The opening shots displays the band, in gold, with a red curtain behind them,
with golden stars. The use of gold is used a lot throughout the settings within
the video, in the sense that Brandon (the lead vocalist), wears a
golden-coloured waist-coat. Also, the gold elements can be seen in the colour of
the wood which makes up the double bass. The gold isn't simply limited to the
band, but is used a lot in the setting. As we can see in the next few shots, two
golden arc beams hang to the left and right of the stage where the band are
playing. The gold is an obvious visual connotations of wealth and
power.
The wealth is also present due to the elegant building, along with
other characteristics, such as the Chinese Imperial guardian lion sculptures,
which are also known as Foo Dogs and "Shishi". The historic symbolism of these
sculptures were power, importance and sophistications, as the figures would be
placed typically near Chinese Government buildings. It's made quite apparent
that the person who owns this building considers himself to be in a position of
power.
Later we see a fair maiden looking up at Brandon from her seat.
Lust and romance are in this woman's eyes, as the iconography of her shy smile
and twiddling with her hair gives us the audience no doubt she is flirting, or
at least enticing him with her charm. This clearly works as Brandon and the
woman often have an eye line fixed on one another. The women herself is in fact
very pale, with subtle rosiness in her cheeks and boldly red lips. This
decolourisation in her skin could be her washed-out energy, and sheer tiredness,
being at the beckon call of the gentleman we later see in a smoking jacket.
However, this meaning could in fact be an ambiguous expression of power and
class too, due to the fact that during the 1400's, it was common for women to
make their facial complexion whiter, using egg whites. In society then, the
whiter a person was, the more power they had, as dark people were classed as
labourers, spending time out in fields. However, as we see later, I believe the
woman is white due to sorrow and tiredness. On the other hand, the fare
complexion and fare hair could be used to symbolise innocence, and an angelic
persona, which has been subtly tainted. The clothes she's wearing are also fare,
with frayed ends. This too adds to the fact that she initially appears to be
this delicate, frail woman.
In the next section, we are introduced to a
man, aged in his late forties, up to mid-fifties. The man sits alone, in a large
padded seat, wearing a smoking jacket and holding an apple in his right hand.
The man appears to have wealth, as he sits with a smug face, calm, and a relaxed
attitude. When the man tosses the apple to the lady, we see that the man has
control over the lady. This may be in the sense that he is married, or engaged
to be married to the fare lady; or that he dominates her, due to money, power,
or as simple as gender stereo-typing. The way this man chucks the apple to the
lady immediately places her in a fixed role, restricted in some way, much like
the phrase "give the dog a bone". Also, as we consider the age difference, we
see that the young lady, who is made to be in her early-to-late twenties, is
being put into her place in society as immature and dysfunctional.
The ageist and sexist remarks portrayed could be a strong visualisation of
Gauntlett's theory, in regards to stereo-typing amongst age and gender in these
current times. Though, it has been placed through an amplification perspective
and has been incorporated in an historic period.
The surroundings of the
man in a smoking jacket, are based around the colours red and gold. The
implications of gold suggest that the man has power, which I discussed earlier.
However, the use of red could be a link to the symbolism of life. The life
within each person is the blood (red), and therefore acts as the force driving
people. As red can act as energy, we can see this person is full of life, posing
smugly as his performers (the women) act for him, as well as potential clients;
where clients is meant in a derogative way. Red could also refer to blood in a
negative connotation, and relate to the white of the fare lady. The blood could
be abuse; torment, verbal abuse; or even physical abuse, which again can be a
sinister meaning behind Gauntlett's theory. Another iconic visualisation of the
colour red could be the apple which is tossed to the fare lady. This red apple
may have a link to the abuse I said before, as the lady later places the apple
down on to the table, and begins to lead the older gentleman to her right, away
for seduction; as well as each extra person, after the iconic apple is tossed to
her.
In the next section, where the man tosses the apple, us and the
audience receive a glimpse of the relationship between the two. As we can see,
the relationship is clearly favouring the man, as the use of that memorable
tossing of the apple can be captured and interpreted as holding the power, and
having this ability to own and control this fare maiden. Therefore, the white
complexion of the lady could be related a lot to fear; along with the point
discussed with the red being seen as a visualisation of the fear too. However,
the fear could be contradicted by the fact that the lady is subtly flirting with
Brandon. Another key point is the finger gesture that the man gives to the
woman. When the man points his finger, it's clear that this is his way of
overtly showing his disapproval. However, as his finger is suggesting the man
next to her, she interprets the gesture to lead the older man; which still shows
that the man is always placing the woman in a certain state. At this point,
after the man is lead off screen, the idea that this room is a brothel is
confirmed, due to the fact that she looks depressed, or bored by the fact that
the man in the smoking jacket, whom we now see as a pimp, is once more making
her carry out a derogative task.
Finally, throughout the video, it's made
clear that the man in the smoking jacket, who we now strongly suspect is a pimp,
acknowledges the fact that Brandon wishes to get closer to the fare lady, yet
doesn't permit. This strongly relates to Stuart Hall's remark, that for
representation in music videos to be meaningful, to audiences, an element of
recognition must be present, in the form of a situation or idea which has been
experienced. The situation here, is that Brandon can't get to know the girl.
This can certainly be related to, as many have been prevented from getting to
know someone, due to their parents, or society disapproving the communication.
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Digipak Analysis (Dan Spurway)
The text displayed on the digipac incorporates an artistic font, which uses a graffiti style as well. The location of the font on the front cover is distorted in general, and italicized for the header. The impact of this is a alert-styled title, which brings the eye's attention to the album. Also, the slanted alignment of the text "UNO", resembles a torn and scrambled society which the music discusses. This style is repeated on the back of the album cover, and uses a lot of disjuncture to emphisise their emotions. The colours used are deeply contrasted. The impact of this,
Whilst analysing the Digipac, I've spotted a relationship between the text and images. This relationship consists of the
images used
-layout
-style
text
-colour
relationship text and images
-how do the work together
-anchorage
how iconography represents band
-genre music
-overall image
any signifiers exclusive to band/genre
what does digipac say about institutional context of the music
-label
-mainstream
-undergrounds
-first album etc
what can we learn about the potential target audience
-specialist
-niche
-mainstream
-compilation
comment on anything else
Final Cut 2
This is final cut 2 and our final product, I believe that it
has been improved massively from our first final cut in many areas, for example
many of the little mistakes that I pointed out for the final cut 1 such as the
lip synching being ever so slightly out of time had been fixed and now all of
the vocal parts of the video are in perfect synch with the rest of the audio ,
more or less , also we made the addition of a few extra shots which had helped
explain the Jane narrative part of the video so that the overall story could be
understood a lot better for people watching for the first time , also in the
final cut 2 we made the addition of a lot more transitions to keep the narrative
fading in and fading out with the bands performance ,we also put the extra narrative
shots which included the actual/sort of Jane’s Diary in which the other footage
and after some transitions had been added to help it all flow , overall I do
believe that this is the best we could have made the video , personally I think
that we have done a really good job and that it was a load of fun doing it.
Monday, 17 December 2012
Draft Digipak 2 (Dan Spurway)
Original Images
-The shot of Jane (Karen O'Leary) looking upwards towards the signpost is good quality, and can be used in many different situations.
-The Sky in this photo is extremely crisp and clear cut, making it the perfect background for a Juxtaposed image, the only downside it the buildings are in the way.
- The church which is in shadow could be used, brighten the image in photoshop and use it in another context.
- The background of the image is disquieting and dark but does not posses the required framing and image quality needed for a Digipak.
Edited Images
Draft Digipack 1 (Dan Spurway)
Concept
This was our first try at producing a draft digipak, at this point we did not have all the photo shoots completed. So this digipak was completed using a very basic template. The underlining concept of the digipak is of a memories and remembrance. Thus the worn texture on the digipak to denote that specific concept. There was a overall feeling of Zen tranquility that was created with the digipak. The reasoning behind this was that Jane found peace in her untimely demise, and the band are searching for such calm and peace in the acceptance of her death.
Construction
To build the digipak, our marvellous digital graphics creator, Dan, will discuss how he built it with the following:
To begin, I found a digipak template, with the 6 panels marked out. From here, I used an image of old paper as the background. As the image was semi-cropped, I reconstructed the image by replicating the top of the image. Then it was a matter of creating each panel. As we decided to go with the Zen idea, I acquired visual examples of the Zen culture, which included the Zen leaf, and Zen sunshine. I cropped the lower half of the Zen sunshine, as I wanted to show the beginning of change by having a sunrise; however, some pessimistic audience may see it as a sunset representing the end of life. I then changed the colour of the Zen leaf image, by going to Image -> Adjustments -> Replace Color; and tweaking the colour (blue) to a golden/brown colour to blend better with the background. As the background of the image was of a different texture, I masked the image, removing the background in a non-constructive manner. This meant the leaf would blend better. Finally, I reduced the opacity of the image's layer so that the image wasn't intrusive to the viewer's eye. Another addition we decided to add, was a QR code. This was due to the fact that many albums feature a QR code to navigate customers to their website, or Facebook page, via their phone or portable device, assuming they have an app which will read the QR code. In regards to the front cover, I went with a font that resembled handwritting which denotes a more personal feel to the digipak. This subverts conventions of the genre, but applying David Gualett, conventions are in constant negotation, allowing us to create new and unique interpretations of the album.
Whilst creating this post our team member, Dave Waugh found a interesting copyright free image which may add to the effect created above:
PhotoShop - Removing Objects.
Using Photoshop we can remove images
from photos without affecting the quality. This will be of great help to
the creation of the Digipak and Advert. As many of the images
have unnecessary object which deter from the feel and mood of the image.
The tool used is 'Content Aware', this copies the background
surrounding the highlighted area and creates a sudo-background based of
the surrounding area. Below is an example of this tool being applied.
Photo-shoot (Jane)
This is a overview of all the shots well took of the actress Karen
O'Leary as the mysterious Jane. Many of the shots if used will
be abstract, even removing the background entirely.
This photo has been used in many of our draft digipaks, more so for the image of Jane (Karen O'Leary) than the background. The composition of the photo and the positioning of Jane allows us to use her pose in and out of context.
Whist conducting the photo-shoot our photographer Dan Spurway had a little difficulty reaching the right position, Enjoy.
Final Cut 1
I believe that final cut 1 was an improvement from our
previous version which was rough cut 3 , however the changes are not that
different , for the final cut version 1 we decided to focus on some of the post
production techniques that we could use in our final product , one of these
techniques was through the power of Photoshop we were able to put the bands
logo on the drum kit during the video ,
we thought this would be conventional due to many rock bands having their
signature logo on their equipment , we had also came across some more shots of
our lead singer which we decided to use in final cut 1 to add a bit more variety
to the singer shots, however one or two very small errors still remained ,
mainly the lip synching I some places was maybe a split second out of time but
it was hardly noticeable but nevertheless it shall be corrected for the final
product.
Meeting 10
17th December 2012
Our deadline is only 2 days away, it is well within are grasp to be
complete by that time. The Digipak and Advert only need to be cleaned
up, and most blogs are full and correct. We are going to triple check
all posts to ensure everything works and also everything is completed.
Meeting 9
12th December 2012
This meeting is taken place after the Music video deadline. The video is
finished and complete to a good standard. The focus now is to finish
and prefect the Digipak and Advert. All three of us are contributing to
these, we are also organsing and cleaning up all of our blogs. We will
be completing all the lower priority tasks, such as updating blogs
annotating posts and so forth.
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