveal more about the plot. (Rocky Balboa, ~Rocky 6)


The trailer features some scenes from the film with elements we could or were going to use. Like the waking up from bed, the walking down a street while the camera moves away. (Trailer for fighting)

Pitch

As far as we can tell with the lyrics for 'No looking back' the song appears to be about fighting or a fight, so this is something to be brought in to our narrative.
The video will, hopefully, be a cross between performance and narrative. It was the video for Animal I have Become that inspired the idea to start with the main character (most likely the lead singer) waking up and preparing for a fight, by training or just simple things like getting dressed.

One piece of the lyrics we were able to decipher was 'Nothing is left, a crack through the heart, I am strong and I won't be torn apart.' at this point we could show the characters girlfriend attempting to stop him but him pushing her away, then leaving her alone to go to the fight. Some emotion on her part could be particularly effective.

The performance parts would have a lot of movement and would most likely have to be gone through several times. As a location I have a room in my outbuilding that, if cleaned out, would make a good stage and my mother has a lot of lighting equipment, the room is small but will contrast to the narrative which would most likely be outside a lot. My father has a few guitars he may let us use also, plus I have a friend who plays drums and has his own.

Though most of the video would lead up to the fight at the end I think it'd be more effective for the video to end just before the first punch is thrown, with an inter splitting at some point of the performers throwing down they're instruments to show they've finished.

We could include some intertextuality from other films which involve fights, well known scenes like rocky or fight club. For example (Though we may not use it) Running up a large set of stairs as training.
The beginning of the video could start with an alarm going off and being turned off then going into the performance as the music get heavier, or show them preparing while the drum beat is on.
 
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