Test shots in London...

On Wednesday 29th October, I travelled up to London with my friend to take some practice shots fro potential digipak images. Unfortunately, on the day, my partner Sam was unavailable to attend the trip and the third member of our band, James, was away. After researching similar artists album covers, a majority if them don't actually feature the band on the album cover. They were either band logos or landscape images of towns/cities. We took note of this, therefore I decided to travel to London and take some landscape images of buildings and sites. I managed to get some pretty cool images that I actually really like. I got my friend Amelia to feature in a couple of the shots. These are some of the better shots i got from the day. During the day, we both travelled to places like the Southbank, Charing Cross station, Camden, Covent Garden and briefly to Shoreditch. 

Unfortunately, due to timing and lighting, we were unable 

to take any pictures in Shoreditch.

The picture on the right is my favourite from the whole shoot. I love the shadows and colour of the while picture and think the location is perfect for the type of artist we want to create. Its smart, attractive and typical London. This shot was taken down Shelton Street in Covent Garden. My brother works in Covent Garden and told my to go there for these type of shots. Overall, for a test shot day, I was incredibly please with the outcome of some of these shots, and will definitely be attending these locations again with my partner Sam and third band member for our final digipak shots.

Second blogger feedback with Sinead...

This is my second blogger feedback recording I had with Sinead McGrath. Not long after my first feedback session with Shaun, it was still clear that I was slacking with the progress on my theory work. I was near enough up-to-date with the practical work, but behind with the theory side and just the amount of posts in general. I was still yet to do any work or research on theorists. My digipak and posters however were in progress and Sinead was happy with them. This is the recording for my second feedback session..

Test shots...

In today's lesson, we took some basic practice shots of potential digipak images for our artist. The third band member we had planned on having was in a lesson during the shoot, so we used our friend Aaron (right of image). These were just some quick shots that we hadn't actually planned as clouting, time and location wasn't correct. During the half-term, we will be heading into London for a shoot and attuning paces such as Shoreditch, Camden and the Southbank.

On the day, we will be taking a variety of outfits to change into. We decided this as during our research, we noticed that there fashion and style had matured a lot as they progressed as a band. When their first record was released, they dressed the typical indie way, in denim jackets, ripped skinny jeans and knackered vans. They had shabby hair and piercings and looked like the typical British indie band.

As their second record was released, they had refurbished into a much more mature band. They dressed in smart attire, wearing pastel coloured blazers, chinos and smart shoes like brogues. They transferred their messy haircuts to smarter partings and exchanged the piercings for smart vintage looking sunglasses.

Location ideas...

For our production idea clip we recorded, we discussed a couple of potential locations we would be interested in going to to take potential digipak/album cover shots. We wanted urban places tat looked and matched the type of artist we are trying to create. A smart-stylish band who appeal to students in their late-teens, early twenties. We looked at places in London renowned for its social night-life and music scene. Camden appealed to us a lot due to its music background. Camden Roundhouse is one of the biggest and most prolific music venues.

Production log...

This is our production log. In this clip, we spoke about our plans for location, and style/fashion for our band profile, music shoot and music video.

Andrew Goodwin...

In today's lesson, we looked at Andrew Goodwin and his 'theory' of music videos and his analysis. Goodwin wrote a book called 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'. This was a book all about his theory on music videos. He believed that a majority of music videos followed a set of rules and regulations/codes and conventions so that the music video would work with the genre effectively.


There were multiple rules to his theory, them being;

1. Rule number one... music videos all have similarities depending on genre. For example, a rock video, a majority of the time, will consist of a stage/live performance. 
Pop music videos, or girl/boy band videos will consist of a dance routine, or storyline aimed at their target audience, like one directions newest single 'Night Changes', the video consists of the 5 band member staking a girl each out on a date, to places young teens would go. For example, ice skating, restaurant and fun fair. This really stands out to their target audience and is a perfect example of the Goodwin theory.

2. Secondly, there is normally a relationship between lyrics a visuals. This is normally the basics for most music videos but generally is most consistent in indie rock bands as they normally have a narrative video which stays consistent and relevant to the song lyrics. However it is done in other genre's swell, just not as much.

3. The third rule is that there is a relationship between the music and the visuals. There are three different techniques or ways in which the visuals are used to promote the song; illustrate, disjuncture and amplify.

4. The fourth rule is that the demands of the record label will include the need of lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which gives the artist a visual style which then recurs across their work. A big example of this would be Lady Gaga because of the extravagant outfits she wears and then also Katy Perry who also wears quite extravagant clothing in her music videos.

5. The fifth rule is that there is frequently reference to notion of looking such as images of screens within screens or telescopes and then also the voyeuristic treatment of the female body, which links in with Mulveys theory which is that women are there to be looked at.

6. The sixth and final rule is that there is quite often an intertextual reference this is when an idea is taken from a past movie, TV show or even another music video and is used again or even just changed a little bit. An example of this is Madonna's "Material Girl" which was intertextualised from "Gentleman Prefer Blondes".

Digipak - presentation...

Post-Modernism...

What is post-modernism..?

Well, post-modernism is taking something old, and the refurbishing it into something more modern and up-to-date. Post-modernism is built up of three different stages.

Audience Demographic (male)

We looked at and finalised what our audience demographic would be for our band. Through discussing the style of our band and out interests and influences, we decided that our target audience would be like an indie late-teen/20's who are into their fashion, as seen in our audience profiling post.

Final artist name choice...

After a couple of weeks of deciding a name for our band, Sam and I decided on the name Waves. To help us come to this decision, we brainstormed a load of ideas, then created a tally of out favourite 4 names. It was clearly evident that Waves was the most popular, not only from us, but from a class of year 12's we asked. 9 of 15 students went for the name Waves, and we are more than happy and grateful for their input and help. Now that we have got a name for our band, and a final song choice, me and Sam can now progress on to making our mood board and planning our digipak design. The people that we gave our tally to were aged between 16-30 years old. By asking a range of aged people as widely as this have us a variety of preferred band names.

Hype Williams (Director)

Hype Williams (Director)

In Monday's lesson, Shaun gave everyone in my class a film director to research and powerpoint. I was given Hype Williams to research. 


His full name is Harold "Hype" Williams, and he is an American music video and film director. Williams was born on July 1970 in Queens, New York and is of African and Honduran descent. He later attended Adelphi University Williams' big break came when he began working with Classic Concepts Video Productions. Lionel "Vid Kid" Martin & VJ Ralph McDaniels created Williams' first opportunity with the "Filmmakers With Attitude" moniker (FWA), which was Williams' first video company. 

"Hype" has worked with some of the most prestigious artists, from 2Pac to The Notourious B.I.G, from Jack White to Hoobastank. 

Williams used a very different style in a majority of his work. This was the fish-eye lens which distorted the camera view around the central focus. Here are some examples from his work.

In 1998, he directed his first and only to date, feature film called 'Belly'. It made a box office total of $9,639,390 in the US and Canada. 

Band Name mind map...

The band name ideas above are just a few that we came up with in our single lesson on Monday with Shaun. Sam and I were unsure, so we sat with Shaun and Mike and began thinking of certain names. In our heads, Sam and I had planned to be called a two-worded band, whether it was going to be 'The ...", like The Fiction for example, or called something like 'Moon Safari'.

Audience profile...

Undercover Martyn (official song)

This is the official video for the song 'Undercover Martyn' by Two Door Cinema Club. It was released on 27th February 2010. It was released on the French label Kitsune Music and Co-Operative music. The idea of this video is very experimental. It's not a new method of video, therefore it is post-modern. The following video 

History of music videos...

In lesson today, we started looking at the history of music videos. The definition of a music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery and is produced for promotional and/or artistic purposes. I feel by looking at the history of the music video I can find out what to include in the genre that I have chosen. While looking at and researching into music videos I will be able to take ideas and knowledge from them as a whole as through history they have help shape and change the music industry. Modern music videos are normally made for marketing purposes, and to promote the actual sale of the song, however music videos have featured throughout history for many different reasons such as just purely entertainment purposes.

Music videos first started to be made around about the 1920's but these music videos were very simple and basic because of the use of technology was far from advanced. They normally would just show a live or band performance of the song however they started to incorporate talkies and music videos by putting music videos in the short films, an example of this would be  Bessie Smith's song St. Louis Blues which features in a short film showing in this clip 6 minutes 58 seconds in. This was a good way of promoting a song as at this time lots of people were going to the cinemas to watch these styles of film.

This music video was from the 1960's, Bob Dylan's song Subterranean Homesick Blues this was something different in terms of music videos and maybe revolutionised them as a whole as it was one of the first music videos to do something different as a style of music video. The video it self was cards with the lyrics on and the cards would change along with song so that the lyrics on the cards would match the song being played, this was one of the first videos to include text within the song which was also why it was very different. This also followed Goodwin's theory about the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals of a music video.


It then wasn't until the mid 1970's that it started to change again like for example Queens, Bohemian Rhapsody also changed the face of music videos as it was one of the first music videos to contain any visual effects which was amazing for anyone watching it at this time it also changed the way people started to watch music videos because before everyone watched music videos in the cinema then after this video was released the industry thought of the idea to bring out TV channels just for music videos to be watched on.       


Music videos only got bigger as time progressed but this was down to lots of different factors but one major one is the start of the TV channel MTV which started in the 1980's and basically showed music videos all the time. This TV channel is still massive today and shows all the modern music as well as classics of all different genres.

Final song choice...

In Fridays lesson, after days of discussing and planning what song we were going to choose, Sam and I finally made our decision. After making various decisions, and switching from Bloc Party, to M83, we finally made our decision and have chosen the track 'Undercover Martyn' by Two Door Cinema Club.
We looked at the artist and have studied their style and influences. From this research, we found out that there a lot of denim jackets, skinny 
jeans and tattered converse/vans worn.

I am happy with our song choice, as I was originally a fan of the track. Therefore, I believe I will be able to understand and be more enthusiastic about the song and the overall project. It is a catchy tune and opens many doors for us for ideas when it comes to the Final music video.

Frederic Jameson

In today's lesson, we started looking at a guy named Frederic Jameson.

He was born on the 14th April 1934.

He is known as an American critic of literacy and marxist political theorist.

Over the past three decades, he has published a wide range of works analyzing literary and cultural texts, while developing his own neo-Marxist theoretical perspectives. 

In addition, Jameson produced many important critiques of opposing theoretical schools and positions. A prolific writer, he has assimilated an astonishing number of theoretical discourses into his project, while intervening in many contemporary debates and analyzing a diversity of cultural texts, ranging from the novel to video, and from fairy tales to postmodernism.

Jameson published many book about cultural logic and politics.

Here are an example of a few of his books he wrote...

First Ideas...

Originally, my group consisted of Aaron Pye, Sam Donovan and myself. We always knew coming into this task that we wanted to do an indie band. We spoke to previous students from years above and watched their work they had produced and thought that an indie band would have been really fun to do as most indie songs have an interesting storyline. After a few discussions, Aaron decided to leave our group and it was just left with Sam and myself. Me and Sam were still planning to do an indie band, so we started with our research on potential bands we could focus on. As the indie/pop genre is our favourite genre of music, and what we listen to the most, we looked through our music libraries on our phones and some of the artists that we have on there. We created a mind map of artists we would be interested in. Bands like The 1975, The Kooks and Bloc Party were popular choices but we couldn't find a song of theirs that we could get excited about and come up with lans for. We then turned to songs that we liked, as the roject is mainly about a music video for a song. We, again, followed through with the same procedure and went through songs we had on our music libraries on our iPhones/iPods. We then came across a song called 'Undercover Martyn' by an Irish band called Two Door Cinema Club. We both originally loved the record and other material by the band so it was pretty perfect for us. We researched the band, and their fashion and influences. We also looked at a few of their videos and found that they are very fun and colourful with their work. This excited us as it gives us the opportunity to create and work with something very fun and colourful. We always had the idea of a live performance in our video, and i think we will still go ahead with this decision, but have a fun narrative along with it.

After we found our artist and song, it was now time to find OUR artist. The artist/band name was our next priority. We spent lesson after lesson sitting with our teachers Shaun and Mike rying to find a name that fitted our genre/type of band. We made brainstorms after brainstorms and mind -map after mind-map trying to whittle it down until we did. We finalised four potential band names and created a tally for our class to fill out. The results of the tally meant that our artist name was 'Waves'. Sam and I were happy with this decision as this was th ename that we were both warming to before hand.