Here is the Final Cut for my music video for Abandoning Sunday's single, "Real Talk", taken from the latest album, "Struggle".
The video follows two characters, Elliott and Tom, as they try to resolve the issues in their lives. Elliott is struggling in his relationship and begins to question his faith, and his faith in himself, as he tries to become happy in his relationship again. Meanwhile, Tom feels alone amongst his friends, and much prefers the solace of isolated locations where he is at one with his thoughts. Unbeknownst to him is how much he is missed by his friends, who go out searching for him, and find him as he exits the forest, and show him how much they care for him.
The video is a narrative one that follows the structure set out by Todorov's Narrative Theory, and adheres to many of Goodwin's theories about music videos, including the link between lyrics and visuals, that is detailed more in Question 1 of my Evaluation.
This is a General Update post to bring my blog up to date with everything that has been completed.
As of earlier this week, all Evaluation Questions were completed and can be found under the Evaluation label of my blog. However, due to software in-capabilities at home where I have been completing the questions, some things need to be done, which will be completed in free time when I return to college after my trip to Iceland for another one of my subjects (I return Wednesday 15th). These include:
Video recording of the script for Question 2 of the Evaluation
Transfer of this footage into Final Cut and adding appropriate images to create the Director's Commentary
Adding appropriate images to the Prezi for Question 4
Any corrections/suggested improvements on the questions
Also, the shots needed to improve the first draft into the final cut have now been filmed, and will be dropped into Final Cut when I am back to create the finished product. This means that, by the end of next week, all construction pieces will be complete, and soon after, all evaluation questions will be completed too.
Afterwards, attention will turn to the exam. Nearly there!
Here is Question 4 of my Evaluation, displayed on web-based presentation software Prezi.
Link to view on Prezi:
http://prezi.com/2dyelwqnk3td/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
Update: 24/4 - Images added and evaluation completed.
Update: Half Term: Due to low loading speeds at home, and the potential of Prezi crashing, I still need to upload some supporting images to the Research, Planning and Evaluation sections of this Prezi. These will be added when I am back at college, at the same time that Question 2 is recorded/edited.
Update: 20/4 - Full edited directors commentary completed and uploaded.
Update: 15/4 - Unedited directors commentary filmed and uploaded. Now in the process of editing in clips and images.
SCRIPT
In order to create a professional collective product for my A2 Media Project, I recognised the importance of synergy throughout my texts and main product. Through constructing my music video, and through conducting research into the conventions of both music videos and digipaks, I established an understanding of the ways in which these products interlink and support one another in their design and content. I endeavored to replicate this in my own media product in order to maximise the effectiveness of the product and make it usable be my artist.
Firstly, before I began with my own project, I conducted various pieces of research, into the music video, and into digipaks and magazine advertisements, the ancillary texts that would go alongside my video. It was important to consider the genre of my own artist when conducting this research, as different genres utilise different conventions in each of these texts- for instance, a "pop" music video would differ hugely from a rock video in content, imagery, and representations. Hence, I looked at a British Band that I likened to my own artist, Abandoning Sunday, a music project that varies between rock and acoustic, but attracts fans of multiple genres- so I studied a music video, digipak and advertisement from Norfolk-based Deaf Havana. Fronted by James Veck-Gilodi, the band have changed in their style almost continuously, and their products have done so accordingly to accommodate their latest genre. Most recently was the album "Old Souls", which served as the inspiration for my digipak, and the accompanying Old Souls tour, which I analysed for a poster. In the analysis of Old Souls, I briefly looked at the lead single's music video, "Mildred (Lost A Friend)" (my main analysis was of Hunstanton Pier) in order to draw links between the products.
Immediately a theme became apparent, which could be related to the Uses and Gratifications theory - on the digipak, the front cover shows a small child running across a pale beach. The theory states that audiences seek out the media that they wish to consume, and focuses on what the audience does with the media text, rather than what the media does to audiences. Where other bands would perhaps overtly brand themselves over their covers where audiences are given a prescribed view, such as in pop music, the blank canvas of the inside cover creates an open interpretation of the band for the audience to make their own "use" of, and decide what it symbolises in terms of the bands ideologies. This is a much more descriptive approach in which there is no set idea of the band given in the digipak, making them more accessible to wider audiences, who may feel that they can get in to the bands music for this reason. This could be applicable to my artist, as an unsigned artist looking to increase their following, and so translating this into my own digipak was something I seeked to do. However, creating the link was then important. It should be noted that the theme of children continues from the digipaks into the music videos. The video for "Mildred (Lost A Friend)", follows two children throughout the video, one of whom bears a striking resemblance to the same child used on the front cover of "Fools & Worthless Liars", and could perhaps be an older version of the child on the front of Old Souls. It does depict the children as doing some adult tasks, such as working in an office, and does also feature several shots by a beach, continuing the coastal theme of this digipak. This research was vital into creating my own product, as I now understood how to make my own products effective and to construct them with synergy in mind. Like with Deaf Havana's set, I knew location could be an easy link to create. My digipak is shot mainly on Thorpe Marriott Green, which is nearby to and the same location to where I film some of my shots in the video. These shots include Elliott's character at the end of the video as he is smiling, and then some of the opening sequence shots - the shot where "Real Talk" is shown in the trees, for example, is the same exact place where the back cover image for the digipak was taken, and the opening time-lapse over the field is the image for all 3 of the inside panels of the digipak. Having 3 panels covered by the same image was something inspired by Old Souls which I discuss more about in Question 1, but I found this to be effective, and the image also created direct links with my video, creating synergy.
This of course is the most obvious and most basic link between the main product and the ancillary texts, but tends to be one of the most effective. I also created a house style to apply to all of my products. All artists tend to have a logo and then a specific text font that they use across all of their products for a specific album at least, and so I have replicated this to enhance the inter-connectivity between all three texts. The font in question is "Please Write Me a Song", which was selected after a lot of deliberation, as it wasn't too brash or bold, and reflected the nature of my artist. This text is seen in my video for the text "Abandoning Sunday" and "Real Talk" at the start, and for "Struggle" being shown at the end, and is the main font used in both the digipak artwork and in the magazine advertisement.
Whilst on this topic, the two ancillary texts link very strongly through content- naturally, the advertisement has the front cover of the digipak taking up a large proportion of the page, which clearly links the products together, and through the font being the same and including some of the track names from the album on the poster, "Words" and "In Your Dreams", but also more subtly- the backdrop of the advertisement is taken along Marriott's Way, the same place where the back cover image was taken, just a little further down, and so shares some of the thematic meaning that was constructed originally with the digipak. I discuss this throughout my blog in regards to location, in how I make a religious reference to the famous epic poem "The Divine Comedy" by Dante, specifically Inferno Canto I, wherein I reference the line "midway upon the journey of our lives I found myself within a forest dark, for the straighforeward pathway had been lost." As I discuss in my digipak analysis of my own product, This path may seem monotonous and endless, but ultimately there is an end- the brightness of the image contrasts the literal meaning of the word "struggle" like in the front cover. The shaded areas could be seen as representative of these struggles along the path, and the brighter areas offering the positives- a simple Light vs. Dark analogy that gives clear connotations that relate back to "the struggle", the name of the album. The advert is in keeping with the autumnal theme established in the digipak's images, and there are regions of colour contrasted with the browning leaves, helping these colours to stand out, such as the yellow leaves to the right and the leaves that are not yet brown in the foreground. The bare trees and dying leaves are perhaps indicative of some of the issues the album deals with, such as themes of sadness (winter or seasonal depression could be dealt with here), but more so gives a sense of tranquility. Both of these relate back to the issues that are dealt with in the music video. There are religious references in both halves of the narrative, as my artist is religious and so I thought it important to reflect these ideas, such as Tom finding himself "lost within the forest", like in Dante's poem, and Elliott's loss of faith in the Church more overt, but linking to ideas of hopelessness, depression and so on. Overall, I feel that the links between my products are very effective. The digipak, although minimalistic, appears aesthetic and professional. It links to the main product and advertisement overtly through locations and the house style, so that the audience immediately recognises certain aspects and associates it with Abandoning Sunday. Furthermore, there are more subtle links between my products which makes the whole package have synergy, including the references to themes, religious context and issues dealt with in the song and album as a whole. There are of course things that do not link- I do not have the dog on the front cover in my video, for example, but the dog links in with the ideas portrayed in the video, the symbolisation of hope, freedom and happiness, which is shown towards the end of my video as the narratives are resolved. I wanted to create something that was, although inspired by previous products that I have known to be effective, unique to the artists style and lyrical themes, eye catching and professional, and I feel the combination of my texts is effective enough to have accomplished these aims.
This will prevent images and text from moving randomly across the screen and obscuring the other images. Due to pad let's restrictions, most of the supporting images can be found at the bottom of the document. If this does not work, the document can be viewed as an image below, but this does trim some of the far right hand side. Text boxes can be read fully by clicking on them.
