Cinematography, Lighting, Mise en Scene

Cinematography
We plan our video to be artistic in appearance. As has been said many times, our main influence is Anton Corbijn whose video are seen as highly sophisticated. We actually planned the concept before the actual song choice, so again the visuals are very important. We are intending a socio-realist style quality to the video.

Lens: We will experiment with the use of fish-eye lenses, as this is a quality often used by Corbijn. It creates a disorientated quality that would work well with our video.
Film Stock: Though our video is being filmed in HD, we also plan on using an 8mm iPhone app. This will take a bit of experimenting but could work very well (again it's a technique seen in Corbijn's work). It creates a gritty feel that we and Joy Division's music both signify. The 8mm look also gives it that indie film-maker appeal. The use of an iPhone shows a link between old and new media, which is vital for our work.
Filters: A black and white filter will be used. This signifies the work of both Corbijn and Joy Division. This has also been discussed in the previous post.
Snorricam: There's a whole post on this but I'll quickly recap it here. Auteurs such as director Darren Aronofsky are major fans of this film-making tool. It is essentially almost a reverse of a POV shot, looking back at the character's face directly. Again it creates a disorientating feel as well being great for capturing emotion.
Depth of field: We plan to vary the depth of field of shots in our video. Two of the key themes are confinement and isolation so clearly confinement is signified by tight framing in contrast to isolation being signified by wider framed shots. The use of both should create some striking visuals.
Camera movement: Again this is something that we will vary in the video. We plan some shots to be perfectly still whereas some more quick shots to be moving, and sometimes tracking the protagonist. Again this should keep the video interesting throughout. We also plan some shots to be hand-held which will again contrast, and are at this stage considering using a tripod dolly for certain scenes.

Lighting
Due to the fact that a lot of filming will be done outside, this is something we have little control over. For the best quality footage we will need brighter weather, and certainly not during the day. A lot of this will be about trial & error.

In the confined scene we can control the lighting. We plan to use either a lamp (flashing on and off) or a strobe light to create some very interesting visuals. This also signifies Ian Curtis' epilepsy. The flashing will also allow us to inter-cut to other shots from different angles.

Mise en Scene
As with the lighting mise-en-scene is something we can not really control ourselves. However there are certain things we will control.
The clothing of our main character is discussed a few posts previously. He will wear a grey overcoat, have black hair, smart trousers and shoes. This is intended to signify him as sharing similarities with the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.
Inside - In the cupboard will be nothing (apart from our protagonist) It hopefully won't even be recognisable as a cupboard, it's meant to signify just the confinement being felt. Here our character will not be wearing a shirt to signify his changing body temperature and also his fragility.
In the bedroom there will be little set dressing as little is required. We want our video to not look out of place with the original Joy Division video's so we want it to have a timeless quality. That means anything that could disrupt this signification will be removed from the shot - leaving a lot of it neutral.

Editing Style Notes

We are using Final Cut Express to edit our music video so there are no limitations in how we can edit our work. Our video will not require extremely complex editing, as the focus is more on the original footage and cinematography we have spent so long planning. That being said, there are certain editing techniques we know we will use in post-production.

Black & White: Taking influence from the work of Anton Corbijn, we will desaturate our music video. Black and white gives the intended timeless appeal, as well as helping signify the bleak moods of the song. To emphasise this editing, we will also probably boost the contrast of the video, especially in the cold turkey scenes. This will make the black and white more dynamic and strong, as well as linking back to classic Joy Division imagery.

Chroma Key: Chroma key is used to isolate one colour in a shot. We plan to use this on the first close up shot of the cigarette. Isolating the orange/red of the embers will create a striking appearance, and connote the importance of the cigarette.

Cutting (to the beat): The pace of the song is fairly fast so we will match this in terms of our shot durations. The pacing of the cold turkey scenes will be much faster than the rest in order to stand out, and as the song builds towards the end we can also user quicker cuts. The very end of the song will use slow, long takes. Where the are prominent instrumental riffs or strong drum beats, we can also match this to the editing so that they work together rather than being seperate to one another.

Multi-layering: This is another technique often used by Corbijn. It works most successfully when one shot is more of a close up and the other a wider frame. Overlaying the two with the opacity of the top layer reduced creates a nicer visual appeal to a shot that perhaps alone would have been boring. We have considered using this on the bridge scene to perhaps intercut other parts of the video, but also using it in the cold turkey scenes to make it more frantic in parts.

Split-Screen: We plan to use this on one particular shot of the protagonist looking out on to the road (in the bridge scene). Whilst the half with the character will play at normal speed, the other half will be sped up creating an almost timelapse style visual to the cars. It will make an interesting climax.

Transitions: Again we don't expect to use overly complex transitions in the video. From what we have seen of Final Cut, we expect to use lots of cross-fades, flash transitions, and the video will fade in and out. We are currently thinking the end will fade to white. From our research on music videos, especially this genre, we have seen that in general transitions are kept minimal, this is largely due to the fact they can slow down the pace of a music video, which is normally not the intention.

Casting

Our music video will only feature one character. This was our intentions from the very start of the planning process. Due to the themes of isolation and confinement being suggested by our video, using just one character will help emphasise this. It will also serve as a major advantage for us, as we have found when working on past projects that simply getting the whole cast & crew together for a shoot can be problematic. Working with one character will make this side of production much easier. Very helpfully, one of our group (Joel Colborne) has acting experience both in national television programmes (My Parents are Aliens) and also in my own EPQ project; "The Catcher in the Rye".

Ian Curtis

Very often band members star in even narrative music videos. Though we don't want (and can't for that matter) have a band member of Joy Division starring in our video, we want to signify similarities between the protagonist and the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.

The casting of Sam Riley as Ian Curtis in Anton Corbijn's Control was seen as a very successful one. This is both due to the likeness he shares with Curtis and also the excellence of his performance. This will be our main influence when signifying our protagonist's similarities to the singer. Though Riley was unknown at the time, Corbijn cast him due to his resemblence to the singer to the fine detail that he opted to choose Riley over more widely known actor Cillian Murphy because Murphy was "a little shorter than Ian". Whereas Corbijn could reflect on his past meetings with Curtis, we will have to look at existing interpretations by actors of the singer.

Our protagonist must be signified as a drug addict as well bearing resemble to Ian Curtis. We had key characteristics in mind when choosing our actor:

- They must have black hair. We are editing in black and white, and dark hair will have much more of a dramatic visual effect than lighter tones.
- They will have to smoke or be comfortable with smoking. Due to the timescale of our shoot and the amount of locations we will film at, our actor will have to go through a large amount of cigarettes.
- Be fairly thin and weak (no offence!). To signify the heroin addiction we don't want a character who looks like he spends all of his time working out at the gym.We want a character who looks weak and tired in appearance.
- Be young. We are aiming to bring Joy Division to a new audience. Very often the characters in music videos signify the target market for the band.

So how did Control do it?
As previously mentioned, the film Control will be a major influence on our signification of Ian Curtis, along with photographs of the singer.
Costume
- A long, grey overcoat. Curtis' coat was so iconic that NME labelled the whole Manchester scene "grey overcoat music". This is an essential piece of clothing to help instantly draw comparisons.
- Smart, plain trousers. Curtis often wore very smart trousers which were pulled high around his waist. Our protagonist will wear plain, dark jeans which when put in black and white will appear very smart. Skinny jeans will also help target a younger audience.
- A scarf. Joy Division's music has a very dark, cold theme to it. Our music video will share these themes, so any attempt to make the video seem cold and harsh will help signify their sound.
- Black leather shoes. Another choice of clothing often worn by Curtis. Ours will wear black pumps, though in the woods will have to wear Nike shoes due to the conditions and frailty of pumps. This should be okay though if framed properly.
- A cigarette in hand. Ian Curtis smoked so relentlessly to the extent that he stole money from his own wife. We want to signify this in our video, so a cigarette will be shown very often. It is also a slight way to signify the concept of addiction.

Locations

Location Location Location on Prezi

The video shown below features our group discussing our ideas on which locations will feature in the video. We also mention the location of Ilkley moors and why we chose not to film there.

Trial: Snorricam

This is just a brief video with us experimenting with our custom built Snorricam. The video shows footage from Darren Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream [2000], followed by our footage sped up, then normal, then in black & white. As a trial, we were fairly happy with the outcome and we're confident that when working using the HD cameras, we will get some interesting and successful shots.

CM - Building a Snorricam on a Microbudget

A SnorriCam is a piece of equipment used during the filming process. The title itself is misleading because its saying that its a camera when really the Snorri is more of a tripod. Though even calling it a tripod is misleading.

SnorriCam

The Snorri attaches to the actors body so when he moves the camera completely tracks him and in turn it creates a odd camera shot. The shot is often used to signify that something is amiss and because the shots main focus is on the face it can clearly show the emotions the actor is going through.



The Snorri is relatively untouched and isn't often seen in TV and film, though it has been used across a span of genres for instance in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream 2000 which is a psychological thriller based on drug addictions, the Snorri is used during a lot of scenes with the characters under the influence of drugs. The Snorri has also been used in a more recent film Nicolas Stoller's Get Him to the Greek 2010, in this comedy film the Snorri is used in only a brief part of the film when one of characters is under the influence of drugs.

A SnorriShot

Snorri & Us

 The basis of our idea for our music video is around Drugs, and one of our ideas was to use a SnorriCam at the different locations to make he video stand out and give the same feeling that the snorri cam gives off in feature films. Unfortunatly we knew this idea was more of a dream because Snorris are expensive, priced around 800pound for industry grade. We knew that how ever much we loved media studies, 800 pounds for a potential A grade was not worth it (with our childhood incomes) and with that we dropped the idea.

:(

One day we discovered a few help guides though, with this the dream lived once more.
The help guides guided you to create a home made snorri, usually with a harness and a changeable arm, out of wood, nails, screws and old skateboards. This seems relatively fine for us, until we discovered another flaw, we didn't have the resources and the time to build one and once again the dream died.




One day after i decided to poke around a current build for a extension  to my house i discovered some of the equipment needed and with this decided to set myself a project. Due to my great skill in woodwork i managed to fashion a rather crude looking Snorri using a hand full of nails, some screws, some wood and old strap and a bungee cord and i bought a screw which the camera will fit onto.

The Equipment

Wood Saw, scary stuff

One of the super strong joints

Me wearing the Snorri

Success. I had created a snorri cam for the group. We created some test footage which can be seen in the next blog post.

Joel using the Snorri

Trial: DV vs. HD

Using HD cameras for filming is a new experience for us. The video below is a quick comparison between the DV cameras we used last year, and the HD cameras we will be using for filming our music video. We didn't export the footage to it's full quality here, but you can still see the amount of detail picked up by the HD cameras is substantially more, as well as it being widescreen. This will be a great advantage in terms of making our final music video look proffessional.

CM - Where might our advertisement appear?

Although my advertisements won't actually be placed into a magazine, it would be good for us to understand the economics of placing the advert in a magazine or in magazines and at having reasoning behind playing them in specific magazines.

From previous advertisements posts on what magazines my advert will go in and what my adverts are we now know that..

We want to put the adverts in;              

• NME
• Mojo
• Q
• And FHM

And that we have produced 3 adverts;

• Full page (Glossy)
• Two page (Glossy)
• Half page (Glossy)

I will first work out how much it will cost to place all three adverts in a individual magazine.

To do this i created a table on Microsoft Excel which i compiled all the prices on and the graph automatically works out the rest. The sources for the prices are

NME advertising rates

Other magazine rates

So altogether to place one of each advert in each of the magazines it would cost New Transmission Records a staggering £143,881 pounds.

In relaility though we wouldn't place all the adverts into each magazine and by doing this we could save a lot of money.
First off FHM isn't a music video (as previously explained in the blog) but would be great magazine to advertise in to generate interest in the new album so we would only need a half page ad in this magazine, NME  Q are the main two magazines, Q appeals to our secondary audience which was old fans of the band while NME appeals to our primary audience which is the 15 - 34 which are a youth audience who we are reinventing JD too. So in both of these magazines we would put a double page spread.
Mojo is another magazine that some of our audience may read so we will put a full page advert in this magazine.

£45,242 is a much more reasonable price and saves us just under £100,000 while still generating the interest we wanted.

Basic Magazine Advertisement Research

We began researching advertisements in magazines similar to those that our advert would be released in. The image shows different types of advertisements from NME magazine and Q magazine.

• Full Page Ad - As simple as they sound. They are an advertisement that takes up a full page of the magazine. This is often for bigger bands and releases as it costs a lot to do. They can also appear on the back of magazines.
• Two Page Spread - Probably the most expensive of the different styles, this allows the company to in affect become a part of the magazine. The audience must look at the advert and thus the product. Again big companies, or big festivals use this.
• Half page ad - Very simply, it takes up half of the page.
• Relevant Advertisements - Relevant adverts in a music magazine could be for single/album releases, upcoming concerts or even actual equipment such as guitars or drums etc. Basically they are adverts for products that link to the subject matter of the magazine.
• Non-relevant advertisements - These however, are advertisements for everything else. Many of these will be big brands or companies that will have their adverts appearing in a wide range of magazines. However sometimes advertisements can be placed in magazines that have the same target audience as the product.
• Advertorials - These are different to the other styles of adverts in that they aren't instantly recognisable as adverts. They are often articles or features written by marketing companies in order to promote their product.
• Classifieds - Appear at the back of the magazine, and are often very concise advertisements. They are the cheapest form of advertising and often range anywhere from listing small shops or job vacancies, all the way to dating services and personal advertisements. They can be a big way for magazines to earn their revenue.
• Display ads - These are the most recognisable and many of the above categories, are in fact sub-groups of this one. They are the glossy, colourful advertisements we see in most magazines.

Vodcast: More on the Digipak

Ancillary Draft: Digipak 2

[DRAFT]

Ancillary Draft: Digipak

It is important that certain characteristics link our ancillary products to our main music video. The concept behind our first Digi-Pak does just that. 

We were inspired by the iconic image of Ian Curtis that is shown on Deborah Curtis' book "Touching From A Distance" as well as appearing on NME magazine's cover. We want our music video (and thus subsequent ancillary texts) to share characteristics with the Joy Division frontman.
This will be the image that most Joy Division fans think of when they picture Ian Curtis. Therefore if we could replicate and adapt the photography, it will be a method that instantly helps please Joy Division fans.

Like previously stated, our music video should link to other the ancillary texts. The key concepts of the video will be isolation and confinement, and therefore we should carry these across to the Digi-Pak. Also important will be the urban and rural landscapes, so again this featured on our first draft.
  The front cover is an image very similar to that of Curtis. It shows our central protagonist in Ian's position. We chose an urban background signifying confinement.
Though here we used a terraced house, we ideally want to use a council flat as the backdrop to provide anchorage to Ian Curtis' lifestyle.
Though he lived in a terrace when he was older, we feel a council flat more represents the Joy Division style. As well as holding aesthetic qualities.
 We chose to show the same image except taken from behind on the back cover. As a variation though, we changed what he was stood in front of to being (ideally anyway) a landscape, to contrast and show isolation. Again here, we didn't get the intended backdrop, but this wasn't essential as we are currently trying to find out whether the concept works. Personally we think it does.

No text features on the outside of our Digi-Pak. This is something we have seen on existing Joy Division digi-paks, so we felt it was something we should try. It also helps draw attention to the actual artwork. The tracklisting, company details etc. instead feature on the inside of the packaging. Also on the inside will be a background featuring images of Malham Cove, Council Flats, Ian Curtis and a brain.
Whereas the front on book focus on outer features, the inside focuses on his inner feelings and emotions (hence the brain).
The contours of the rocks will interlink with the form of the brain, so this will work well.We intend the brain to be hand drawn to link to the iconic cover of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures which was created by Peter Saville. Also on the inside features lyrics handwritten on a drawing tablet. This is a technique very often seen in indie-releases, and it gives it a more personal quality.

The template for this rough draft was handmade. It has been successful in terms of helping us further visualise the final product, and feedback so far has been good. Our current idea is a bookfold digi-pak featuring a art booklet and CD sleeve inside.

VODCAST: Different Forms of Music Release

Having researched on the different forms of releasing music, we thought we'd take you through it in a short vodcast. Joel and Callum take certain stage, although I do make a special appearance discussing digital downloads.

The Art of Vinyls

Vinyl Records (or LPs) originate back to the 1870s when inventor Thomas Edison created the earliest known Phonograph. A user on blurtit.com explains that "when you record on a vinyl disc, the sound is transferred into a recording needle. The needle scratches grooves in the disc. The sound manipulates the scratching into different wave forms. So when you run a stylus (or playing needle) through the grooves , it reverses the process and vibrates the needle. A preamp picks up the vibration. The vibration that it picks up is the song scratched into the disc."

Vinyl's were particularly popular from the 1950s up until the 1990s, when they were eventually replaced by tapes and CDs. But recently there has been huge demand for old vinyls, and sales are once more on the rise. Whereas in recent years we have seen the closing down of CD stores like Zaavi and Virgin Megastores, specialist vinyl-only music shops are opening. Even highstreet shops such as Urban Outfitters sell vinyls.

Classic Records can be worth a lot of money. As vintage is these days in fashion, people have wanted the music styling of old. Not only car boot sales, but actual secondhand vinyl shops show that classic vinyls are in huge demand. This is particularly important for indie bands that's original vinyl had limited release. New Order's "Blue Monday" whilst being a massive chart hit, actually sold out of vinyl presses due to unexpected high demand.

It's not just an older audience that want vinyls. As previously mentioned, vintage shops are becoming ever more popular. But more than clothes, people want the possessions that went alongside them. The 80s in particular has seen a modern rebirth. There is also huge debate that the quality of vinyl recordings is substantially better than CD quality and even more-so than downloads. Younger audiences are starting to pick up classic records. I myself have even bought a vinyl (Jeff Buckley's "Grace") I have seen the profit that it may hold being the only LP released by the singer before his death. It is substantially important to us that our release will appeal to old and young audiences alike.

Limited Edition vinyls are also becoming more popular. Re-releasing albums is now very popular, and often we see limited edition vinyls go alongside this. These essentially become collector's items and again can be worth a lot. Some bands even number these just so fans (or collector's) know just how rare they are. Sometimes these feature different artwork again to stand out as being collectable.

But also more artistic bands release vinyl editions of  their albums at the same time that the CD and download is released. This is partly due to seeing an opportunity to tap into that certain market area, but also they too feel that vinyl is the true form of music release. Alternative rock band Brand New are an example of this having released both of their last two albums on vinyl. Their influences hail back to The Smiths and the 1980s so in a way the vinyl edition of the album is a way for them to put themselves side by side with their heroes.

This article from The Canadian Press sums things up pretty perfectly when it states about the way of the modern music release "iPods in one hand, vinyls in the other".

Analysis of a Vinyl

Vinyl Research

Deconstruction of a Digipak CD

Jeff Buckley - Live at Sine E

Linkin Park - Meteora

What is a Digipak CD?

Digipaks are an alternative to the classic Dual Case. They are a method of packaging CDs and/or DVDs.

Taking visual influence from the classic vinyl casing Digi-Paks very often have two or three panels, and open like a book or some sort of variation. The packaging is made from card rather than the plastic cases we often see. Over the past few years, production of Digi-Paks has grown substantially and rather than in the past just being used for Limited Edition album versions, they are now becoming common.
 

We were very lucky to have a man who works for a local Digi-Pak design company ("Wewow") come in and speak to us. This is the insight we gained:

-Dual cases are a thing of the past. With the price of plastic increasing almost 15% over the last year, the music industry has been forced into looking to find an alternative to the classic packaging. This is also due to the large increase in digital downloads of music, that one day will overtake and comeplety replace compact discs. Record companies are also expected to reduce the size of discs from the standard 12cm to just 8cm.

- Digi-Paks increase production costs for the production companies and the band.Though each project is individual, 100 units rough costs £100 to produce. Bands have driven this price down to the demand for the new casing style. But if it costs more to produce, why is it becoming so popular?

- Due to the huge global warming situation, Sony made a memo demanding that the record industry reduced it's carbon emissions a huge 30% by 2015. The Digi-Pak is slowly becoming 100% recyclable, meaning that even though they cost more to produce, they are much better for the environment. The dual case is not going to become a viable design. As demand for the digi-pak increases, the price will go down. In comparison dual cases production costs are growing.

- To produce 1000 discs costs roughly 17p per disc. To produce 1 million, makes each disc worth just 4p. It is actually better for the companies to produce more discs as  the machine increases speed of production the longer it is on. Also once the company have the record on glass master, the price of production goes down.
The cost of producing a dual case is often just 1.5p. In comparision, the digi-pak is much more expensive. This is due to the print process being followed by the machine fold which can take up to half an hour.
In one morning, a realistic amount of discs to be produced are 1000. If the process was hand-done this would take 3/4 days. In terms of price, printing costs 35p, the paperfoam tray costs, 10p and the folding process costs another 3p.

- Amazon do most of "Wewow"'s distribution, as well as for alot of other companies. The major companies do so much more than what you would expect. Shipping cost is roughly £50,000 for a bulk order. This is substantially more than the actual production of the order.

- Wewow's production of the artwork generally costs a band £65 to £85 per hour. This will include the in house design, which often follows a band's design brief. They also must pay for IRSC copyright codes, and MCP licence codes. Wewow's production is actually cheaper than the going rate of £150.

- Like every product, the cases must have a barcode. The design companies cannot buy these on behalf of the band, and must do so themselves. What more bands are now doing, is including a QR code, which links to the band's website when hovered over using a phone application.

- The Digi-Pak has a sort of retro appeal to it's design, which links back to the old vinyl cases. This helps it becoming appealing to an older audience too. Another appeal is the fact that you can print on every side of the packaging. Wewow and other companies offer alternative designs, such as the WeWow spiral, which doesn't even require glue. It is intended for promos, and is the cheapest to produce at 70p for 50 units. Very often companies have a 60% packaging markup, and 30% - 50% for the disc.The cheapest packaging is most often the one which requires the least printing, such as the wallet and window design.

So in conclusion:

Pros -
Many bands love the way they look. They give the album a sort of vintage appeal.
They are very good in terms of there's a lot of room for artwork etc.
They are much more environmentally friendly.
The cost is reducing every year, whereas plastic is increasing.
The many variations in design and price mean that is more viable for indie bands to be able to afford bulk orders.
They don't crack when dropped.

Negatives -
Digital downloads is still the way of the future, so there will be no need for any packaging.
At the moment, the production costs are more.
Though they don't crack, they do rip and actually offer less protection to the CD.

Podcast 4: More On Our Test Footage

Rough Footage

We filmed a sample scene from our music video to further illustrate our ideas to our audience. The key focus was showing some of the main shot types, sequences and moods that we intended to include in our actual music video. Clearly this early cut will be very different to our final piece but hopefully puts across our early ideas. This whole rough cut was filmed in one day, and edited in another. For our final music video, we may have to spend one day per location and a considerable longer time editing it to the required quality.

The locations used for filming are not the ones that will be used for our later shooting with the exception of the cupboard scene. Also noteworthy is that the piece as of yet is not in the correct order, as we didn't have time to use all our locations, and the enclosed chlaustrophobic scene will intercut some of the others. We did however use our actual cast, although additions may be required. Again set dressing and costume was not considered for this early rough cut. The locations used here are representative of the ones that will be used for the later filming (for example although the bridge scene here worked well, we have a better location available for the actual shoot).

The snow was an ideal addition to this rough cut. We initially hoped for filming our music video when it was snowing, although this is clearly something we have no control over. Here though, it does work very well in both providing and signifying a mystical atmosphere and also adding to the contrast of black and white editing. Black and white as mentioned previously is the main colour scheme for both Joy Division and Anton Corbijn so this is something we will definately use.

Importantly, this rough cut was filmed using DV tapes, whereas our actual shoot will be done in HD. This will instantly make a huge impact on it's quality and we intend to do a comparision video shortly to illustrate this.



Following a session of audience feedback this was the advice passed over to us for improving our video:

- Incorporate more (but subtle) signifiers to our central protagonist sharing his personality with the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. Possibly include aspects of his iconic dancing in the cupboard scene (apparently inspired by his epileptic shocks)

-Multilayering in the bedroom scene of the protagonist in various positions around the room. This would further signify his confusion.

-Cutting between normal shots and fish-eye lens shots if possible. Also possibly consider intercutting between standard HD shots, and older camera effects (a technique used by Anton Corbijn).

-Filming another confined location in a crowd. This could be done at a pub or concert etc.

-More high angles to signify our protagonist's weakness and isolation.

We also got some helpful feedback on Youtube:

By filming rough footage it has allowed us to gain audience feedback at an early stage which as a result has helped to push forward our music video with fresh ideas in mind.