Arctic Monkeys Album Art Throughout Time

Arctic Monkeys Album Art Through Time 

Live Performance in Music Videos

As half of our footage for our music video is going to be of a band playing at a party, I thought it would be a good idea to look into the feature of bands playing within a music video for part of my research. 
This is a common thing that is seen in many Indie music videos. This could probably be down to the fact that the main feel of the genre is that the music was never about success and fame, but more about the artist's passion and love for music to be shared with an audience. 

A great example of this is The Vaccines music video for If You Wanna. As a new band releasing their first video, their budget may have been quite low, therefore the music video doesn't feature anything too complex. Yet the use of lighting is really effective, starting off with slow colour changes, to quicker flashes depending on the pace of the music. This works really well to make the music video still entertaining without any expensive effects or props. The composition of these shots below is also quite interesting. The wide shots show all of the band, but not their feet or the floor of the stage.

The main focus of this video is the lead singer, with multiple close up shots of his face throughout the video taken from different angles. The other band members are mostly shown in mid shots, again from a range of different angles. Shots from behind or the side look really effective. A few oblique shots are also seen throughout. The wide shot (above) is the only shot type in which the entire band are shown together on one frame, however a few mid shots throughout show a couple band members in the same frame.
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Quick cuts are used throughout the video to show random close up shots of the instruments as they are being played. This is a feature that we are thinking of replicating in our own video. The top shot on the photo to the left of the guitar looks really effective from that angle.





(Print screens were edited together using Photoshop)

Links Between Digipak and Promo Posters

The Representation of Parties and Gigs in Film and Television

No Text Band Logos

Thinking more about ideas for my own logo for use on my print work; I have considered making a logo that is just an image, not featuring the band's name.
This could be seen ad a risky move, and goes against the typical conventions of the majority of bands and their print products. But if done successfully, the logo can become even more iconic than one that just features then name of the band in a fancy font.
A prime example of this would be the Rolling Stones lips logo

Album "Stickers"

When researching into album art, I noticed that a few designers used a circle on the cover, featuring some band information, this is seen a lot in the designs of Leif Podhajsky, the man behind the album art of Tame Impala and Splashh

A similar thing is seen on the album art for Suck It and See.

This style could perhaps have been inspired by the promotional stickers often seen on physical release copies in shops. These stickers normally list the most popular/ successful songs off the album, and sometimes give a star rating from a reviewer or magazine.

The Black Keys's El Camino digipack release had a circular sticker with the words "Play Loud" on it, another example of this feature.

I really really like this idea and I think that I will use it in the development of my own ideas for my band's logo

Audiences

Character Casting & Costumes

It was important that we had our main character wearing a red dress, as we plan to make our video all black and white, with the only colour being the red of the dress.
We decided this as the colour red has cultural connotations of love and lust, but also danger and pain. These feelings are all represented by the relationship shown in our music video.
We cast Lydia as our main character because we needed a person with a naturally pretty and "cute" look to fit in with what we wanted for our video.

We cast Matt Brown, a local celebrity for the part of our main character. His slick look fitted in well with what we were trying to create. Matt is wearing mostly black, this represents the darkness that he is feeling due to his heartbreak.
This is also a realistic outfit that a teenage boy would wear whilst on a night out drinking .

Set Shots

We have decided to film the first half of our footage over High Street, Walnut Grove and Driffield Road in Nafferton.

The main reason for this decision is that since Nafferton is a village, it would be quieter and safer to film outside pubs at night time as it would be less busy. Also, because part of our footage was to be filmed walking down the middle of a street, we needed a quiet place with few cars. Walnut Grove was perfect for this.

This is also the street in the village with the most pubs (two) so it was probably the best place to go to create the feel of a "pub crawl".

We plan to film the second half of our footage for the "gig" at our friend'as house, which is also in Nafferton, so for continuity reasons it also made sense that we filmed the pub crawl part in Nafferton aswell.

The Star Pub

Walnut Grove

This place was perfect for filming the girl overshadowed in the alleyway

Cross Keys Pub

25/09/13 Health and Safety Issues

Location	Danger	How The Risk Will Be Reduced	Additional Measures
Road opposite Sam’s house	Can be busy with cars at certain times	Being careful whilst crossing the road to and from this destination Ensure that the group are aware of the danger	Try filming at time when we know that the roads will be quieter
Streets of Nafferton	Cars and bikes passing by	Be careful whilst filming in the road of Walnut Grove Make sure that all cast members stay on the pathway elsewhere as the road is very busy	Try filming at time when we know that the roads will be quieter Have at least one mobile phone on set to call 999 in case of any serious incidents
Streets of Nafferton	Cold temperatures outdoors at the time of filming	Have a coat on hand for Lydia immediately after the shot has been taken Make sure all other cast members are warm and wearing weather appropriate clothing Have hot food/drinks to warm people up	Time the shooting when it isn’t so cold