Rough Cut

Below is the first cut of our music video. At the moment it only features the battle scenes with the re-enactment group, Wuffa.

We are still deciding whether we should cut this footage with videos of a band playing the song, or leave the video purely as a narrative piece about children's fantasies.

Ancillary task plans

As we are making a music video for our coursework our chosen ancillary products are a digipak and poster.

For our ancillary products we have decided to use a continuous theme that also has ties to our main coursework piece. For this we have decided to use a theme of Vikings throughout our ancillary product. This will involve using some pictures of the re-enactment cast taken from the filming days

 

Digipak -

We are going to design and create a four-panel digipak that will contain a jewel case to house a CD, as well as potentially making a small booklet to accompany the CD. This booklet would feature the lyrics to the song, as well as pictures of the cast within the music video.  

• In the rough design of our digipak we have thought about using a group picture of our Vikings on the front cover, facing forward and mostly all looking at the camera; as well as featuring the title of the band and the name of the song on the cover.
• On the back we thought it would be best to have a picture that wasn't too busy, and so we thought about using a picture of a single Viking running through the scenery.
• An idea that we had for one of the inside panels of the digipak was to use a shield as the background - making it the same size as the CD and so the shield would be hidden when the CD was in its case.

Poster -

For this ancillary product we were thinking about simply using a picture from the Viking filming day and accompanying it with the name of the band and the song title. We wanted to keep the poster simple and not too busy, but also to use interesting images to attract the attention of the audience.

 

 

As soon as we begin the designing process I will upload photos to showcase our ideas about the ancillary products better.

Ancillary task research - Poster

Posters are a good way for artists to promote their new music in busy public places or transport systems. This can be a cheap and relatively quick way of displaying the artist's work to all audiences, specifically the target audience. Music posters vary in colour and design, with some being more creative and intricate than others. Below are some posters for various musicians.

This poster is for the promotion of the American rock duo The Black Keys. I like this poster because it uses simplistic colours with the black and gold, but the main skull design is intriguing and eye-catching and so it would easily grab someone's attention when they are walking down the street or when they are using public transport. I think that the skull itself is pretty and intricate and is very appealing to look at. If I saw this on the bus or whilst walking round town, I would definitely read it and potentially want to find out more about the artist behind the poster. 



The band also have some more posters that I like the look of - the two that I like the most are both creative tour posters that use animals in their designs. 

This next poster is from an English rock band called Muse, who are from Teignmouth, Devon, and were formed in 1994. This poster was used to promote their 2012 album The 2nd Law. I think that this poster is interesting to look at the silhouette of a band member is decorated with a galaxy, making it interesting and unique. The fact that the poster also contains the tracklist of the album that is being promoted is good because it may mean that someone who sees the poster will notice the name of a song that they like and then they may be intrigued to listen to the rest of the album - so gaining the band more fans. Another thing that I like about the design of this poster is that it uses different shades of a single colour, pink - I think that this gives the poster a sophisticated look, rather than using as many bright colours as possible. The different shades of pink are also not too bright and so nice to look at and, in some ways, quite calming. 

This poster was used to promote the new release of the 2013 self-titled album by the American rock band Paramore. The main focus of this poster is obviously the band members themselves, and so they occupy most of it and grab the viewers attention. The fact that the image of band members is laid over a black background makes them stand out more and so more likely to be seen by passers by (even though some of the members themselves are wearing dark clothes).

I think that when we create our own poster for the promotion of our Viking music video, we will focus on using a Viking character(s) as the main focus of the poster, with other essential information on it too.

Ancillary reseach task - Digipak

Digipaks are small cases, made from card, that are usually used when an artist releases a CD single or a special edition of an album. Digipaks are typically made with 4 or 6 panels and contain jewel cases (the plastic bits) to house CDs. Most digipaks will house only one CD but some digipaks are made to house two CDs, with a jewel case at either end of the digipak. The role of digipaks is to allow an artist to cheaply distribute their music to their target audience, as card is a lot cheaper than the typical plastic CD case, although it is not as durable and can easily become damaged. 

The above digipak is from the band Mumford and Sons and is for their album Sigh No More. This digipak has six panels for pictures and text and features one jewel case to house a CD. This digipak uses plain colours and simple, yet interesting images to deliver the product to the target audience. The CD itself is a bold and contrasting colour to the rest of the product, making it easily identifiable and stand out.

This Arctic Monkeys digipak is a four-panel pack that is designed from card to house one CD in a jewel case, as well as also containing a booklet of photos of the band. This digipak uses monochrome designs and pictures to advertise the product to the target audience. One thing that I do like about the design of this product is that picture on the CD matches the behaviours of the man on the front and back cover - I think this is a much more effective design in comparison to having the CD a plain colour. 

The Fall Out Boy digipak below is entirely made from card and so does not contain a jewel case for the CD - instead it slots into a card sleeve. This is a four-panel digipak that also contains a small booklet that is housed in the other side of the case. This digipak was released as a case for the deluxe version of the band's newest album American Beauty/American Psycho. The product features bright, intriguing colours and pictures of the band - all helping to catch the eyes of the target audience, making them want to buy the product. In my opinion I like the inside of the digipak very much and think that it looks artistic and interesting - something that would attract the target audience because the designs are unique and detailed. The picture on the front cover is simple, yet still interesting. The use of the American flag face-paint is appealing and helps to communicate with the audience about the title of the album, as well as potentially hinting at the fact that the band themselves are American. I also like how on the back cover, one of the band members (Pete Wentz) is turning his head to face the camera.

When designing our own digipak, we hope to make it interesting and intriguing to appeal to the target audience. In particular an album cover that I myself have liked very much is from a band called Everything Everything. I like how the front of the case shows the faces of the band and the back cover shows the back of their heads - this is an idea that I would like to incorporate into our ancillary products, especially when designing the digipak.

 

Something to consider when creating our music video and two ancillary products is to have a running theme throughout the three products. In our group we decided that it would be interesting to keep the theme of Vikings throughout our ancillary products and so we have began coming up with design ideas to incorporate pictures of our Viking cast, that have been used in the production of our music video, into our digipak and poster.

The first day of filming

We filmed the main part of our music video for 'Barbarian' on 15th of November. We met with the WUFFA re-enactment team at 12 in Yarmouth by the coast and filmed for about 2 hours.

The filming itself went really well, we had 3 cameras to get different angles and shot types throughout the shoot so that we didn't have to do too many retakes. We all took part in filming and discussed ideas that each of us made, since we had gotten the basic idea of what to do and what we wanted on film from our storyboard.

 

The WUFFA team themselves were very good as well, as many of them had been in bigger feature films and they had their own director who knew how the battle should be done to make it look authentic and be conducted safely. The only mishap we had was when one of the actors dislocated his knee while we were filming, and an ambulance was called for him, so he had to pull out of filming, but he was happy for us to use the footage we had.

 

We are considering adding a live band playing the song to the video as it means we only have to use the best footage that we got on the day of filming, but we're going to have an edit with just the WUFFA scenes done first and then decide afterwards.
 

Overall the day went very well, and we hope that the next shoot for the last part of the video goes just as well.

 

Shooting Schedule

Our shooting / filming schedule is as follow:

• 15th November - filming at Gorleston-On-Sea with re-enactment group Wuffa for the battle scenes
• December - filming with the Year 7 role play group for the children scenes, as well as the headmaster shot with Justin Hawkins or our backup (not set down a date or time as of writing this post)

Target Audience for our Music Video

The target audience for our music video is any fans of the rock/heavy genre that we are looking at. As music is subjective, we believe that people who enjoy the music will enjoy the video, and the age range for the audience will depend upon which age ranges enjoy the music.

The video engages with the audience mainly by the relatable scene at the end. Everyone was an imaginative child at some point so, for older audiences, they will be able to reminisce about their childhood. As well as this, we have some POV shots during the Viking battle, which will engage the audience by pulling them into the battle.

As well as the video, we are trying to attract a target audience by the use of exciting images for our Ancillary tasks (posters, CD covers, etc.). We will be using images such as the one shown here to entice the audience into buying our products and watching our video.