Star Analysis

In earlier posts we have already looked at many professional musicians and described how they influenced our work, these have been musicians such as Michael Jackson to bands such as McFly and Fall Out Boy- but I have decided to do a full analysis of a band that has heavily influenced me personally though our journey: Tenacious D.

     Initially they were low-key and performed local gigs until Jack Black made a name for himself as an actor, which lead to the bands infamous 1999 television series and instant cult fame. The bands comical styling’s were a hit with their songs consisting of humorous lyrics and themes- these included 'F*ck her gently' and 'Karate' as well as their best known 'Tribute' which were all released in their 2001 album 'Tenacious D'.
     In 2006 the band released their first feature film and second studio album both entitled 'The Pick of Destiny' which included cameos from stars such as David Grohl and Ben Stiller. Their Music Videos and Film use a lot of Goodwins' Points as they name their songs after comical lyrics and act in their videos accordingly, this can be viewed as them using the 'Intentional Theory' as the pair are using those lyrics and acting in a humour manor intentionally to meet the expectations of their audience.

'Tenacious D' Album Cover

As you can see their debut album used a very similar cover concept as ours, the black and white contrasted with colour (their devil and our title) to bring emphasis to the coloured object.

This video gets a lot of its comedy value through contrasting its mise en scene in a similar way to us. The video starts with Tenacious D starting a gig at a talent show, as the narrative progresses the mise en scene gets wilder and wilder- their costumes become more stereotypical of ‘rockers’ and their actions become those of rock and roll fantasy, such as jack screaming at the man who’s head explodes.

                The filming and editing is initially basic with cuts between mid-shots to close-ups but as the video becomes wilder so do the shot types with zoom-ins of the band and tracking-shot of a woman collapsing. Our video starts with a faster pace but in a similar way our shots get more interesting as our narrative progresses and our 'party' gets wilder.

Here’s a two-shot from the video showing Jack and Kyle (Tenacious D) dressed in their stereotypical 'rockers' clothing. As you can see in contrast to the photo of the pair at the top, they are wearing metal bands, sleeveless tops and make-up. The Lighting in this shot is also that of the rock and roll mise en scene, with deep purple and bright lights.

Tenacious D are still producing cutting-edge comical music, that influenced bands such as The Midnight Beast and our work, as well as touring the world with live performances.

Filming #3

We have now completed our office-scenes and will film our exterior shots in Oxford this Friday. We have started editing, but getting the filming finished this week will allow us to concentrate completely on the editing process to get optimum results.
    While filming yesterday evening will managed to capture scenes that we created from scratch as we try to improve upon the original video, these consisted of a tracking-shot down a flight of stairs, an ariel shot of Paige ascending stairs and extreme close ups of us clapping. We did this as we want to make this video our own and put our own creative ideas into it.

Easter-Eggs

A virtual Easter-egg is an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program, web page or video game. The term was coined- according to Warren Robinett- by Atari after they were pointed to the secret message left by Robinett in the game ‘Adventure’

I and Liam first discovered the concept of an Easter-egg in the film ‘Dead Silence’. The film is based around a young man who is followed by the ghost of Mary Shaw who has died but lives on in her ventriloquist dummies. The director of this movie is James Wan who also directed a selection of movies from the ‘Saw’ franchise. In a scene of Dead Silence where there are over one-hundred dummies in a room, the director has placed the infamous ‘Jigsaw’ doll from the Saw movies in the foreground of a shot that focuses on the background. This is a common example of an Easter-egg where the director has linked his past work into a current film.

Here is the scene from 'Dead Silence' where Jigsaw can be seen in the fore-ground in front of a pillar.

This inspired me to discuss with our group about the possibilities of putting an Easter-egg into our work. We decided we should do this through the changing of Liam’s tie colour (as his is the least visible as he wears a waistcoat). So through filming Liam has been bringing in different colour ties from the original baby blue to an electric blue to a classic black tie. I think this also mirrors our mise en scene of adding somthing a little-different to our political environment.

Digipak Evaluation

I have finished our Digipak which is of a three-cover fold out design. The outside covers are in a black and white effect which continues the continuity of our poster , while the inside covers are blue, yellow and red to represent the three political parties- each of us are mirroring one of the three party leaders on these covers. The contrast of black and white and bright colours has been a running theme in our products as it represents the contrast of political and humorous themes in our music video.

                The Digipak front cover clearly states our band-name and track-name in bright orange and green as they stand out from the black and white backdrop; this follows the conventions of a mainstream musician who will try to self promote and make their name visible at all oppertunities. It is consumer friendly and comes with free ‘bonus’ merchandise in the form of our promotional poster (located in a flap I designed).

                Creating the Digipak has been a long process that has come through research, planning, development, different designs and compromises before finally reaching our final piece. We looked at Digipaks from established artists to get inspiration, it was here I decided I would like to add merchandise to ours and that a black and white colour scheme can be effective, this was used effectively on a Michael Jackson cover. The planning and development stages allowed us to experiment with various designs that you can see on my earlier blog posts, it was through this development of ideas that we finally came to a design we liked and found powerful and effective. We then took our photos in wooded areas to achieve a natural effect and in front of green-screen and plain backdrops so that we could edit in the bright colours of the political parties. We loaded these photos onto the computer and began editing them on Photoshop before transferring them to Windows Publisher to put together the final design.

I feel it is important to keep CDs and Digipaks around, as in the world of Web 2.0 they can easily be forgotten and swapped for Mp3 downloads. Sometimes, to have a physical case and CD can be a joy and so am happy to have created one myself.

                I have annotated our final piece so it is easier to understand how it all fits together and where the poster and CD are slotted in.

FINAL Digipak

FINAL Magazine Advert / Poster

This is my final magazine advert / poster I have designed. It has been a long process in which I have experimented with different designs, taken inspiration from established bands and their designs- such as The Stereophonics and Michael Jackson, while creating many of my own ideas from scratch.
     The contrast of black and white and the brighter colours will catch the audience’s eye and boost sales while also representing our song and musical style. The contrast in colours represents our contrast of political mise-en-scene and comical lyrics.

Mise en Scene

 Mise-en-scène, defined as ‘An expression used in theatre and film to describe the design aspects of a production’ has despite this, been called film criticism's "grand undefined term" because the term has many different meanings. In simple terms it  is why we used the set and props we did and what they represent. In French it literally translates as ‘putting into the scene’ and generally consists of:

Setting

Decor

Props

Lighting

Costume

Make-up

Colour

And Character Body Language and Movement

The Mise en Scene props and costume of our piece is formal attire with a comical twist, me and Liam have achieved this by wearing suits while Paige wears a formal jacket and skirt. We have done this is promote our serious message of voting and having a say in who runs our country, intertwined with the comical approach of our video that will grab the attention of our teenage target audience.

The Setting and Decor was that of a stereotypical office area with computers and props such as the flip-board. We then added posters with the band name ‘TNB’ (The Midnight Beast) around to compliment our colloquial twist.

Lighting and colour was also stereotypical of an office with greys and blacks to set the scene, which was a direct contrast with the energy of ‘fun’ of our dancing and lyrics. We used a flashing light technique for Liam’s rap which is typical of rap videos. This was achieved by leaving his TV on, muted, behind the camera.

Body language and movement was the key element used to portray the message of our video. Comically we reverted from the ‘office’ norm with our dancing and singing to show the political system can involve the younger generation. Hopefully this provoked a reaction from our audience while getting our point across.

Other props used have included cheese, wine and posters. Goodwin's second point is to use props to make a relationship between visuals and lyrics, an example of this is when I spin on my chair and sing 'We'll welcome you with the Cheese and Wine' and show the camera cheese and wine.

             To achieve our 'office' and 'London' sets we have used filming locations (reccies) in school ICT rooms and Oxford.

Goodwin's Points

Goodwin’s points

1.      Music Video demonstrates genre characteristics (e.g stage performance for metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)

Our Video demonstrates its comical genre with its contrast of political mise en scene and humorous lyrics and dancing.

2.      There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)

This is a shot of me holding cheese and wine as the lyric ‘We’ll welcome you with cheese and wine is heard.

3.      There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)

The music is upbeat and reflects our dancing.

4.      The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (visual style. eg Michael Jackson's single white glove)

We do not have any recurring motifs as this is our first video, but there are close-up shots of us as the artists.

5.      There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes ect) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

We have many shots of Paige dancing throughout the video.

6.      There is often inter-textual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos ect)

The whole video if a reference to the real life political system, this is shown though our costume and locations. We also reference the Midnight Beast’s original music video by putting their name on many of the computer screensavers.

Auteur Theory: Phil Harder

To further analyse the Auteur theory I have researched Phil Harder as an example. He is an established music video director who has worked with artists such as the Foo Fighters and Prince.
     He is a director who follows the Auteur Theory as he likes to have full control of the video he is directing. He tells the musicians and actors where to be and he films the shot types he wants, he then edits them with his company as head of production.
    Phil has first hand experience of the music industry, as in the 1980's he was part of the band: Breaking Circus. It's from here he retired from the music band scene to produce music videos, he has also directed television adverts and short films.



This is the music video 'Next Year' by the Foo Fighters, directed by Phil Harder.

Mise en Scene

The theme of the video is the Apollo 11 moon mission and cuts between real USA NASA footage to shots of the Foo Fighters in space suits and acting as the crew of the shuttle. There are many mise en scene 'easter eggs' such as the band planting a 'Foo Fighters' flag on the moon rather then the American Flag.

Camera Work

As with many rock genre videos, there are many close-ups of band members aswell as tracking and mid-shots of the full band. Taking advantageof the 'zero gravity' effect of space, there are many shots of the band members 'floating' towards the camera. A lot of the footage is original NASA footage and to work this in a lot of the band footage is filmed in this style, with 'classic' looking camera works.

Editing

The editing of the Foo Fighter footage fits in with the original NASA footage. As the band are working in 'space' there are faster edits to represent the important of their work. It is a delicate matter, as when this work was done for real it, it was important NASA work.

Filming #2

We have now done three nights filming and just about finished all the 'office' scenes and will start filming in London. We have managed to film a range of shots with Mid-shots, Close Ups, Zoom Ins and Pans to name just a few. The Mise en Scence has been consistent with us wearing suits and the use of 'TNB' posters.

Filming #1

This week we started filming. We met up after school and used an I.C.T room to simulate an office. We brought all our planning and research together to get the best out of our filming and created the mise en scene by putting up ‘TNB’ posters we had made and wearing our suit costumes. We used one of the school cameras with a tri-pod and filmed a range of shot types such as zooming in a mid-shot to a close-up.
                It was an enjoyable experience and we managed to film the first 40 seconds or so of our video which was a lot of the office scenes.
                We’re going to carry on filming this week before we load our film on the computer and begin editing.

Digipak Covers

These are our final Digipak covers, the black and white outside covers contrasted with our colourful inside covers with depict us imitating the three political party leaders. Inside the Digipak will be our CD and our poster as bonus merchandise, the inclusion of our poster was influenced from Digipaks we earlier researched.

Paige's Digipak Photo

This is Paige's Digipak photo where she reflects Gordon Brown using the Reflection Theory. I will add these to the other photos and create our final Digipak. Our whole piece uses the Reflection Theory as we reflect the real world situation in our work.

We took her photo in front of our green-screen and added in the red background with Photoshop.

CD Cover Analysis

While looking at my 'CD Cover Examples' post, I noticed the similarities between one of the CD covers we researched and took influence from, and our own cover:

Both ours and Michael Jackson's covers use the black and white shadow effect to emphasise of body features, in his case it's his deep eyes and in ours, our faces. We both then use colour in our titles so that stand out and catch the audience's eyes.
     We have taken influence from many artists and ideas to create our cover and Digipak- but we hope this shows we're definitely on the same wave-length as one of the world’s greatest ever musicians.

Improving upon the Video

We chose our video, 'House Party' by The Midnight Beast, because we enjoyed it's contrasting themes of humour and politics and felt it cleverly got an important message about voting out to a whole new generation. We liked the sets and costume and wanted to be part of the revolution, but from the eyes of media students- we would like to improve on the filming and editing for our final piece.

This shot is a prime example of a shot with half a face left in. What would be a clean mid-shot is ruined due to something that could have been re-filmed or edited out.
    Also, there is a lack of transitions in the video which we would like to improve on. In our storyboards we have already improved a scene, where we will firstly have the camera focused on 'Big Ben's' clock and zoom out to show us dancing to our song.

Poster Analysis

This is an example of a magazine advert that influenced our own, the powerful contrast between black and white and the gold logo create a sense of juxtaposition and suggest something exciting is going to affect the calm.

The use of shadow in these posters is a key photographical feature used to highlight features, for example, the shadowy black tree in the background makes our foreground faces more visible and a centre piece. Our poster will also match our Digipak to bring continuity to our theme of the project.

StoryBoards

These are the finalised story boards I drew, scanned and uploaded. I drew stick-style figures and annotated the papers for shot types and transitions. We can refer to this in our filming and editing. As well and shot types and editing suggestions, our story boards include elements of mise en scene such as our suits and props.