Digi-Pack

As a group we thought it would be a good idea to take a photoshoot of the characters in there costumes. We thought that we should have them doing several poses that relate to scenes from the music video and then a few portrait images of them with several face expressions.

Our Digi-Pack consists of a full album sleeve (front cover, back cover and inside pages). It also involves a magazine advertisement for the album itself. For most of the designs made we decided that a more central approach to the layout would be most effective. We used the rotating earth from the actual music video and combined it with the flame from the video. This gave us an idea for the album title which we named "Set This World Alight".

First few ideas:

At first we thought it would be a good idea to try out a few different designs. Below are the first couple of designs that we made but later decided not to include in our finished digi-pack.

Final Digi-Pack Work:
Here are all the designs that we believed are proffesional enough to become album covers/magazine adverts. We think that they reach our target audience well and attractive people with our exciting use of colour scheme and effects.


Firstly we created the front page of the album cover. Using the programme Adobe Photoshop CS5, we started of with a plain black background. Then by adding the earth image created earlier in the project the album cover had an "outer space" look to it. After talking about it as a group we felt that having the two heads of the main characters on either side of the world would be most effective. It gives a sense of them both wanting to be the alpha in that surreal world. We also added the flames onto it so that the album title had more relelvance. We found that using a photoshoot to add the two heads onto this was in need and transforming them into cartoon like effects it gave the surrel effect more meaning. This album cover was kept very central and quite simple. Although the techniques used to create this are quite challenging we believe it payed of in the end.

Above is the design that we created for the left inside page for the album. It consists of the character who is the singer in the music video and the earth itself. By adding those certain lyrics from the track it gives the feeling that this character is sending the protagonist into that surreal world. Even though there is not much on this page it still explains the music video quite well. Again we have used the blue cartoon effect on this character.

Above is the third page which sits behind the CD. To create this we used a screen shot from our music video from one of the first scenes. Due to the contrasting colours on this image we couldnt use the cartoon effect, however we made it work to our advantage as the blur behind the characters combine with the lyrics and the world to create a slight illusion that they are being taken into "another dimension". Again the layout has been kept quite central and we have thought hard into the actual CD case. This meaning that when the sleeve is put into the case the central circular shape that holds the CD in place will be aligned with the earth itself.

After creating the third page we thought that we would design the actual CD itself. Using the design from the first page we combined that with the spiralled lyrics. These lyrics gave the CD a very effective 3D effect and looks as if its a tunnel being taken into the new world. Again this giving an effective surreal illusion.

Furthermore this is our back cover. After using an album from home to gather a concept of what to include we decided to add a barcode, websites, the producers and record labels. Using the cartoon effect on the characters we stood them on top of the flaming world to make it relevant to the album title again. As we made the music video for "Out Of Space" and most of our ideas are behind that track we decided that single should be number one on the album.
This above is just showing all the four designs in one grid. As you can see they all relate to each other and use the same colour scheme. We believe that the design is very clean and simple. The bright colours contrasting with the dark background are attractive to an audience and the effects used will draw people towards it. The audience targetted for this album are quite a young category. We believe it to be for people aged 17-25.

Above shows that we have experimented with our album design. By taking photographs of an album we brought in, we used Photoshop to distort our designs into the right shape to fit into the case. We personally believe that this test went quite well as the album looks quite proffesional.

Finally we then made our magazine advertisement. The advertisement is very central and advertises our album really well. The size of the flame relates to the album title effectively and really works with the layout too. It also adds some creativity into the design and makes it look more attractive to the audience. The magazine advertisement includes everything that is needed which is:

• The design that has been used throughout the production stages.
• The colour scheme links well with the album title.
• The release date.
• The album cover.
• The record label.
• It says where the album can be bought.

All of these aspects are essential and make the advertisement look a lot more proffesional. As a whole we believe that our digi-pack is relevant to our music video and links well with everything else we have done. It has so much relevance and we have used a lot of different techniques and programmes to create this. We believe that the designs made have creativity and originality and is something that would interest us if we saw them on sale or in a magazine.

The Prodigy - Out Of Space (A2 Media Music Video)

Here is the final piece of our A2 Media Music Video Project. However, there is a slight error with the Blogger version of the video with our special effects. We've come across a technical fault when converting the file, so the effect will not show on this Blogger version. A flame effect was placed on a tree in one of the shots, but this is replaced with 'error text' when the shot is shown.

Directors Commentary

Here is the Directors commentary for our video. On this we decided to do a voice over on our music video describing the technical features we have used. We have talked about composition, editing, the pace of some of the shots and editing.

Audience Feedback

Here, we decided to ask a few people to watch our music video and give us feedback. We then gave them questions to answer, to give us a concept of what was effective, what worked well and what we could improve on.

Here are the questions we asked:

• What do you think worked well about the video?
• Did you find the video appropiate to the genre?
• What improvements could of been made to the video?
• Did you enjoy the overall production?

Production Evaluation

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

When we first started analysing music videos, we looked at songs of the same genre and also took consideration to the post production effects and the narrative of the music video, just like a lot of Prodigy music videos (The colour effects in 'Out Of Space'). The first music video we looked at was Propane Nightmares by Pendulum, a band that specialise in modern dance music, like our focus band, The Prodigy. This music video was very effective and gave us a sense of composition when shooting our own footage. It uses fast cuts, a variety of different angles and shots varying from establishing shots (to show our location) to extreme close ups (to show our character's emotion). Every time we recorded footage, we ensured that we took the same shot from a few different angles, so we could have more of a choice in terms of specific shots for specific parts of the the video and cut between them. The actual music video for our chosen song, Out of space, uses a very surreal narrative, with different colours, almost is if it were an other world, in which we used as inspiration for some of the scenes in our production. We also found that the original music video. This allowed us to play around with some surreal elements in our video, such as slotting in shots of nature, as a heavy percentage of our video is shot in woods, thus making various shots of nature relevant to our own video. However, the music video made by The Prodigy has no real backbone to the story behind it, whereas our own video for the track does have a storyline. This is where we had to think of original ideas, and gather inspiration from other music videos such as Prodigy - Voodoo People to children's cartoon show, Scooby Doo. After understanding the lyrics in the song, which we believe are telling a story of being in 'outer space', we created a fast-pace, exciting story where the protagonist has been knocked out in reality and has found this new world in his head, when he wakes up. Although using some parts of other material for inspiration we found that our own work original, as it hadn't really been done in this way before and something that would catch the viewers attention. We also made our video in almost a spoof-like fashion, and made it so that it was quite humourous, as the song's style would allow us to do so, with it's silly, but catchy beat. As a group we also thought it would be quite original to create our own outer space scene using the program's Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro and the Green screen technology, when we made a character from the video, lip-synch, in front of a rotating Earth in out of space (only to be attacked by our antagonist later on it the video).


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

The Main product of our coursework is a music video, and we chose to do one for the song 'out of space'. This lead our group to go for a sci-fi/astro theme for the project, by using the green screen room, as well as other worldly type locations. So in our video, a lot of prominance is given to an 'orbiting earth' effect (the opening scene, and during some parts of the chorus). This is used during the video to show the viewers the surreal elements that are included in our production. When we produced the ancillary texts, we belived that because the earth graphic played a large part in the production, it would make sense to include it in our graphic productions. So for the front of the CD cover, the first scene of the song where the characters are filmed mid-shot, sat on the couch has been used over a background of earth and space. This is effective as it combines the realistic elements of the video and the surreal elements, thus making a juxtaposition between the two on the CD cover. The magazine poster also contains the 'world' image, but this is edited with a flame graphic, because our album for our production is named 'set the world alight.'. Overall the combination of our main and ancillary products are effective because the audience are given an insight to both the realistic and surreal elements of the video, although our production isn't just a sci-fi effects music video and is balanced out with a lot of performance.


What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To provide a detailed analysis on one aspect of the video. (camera, editing, mise-on-scene). One of the main feedback points that we recieved was that our audience belived the video was "funny" and "original."This was extremly useful to our group beause it gave us a clear impression that the audience can enjoy the video, and that the humour element made the video effective. However, one aspect stood out in our video that needed improvement, this was the stop motion scene, with the charchters hiding behind trees. Our audience informed us that this scene was slightly flickering and disjointed. We discovered that the lighting in the scene slightly changes as we cut back-and-forth. Because we recieved audience feedback about this problem we believed that this could be rectified during post-production. Because we had all been heavily involved in the production of the video, we hadn't been able to notice this slight error, and only using audience feedback allowed us to be able to correct it. There were some shots that we believed might not be good enough to make the final cut, due to our extenisve review of our video. ie we thought the fight scene might be seen as pointless or immature but the audience feedback told us that this scene worked well in the video and that the acting in this scene was "beliveable/sensible" Our worries were put at ease when the audience feedback confirmed that the shot was able to be used.


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

Media technologies have played a vital role in the different stages of the media project. During the construction phase, the camera is obviously the most important technological product that we have to use. The skills that we learn with the camera, shape the way our project will end up as everything that appears on the video needs to be shot with the camera. Another important piece of technology that has been used during the construction phase is a video editing programme called Final cut pro. Although it can be daunting to approach Final Cut Pro without much experience, our group has discovered that the editing process can be simple if the right precautions are taken and it is a genuinely good programme to use for the editing of a video production. The final piece of technology we used for the construction stage was the green screen studio. We believed the use of the studio would help make our project to a high quality standard, when using factors such as the 'out of space' scenes for the lip-synching in our music video, as you cannot construct a set of space without the green-screen room, and we felt as though the input of the space scenes were vital to our music video.

Magazine Advertisement Research

We have found several advertisements for artists in magazines from Kerrang and Mixmag. We have anaylsed each of these carefully paying attention to composition, colour scheme, the amount of information and imagery. We have also looked at what audience each advert is trying to reach and how they grab your attention. We will need to create an advert in a magazine promoting the release of there new album with "Out of space" being the first single. We will have to gain an understanding of how an advert looks good and how to make our main features stand out to a good quality.

This magazine advertisement is for the Paramore album. The main focus is on one of the members of the band and is laid out quite central. Paramore stands out quite well and we will think about incorporating that idea into our advert. It also includes the actual album cover on there as well along with other aspects such as the barcode, production companies etc. The colour scheme has been used very effectively to combine with the females hair.

This is a very different magazine advert. There isn't a direct main feature and the layout is quite messy. However we can use this for inspiration because of the information it provides on it. It also has a lot of bright colours and the typography used does stand out.

This magazine advert is the most useful for us, it has the same layout and information that we would want to include into our advert. By looking at the advert you can tell straight away that the main aspect they want the audience to look at is the band itself. The band name is very bold and easy to read from far away which could draw the audience to it. Along with that, the album cover and other aspects such as the information included at the bottom hasn't been forgotten about. A lot of time has been put into the layout in this. The blue shape at the bottom makes the album cover stand out more and the colour scheme with the text goes well.

The advertisement above is very bright and easy to follow. The typography and colour scheme go well with each other. This is a slightly different layout than most others with the album cover being in the bottom corner as its main focus in the foreground. All of the information provided and small print is on the right hand side going down the page which is also out of the ordinary.

This magazine advert is completely different to any of the other ones. Although personally we don't think the advert is very attractive or particularly something that would interest most people there are a few positives which we can take from this. The advertisement is very central and easy to read. The album cover is the main focus and stands out well and it supplies a decent amount of information to go with it. One other aspect we think has been used is the typography at the top.

Most of the magazine advertisments follow the same pattern. Name of band or artist is the focal image, theres is always normally a picture of the album itself, and it will always include the date and release and where it can be purchased from.

Production

Over the last couple of weeks we have moved on from the pre-production stages to the production of our music video. We have been shooting regularly to ensure that we have enough footage for our finished piece.

We have also been capturing our footage onto the computers in the editing suit and editing our current footage for the music video, to keep more of a balanced approach between shooting and editing.

So far, we have shot nearlly all of our exterior scenes, with only a few pick-up shots needed in the production side of things and edited the first minute of our exterior scenes in our music video.

Album Cover Research

The research examples that we have been gathering for inspiration for our own album cover are all from past albums for The Prodigy. A common factor in all of the album covers below is that they all use surreal elements and also stand out and really draw you in to the album. Although some have used bright colours and some have used dark and grungy textures they all contain a theme of surrealness.

The above album cover has been made very bright to stand out and appeal to the audience. This is a good example to look at as the colours in the background are the colours we will be likely to use in the surreal element of our video. Also the typography is quite graphic and stands out, this is something that we will be hoping to achieve in our album cover.

This is a more clean and detailed album cover compared to the one above. However it still uses the bright colours for the landscape such as orange and yellow. The composition of this cover is very central and all attention is drawn to the central image. We will be wanting to create something similar to this in terms of being very simple and clean.

This album cover is completely different and uses very dark grungy colours. It looks like it has a rough texture and the image of a little girl and a large dog gives it an aspect of surrealness. However it does use bright striking colours with the green lines.

This isnt something that we are particularly going to use for inspiration too much however it does have an aspect of surrealness. It also uses a very central composition which we will be using. It uses a dark and simple colour scheme sticking to the greyish brown colour. The font at the top is also quite spherical which can relate to the spinning world we are using in our video and the lyrics "Ill take your brain to another dimension" which suggests another world.

This album cover by the prodigy is also very central and uses bright solid colours. It is also surreal as they have created a face using several features that arent usually on a face. The pink and red stand out a lot in this image and provide solidarity to the image.

CGI

Here are a few shots of us using the green screen production room. From experimenting with the equipment we have a wider range of techniques that can be brought into our music video if we intend on using the green screen software.

We have decided to use the green screen room to create an out of space set for our music video production. It will be present when we have lip synching in the song. The background involves both earth and mars rotating in space to reflect the song's title.

Initial Shot List And Story Board

This is our initial shot list which we first planned. This is a guidline for our project and we know that when filming some of these shots will altered.

For our video, we decided to evaluate which shots we would be filming and what they would include. Due to the nature of our video, we have decided to only plan the opening and closing scenes of our video, this is because we hope that the shots for the surreal elements of the film will come to us whilst we are filming, and not stifle our creativity before we leave to begin filming.

Opening

• Extreme Close up of performers eye (00:00-00:04)
• Slow zoom out to reveal whole room, long shot of performer (00:04-00:10)
• Various Mid-Long shot of other characters dancing (00:10-00:25)
• Slow zoom in to extreme close up of eye, eyes close (00:25-00:38)
• Eyes Open, extreme close up (00:38-00:40)
• POV shot of character examining surroundings (00:40-00:44)
• Establishing shot to show characters location has changed (00:44-00:52)
• Canted angle shots of character exploring (00:52-00:58)
• POV shot of character experiencing surreal imagery. (00:58-01:05)

The middle of our song will consist of abstract shots, strange colours and environments, and our performer will encounter strange situations. We have decided not to make a shot list for this section as we believe we will film better shots if we are unrestricted in our ideas.

Closing

• Low angle wide-shot of character walking up garden path (03:06-03:10)
• POV shot of character walking into same room as start. (03:10-03:14)
• Faded shot of character sat down, clear shot of character "sitting into himself" (03:14-03:20)
• Opens eyes, slow zoom out, establishing room from beginning (03:20-03:28)

Initial Story Board

Here you can see that we have put our ideas onto paper and created a short storyboard using the main shots from our shot list. Again we have left a small part of the middle section out of our planning as we want to be creative and bring more original ideas when filming. This will add to the whole surreal effect. Instead of displaying every picture drawn seperatley, we decided to create an animatic so it doesnt take enough space. In between each image we have added a video transition to make it seem like its a flicker book.

Pre Production Brainstorm

We thought that the best way to express our individual ideas for the music video production would be to make a brain storm. This includes factors such as narrative, costume, locations, genre and props etc. This would help a lot as we can see a variety of ideas to choose from for our final piece. From each category we have chosen one or more ideas to develop so we could think further into that idea.

So far this has helped us a lot as we always look back to our original brainstorm for new ideas when shooting our music video. The locations area was specificly useful to give us new shooting ideas. Also the props and costumes were discussed using this technique, the chosen ideas from these were the tie dye t-shirt and a ninja costume.

About Our Music Video Artists

(Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prodigy)
The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music group established by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex. Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method, as well as other acts, members of the Prodigy have been credited as pioneers of the big beat genre which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s. They have sold over 25 million records worldwide.

The group's brand of big beat music makes use of various styles ranging from rave, hardcore techno, industrial and breakbeat in the early 1990s to electronic rock with punk vocal elements in later times. The current band members include Liam Howlett (composer/keyboards), Keith Flint(dancer/vocalist) and Maxim (MC/vocalist). Leeroy Thornhill (dancer/very occasional live keyboards) was a member of the band from 1990 to 2000, as was a female dancer/vocalist called Sharky who left the band during their early period. The Prodigy first emerged on the underground rave scene in the early 1990s, and have since then achieved immense popularity and worldwide renown. Some of their most popular songs include "Charly", "Out of Space", "No Good (Start the Dance)", "Voodoo People", "Poison", "Firestarter", "Breathe", "Smack My Bitch Up", "Omen", and "Warrior's Dance."

The name displayed on album covers changed from "The Prodigy" to "Prodigy" between Music for the Jilted Generation and The Fat of the Land in 1997 and back again with the release of Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned in 2004. However, Howlett has stated that the title has always been "The Prodigy." The change was made only to fit within the displayed logo, according to Howlett.

Keith Charles Flint (born 17 September 1969 in Braintree, Essex, England) is a dancer and vocalist of the English electronic band The Prodigy.

Liam Paris Howlett (born 21 August 1971) a.k.a. "Master H", is a DJ and core member of the English band The Prodigy.

Keith Andrew Palmer (born 21 March 1967, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England), known by his stage name Maxim, is an English singer-songwriter and MC, famous for his work with electronica band The Prodigy.

Leeroy Thornhill (born 8 October 1968, Barking, Greater London) is a British electronic music artist and formerly a dancer and live keyboardist of the British rave act The Prodigy. He has produced solo work under the names Longman and Flightcrank. He was born in Barking but raised in Rayne near Braintree in Essex, and grew up as a football and James Brown fan. Thornhill joined The Prodigy along with Keith Flint after they met Liam Howlett at a local rave club. Both were dancers for the band's live show. Thornhill's height is 6 foot 7 inches (200 cm), a whole foot taller than Flint who is 5 foot 7 inches (170 cm) and his style of dance can be described as a 'technical running on the spot'.

*Leroy is no longer a member of the group, but was an active part when our chosen song was made and released.

Pre-Production Recce

After discussing ideas about possible locations for our music video we have used Google maps to find ideal locations for the ''trip'' phase in our video. As a group we decided we were required to find a locations with a large woodland area and an empty field. Here are some of the possibilities we have chosen, included places such as:

Wythenshawe Park

Sale Water Park

Bruntwood Park

Platt Fields Park

As well as these locations, we have thought hard into the interior production side to our music video. This is when the character will be on the sofa and is about to make the trip into the surreal part. After thinking hard about possibilities for this location we have decided to use one of our friends living room in his house.

Friday 1st October 2010

Today, we made final decisions on the locations we will shoot at and created a shot list for the production side of our project, to guide us in the right direction, while shooting.

The main locations for our filming will take place in Bruntwood Park, Cheadle and our interior scenes will take place inside of a living room, most probably a house close to the park, so we can jump between locations if necessary.

Today, we also completed our Music Video analysis and once we have concrete idea's for the planning and pre-production side of our project, we will be able to shoot our music video.

Wednesday 29th September 2010

On Friday, we furthered ideas for our production side of the project and developed a draft narrative for the project. We also sorted out project roles amongst our group. We brainstormed a few ideas for certain camera shots, for example, the ECU (extreme close-up) on the iris of our main character, followed by a slow zoom as the music kicks in, to reveal a house party taking place, and even decided on all of our locations for shooting, for example, the exterior surreal elements of our video will be shot in Bruntwood Park, and the interior will be shot inside someone's living room, for the house party scenes.

Production Treatment : E1 G6

Production Treatment: E1 G6

Duration: 03:43 minutes approximately

Audience: Our music video would appeal to a male audience between the ages of around 18-30, but may also appeal to teenage males between the ages of 13-17.

Resume:

Our song is about the surrealistic elements, such as hallucinations and mirages. Our song is based on this style of inspiration because of the surreal parts of the music. There will be a slower pace area of the video, where the music is just about to kick in with a slow zoom out from our main character’s iris, zooming out slowly to a wider area with people in a house party, taking place in slow motion and then as the music kicks in properly there will be a faster cut-rate of surreal imagery, such as confused characters getting lost in pink forests, with tie-dye style backgrounds, and various lakes in the background in purple colours. When the hallucinations begin. Then as the song eases out again, the main character awakens on the floor of the house party, with all of the other guests also on the floor, sleeping, and there is a slow zoom back into the eye of our main character.

Suggested Elements:

Performance: We will rely heavily rely on the performance of our main character, because their performance may make or break our video, based on how well they do, because of the style of lone-acting that we have chosen to do for the majority of our video.

Costumes: Our costumes are vital to our video based on how much impact they will have on the surreal elements of the music video. For example, our tie-dye t-shirt will enhance the surreal aspects of the video.

Special Effects: Special effects are also going to have a major impact on our music video, because they too will enhance the surreal elements of our music video, such as the crazy colours we will use.

Locations: Location will also be a key aspect of our video, because of the plain empty fields we will use for the surreal elements of the video and the interior house design, we will use for the house party scenes in our video.

Recording Days:

We intend on spending about 2-3 weeks on the production side of our project, to shoot our video and then around 7-8 weeks on the post-production side of it, for the editing and overall polishing of the piece. We will also spend time outside of our lesson time to complete these aspects to the highest standard. During the post-production time we will also complete our CD Covers and Magazine articles for our project.

Budget Estimate:

Our approximated budget for this project will be around £20, to cover props, costumes and travel to our specific locations.

Video Inspiration

Since the start of the course, we have been using Muzu.tv to look for different music videos and use them for ideas and inspiration. The genre we decided on as a group was techno/dance and we looked at videos that would help influence our ideas towards this genre. The first video we decided to use was the original video for the song we were using for our project, which is Out of Space.
The video is notable for strange colour effects which change during the video. We hope to use this as inspiration as the use of strange colours go well with our theme of surrealism, and the "trippy" effect is what we are basing our video on. Another video we wached was the Video for "Everybody in the Place." Another song by the Prodigy, this video is familiar to the out of space video, with its use of strange colours, very fast cut rate, and bizarre/abstract shots. We looked at this video to help us expand our knowledge on Prodigy videos and try to examine the common features.
Continuing with the dance genre, another video we decided to view was Star 69 by Fatboy slim and although the narrative and pace of the song was not what we were hoping to emulate, the video still gave the group a few ideas with its intresetig shot list and this will be valuble to us, when it comes to creating a shot-list.
The final video that we agreed to examine was Swoon by the Chemical Brothers, being a popular dance song, we belived this video would give us plenty of ideas to hopefully use in our video, although the main aspect for this video is plenty of visual effects which would probably not work well for our project. This wasn't useless however because it allowed us to realise that we cannot just fill our video with too many post-production effects as this will damage the quality of the piece.

"Out Of Space"

I'm gonna send him to outer space,
To find another race.
I'm gonna send him to outer space,
To find another race.
...
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
(hold it!)
Pay close attention

Prodigy - Out Of Space on MUZU