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.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
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.
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.
Friday, 9 December 2011
Thursday, 8 December 2011
"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.
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.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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.
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.
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