evaluation question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We aimed to make our music video resemble the 60s and 70s, we achieved this by adding filters changing the colour of the of the video making it more vibrant fitting the psychedelic theme. At the intro and ending the colour is black and white symbolizing that Jimi’s music gives it colour.

When thinking of ideas we looked at Jimi’s other videos and Stevie ray Vaughn to get inspiration and decided it would be best to do a performance based video because of the guitar theme and also the lyrics are too metaphorical to base a story on the lyrics. Ours is very similar to other videos in the genre. We also went for a comic appeal by dressing me up as a white jimi Hendrix. Our video is different due to other jimi Hendrix videos due to our access to better recording techniques and better editing software. I made the guitar performance more realistic by learning the song beforehand so we could sync my hands perfectly with the shot. Our video is not like other pop videos due to it not being pop music we went for a more experimental style of video.

We also looped the intro so I could fit more shots in before I start playing guitar. We were thinking of making the entire video in black and white due to it being an old song but we decided not to because we would not have been able to use all the different filters and therefore it would not be as psychedelic.

we used a wide range of shots including close ups and long shots which is normal for a music video. in the goodwins music video analysis he said there should be a relationship between the music and the visuals and we achieved this by syncing passionate guitar playing in time with the music and we used a lot of trippy effects such as reversing the shots and slowing them down and filters to make them fit with the sound. we demonstrate the characteristics of the genre by using a hippie outfit and using an outdoor environment in the meadows to symbolize the free independent nature of the music.

Evaluation Question 2

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

In our project we combined specific elements in various ways so that they would all be in some way related. The outstanding element is the colour scheme used throughout, this consisted of psychedelic colours such as purple, green and yellow. The reason we chose this colour scheme was to play on the Psychedelic Rock genre, this was typical for albums and music videos of the 60's and 70's.

Star image was an important aspect in this project as the music video consisted mainly of a performance narrative. On photoshop I had various images of the stars, I therefore integrated them with the CD cover and album advert. The planet is a nod towards the trippy infrared like effects in nightclubs like UFO of the time with their groundbreaking Lightshows and the fact that the Psychedelic Rock bands sometimes sung about space, like Pink Floyd and at one point The Rolling Stones.

Various themes are brought forward through the Psychedelic genre; they consisted of nature, space, peace, love and many more. We referenced this through our locations. The location was natural, it being next to a river and is mostly set on a meadow, this references the Hippy Movements link to nature and the counterculture of the time, which is contrasted with the buildings we filmed on which is an attempt to show the watchtower. The Jimi Hendrix Costume is attempts to show an authentic rock star of the late 60s/70s with the flares and the Afro and the peace sign all icons of that era.

In our magazine advert we feature the front cover of our album, by doing this we are encouraging the target audience to seek out the album because if they are fans, they will want to buy the music and by giving them a visual aid, will increase sales of the album. Also, by adding a review by NME a hugely popular music magazine to say a good thing about the album, may make people outside the target area want to buy it as well, which means giving the album a broader target audience. Finally, by adding the retail stores and websites give the customer the idea of where to find it, making sales easier. For the magazine we brought elements from the other pieces of work. The picture of the star was from the video, and the album cover was the one we actually made ourselves.

The cover art is another representation of psychedelia with the planet and the stars meant to represent a person being at one with the universe when that person is listening to Jimi Hendrix, it may also represent the musicians quest for the ultimate song as his silhouette is in the distance.

The video, cover art and magazine advert compliment each other well because they consist of the same elements in the same media, and represent our creative vision and influence of Psychedelia and Jimi Hendrix. This would hopefully make our target audience and others want to buy the album.

evaluation question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We posted our video on YouTube and Facebook so people could comment and also asked a few people from our class to make comments. Most people only said it was good so I asked what improvements could be made. ‘You could use more locations’ one person said so if we had to do it again we would spend more time filming and research into locations more. Also I could have spent more time on the ending because I rushed it due to the deadline. ‘You could of got a more realistic costume or painted your self black XD’ another person said but obviously I’m not going to paint myself black but I could have got a better mustache. ‘You could have been more enthusiastic’ I could have done a better performance if we filmed on a warm day.

One person said, "It's very good, just is this a parody video?" While we agree it can be seen as a parody video, with the overblown costume and the effects, while we were making the video this was not our intention, as we were expecting it to come out a lot more serious, and more as an homage not as a joke, because we did not want to disrespect Hendrix or overdo the joke side of it. But when we watch it back, we do end up laughing, so in the end the product has become more parodic than serious but we still believe it is an homage. We see it as a pastiche of late 60s/70s music videos because the costume is so over blown and the location is natural and reminiscent of footage of areas where hippies would camp or their festivals.

Another said, "the effects are good, but they could've been trippier." Yes we believe they could have been a lot more trippier but because we again did not have enough time in the end to make them more elaborate. My own feedback is that if we had more time we could have used a much bigger variety of filters and also we could have made them go in time with the music. Also we could have done more shots for each location I was in such as more close ups and long shots.

We were told the video quality was “quite poor” and that the camera was sometimes “shaky”, with the camera quality we were unable to do anything about the quality because the camera we used was old in comparison to newer camera’s so the quality issues were not our fault, and if we had more time we would have used more effects to make the picture quality look much better than it could be. The camera was shaky because some of the shots required us to do it handheld, so it was practically our fault if it ends up very shaky. We did try to mask the shakiness by speeding up the shots we used which did work because, unless you look very carefully it doesn’t appear to be shaky at all.

evaluation question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

When researching the locations for our shots we were able to use google maps to find and take photos of our locations. We could use word to jot down ideas when planning the video and then copy and paste onto the blog saving time. We also had access to final cut pro due to the large amount of apple macs in the collage, which is a very powerful editing software. When editing the video we used a variety of filters on almost every shot making all the colours look much more vibrant.

We also used automation to make the colour fade in at the start and end of the video. During the guitar solo we used a intense filter also making the screen shake giving the solo more of an impact. We could also make shots that would usually not work together using cross fades to make them fit seamlessly. We also used jump shots giving the effect I could teleport by keeping the camera in one place while I do a performance in different locations then cross fading them together. We used a variety of different camera angles and ranges such as close ups on my face and mouth. A variety of establishing shots and panning shots and close ups on the guitar. Towards the end we blended me playing with another psychedelic video giving it a trippy effect. During the middle section we reversed some of the shots and slowed them down giving the effect that jimi’s playing was slowing down time and reversing it. We synced these shots with the music making them more effective.

When making the cd cover we used photoshop using a variety of different gradients and filters blending different images together and changing the colours giving it a psychedelic nature fitting our theme.

when editing in final cut pro we had access to many different tools for editing out video such as being able to cut and change the lengths of video. you can also expand the audio so you can see the beats so every image fits with the beat. in some shot we create a trippy effect by slowing down and reversing video clips. we could also make some shots fit where they usually would not by changing the speed of the shots for certain sections.

when we used filters we could get the effect we wanted by changing the parameters of the filter changing the way it effects the clip e.g. the filter during the guitar solo did not fit with the colour and was too intense so we changed the colour and intensity.

the cameras we used were of a reasonable quality but had very good zoom features. however our video did not need to be in hd so the quality was good enough. i could not remember the lyrics so we used the internet on Alex's phone to get the lyrics up. the internet was also a very useful tool for all information we needed such as when were searching for album covers and information on jimi hendrix. when putting things up on the blog we were able to link videos from youtube which was useful because it would not let us upload out finished video directly onto blogger. however it let us upload out images fine and although we left it plain we could have changed the background and font to something more interesting.

Music Video

Bob Dylan - All Along the Watchtower

Magazine Advert

CD Covers

"There must be some kind of way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief.
Businessman they drink my wine,
Plowman dig my earth
None will level on the line, nobody offered his word, hey"

"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too

Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl

The lyrics of the song, written by Bob Dylan seem to tell the tale of a group of men who are sick of the world they live in, however it is still very difficult and we are not sure if that is either a meaning, or the true meaning, as it is said to come from the book of isiah some of the inspiration. These lyrics were difficult for us to put into visuals because they were so confusing so we ended up doing a performance piece instead.

Video - Linear/Non Linear/Experimental/Performance

Our video is pure performance, because this is a Jimi Hendrix song, we have a guitarist in our group, so the logical thing for us to do was to include a definite performance based side to our video. We did at first try to experiment with narrative, however we felt that the song's lyrics because they were backwards would not make sense to an audience, in addition we thought changing the narrative in the video around into a linear style would not work because again it would have looked confusing to the viewer, so the only thing we could do was performance, therefore we don't really have a beginning, middle and end in the strictest sense of those words. It does have a slight arty/experimental side to it with our use of effects, especially with the effects towards the end and during the videos guitar solo parts.

Music Video Analysis

The mise-en-scene of our production like the costume represents Jimi himself and the era he was from, because during the late 1960s rock stars and normal people alike dressed in this kind of fashion, and although the moustache is quite exaggerated, and probably not very representative of Jimi Hendrix as a whole, we feel this has been done very well. The costume can be interpreted as a comic device however, this was not intentional as this was the only costume we could find, and the performance itself is very serious indeed, even though in parts David looks fed up, due to the cold weather which could add to this unintentional comic value.

The performance, although not quite to Jimi Hendrix's level of expertise does the job nicely, as we managed to get some very good guitar poses that looked similar to Jimi Hendrix and our use of lighting helped make it look "epic". We also used the scenery as a way of showing what the hippie movement of the time would have liked to have used for what they did, like camping and music festivals which Jimi would have played at.

Costume Analysis

Our costume is obviously based on the man himself. As you can see he is wearing flare's like what David is wearing, and although he doesn't quite have the same shirt, we feel our costume was a fairly accurate portrayal, right down to his moustache - though that was probably the least accurate - and his hair, which is in the late 60s and 70s afro style, which we emulated which is why this is appropriate to our video.

This is the guitar that Jimi Hendrix would use, and happens to be the same colour albeit left-handed. This is relevant to our video because this is the guitar that Jimi is best known for using and for burning at Monterey Festival in 1967.

Research on Psychedelic Rock

Features:
Electric guitars with effects such as feedback, phaser and wah wah
Studio effects such as panning, backwards tapes etc
Non-traditional rock instrumentations such as sitars
Strong keyboard arrangements
Extended instrumentals, jamming and solo's
Complex musical structures
Primitive synthesizers or theremins
Surreal, drug influenced lyrics

Origins:
Psychedelic Rock had its origins in Jazz and Blues where musicians from the Folk and Rock scenes were influenced to take drugs, also literary figures from the Beat Generation like Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouack along with people who encouraged "mind expansion" such as Timothy Leary. The First group to call themselves Psychedelic Rock were 13th Floor Elevators and the genre was mentioned in print for the first in 1966 in Austin American Statesman.
When Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to cannabis in the mid-sixties they soon began experimenting with LSD and on their album Rubber Soul had a sitar on Norweigan Wood and explicit drug references on Tomorrow Never Knows".

Peak:
In 1967 at the height of the Summer of Love The Beatles released Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band which was highly influential with its production and songwriting, the same year The Rolling Stones released their answer to Sgt. Pepper with Their Satanic Magesties Request which, along with Pink Floyds seminal Piper at the Gates of Dawn, both were highly influential to he later development of "Space Rock" with tracks like Astronome Domine and 2000 Light Years From Home. Jimi Hendrix released two albums that year Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold as Love that showed a more heavier side and an increasing experimentalism in the music scene, which pointed the way towards the later Heavy Metal genre. The Who also released a Psychedelic album "The Who Sell Out" with songs like "I Can See For Miles". In America the Doors had a hit with Light My Fire and their 2nd album "Strange Days" though not as successful showed a more darker side to the movement, not in touch with the Flower Power of the day. Also in the States, were the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention with the albums Anthem of the Sun and Absolutely Free respectedly, however the most important US Psychedelic album was Pet Sounds by The Beach Boy's which without that, the Beatles would never have released Sgt Pepper. The festivals at Monterey and Woodstock showed the absolute peak of the Hippy Movement and Psychedelic Rock in general, however things soon began to change.

The End:
Bob Dylan would later release the albums Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, and Nashville Skyline which pointed towards a "back to basics" sound, this was followed by The Birds, who had been known for their Psychedelic songs like "Eight Miles High" released more Country influenced music, and later bands like The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival and even The Beatles starting with "The Beatles" and ending with "Let it Be" the Rolling Stones also returned to their Blues roots with Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Mainstreet.

Influence:
Despite it's decline, Psychedelic Rock influenced the Progressive Rock movement, with Pink Floyd, members of Yes finding huge success with ths brand of rock, and it also heavily influenced Heavy Metal. A later revival in the 1970s/80s with bands like XTC who had a side project the Dukes of Stratosphere, Spacemen 3 and the probably the most successful, The Flaming Lips. It's influence can be found even in bands like Blur and Oasis, and in later 21st Century bands like MGMT.

Album Cover Art Research - Axis: Bold as Love by Jimi Hendrix

This artwork was released the same year as Sgt Pepper, and shares similarities with it as well. Again it references the year it was released 1967 the "Summer of Love" a time of "free love", recreational drug use, and empowerment as people chanting Hare Krishna over a camp fire hoping the revolution that never came would happen. It share's the Indian cultural influence as the Beatles artwork had many Indian Guru's (courtesy of George Harrison), this one takes it further with actual Hindu Gods and the The Experience themselves as Gods, which gives the listener the view that the God are these god-like super-musicians and the music is "not of this world" it may also appeal to people on acid trips, as the music is sometimes used for. Apparently, Jimi Hendrix was displeased with the cover art, as he thought it would have been much better to have his Native American heritage used as the artwork not the Indian style.

Album Cover Art Research - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

In this classic psychedelic rock album artwork, which is by The Beatles who were contemporary's of Jimi Hendrix. The artwork show's several references to the era and of people The Beatles considered their heroes or celebrities they liked. The references of the era included the flowers which represent the Flower Power movement or the Hippie Movement, this is important because in 1967 both artists released albums that heavily influenced people in the "Summer of Love" in 1967, and the famous people on the cover, such as Bob Dylan - who had recently "gone electric" - Marilyn Monroe, were influential figures in the 60s. While people like Freud and Karl Marx had heavily influenced the ideologies of the time. The Beatles themselves are the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and are dressed in uniforms that are their characters on the album, though not a concept album per se. It also cost £2,868 5s 3d (£38,823) which was the most expensive album artwork of it's time.

The inside of the album, contains the album lyrics and photos of the band, which apart from the front cover which in many ways is unlike any other album covers of the time, is pretty much like any other from the period.

Week Six

After filming some extra close ups we have finally finished filming, and the music was edited yet again, to the point you couldn't tell it was, and the film is now finished, with just some finishing touches to do on the deadline itself which are so few it will be right on time.

Goodwin's Theory

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in rock video, dance routine)

The music video demonstrates the Rock music video's characteristics of a performance by an artist, in our case David playing his guitar to Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower. It is also linked to the specific sub-genre of Rock he was known to play in "Psychedelic Rock" that our music video tries to emulate, with it's effects and set to a natural scene. Also a lot of shots of David playing the guitar is another classic example of a rock music video, because practically the vast, vast majority of all Rock Music videos have this.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
There isn't a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, we did try to do that earlier on in the filming process but the narrative of the song is jumbled backwards and wouldn't make sense in our video if we tried to make it as either a purely narrative, or mixed narrative and performance video.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals

There definitely is some kind of link between the music and the visuals, with the Jimi Hendrix Costume with it's typical late 60s to 70s flares and the afro, and the Peace Sign medallion is a definite link to the songs era, also we feel the effects represent the "trippiness" to the song and the natural environment of the majority of the music v

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

The record label would demand a lot of close ups, which we feel we haven't provided enough of, the instrument and playing, sure, but not of David actually lip syncing which is what they would probably have wanted. The motif we had was the Peace Sign medallion which we thought would work quite well because of the history behind it.
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

In this video there are no women in it, so our video does not contain this element, or screens within screens and telescopes because we felt there was simply no need for us, and there was only three of us in a group and we didn't really need outside help to act for us.

6. There is often intertextual reference (to films TV programmes, other music videos)

Our intertextual references are the costume itself which, although not completely accurate of what Hendrix would have worn at the time, it is a pretty good representation. The same with the Guitar, which although being a Stratocaster, it isn't a true Fender Stratocaster, and it isn't left-handed like Jimi was. Also the effects, although not as what we hoped them to be, is an attempt to make a trippy, psychedelic music video like they would have made in the 60s.

Filming - Week Five

This week we resumed filming and filmed more shots, after David had recovered sufficiently and after filming some landscape shots felt we had enough. The editing has gone on well, but there is still along way to go, so we have been thinking about editing the song like we did last time, but this time to fit the ending, we hope it will all go to plan.

Filming - Week 4

It turns out we cannot film this week because David has contracted a cold from the conditions during the filming the week before which was very windy and cold and his costume was simply not adequate enough to protect him, so we sat down and edited more of the film and did parts of the blog, there is at the moment no progress on the Magazine Advert and Cover Art however we hope to do that next week.

Differences Between A2 and AS

In AS all we had to do was film a two minute start of a film, which wasn't as much footage compared to a 3-4 minute music video in A2 which has a lot more footage and apart from the blog which we also did in AS we have to do print based work as well, so the work load is much more of a challenge and bigger than it was last year. It has been a bit more difficult writing the blog, shooting the video and making the CD cover because it is three things to do than AS' two.

The editing process is different as well. We have to film it more in a montage style than continuity editing like in AS, because in a music video you don't have much time to do that as you would in a film. And it is also a lot more complex, because in AS you didn't really have to do fancy effects to get you mark (although it would've helped) in A2 this has to be used in order for your video to get you a grade and look like a professional piece.

The time management hasn't been much of a problem because in AS and A2 we managed to update and finish our blogs on time, and finish filming our videos on time as well, and the print based work did not hinder us during this as well. In As it was much easier to manage our time because we only had two things to do at one time.

Album Advert 3

This is an original 1969 album advert of The Who's album "Tommy" this is very much contemporary of Jimi Hendrix as he was alive at the time. And it comes in a very traditional format in a poster showing it as a "double album" as they were rare in those days, who it was written by - the guitarist -, actual quotes of the lyrics, pictures of the band members, the name of the record company. This would have been very familiar to Jimi at the time.

Album Advert 2

This is another contemporary and influence of Hendrix, Bob Dylan. Although this is an advert of his most recent album, it is a prime example of modern music advertising, as instead of the traditional vinyl which would have been very familiar to Jimi, it also has CD and download, CD being a twenty odd year old invention and downloading a recent phenomenon which would appear totally alien to Jimi if he were to see this as he was in the 60s, not if he had survived. It also has a small set of Logos, the record label, but also HMV and possibly Itunes which show's the buyer where to buy this album.

Album Advert 1

This is an advert for the Rolling Stones single "Angie", it has on it the logo of the record label which released it, and a picture of the album "Goats Head Soup" which also happens to have a picture of Mick Jagger, not only is it advertising the music but also the band itself, as a picture of the lead singer is very important as it gives the audience the information about the band and the music. And it also has an advertisement for a television appearance the band was about to make. Seeing as this is from a contemporary band of Jimi and was released only three years after he had sadly died is a great example of what the adverts were like at the time.

The Creative Process

How you got ideas and developed them into the video: Watching music videos relating to psychedelic rock and taking specific elements and incorporated them into our work, and gave it a unique twist.

Themes, Costumes, Props, and locations: The main theme of our work, is the Psychedelic elements of the song and it's artist, we made this apparent through editing and choice of costumes.

Inspirational videos, artists etc: The videos that inspired us were the Jimi Hendrix video to his song Crosstown Traffic, Stevie Ray Vaughan's Cold Shot and The Rolling Stones Jumpin' Jack Flash videos. The main artist that inspired was the singer of our song choice Jimi Hendrix because of his image at the time, but also in the Jumpin' Jack Flash video, the style the group has and the performance elements, and Stevie Ray Vaughan's where it is mostly him with his guitar and an actor rather than with his whole band (they do appear sporadically).

How the group made its decisions (and who contributed): After individual work on the blog we came together and discussed ideas on the video together, eventually we came up with the idea of a dual narrative and performance video, with David as the artist of the song performing the song in a mainly natural environment, because the whole hippie psychedelic movement was into that kind of thing, with the narrative acted out by the rest of us in Manchester. The narrative part fell through but the performance part was retained.

Explain how you changed ideas: We realised that the lyrics of the song were too indecipherable for us to act them out, because they were heavily metaphoric and the narrative was confusing us because it was not in chronological order. Also psychedelic videos don't tend to follow a narrative and are more more art and performance.

Use of Technology In Filming

Camera:

The camera we used was a Canon LEGRIA FS306, this was perfect for our film because of its size which made it very easy to carry around with us and not be burden, and it's zoom being 2000x allowed us to film from long distances and make them look closer than they actually were. It's size also allowed us to get to places that are not possible with bigger cameras and we filmed many different kinds of camera angles and shots.

Final Cut Pro:

Final Cut Pro was essential, because we used that to edit our film. It allowed us to use the elaborate effects such as filters and colour corrections required to make the film psychedelic, and to piece it all together into one final product. It also allowed us to edit the song down or to increase it's length so that we could make it fit the footage we had filmed, if we had had enough time to edit the music video we could have used more elaborate effects.

Photoshop:
Photoshop was important as well, because it allowed us to make our magazine advert and cover art. Without it's brushes and effects etc we were able to produce a cover and magazine advert that we felt was good enough, we could have made them much better had we had more time.

Filming - Week 3

This week, we stayed at the Meadows and filmed more location shots of David playing his guitar including more close ups and angles. We later filmed at a bridge which was dogged by mistakes made by certain group members not remembering to turn the camera on while filming, though eventually we managed to get good shots from it and included a shot which we hope to use of David walking across it. We later found a good building which we filmed David on from above, only later during editing did we notice it had the word "Love" right behind David in his Jimi Hendrix Costume was a very a good coincidence and it's background of a lush field was even more of a coincidence.

Editing was started at the end of last week but today it picked up with the more footage we have gained, though the song has had to be edited in order for our intro to work, but progress has been steady.

Week Two of Filming

In the second week of filming we carried on at Chorlton Meadows, this time getting shots of David lip syncing to the music, however they were not close enough it turned out later. We also experimented with jump cuts which were later used in the video itself, apart from that we continued to have more shots of David playing, although we did try and film like we did in Town by employing a handheld moving camera shot that would be used in the "trip out" part of the song. We never used it and by this stage we didn't have enough footage to put on Final Cut Pro. We encountered more problems with the Moustache and decided we had to use double sided sellotape to keep it on, which at this point worked okay.

Filming - Week One

On the first day of filming, our group went to Manchester City Centre to film parts of our music video. As soon as we set off the bus we walked around the side streets of Manchester filming handheld for what we planned would be used for a slide guitar part in the song, and be a "trippy" part of it as well, as loads of effects were planned to be used.

We then went to the Arndale centre, where we attempted to film the "narrative" of the song, which is basically about a joker and a thief and then the rest is hard to decipher, so we tried to interpret it as best as we could. We also experimented with our first use of Lip Syncing, with Alex and Chris being the first to do it, by miming the dialogue parts of the song. And we also tried acting out parts of the song. The staircases in the Arndale centre were perfect as they had iron-barred gates which went along perfectly with the lyric "There must be some kind of way out of here / Said the Joker to The Thief" and we used them in our acting. We also took shots of the city to serve as establishing shots.

The original plan was to use these, alternating between David as Jimi Hendrix playing, and Chris and Alex playing the Joker and the Thief, however, we deemed the first day of shooting not a failure, but unusable as the narrative of the song made no sense to us, no matter how hard we tried to make it work, as it doesn't work in a linear fashion. Although non-linear does work, but for our video it would have to have been linear and a story that starts backwards was simply too hard to replicate.

On the second day of filming David finally got his Jimi Hendrix costume, and we started filming what would be most of the guitar angles and establishing shots of the music video. We at first tried to scale a wall that could give us a very nice high angle shot of David walking, but when Chris tried to walk from one side to another he was blocked by an iron fence, so we tried another way near the sewage works only we couldn't get the gear up the tree and onto the wall, so we left that alone. We then climbed one more tree and got an okay shot from it but we never used it in the end. It was during this time we first encountered the problems of the fake Moustache that David had with his costume, and they would only increase as the weeks moved on.

Album Cover Analysis

This is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album cover and is a good example of a well known classic rock album cover. The album art is meant to represent the "three elements" the band's stage lighting, the lyrics and the keyboardist, Rick Wrights request for a "simple and bold" design.

The light spectrum is continued all the way into the inside cover of the album, and it also represents a human heart beat, representing a heartbeat sound that is repeated throughout the album. So the band have used the artwork to reference themselves and the album as well as symbolise certain aspects they are singing about.

Shot List

1) Establishing shot, close up of David's feet walking

2) David walking - long shot

3) Close up of Davids face

4) Shot of necklace - close up

5) Close up of solo number one

6) Jump cuts in meadows

7) Medium shot of David singing

8) Walking on bridge - long shot / jump cut

9) Shot next to river - long shot

10) Extreme close up - David singing

11) Close up David singing

12) David on concrete tube - medium shot

13) David walking backwards - long shot

14) Panning shot of meadows

15) David on graffiti background - long shot

16) Close up of playing guitar

17) Medium shot of playing guitar

18) Shot of David playing - medium shot

19) Shot of effects

20) Shot of necklace fade to black

Initial Planning

Initial Planning

Song: Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower
Length: 4:03

Actor/Editor: David B
Director/Editor/Blogger: Alex C
Camera/Editor/Actor: Chris

Costume will be fitting for the 1970's theme, relating to Jimi Hendrix's style. Basic effects will be used is certain points to relate to older 70's videos. The video will consist of performance and narrative features.

The Rolling Stones - Jumpin' Jack Flash Video Analysis

The Rolling Stones - Jumpin' Jack flash

In the video for Jumpin' Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones, we see that the director has used a lot of close ups of the individual band members to show them as the "stars" of the video, especially singer Mick Jagger, who gets the most because he is the lead singer of the band.

The video would most definitely attract a young audience of around 15-24 yet, because of the bands image in this video, young girls would also be attracted but the style of music would mostly appeal to a male audience, also because the music video is from 1968 older audiences may like it too for nostalgia or they are older fans that have stumbled upon the video or song.

The genre is - like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn - Blues Rock and this links into the idea of our video because it has a performance aspect to it like the other two and has a very late 60s feel to it.

There is no intertextual references that we can currently pick out, but the some of the make seems to be influenced by Westerns (the singers face paint) and the fashion is very 60s, which could be referencing the "Swinging Sixties" some of the make up seems to be heavily influenced by Indian Culture and Sci-Fi Films (such as the patterns on certain band members and the colour of the make up).

Production Treatment

All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

All Along the Watchtower is four minutes long.

The songs target audience would be people aged 15-24 because its genre is Rock and it has elements of heavier music in it, but also a lot of older music fans over 25 would enjoy it, especially those who were alive when this version was released (1968). For this reason the target audience would most likely be male but females may also like this song because of the artist's (Jimi Hendrix) persona and style.

The video is mainly performance but...the song is about a group of characters in a watchtower and echo lines in the "Book of Isaiah". Since this song is a Psychedelic interpretation of the original (by Bob Dylan) we would like to include Psychedelic effects in the video but not in an imitating manner, but more as an homage to the late 60s early 70s when Hendrix and the whole movement was at its height.

Performance: David playing guitar and singing, some acting from others.

Costumes: Retro clothes from the 60s-early 70s

SFX: Psychedelic/Trippy effects

Key Locations: Meadow, House

Shot List:

1) One close up shot of David’s feet

2) Close up of back of head

3) Shot of David playing guitar

4) Long shot of David walking

5) Close up of David singing

6) Medium shot of David playing and singing

7) Shot of girls dancing

8) Shot of girls dancing with David

9) Shot of David singing

10) Shots of David playing solo

11) Shots of party - trippy

12) Shot of David walking around tripping – low angle/tracking shot

13) Shot of David doing solo

14) More party shots

15) More solo shots

16) David singing

17) Girls dancing

18) Last solo shots

19) Long shot of David walking

20) Fade to black

Our total amount of recording days was...

Stevie Ray Vaughan music video analysis

Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble - Cold Shot analysis

the video tells a story of stevie not pay attention to one of his girlfriends and only loves his guitar which is shown in the video with guitars all around the room in his apartment. it is also displayed in his music with the large amount of guitar riffs and fills. when he is injured in the video it shows a shot of an ambulance, this is a quick way to show that he has gone to hospital. and shows signs of comedy by having a band playing beside him. it also shows this by having all the presents given to his girlfriend related to guitar. this is why he always ends up in hospital due to his girlfriend hating guitar. there is also another funny part where his girlfriend is trying to smash his guitar but he keeps pulling more from behind his sofa.

when he is thrown off a roof it is clear that they use a blow up doll which tells the audience that this is not a serious video and is more for comedy. the lyrics often describe what is happing on screen so this video is more of a narrative type video rather than a performance.

there are regular close ups of stevie playing guitar symbolizing that this is the main theme of the video. it has a blues rock genre which is similar to the jimi hendrix video that we are doing.

there are few different locations in the video ranging from his apartment to the hospital to a rooftop which adds some variety to the video

Research

Costumes: Jimi Hendrix Styled clothing.

Flared Trousers

Bandana

Baggy Shirt

Fake Moustache

This choice of clothing is appropriate for our music video as

Locations: Chorlton Meadows

Old Mansion

Location suites Hendrix's style of music.

Props: Guitar, Electric or Acoustic

Crosstown Traffic - Jimi Hendrix - Video Analysis

Video Analysis

A video with many similarities to our song choice would be Jimi Hendrix's Crosstown Traffic.

It's a short video with a total length of 2:24, quite fitting for its time.

Jimi Hendrix comes into the Classic Rock genre.

Relating to the Goodwins music video analysis, the video does demonstrate genre characteristics as it shows Hendrix performing a live show. Also fitting in with his analysis would be a relationship between lyrics and visuals as it displays traffic in new york, heavily relating to the title "Crosstown Traffic". There are a lot of close ups on Hendrix as he is the main person, therefore relying heavily on star image.

Crosstown Traffic would come under illustration - a narrative video that illustrates what the music and lyrics represent in a simple, straightforward way.

The only real prop in the Crosstown Traffic, is Hendrix's guitar.

Locations: New York Inner City, Live Shows

The lighting in this video consists of natural and expressionist as its mainly shot outdoors along with a few shots from a live performance.

The video starts off with Establishing shots of New York city in the early morning. We then get close ups on Hendrix sitting in a taxi (star image). We then get medium and long shots of pedestrians. There are a lot of medium shots of Jimi performing live. Close cutting occurs often as there is a lot of footage of everyday life in New York and live performances.

There are no special effects in this video, possibly because of its era, or maybe it just special effects would have been irrelevant.