Vernallis analysis - Linkin Park - Numb

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In the begining of the music video we see a girl who is lonely and upset. This looks like its set in a busy city with quite a few buildings like new york but its not that clear as it mostly focuses on her.

Narrative of Linkin Park - Numb

Observations:

As vernallis argues, there is a visual response between the music videos narrative and the lyrics to the song which amplifies the song. This song is a fragmented narrative which has a narrative theme to it but in a montage style going in between performances of the band scenes. This narrative does pose some questions such as why are the girls ridiculing her? or why is she so upset and lonely?
As Venallis argues, the video has a visual response to the music as Linkin Park sing  "don't know what your expecting of me" showing she is an outcast hence the audience laughing at her.

The ending of Linkin Park - Numb

Most narratives are non-linear just like this one. The structure of the video is disjointed. The performance, music and narrative act together to drive the video on. There isn't a clear closure at the end as she runs into something that seems to look like a church and then the music video ends. I think that because she feels so lonely and shunted by her peers and family, the only place who can listen and accept her is God.

Editing:

The editing did match the beat of the song as it was in the middle of the chorus when she stares as everyone passes when the lead singer is screaming. The rules of continuity are broken as the chorus is mainly on the performance but in this scene its the narrative  which is a clear convention of music video editing. The image on the right is a clear example where the edit has become foregrounded. the edits are really obvious, to draw attention to themselves.

Jump cuts are used quite often. in this scene she is arguing with her mother, sitting down in the kitchen, eating her dinner. Then it jumps to her sitting in school/college. Even though it has jump cuts, all the cuts are cutting within the lyrics.



Magazine advert

Final magazine advert

We used the feedback we got from our peers to adjust our magazine advert. they said to keep it simple with minimal writing and to keep the album image for the advert rather than different pictures. This works well because Blue Lucifer are not established artists yet and they need there album image to promote their album, rather than other established artists which can sell without having any relevance in there adverts.

Feedback:

-Simple yet effective I love the use of the colours and how they amplify the image (17 year old female)

-It looks so realistic with the reviews from recognised rock magazines (18 year old male)

-I think you've really captured the conventions of the genre, through the use of the 'pentagrams' and the text. The faded image on the red to black background is a simple yet effective and in my opinion looks very professional ( 26 year old male) 

Back of the album

 Feedback:

- The red and black used ties in with the colour theme of the front cover, I think it looks really good (18 year old female)

- I love the way the titles of each individual song are placed around the 'pentagram', it's a really unique way of having them instead of the traditional 1. 2. 3. etc (17 year old female)

- This is really realistic, the use of the Warner Bros logo and the websites makes it look like a genuine album. The text, colour and use of the pentagram really help the audience to clearly identify the genre that is rock/metal. The lead singer in the middle of the album is a really good effect, I like how he is faded and you can just about make out his eyes this adds a mysterious effect to the cover which again ties in with the genre. (18 year old male)

Feedback for the rough cut

Facebook screenshot

Facebook screenshot (same post)

Printscreen of blackberry

Printscreen of blackberry

Filming the performance

Ealier on today, was our first recording of the performance of our music video. A few problems have occoured such as going from a three man band has now decreased to 2 , therefore there is no guitar player. Also we have switched our location of the  music video which was originally suppose to be filmed in the drama studio where there is mirrors and wooden flooring.

Its really spacious in there and the idea was to try and immitate Alicia Keys - Empire state of mind (part 2)

However, instead of the drama studio we have used the music studio due to insufficient priveliges and conflict of when the room is being used. In the music studio it is small as its purpose is just for an artist to record therefore it was hard to record in the studio. David (the lead singer) found it difficult to lip sync to the song as the lead singer of Linkin park pronounces the words differently to the lyrics therefore he had troubles getting it in sync with the song. I didnt have to much trouble as the piano player as all I  had to do is press keys in time with the beat of the song.

Digipack inside image

Original image of my eye

 This was an image of my eye wearing a contact lens giving a mysterious scary rock look.

Final image of the inside digipack

I cropped the eye and put it onto a black background, after which I added several layer masks but individually each so that I could use the gradient tool to fade out the eye. After fading it, I realised it didn't quite go as the normal eye photo bled into a black background, and so to have the image look complete I added the effect of 'rough pastels' which partially cartoonised the eye which enhanced the whole images look.

Digipack (inside)

Construction of the inside digipack

DigiPack (inside final)

Final digipack inside image

Feedback:

- I think the image goes really well with the genre of rock and metal, it's so easily identifiable with it as it seems to be a demonic image. (18 year old female)

- I like the use of the demonic image, especially on the red background as this ties in with the colour theme throughout the front and back covers. (17 year old male)

- The goat type image has been associated with rock and demonic images a lot, I think this was a clever choice to use it as it makes the genre easily identifiable. (16 year old male)

Back of the album (construction)

This is a few screengrabs of my work in progress for the back of my album. It shows the steps that I took to fade my picture in the middle. I did this by firstly bringing in my photo then rescaling it to the size I desired. After this I added a layer mask, I did this so I could use the gradient tool which I knew would fade the photo out, then it was just a case of getting it right. After getting the effect I wanted, I added in a barcode and began to start on the titles of the songs on the album. I firstly put the songs all around the pentagram but then decided to have them rotated accordingly so that they ran along the lines of the pentagram so that the audience would have to rotate the album to read all the titles.

Inspiration of our music advert

Comparison of our magazine adverts

Me and david (my partner) looked at a couple magazine adverts and chose this one as an inspiration for our own magazine advert as it is simple yet effective. It has an image which is the same as the album cover even though this is there fifth studio album and they are n established band they have chosen to use the same image. The reason we have chosen the same image as our album cover is to get known and establish our band throught our advert and gain recognition, hence marketing both the band and album at the same time. We have placed the quotes in a similar place as elbow as it looks professional but changed the quotes to suit our band. Also we have changed the music magazines as elbow are a indie rock band, whereas we are rock/metal band, therefore we have magazine references such as kerrang. As we are an upcoming band and this is our first album, we thought costs of distribution would be a problem in online stores such as amazon, so it would be more cheaper and sensible to be marketed through apple itunes rather than amazon or HMV. Elbow have two lines on either side of the bands name, we have took this idea and developed it, as without the two tribal designs the magazine will look plain and bare. It was a font called windings 2.

Album front cover (construction)

This is the work in progress of my front cover. Firstly we took individual pictures with a similar pose, then after uploading them I came across my first difficulty which was that the pictures were the exact same stance. So to overcome this I vertically flipped the photo of myself (in red) so that we appeared back to back.

On the photo on the left I made it black and white before bringing it into the main image, I then aded a filter (posterization) to the image to give us the hazed look you can see. Then I simply used a gradient for the background which was simple but effective.

The text was 'Bleeding Cowboys' which I downloaded online from a free font website called 1001freefonts.com I found this font to be very fitting to my chosen genre. I then added a wind filter onto it and put an inner shadow through it to give it the two coloured effect.

Rough cut of our Music Video - Blue Lucifer - Rolling in the deep (Linkinpark/adele cover)

Run out of footage

After a couple days of editing, a dilema occurred when I ran of footage for my music video. To compensate, I have cropped and faded the track but even so I still lack performance footage. Today we filmed more performance to fill gaps of the music video. There wont be continuinity as the performance are set in two different locations which was unfortounate. However this time when filmed we had more  resources like a tripod stand and a dolly which we never had before which would help make the video look less shaky than before. The narrative on my video is coming together nicely and we have enough footage for every narrtative part we planned for the music video. The narrative is all in Sepia which gives the effect of it being a memory. This was a little bit of a stuggle because getting the right opacity and strenght of the sepia colour was mostly trial and error, as the standard sepia was too dark.

Linkin Park album advert analysis

 Linkin Park have used very similar images and themes from their album cover, on their album advert. This is a general convention you would see in music album adverts. Either they keep the same themes or have the same images. In some cases they change everything as they are established artists and don't need to promote their album visually. The image on the right is the exact picture on the album cover of Linkin Park's album a thousand suns. They use effects on each member of the artist, similarly to a collage, making the picture more abstract and eye catching.

 The image on the left is the banner of the advert. This is the title of the Linkin parks album advert. This is placed on top of the picture and is exactly the same font and logo as the album. also has the same theme as the album

This is the official website for Linkin Park.

Rolling In the Deep Lyrics (annotated)

Linkin Park Lyrics Annotate

Slipknot and Linkin Park album advert

I have decided to to analyse the album covers of Slipknot and Linkin Park as I am hoping to gain an insight and ideas for my own album advert. I chose the following bands as they have the same genre of music and similar target markets. The album adverts are not similar but share the same rock theme. Neither one of the bands have the same image that is showcased on their actual album cover. This is because they are both well known established bands and they don't need to have their album covers to promote their album. Both band adverts have their band members on the adverts to further promote their album. Even though Linkin Park have their band members on the advert, Linkin Park are a big band known globally so there name is more than enough to promote their own album alone.

Linkin Park album advert

Slipknot album advert

Mock up of a Album Advert