After attempting to try out a Twiggy inspired eye makeup
style we have decided to go with a more subtle 50’s makeup style. My attempt
failed because the texture of the makeup wasn’t soft enough, this is probably because
when Twiggy was shot on film they used soft focus, which created a doe eye
look. In the photos that I took I tried as hard as I could to make the makeup
look satisfactory however I know that if it were used in the music video it
would look childish and not of a high quality. Looking at people such as Elizabeth
Taylor and Marilyn Monroe from the film ‘Gentlemen prefer blondes’ we have been
able to replicate the makeup in a subtle way so that we can incorporate it into
our video without it looking shockingly out of place against the muted colour
scheme.
Luckily all of the members of my group feel the same way and
have agreed upon the song Moon and moon by Bat For Lashes. I have created a
detailed story board so we can accurately film all of it in the shortest amount
of time. (Photos will be uploaded of the storyboard very soon). Tomorrow I plan
to go to our predominant location and film with Iva. We have decided that we
will get more done with half of us are doing one thing and the other are
dealing with other aspects of work that need to be completed. This time around we
are using one of the larger and better quality cameras which mean hopefully
this time around the image will make the whole thing feel better and not juvenile
as much. The story board that I created focuses on narrative rather than
performance. I felt after looking at a range of music videos I was more
captivated by narrative than performance. And that the whole performance aspect
of videos now have just become bleak show and tells of how big you can get your
hair or what stupidly little amount of clothing you can get away with or how
skinny you are. Also the narrative aspect fits well with the slow tempo and
reflective and solitary feel of the song. The story I have constructed is that
a woman is waiting for someone to come home. You assume it’s her boyfriend
however it’s not completely expressed what their relationship is based on. During
the middle of the video he comes home and she greets him warmly. The rest of
the video is them together and then lastly as he leaves and she returns to a
state of solitude and lovingness. With this idea I wanted to really capture how
someone can feel so alone and dependant on one person. In addition you could
look at the narrative as a brutal assessment on the roles of men and women in
society; that as a female she will always be waiting on him and his commitment
to her I dependable on how he feels (if he wants to see her or not). The colour
scheme will be muted colours, again reflected to cold, lonely feel of the music
video. And the props will be very minimal. Over cluttering would take away from
what little is already there and confuse the audience. We have also looked into
a way to include intertextuality in the music video. We chose to incorporate it
though costume and makeup, as such we looked at iconic people and particular
things that set them apart from others. Dita Von Teese and the 40-50’s pin up
look was an idea, again playing on the gender roles idea again. However we went
for 70’s Twiggy and her doe eye makeup. Very British and very iconic. I will be
at one point practising how to accomplish this look to a GOOD standard.
As we’ve progressed in the filming of our
music video and we are coming very close to the deadline of all of the work we
have come to a very big problem. We been looking over all of our work and I personally
believe that we are not going to achieve the best that we can with the material
that we have. The script that we have is weak and we aren’t ticking all of the
boxes that are needed such as intertextual references. In my opinion I believe
that the best possible thing that we could do would be to change the song
choice and do about 2 or 3 days of concentrated filming where we can edit
straight after and blog during. I ‘ve spoken to the other members of the team
however not all of them agree. Some of the older footage can still be used for
the new idea so we wouldn’t be starting completely from scratch. If this is
going to be a possibility then we would have to do a very detailed plan today
and begin the filming tomorrow. The song that I have in mind is Bat For Lashes ‘Moon
by Moon’.
‘Moshi Moshi Harajuku’ is the first
extended album from the Japanese pop artist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Her album cover
expresses the main notions of voyeurism.
The image is of her looking directly at the camera. She is framed in the
middle of the camera and the main aspects of her face are symmetrical, apart
form her painted on mouth expression. The colour scheme of the album cover are
predominantly, light brown and warm yellow tones, however her darker and bold
eyes contrast her fair skin and accentuates the notion of looking, making her
eyes the focal point of the whole image. This cover uses product placement very
cleverly. She advertises her line of the Dolly Wink brand of false eyelashes
and also creates an appeal for that particular hair colour dye and the
particular orange/ coral tone of blusher that she uses. A bubbly and youthful
font is used for the title of the album, the inside of the characters are clear
which means that your attention isn’t distracted from her face to the font. The
message that this cover is sending is that Kyary is a fun, ‘out there’,
youthful artist. She also communicates that she also has a twisted or more ‘devilish’
side to her through the distorted curve of her painted on mouth. This album
works well regarding the material that is giver for fans. You are able to
clearly see her face and are also able to replicate how she looks. You can buy the extended single from http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=WPCL-10983
MUCC’s album Shion comprises of a normal plastic CD case and
a more unusual sleeve made from cardboard. As a Japanese band I find the sleeve
appropriate to the construction of the CD case, typically in Japan and on
imports they would have obi strips, however as Western adaptation, the sleeve
proves to be the alternative. The front cover is an extreme close up of (I’m
assuming) one of the band members mouth. The image is stylised in a way that it
reflects the heavy, rock music that MUCC play. Moreover, another connotation to
their nationality is the characters for Shion written in the traditional top to
bottom format. On the back of the sleeve is an image of the band members, this
is in its simplest form self-promotion. And next to it the song titles in both
Japanese and English. The motif of a bloodied mouth continues onto the CD
itself, however in black and white and also the area behind the CD holding
section. The artwork booklet that comes with the CD in this case is very
informative and offers a lot of images for fans to look at. Each page is
dedicated to one of the band members and opposite is the lyrics to all of the
songs in both Japanese characters and the English alphabet. The colour scheme
throughout the CD pack is red and a black gradient scale to white. If I had to
mark this CD pack out of 10 I would mark it a solid 8. When I first brought
this album in 2008 I was really excited and pleased to find so much in the
booklet, whereas others I’ve only been presented with the thank you note from
the band members. Furthermore, the CD also offers a bonus song and when
inserted into a laptop of DVD player the music video for ‘FUZZ’. If I had to
make one change to the CD pack it would be that a poster or poster- like fold
out should be included.
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
MGMT’s album Oracular Spectacular is made out of cardboard
and is in a simple book like format where you open one side and the CD is
revealed in a little slot. This particular method of arranging a CD case is
very eco-friendly as it uses bio degradable products and nothing else. Both
front, back and the inside of the case are dedicated to images of the duo. 2 out
of 3 are mid shot photographs, and to the pleasant surprise to some girls and
guys they are topless. Furthermore, the inside photograph shows them going to
burn money (which is illegal in the US), this adds to the construction their
image and who they want their music to appeal to. The CD itself is bright neon
orange and is in the format of a classic record. The artwork booklet is in the shape
of a poster foldout. One side is a mind boggling pattern while the other is a print
of the band members writing the lyrics of the songs. The feel of the whole CD
pack is a real reflection of the music and the type of characters the duo are.
For me it’s almost like a revisionist look at hippy-ness of the 70’s and pretty
much being on acid. Extra features that
the CD also has to offer are the music video from ‘Electric Feel’, a tour photo
album and photos from the video shoot for the music video ‘Time to Pretend’. If
I had to make a change to it I would keep this consistence in their second
album! (I didn’t like it nearly as much as the one). I would rate this album
set as a 9 out of 10 because this front cover jumps out to me personally, the
type of photography that they use is not over stylised as most albums are i.e.
Lady Gaga, Rihanna etc. which appeals to me. Moreover, the extra are brilliant
and allows me as a fan to see into their lives more and feel closer to the
artists…
Bloc Party - A WEEKEND IN THE CITY
Unlike the last two CD sets the one for Bloc Party’s ‘A
Weekend in the City’ is very traditional. It opens from the right side like a
book revealing the CD on the right hand side and the artwork booklet on the
left. On the outside the cover for the front and back reflect the title of the
album with slow shutter photography used to create the effect of the car lights
going past fast. The images are of inner city buildings and motorways. White
text is used against the images to contrast the colours and make the cover bolder.
Inside the colour scheme is black with the CD itself being black and the pages
of the artwork booklet. In the booklet every other page is an image of each of
the artists. However, I’ve noticed that there’s a difference between Western
and Eastern representations of bands. In the MUCC album each band member had an
equally close up photograph and they were all styled in a way that made them
equal and just as important as each other however with slightly different
personalities for their band persona. Bloc Party’s album images of the artists
are different in the Kele the lead singer captures your attention as you flick
through because his image is the closest and the boldest, while the other band member’s
images are more fleeting. This difference shows how society in the west tend to
see and present bands, the ‘music players’ and the star (the lead singer) while
in Japan band members are more equal and each have their own target audience,
this is more clearly demonstrated though another Japanese band called An Café who
have recently split up. Each band member has his own image and together they
almost create a boy band type of appeal where a fan can pick and choose who
they like the most because there IS enough material on the bass guitarist for
instance. For the album I would rate it a 5 out of 10, its simple and it doesn’t
jump out at me in the shops, nor does it offer any other form of material about
the band other than the few images in the booklet. Nonetheless, it’s like Ronseal
as it doesn’t exactly what it says on the tin and provides me with Bloc Party’s
Album and it represents Bloc Party’s ‘cool London kids’ image.
Some students from a previous year chose to create a music
video for the song ‘Is He Really Coming Home’. After my first watch of the
music video I liked it. It was cute, simple and the interlinking between
narrative and performance wasn’t hard to distinguish however I also saw some
flaws that if I were producing the same piece of work, would have changed. I
found some of the edits were a little slow, particularly the edits in which she
would clap to the beat. Over all the transitions from shot to shot were well
done, but just those little bits slightly irritated me. Moreover, some parts
the camera was shaking where I assume it wasn’t supposed to be, while other
parts of the video used the movement of the camera to its advantage. Nevertheless
the video had an abundance of good parts. I particularly like the whole feel of
the music video; they really captured a retro London feel with all of the
bright colours and her bold eye makeup. Furthermore, I liked the idea of the
cathartic ending to the video as he finally opens the door. From this video I
will take heed that planning in advance is an extremely important aspect and
that improvising on the spot is not a good idea (which they clearly didn’t!) Additionally,
look into colour scheme and decades that you might want to replicate, such as
the 60s – 70’s in this video.
Tindersticks are a band that formed in 1991 in Nottingham,
England. They have a fairly formidable backlog on albums and soundtrack songs
for a variety of films. Their album ‘The Hunger Saw’ is solely a drawn cover.
It uses a sugary sweet style of illustration, however what is actually draw is far
from sweet. The saw cutting through the heart could be a representation of a heart
in love being broken or even a representation of the bands love of playing
music (they had been on a 5 year break prior to this albums release). The colour scheme is simple, red and a tea
stain brown-ish colour. Both complementary to one another and through their simplicity
would stand out against other bolder album covers. This album cover for me is
like a reflection of their music. Romantic and easy to listen to, however also
sad in the sense that the lead singers voice sounds as if he’s in some
emotional pain. This album cover is appealing to a wide range of people.
Predominantly I would’ve thought that females would’ve initially been drawn to
the soft and gentle style of the image however, the image itself could attract
a more male audience from its aggression? (I’m not being sexist!)
The music video for Slipknots song Psychosocial is a
reflection on the bands character and vibe. The narrative of the music video is
quite hard to see and is only shown in small fragmented moments. The more
prominent aspects of the music video convey meaning. The colour scheme of the
video is predominantly black with orange and yellow hues. These colour
contrasts are emphasised by their close proximity throughout the video. The sky
against the raging flames makes the music video compelling and watchable over
and over again, this is because the fire is flamboyant and I’m sure an expense
thing to have in a music video as such it is not seen being used so heavily in
music videos, making Psychosocial unique. Moreover, the location of the music
video is important to the whole Mise en scène, set in an eerie farm like field at
night it reflects a more conservative feeling of metal music – something scary
and dangerous. When I watched the video for the first time I got the impression
that they were taking inspiration form films such as the Texas Chainsaw
Massacre (the scene where the female lead is running for her life though the
farmyard at night). This use of horror as an association to music helps to widen
the target audience and is also good for promotional techniques. Promotionally
films have been used to great success for another one of Slipknots songs, for
the film Resident Evil. Predominantly the music video is performance based, which
again is a very traditional and a ‘typical’ approach to shooting a metal music
video such like the Hollywood Undead and Black Veiled Brides.Quick cuts throughout the video illustrate a
feeling of chaos and destruction which the visuals are also demonstrating. A
key example of this is 17 seconds into the video to about 25 seconds where the climaxes
of the drums are accentuated by the quickening of the cuts per second
harmonising what you hear with your eyes to an almost euphoric state. In my
opinion I believe that music videos that are mostly performance based other
than narrative rely more heavily on the notion of looking because they are
representing themselves in their most basic state. Making the video as
interesting and compelling as possible is the only way in which you can keep
the attraction of the audience. Slipknot use masks (for more than one reason
I’m sure) to create a compelling visuals but also to create an air of mystery
surrounding the members, again luring our more voyeuristic tendencies. In the middle of the music video what at first
glance looks like a pentagon (naïvely associated with metal music) is actually
a large Baha’i (nine pointed star) from Hindu religion. This integration of
religious textualization against aggressive music such as this, to some could
be seen as tasteless and like blasphemy. However I believe that it is only
using popular iconography to express meaning, such as the crucifix is used in a
lot of i.e. rap music or by people like Lady Gaga, and with no repercussions. The
lyrics of the music has a hidden meaning, on the top layer they would be seen
as to be about death predominantly and sacrifice however I believe that the
song is talking about the government and is in fact a political song about
capitalising on success, draining our whole lives by consuming. All in all I
really enjoyed the music video, as a band that was once amongst my favourite (once
upon a time…) I found it really enjoyable to look at it again, but from a
different perspective and with a more complex knowledge of the media and music.
