Research Into 'Bullet For My Valentine' in Magazines

This is a Prezi with pictures and text that analyse 'Bullet For My Valentine', from their outfits to their body language. This, I thought, would be useful for when I come to make my own digipak and could help guide me towards the photos I want to take to get a certain effect from the viewer.

Contact Sheets

These are all of my pictures that I took on the 3 days of filming in contact sheet form.

Research into Music Theory

Diary 31/01/13

I am drawing to the end of all the research and planning.
All that is left for me to do is finish the filming, editing and analysis parts of coursework.
I am determined to have all three finished in the next 3 weeks so I can go over my blog and double check everything is as it should be for the final fortnight before the deadline.

Research into Music Channels

Diary 29/01/13

I recently went to film the 'Destruction' part of my music video. It took hours of lanning and preperation, ages to pack up the car with equipment and travel to the location and even longer to set up all the equipment. When we were finally ready to film we set up the camera only to find that somebody had taken the tape out of the slow-motion camera. I decided to film in 50 fps instead so I could slow the footage down halfway and still have HD footage. We filmed for 4 hours and spent another 40 minutes clearing up and a further half hour to pack the car up agan. I began the editing of the 'Destruction' part of my music video and from the 4 hours of footage was able to incorporate fewer than 10 seconds of footage. I am not going to let this get me diseartened as I am a perfectionist and determined to achieve the best quality music video I can.

Filming Location 1 prep.

I am collecting up all the props I'll need for tonight. So far I have
3 TVs,
protective gloves,
protective glasses,
hammer,
sledgehammer,
broom,
step ladder
and a DSLR.

What is a DIgipak?

Tracking an Artist Through Their Career

I chose Metallica because they are one of the greatest metal bands of all time, as many of their albums have been rated number one. So I thought as I will be making a metal music video, I should study the career of a successful Metal Band.

Location Shoot 1: Warehouse

For my first location i'm going to be using a warehouse in order to safely smash TV's. I'll be filming in slow motion for footage to use in my music video.
I will also be utilizing certain safety precautions to make sure nothing bad can happen.

Research into music director

Shot Planning 1

I was considering some shots which would be effective when filming the 2nd part of my music video: the band.
I drew a quick sketch so I wouldn't forget.

Second Draft

This is the second draft of my music video. Luckily I was able to get my video to render with Sony Vegas Pro 11.0 on an alternate PC. There were issues with my Graphics card and therefor my computer was unable to keep up with the video's demands.

Slow-Motion testing

This is a short video of me testing the slow motion effect on the schools Sony HDV 1000e Camera.
I intend to use this effect in my music video in order to capture high speed images in an effective way.

First Draft

This is the first draft of my music video. I have a lot of issues to sort out, the most obvious being the rendering. I am worried that I will have to attempt to re-create my music video using Adobe Premiere CS6 as it has new features which allow it to cope with the streaming of heavily compressed videos thanks to the codec reader.

Diary 20/12/12

Coming up to the holidays I have made a list of everything I have left to complete. I intend to get all the grunt work done by the end of the holidays including the majority of my filming so that upon return all I need to do is tie up the loose ends and start my evaluation.

Digipak Front Cover Draft 2

I decided the plain textured background wasn't effective enough so I re-thought my initial ideas and tied my draft in more closely with the band's style.

Analysis of Music Video

I chose to analyse the music video "Waking The Demon" by Bullet For My Valentine as it clearly lays out the narrative but also shows the band playing as it's their song and that's what the fans want.
The opening long shot sets the scene of an american high school and introduces the main character.
A cut is then used by the director in order to show the band and put a face to the global name of 'Bullet For My Valentine'. Unlike a TV show this is a regular convention, cutting between the story and the band and often helps pull the audience out of the story and allow them to relate it to their own lives. The video then outlines the underlying issue that the main character is up against, in this case, bullying.
The use of this issue and also showing the band suggests that some or all of the band members were bullied when they were in school.
The video shows the boy crossing days off a calendar throughout, this is significant as it shows you the progression of time and the corresponding bullying and its severity on that day. The video aims to make the audience empathise with this main character. The use of costume also helps this, by dressing him in a metal style it means that the intended audience; metal-heads, will respond to this and view the boy as their peer.
Towards the end of the video we see the boy getting ready to fight back. Distracting the bully's girlfriend so that he's alone in the woods. The video is cut to the calendar once again showing the words "FULL MOON" circled in red. This gives connotations of werewolves and blood, alluding to the eventual death of the bully by the boy who turned in to a werewolf on the last day of the month.
In the last part of the video we see a "Missing" sign with the bully's face on it and the main character walking towards his locker again. Another boy nudges the main character and proceeds to push him against the lockers. This time, instead of feeling sympathy for the main character, we see a close-up him cross the first day off the calendar and a short range walk past the camera smiling. The audience is now firmly rooting for this main character despite the terrible act he's committed.

Digipak Front Cover Draft

This is my first draft of my Digipak front cover but I am not completely happy with it, I feel that a simple textured background doesn't fit with the genre of music I have chosen. I am re-doing the front cover with a better picture as the background with simple text over the top instead, as I feel it will be much more effective.

Diary 04/12/12

Today our teacher has chosen to use the carrot rather than the stick. He has urged us to have either '1st shoot + mag ad', '1st shoot + Digipak' or 'mag ad + digipak' ready by the beginning of Thursdays lesson and if we do we will be awarded with a cake. I dont feel I will be able to meet this deadline due to other subject exams but I'm sure I will make significant progress.