Narrative Feedback for our Raw Footage - #3

I asked one more of my good friends, Megan Whitefoot, to watch the raw footage and then respond with any feedback that she had. After watching, she had a hugely positive reaction, as well as constructive advice to make our video better:

Afterwards, I asked her whether she understood the narrative without certain shots in, and she got the majority right:

When I explained to her the bits that she didn't pick up as certain shots were missing, she understood and once again stated praise for the video:

Megan's interpretation made me feel hopeful for both other people's interpretation of the narrative, and her praise for the video in general was delightful to hear.

Narrative Feedback for our Raw Footage - #2

After asking my friend Kieran to watch our raw footage, I then asked my good friend Elle McNamara to watch. She responded to the video very positively at first:

However, she then asked me to explain the narrative as she found it hard to keep track of without the shots that have yet to be edited in yet:

Once I explained the narrative to Elle, she admitted that she got a totally different interpretation to the narrative than the other people that I asked for feedback:

I found this incredibly interesting, as whilst the majority of the other people that I spoke to about the narrative got the majority right with a few minor differences, Elle had interpreted a much darker narrative.

After this, I explained to Elle what the narrative was actually about and stated that maybe we could make a darker video with the footage, something that would be fun to do. Whilst Elle stated that she didn't get the narrative without certain shots, she still praised the video and music choice:

My conversation about the narrative of our video with Elle showed that how each person interprets the narrative is different, with Elle's interpretation contrasting heavily with Kieran's interpretation, but that once the other shots are edited in, it will be easier for Elle to interpret. However, Elle still complimented the cinematography, song choice, performances, direction and video itself, again making me confident we will have a high quality finished product.

Addressing Shaun's departure from the band

A problem arose with our fictional band  that we as a group had to sort out. The rhythm guitarist in our band 'The Secret Nothings', Shaun Hough, mutually decided to leave his real band 'The Spares', featuring the other members of our real band. This was incredibly problematic for our group as Shaun already featured in the video but would not be able to feature in the photo shoot for our digipak. As a result, we worked as a group, asking for Shaun's permission, and made up a backstory in our fake band that Shaun had been involved in a minor accident that would affect his performance so he would not be seen with the band whilst he recovered, putting it on our band's Twitter account afterwards. As a result, we have managed to move around the problem without our final product being negatively affected, as well as adding realism to our fake band in the process. Below are the tweets that we released explaining Shaun's temporary departure from the band:

Narrative Feedback for our Raw Footage - #1

Once I posted a link to our raw footage on my Facebook, I asked my friend Kieran Burton to watch and asked him his opinions on the video. He replied that he enjoyed the slow bit before the final chorus with the camera zooming in our lead singer, and gave an ultimately positive reaction to our raw footage.

 

Afterwards, when I asked him if he understood the narrative of the footage without certain shots in, he got the majority of the narrative right, but differed on a few things as certain shots have not been edited in yet. 

 Once I explained to him what the narrative was really about, he understood it and stated that he would have easily understood if the shots missing were in.

Whilst this means that if some shots are taken out of our narrative, people may not understand the whole thing, the fact that Kieran got the majority of our narrative right without seeing the full thing has boosted my confidence in the quality of our video, and I hope that the major praise he had for the raw footage is increased when we release the final product soon.

Digipack Album Cover Idea - Paint

In researching album covers for my digipack, one idea came to mind that I believe could be used to boost my grade up, whilst expressing myself artistically - I paint my album cover design.

This is a technique used by several indie bands such as; alt-J (for their second album 'THIS IS ALL YOURS', as well as their singles 'HUNGER OF THE PINE', 'LEFT HAND FREE', and 'EVERY OTHER FRECKLE'), The Wombats (for their singles 'MOVING TO NEW YORK', 'KILL THE DIRECTOR', and 'LET'S DANCE TO JOY DIVISION'), Green Day (for the majority of their albums such as 'AMERICAN IDIOT', 'DOOKIE', and '21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN'), and The Stone Roses (for their self-titled debut album).

   

I think the reason that these artists choose to have artwork for their album covers is that they are eye-catching to the audience, as well as further exaggerate their artistic side that they are trying to convey in their musical career.

With this research in mind, I set out to try and do a first draft of what I want my album cover to look like. Unfortunately, however, the red paint available was too strong and over-ran all of the other colours on the sheet... leading to this angry backdrop piece:

 

I guarantee that my actual album cover will look much better than this.

Raw Footage of our Music Video

Today, we uploaded our raw footage, an unfinished version of our final music video. Whilst there are some clips that are yet to have been edited in, we have finished filming and the editing of the video is nearly finished. The link to our raw footage will be posted below:


However, our raw footage has enabled us to conduct an experiment with our video. As some of our narrative shots have yet to be edited in, we have decided to show friends that have no knowledge of the narrative the raw footage, and ask if they can understand the narrative without certain shots in. The results of this will be blogged about soon.

The Wombats - "Glitterbug" Album Cover Analysis

This is an analysis for the album cover of the Liverpudlian band The Wombats' upcoming third album, "Glitterbug". The album is said to be about "tumultuous relationship with a fictional woman from Los Angeles". Band frontman Matthew "Murphy" Murphy has stated about the album "That became the main inspiration for most of the songs, this false world that I’d created for myself. As time progressed, I’d go to L.A. more and more, and the idea kept on building. The album’s about the envy and the struggle and the pretence and the worry and the fear that L.A. – and every major city in the world – encompasses.”

In this detailed analysis, I have detailed several contrasts between this album and the previous two albums released by the band, the covers of which I will leave below for you to see if you agree with what I have written.