Editing Process Week 4

Now that I have finished cutting all of the shots together I’m now going to start adding the after effects in.

Originally we were going to film the band in a set that we would have built however we thought that by filming them on green screen we could adapt or change the set/background that the band are in. Therefore we shot the band in front of a green screen. By doing this I could use after effects to apply the background and floor that we picked out. The technique used is called chromo-keying.

This is achieved by masking out the band members and making the green, of the green screen, disappear. This is why we had to make sure no of the band equipment, instruments or clothing was green otherwise whatever was green would disappear too.

This keying was done by using the software ‘Key light’ which is part of the After effects programme. When editing I placed an omni light into the composition in order to make the room look more realistic.

By using key light I eliminated the green so the wallpaper and floor were visible.

I then changed the saturation of the layer with the band on in order to make them appear in black and white.

The rain going on throughout the video was a separate layer, which was filmed on black. In order to place the rain over the footage I used the blending tool ‘liner dodge’, which makes the black go invisible. This then left the coloured rain. Almost the same principle as the green screen process of chromo-keying, it’s just that another tool is used and another colour is eliminated. To make the colour of the rain change throughout the video I picked out nice bright colours from the hue tool panel and then got the colour to slowly change between every few shots by picking a different colour.

This part of the editing process was reasonably straightforward. That was until it came to doing the splats of rain at the end of the video to suggest that the coloured rain is colouring the bands world around them.

For the splat effects I repeated the same process that I had done for the background and rain, however this time I had to construct a separate composition, which used an animated splat effect from ‘riot gear’.

This time instead of using liner dodge I used another blending mode, darken, which turned the white see through, then placed this composition into the original and proceeded to edit it in the same way and do another set of keying to remove the black around the splats. This was slightly more complicated and time consuming, which left me editing right up to the end of the week. Because this had taken so long to do there wasn't enough time to do the other after effects idea that we had. We were going to place the band into the puddles in some of the context scenes, however because we didn't had a big enough green screen board on the shoot day to take out on location we decided that we would have to try and edit each shot by masking out the everything but the puddle. This turned out to be very difficult and very time consuming and it was time we didn't have. Also the one shot that we did manage to edit just made the band member in the puddle look like they were in jelly. It just didn't look right.

So putting that behind us, I then watched the video several time to check that I hadn’t or any of my group had missed anything and that was the pop video finished.

Editing Process Week 3

Now that I’ve edited all of the performance shots in I now want to bring in some of the context shots. ‘Now Is Everyone’ are a new band and with a new band, especially it being one of their USP’s, we need to have more performance shot rather than context to reinforce their organic nature. The performance shots show that they can play their own instruments and therefore implies that they wrote the music themselves. It gives the audience watching a chance to start to recognize each band member and form an opinion and view of the band, hopefully a good one.

To give the audience as much time as possible to recognize the band member I have purposely decided to place at the beginning of the video an ECU of each member or their instrument and the immediately straight cut to a mid shot to either reveal the instrument the band member is playing or which band member is playing each instrument. This makes a very clear distinction between is of the band members for the audience.

The lead singer, Elliot, comes across as the front man for the band so I have reinforced this by cutting back to him more than the others in the video. Also I directed the band that only Elliot was allowed to look directly into the camera to give direct address to the audience because this allows a paradox to be created between the audience and the band however because the other members of the band aren’t giving direct address it also distances them from the audience reinforcing that they band are different to them.

During the week I opened final cut pro up as usual only to find that all of the footage had unsynced itself. This took added time that we didn’t really have to sort out. It meant going over all of the clips and resyncing them back to the track.

Now that all of the shots are together I’m going to go quickly back over it and tighten it all up and possibly add or take away some shots to add variety to the video to make it interesting to watch and then I’m going to import it into After effects to start applying some of the effects. 

Editing Process Week 2

I sorted the sound file during the week and uploaded it again onto Final cut pro. Then I began to edit the footage. I started by syncing some of the long performance shots up so that I could use this as a base to intercut other shots in between to start with until I found better or more appropriate shots to replace some of the long performance shots. Also by syncing a long performance shot with the music it meant that any other shots that I inserted I would be able to sync up to the performance shot. This is called lip-syncing and is one of the pop promo blue print conventions that as a group we have decided to use and develop. Syncing the long performance shots was easy enough because I had marked, using markers, the significant beats in the music that we could edit to the week before. The way I began to edit was by picking a shot out placing a marker where the same part of the song started in the clip as in the sound track so that when I dragged the shot onto the time line I could sync it effortlessly. When filming on the shoot day we also recorded sound, this meant each clip had sound with it. So that the sound track quality wasn’t affected I deleted the sound clip that went with each footage clip. I could find the sound clip on the sound bar. I did this process with 5 clips that went from the beginning of the video to the end. This is when it began to get interesting. I’ve decided to edit in all of the performance shots that we want and then start to replace some of the shots with concept shots. This is just so it doesn’t get confusing. By editing to the significant beats it meant that the promo has an pleasing rhythm and cutting pace. 

Editing Process Week 1

To edit the promo I am using final cut pro and after effects. It is a lot easier and faster to edit the video as opposed to last year when I was editing my thriller ‘Angeldust’ because we used an Mpeg 2 SD NXCAM which has a hard disk, this made editing easier because each take is captured on a separate file. Editing time was reduced, bins easier to manage and extended footage easier to handle. Once I had uploaded the footage I sorted the shots out into performance and context shots then I split both of those bins up into good shots, bad shots and good part shots. This was so we could go straight to the best shots without trawling through the others. Some of the bin titles included performance shots, context shots, good shots, bad shots, good part shots, head shots, wide shots, puddle shots and so on.

Once we had sorted all of the shots out I imported the sound track ‘What we See’ and placed it onto the time line so I could start editing to the track. We had a slight problem the first time we tried to upload the song because it turned out that its current format wasn’t compatible with final cut pro. So we are going to take the track and try and convert it into a WAP file instead of a WAV file in order for it to work on the editing software. Once we have corrected the sound file I’ll start be placing markers on the timeline where the significant beats are so I can edit to the beat.   

Shoot Day!

They day before the Shoot day we all, as a group, prepared the studio ready for the next day. This included painting the back wall green in and also the platform, which the band were going to stand on. We then positioned the light in the place the best lit the green so there were no shadows. This was key for the green screen as there had to be no shadows in order for us to edit the video and allow us to key out the green effectively.

Shoot day began with us all getting together to go over how the day was going to go ahead. I made up a plan for the day including times so that we had to try to keep to the schedule and have structure to the day in order to achieve as much as possible.

After this discussion we waited for the band. They arrived around 9:00. From there we took them up to the edit suit where Davina and I explained how the day was going to unfold and what we wanted from them, including, do’s and don’ts when in front of the camera.

Whilst Davina and myself, briefed the band, Jo and Oscar did the last minute checks and changes to the set including the positioning of the lights they also checked that the playback was working.

Finally we bought the band into the studio ready to start shooting between 9:30 and 1:00 which was when we were going to break for lunch and get ready to travel and shoot in Guildford.

Once the band were in the studio, they set up all of their instruments, which we then positioned to make the shot interesting and make sure they would all be in shot. We were able to see the shots that were constructed on the camera live on a large television monitor, situated next to the playback. We then gave the band a chance to run the song a couple of times before we got them to play to the playback. This proved difficult because there instruments were so loud that they couldn’t hear the playback and therefore went out of time. However we managed to sort this by increasing the volume of the track on the playback.

During the day Davina was on playback, Jo and Oscar took photos with an SLR camera as a record and to use in the digi pack and I was on the camera. However all of us directed the band and had input on what shot we wanted and what shots we liked and disliked by looking at the monitor.

I set up the camera by bubbling the tripod to make sure the shot was level and then started filming a WS of the band. It was only after we had filmed several establishing shots that I started to film CU’s and low and high angle shots. Every time I changed to do a different shot I got Oscar and Jo to watch the monitor and tell me whether it was properly focused because during the day it seemed focused on the camera monitor but it always seemed to be slightly unfocused on the bigger monitor.

At the beginning the filming was going well and we were getting through a lot of shots however before lunch the overhead floodlights tripped and went out. We tried to get them to come back on but they needed to cool down so we took a break and discussed our next course of action.

When we finally got the lights working again, we quickly got the rest of the shots we wanted and then broke for lunch for half an hour.

After we packed everything up in the studio and transferred it into a mini bus including spare batteries, a new memory card and a green screen board that we were going to use to reflect into the puddles for our idea.

We got into Guildford at about half two in the afternoon and went to locations in Guildford where we had already scouted puddles a couple of days before. Luckily for us it was dull, and grey and lightly raining so the puddles were still there and we wouldn’t have to edit the background to make it look like a rainy day. When we got to the first puddle we tried to get the green screen to reflect into the puddle but it was too small so instead we just shot the puddles as they were and decided to try and edit them using final cut pro and after effects.

At this point we had to be fast and get the shots we wanted quickly because of the time restrictions we had and because at this time of year the sun goes down earlier and the continuity of the video would be compromised.

The kind of shots we did were shots of the puddles, the band walking towards and away from the camera always from right to left in different areas in Guildford and then finally we ended up at a pub in Guildford called the Boileroom, which is where we finished the last few shots. Luckily for us the owner turned up and turned the lights on and let us film the band walking in to the pub making it more realistic.

Finally we packed up all of the equipment and packed it back into the minibus. We thanked the band and they left and then once we got back to Hurtwood we transferred all of the footage onto the main hard drive so we didn’t lose any of it and so it was ready to edit the next day.  

Running Order

Day plan: Now is Everyone “What we See.”

1. Meeting at 8:00 – 8:15 for breakfast and chats about the day ahead


2. Meet in media at 8:50 ready for band arriving at 9:00


3. 9:00 – 9:30 Davina and Fran brief the band and style them and Oscar and Jo finish last changes to the set.


4. Around 9:30 move into studio and begin filming. Green screen shots and performance shots.


5. Then at 1:00 – 1:10 break for lunch


6. 1:45 finish lunch make way to Guildford, to do puddle shots and shots of band in Guildford.


7. 5:00 finish filming due to time of day.

Change of Design and Layout

Previously the set was going to be designed as a bedsit. However I have decided to change this due to time limitations and because as a group we have decided to just use green screen. By only using the green screen we are able to insert any kind of pattern or image into the background by using after effects and the techique known as chromo keying. Below is the tile pattern we used and the wall paper pattern.

Experimenting with the puddle idea.

Here i took one of the photos of the band that they had taken and then i copyed it into photoshop where i edited the image to make it look like he was in a puddle.
The photo of Elliot is a seperate layer. There is also two photos of paint that was dripped into water to create a swirling pattern. These were photos i took when i was exerimenting with what paint worked best when dripping it and mixing it in water.
With each layer i edited it using the different texture options so i chose to use the ocean ripple texture and changed the intensity. I did this with each layer and the with the two paint swirl layers i changed the opacity so that the image of Elliot could be seen behind.
This is what we are hoping to do in after effects once we have got the footage for our pop video.

Below is another puddle experiment. This one is a lot easier to do. I copied this photo onto photoshop, duplicated the layer and then went in filter, distort and finally clicked on the effect ocean ripple and played around with the ripple size and magnitude. I then went on to hue/saturation and made the colour more of a bluey green and then finally adjusted the brightness and contrast. Even though it was more simple i don't think it is as effective as my first experiment.

Lighting design and Set design

This i currently our initial idea for the set although it may change on the day due to what props we could get hold of and the amount of space is left for the band to perform in. However from what you can see in the image we want to make it a dark messy bedsit. So we wanted to have a bed in there and a wardrobe and have bits of scrunched up paper on the floor and wallpaper on the walls that has started to peel away from the wall and is all scratched up. We also want a window on one side with blinds so we can do interesting lighting effects and create interesting shots with shadows. We want to represent what they see originally (Which is this set in black and white) and then slowly throughout see the colour return and the room be restored to order.

Props and Costume List

Props List

These props are being provided by the band:

Keyboard
Bass
Guitar
Drums/drumsticks
Mic
Guitar piks

The props we have got are:
Paint
Water
Buckets
Hosepipes/jet wash
Empty Coke Cans
Hat for money
Money –coins
Plastic cup / cup
Bed
Cupboard / wardrobe
Wallpaper

Costume and Make up
Military Jackets/blazer, black skinny jeans, mens shoes or plimsoles (no trainers)
Casual tops (shows individuality), black skinny jeans, mens shoes or plimsoles (no trainers)

Research References

This is a list of the places we researched and referenced material:

• Youtube
• Myspace
• Eagle Radio
• Facebook
• 14thfloorrecords.com
• biffyclyro.com
• wikipedia.org
• google.co.uk/images
• various forums

Keith Negus

Keith Negus
The Ideologies of the music industry
• “What I’m looking for is the working act. The real act. The act that can get up on stage and do it. That act will give you career. I signed Black Sabbath umpteen years ago; they are still making records. These are acts that are career acts… Two years ago I started a dance label… now that’s not a career-orientated label. I mean those records are one-off situations and every now and again maybe you’ll get an artist come out of it.”
• “When I first started it was more about going out and finding bands. That method is becoming more and more redundant. More and more these days I find it’s as much about: I sit here and think ‘there’s really a gap in the market for this kind of project…’. I don’t go out to gigs. That’s not how I find my stuff. It comes through various writers and producers. So if a writer comes in he may have some great songs and maybe is looking for a front person. Or maybe I have the front person who I want to launch into the market but I haven’t got the songs. So you put the two together.”

Ideologies of Creativity
• Keith Negus – Producing pop
• Identifies two distinct ways of thinking about potential artists from within the music industry.
• These ideologies shape the way in which the artists’ images and careers are developed, and the way that they are marketed towards specific target audiences.
• The organic ideology of creativity and…
• The synthetic ideology of creativity.

The Organic Ideology of Creativity 1
• A ‘naturalistic’ approach to artists
• The seeds of success are within the artists, who have to be ‘nurtured’ by the record company.
• The image of the artist is ‘enhanced’ by the record company.
• The artist is given time to evolve and progress through their career.

The Organic Ideology of Creativity 2
• Emphasis is given to album sales and the construction of a successful back catalogue.
• Often aimed at older or more sophisticated consumers
• Profits generated by this kind of act tend to be part of a long term strategy by the record company.

The synthetic Ideology of Creativity 1
• A combinatorial approach to artists and material.
• Executives attempt to construct successful acts out of the artists and the songs at their disposal.
• The image of the artist is often constructed by the record company.
• The artist will be given a short time to prove their success before other combinations will be tried out.

The Synthetic Ideology of Creativity 2
• Emphasis is given to single sales and to promoting first albums.
• Often aimed at younger, less sophisticated audiences.
• Profits generated by this kind of artist tend to be part of an immediate, short term strategy by the record company.

Balancing the Two
• In practice, the success of synthetic acts will fund the development and investment in organic acts.
• Most big record labels will look to balance their roster with a combination of successful synthetic and organic acts to ensure that there are funds available for the day-to-day running of the company as well as long term profit making potential.

Promoting Organic and Synthetic Acts
• There are clear distinctions between the ways in which different types of artist are represented to ensure short term or long term success.
• Organic acts are often sold on their ‘authenticity’, both musically and socially.
• The image of the artist appears ‘unconstructed’ (although, of course, this is in itself a carefully constructed look)
• Synthetic acts are often sold on their ‘look’ or personalities
• The image of the artist is carefully and unashamedly constructed.

Story Boarding Process

Today we filmed the story board ready to edit on final cut pro. We used a Sony Mpeg2 SD NXcam. We set the camera up on its tripod and pinned the story boards on the wall and filmed each shot for 10 seconds so that we had lots of time to adjust how long a clip would go on for in the video.
It was the first day of editing today. We uploaded the footage onto the final cut server, then went through the process of editing the footage to the track. Before we could edit we had to save the file to the desktop and change the footage to edit proxy so we could editing the footage. We then waited for the footage to save onto the desktop. Once it had we double clicked on it and it opened up in final cut pro ready for us to edit. All the footage was already in a bin so we named it so we knew where the footage was. We opened up the bin and began to edit, however before we could edit anything we had to upload the song. Unfortunately the copy we had of the music was a wav file so we changed it to a wmp so it was compatible with final cut pro. Once we had the music, I place it in final cut by dragging it and then I padlocked the music so it wouldn’t be affected whilst we edited. I started off oing the editing because I still had a good knowledge of how to edit from last year where as the rest of my group didn’t so I did most of the editing however, my group were watching me today learning how to do it all again so that they could edit too.
I feel more confident editing this year editing than last year because i used it all last year ao it was a matter of picking it all up again but also after using after effects which i feel is a more complicated programme, it make final cut pro. seem easier.
So I started editing. Firstly double clicked on the clip in the bin so they appeared in the first video window, then I dragged that footage onto the time line ready to cut up. Unlike the thriller last year there was no need for me to cut the footage in the first window then drag it onto the time line because each shot was 10 seconds of the same footage. So after dragging it onto the time line I started to adjust the footage. In the video we decided that we needed to set the scene because the singing starts straight away because there was no introduction. So using the storyboard as a guide I started by cutting the footage that we wanted to use before the music started. We wanted to start off by hiding the bands identities. So we have decided to start with a high angle tilted shot of a hat on the pavement with money in which a hand then comes into frame and picks up the money and puts into their pocket, the camera then continues tilting up the body after following the hand but stop just below the shoulder, the person in the shot then slowly turns their back on the camera and walks away. This whole sequence is one whole shot. As a group we thought this particular shot ‘set the scene’, and allowed the audience to almost guess where the person is and what they are doing and what they look like yet it is still all a concealed mystery. I like the fact that we are starting in close up because it invites the audience in.
Like I have said in a previous post we are using the puddles to go between performance shots and context shots. By cutting to the music it has helped in showing us what works and what doesn’t for example some of the cuts didn’t work with the music so we either had to add shot or extend the number of seconds the shots were going on for. It has also allowed us to add and play around with shots because to the music some shots feel right and go with it but some don’t so it’s a matter switching shots around. Also because of the music all of the shots had to be ajusted to fit in time with the music so i had to use marker to mark were the main beats are so that each shot cuts on the beat.

Here are the finished story boards that we edited on final cut pro:

Story Boarding Process

In the lesson today we went through all the storyboards each of us had drawn, cut them all out, went through all the shots we wanted to use and where we were going to put them and then arranged them on plain paper ready to film. As a group we decided to discard the shots that were the same or had too many of, for example the POV shots that we drew of each band members POV. We also removed some shots to keep the entire video simpler instead of it ending up like a miss match of different shots that don't connect. The way we placed the story boards was a rough guide on how we would like the pop video to look however, it would probably change once we started to edit it on final cut pro. to the music.

Story Boarding Process

Today we came up with another way of adding a variety of shots to the pop video and a way of connecting all the ideas that we want to incorporate. We want to stick with all the footage being in black and white at the beginning and then slowly throughout have the rain bring in the colour but as well as this we thought we could, using After Effects, project images of them performing in puddles which connects to the coloured rain idea. This is how we are going to go between performance shots to context shots. The idea is that the camera will look into a puddle and a member of the band will appear in the water. We then will then either keep with the same shot or go between shots until the puddle is disturbed by someone jumping into the puddle or something similar. As a group we decided to drop all of the blurred light ideas because we thought the video would end up being too busy and full of different effects that weren’t necessary.
We have decided overall that there are going to be more performance shots to promote the band. This is because they are a new band and the audience, need to see what they look like, this also includes record labels that might pick them up. They would need to see how the band interacted and played together, so by us choosing to use more performance shots we are allowing more time for audiences to get a better look at the band itself.

Story Boarding Process

Today we started to storyboard. Each of us has a different idea of how the pop video is going to look so we decided to each do separate storyboards to get more material and allow each of us to show the other members of the group what we had in mind. I did quite a lot of performance storyboard shots because the band are new so their first video needs to be more performance based so audiences can recognize them and it exhibits their talent to record labels etc.. In the meeting with the band they expressed that they would like to be known and recognized as a local band. So seeing as they are local to Guildford we have decided to possibly shoot in Guildford, however non of us have started to storyboard the context of the video, we have only looked at the performance.
I have done generic performance shots such as CU’s of the guitar and the guitarists fingers and the singer and the drummer and drums. I also did several wide shots of the entire band and I also drew single wide shots of each band member with the coloured rain behind each of them.

Story Boarding Process

We had our meeting with the band today. They are a group of four guys with a kind of indie look.

However as a group we have decided to adapt their look so they will be more unique and different but still fall into the indie/alternative genre.
We pitched all of our initial ideas and got feed back from them. They really liked all of our ideas, especially the use black and white with one colour object. They came up with a couple of ideas also which they pitched to us. They thought about shooting out of a train window, which we then had to say wouldn’t be possible for us to do because of the permission we would need to get to film on a train. So after going over the initial ideas we began to colaberate with each other and the band on expanding the initial ideas, this is when we came up with the idea of having to footage starting off in black and white and then slowly throughout have coloured rain slowly bring back the colour to the footage, so that by the end it was no longer black and white but colour. Now that we have more of an idea of what elements we want in the video, next lesson we should be able to develop the idea further and start to storyboard the our ideas ready to edit the storyboard to the music on Final cut pro..

Story Boarding Process

We looked at the whole groups ideas and images after listening to the track and decided together on how we could combine some of the ideas and build on some to create the video. Initially we really like the idea of having black and white with one thing in the frame being in colour. The idea of using black and white is to create an edgy look and also as a visual metaphor for how we want the bands image to reflect, so the black and white makes their look a bit edgy and out of the ordinary to make them stand out from similar bands. The idea behind the single object in colour is to have something relevant to the song or band, this idea is currently a work in progress. The whole of this idea was expanded and we decided we like the idea of having coloured rain as well as having a single image in colour. the coloured rain will be used as a device to slowly come out of the black and white. We thought the rain could wash away the black and white throughout the video restoring colour. We also liked the idea of doing blurred light, for example…




However, we are not sure we have to time or technical capability to do this and we also thought it may be one devce too many.

After coming up with several initial ideas we started planning how we were going to pitch the ideas to our band. We are lucky as a group because we are working with a real band, so it is our job to help create them a video that reflects their image as a band and that makes them stand out from other bands for record labels to see. We are excited about the possible reactions to our ideas from the band and are hoping to get some initial ideas from them and their ideas on our initial ideas.

Beginning of the Story Boarding Process!

The song we are using to create our pop video is 'What we See' by a new unsigned band called Now is Everyone.
Before we were able to story board we had to come up with initial thoughts and ideas that came to mind when we listened to the song. These are my ideas
Now is Everyone – ‘What We See’
• Rain Drops
• Paint drips
• Mirrors of different shapes and sizes
• Looking up into the sky or in a forest and spinning round and round
• Cars on a motorway or in a city in fast forward
• Paint dripping onto a canvas and running down it. More and more drips drip onto the canvas in more time
• Day to night – sunrise to sunset or just sunrise or just sunset.
• White walls
• Strong spot light lighting.
• Concert stage.
• The Sea – Waves, beach (British beach)
• ECU of guitar strings
• Mid shots of Singer
• Stop motion journey of band running to get to concert stage (Pen story??)
• Stop motion of them playing instruments
• CU of guitarist playing
• CU of drummer and of the drums
• Fast forward footage
• Stuttered footage
• Rain clouds building up in the sky. In chorus first rain drops fall until it’s a down pour.
• Rewind of the bands day
• World around the band is frozen in time. The singer is the only one who can move. Finds other band members and un-freezes them. There music slowly un-freezes the world but then toward the end of the song they slowly freeze again. (Freeze in time, not as in ‘ICE’)
• Members of band in chorus where backing comes in different frames on the screen, for example…
• Band playing in an open field or in a forest
• Jumping around a stage.
• Black and White footage. Possibly only instruments in colour or BAND SYMBOL.

Here are some of the images I found on google so that my group could visulise what i had i my mind:

Time Line!

Now that we have finished working out the time line we are now going to work on the story boards and try to fit them to the time line ready to edit on final cut pro.

Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer Stars and Stardom • In order to understand the relationship between the music industry and its audiences, it is important to consider the roles of music star. • The term ‘star’ refers to the semi-mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience. Some common values of music stardom • Youthfulness • Rebellion • Sexual Magnetism • An anti-authoritarian attitude • Originality • Creativity/talent • Aggression/anger • A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour. • Conspicuous consumption, of sex, drugs and material goods • Success against the odds Richard Dyer • Dyer has written extensively about the role of stars in film, TV and music. • Irrespective of the medium, stars have some key features in common: A star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg. Advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music]) Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings. • Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media – magazines, TV, radio, the internet – in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences. • The star image is made up of a range of meanings, which are attractive to the target audience. • Fundamenally, the star image is incoherent, that is incomplete and ‘open’. Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes. Paradox 1 • The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer. Paradox 2 • The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer. The Star Image • The incoherence of the star image ensures that audiences continually strive to ‘complete’ or to ‘make sense of’ of the image. • This is achieved by continued consumption of the star through his or her products. • In the music industry, performance seems to promise the completion of the image, but it is always ultimately unsatisfying. • This means that fans will go away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image. • Finally, the star image can be used to position the consumer in relation to dominant social values (that is hegemony) • Depending upon the artist, this may mean that the audience are positioned against the mainstream (though only to a limited degree, since they are still consumers within a capitalist system) or within the mainstream, or somewhere in between. The Star Image QUOTE: Richard Dyer (stars, BFI, 1981) • “In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society. There is a good deal at stake in such conceptions. On the one hand, our society stresses what makes them like others in the social group/class/gender to which they belong. This individualising stress involves a separation of the person’s “self” from his/her social “roles”, and hence poses the individual against society. On the other hand society suggests that certain norms of behaviour are appropriate to given groups of people, which many people in such groups would now wish to contest (eg. Gays in recent years). Stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated.”

Copyright Letter to Label!

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p13 permission

Chosen Cover Track!

Our chosen cover track is 'What we See' by Now Is Everyone, a local band from Guildford.

Artist Profile!

Here is some initial information on them...

Members:
Elliot Henson - Vocals + Keyboard
Joe Colley - Bass
Kris Bell - Guitar
Will Phipps - Drums

Genre:
Rock/Alternative

Hometown:
Farnham

They are a very new band and haven't quite worked out their image which makes this project exciting for us because we are going to have to work from scratch and create and promote this band for REAL instead of pretend.

Our Target Audience!

Our target audience would probably be between 16 and 21. This is because the audience would be around the same age range as the band and therefore the audience will relate to them more.
I also think that the majority of the target audience would be male because of the indie rock genre, however because of the band attractiveness i think there would also be a large percentage of female audience members. The target audience will be people who like the indie rock genre or similar genres and are also new music and festival enthusiasts. Luckily for the band they have already been building up their credibility by performing in such places.
Also because the audience are essentially young people, they will be aware and most probably part of social networking sites such as facebook and myspace and would therefore be very aware of anything new or big in the public eye.
Here are a few images of what i think our target audience would be...

Our Record Label!

Our band currently aren't signed however the record label they would most like to be signed by is '14th Floor'. 14th Floor Records are a reasonably big record company but not like someone like EMI. I don't think 14th Floor Records have a parent company.



The acts signed by this label are artists like:
Joshua Radin
Biffy Clyro
Marmaduke Duke
Sneaky Sound System
The Wombats
And various other artists.

Joshua Radin

Biffy Clyro








Marmaduke Duke

Sneaky Sound System
The Wombats

This record label seems to be a sensible choise for 'Now is Everyone' because they have signed Biffy Clyro, who is one of their influences and all of the other bands that have been signed are similar if not the same genres. The artistes also signed to 14th Floor Records are also all quite successful, so it is obvious to me that the label know what they are doing when it comes to promoting a band like 'Now is Everyone'.