180° rule

During any filming process, the 180° rule is a guideline that states 2 characters/objects should always be on the same side of the screen. In order to do this, there is an imaginary line that the camera should never cross. If the camera does cross the axis then its called 'crossing the line'. A new shot from the opposite side of the line is called a 'reverse angle'.

Using this picture as an example, I can explain the rule visually. The camera is placed on the green side of the image. This means the orange man is facing right, and the blue guy is facing left. Now for the duration of this shot the camera should never cross the dotted line and enter the red section. If this happened then as you can see on the picture, it would appear to switch the two around making the blue man face right, and the orange man face left. This would be the reverse angle. If this happened it would disorientate the viewer and break the flow of the scene.

An example where the 180° rule has come in to play is the 1925 Drama, 'The Big Parade'. In a few scenes leading up to the big battle, the American troops are shown marching from left to right and the Germans are shown marching from right to left. However, after the battle when all the troops are staggering back home, the Americans are staggering home right to left whilst the Germans are going left to right. As you can imagine, this would cause confusion for the audience as the troops appear to be going home, in the opposite direction from where they first came. This is all because the camera crossed the line and it became a reverse angle.

Our Media group had come across this problem before in the thriller we made. Without realising we accidentally crossed the line by an inch or two. Luckily for us this wasn't a major issue as the shot didn't last long and as it wasn't too far in to the reverse angle, it wasn't all that noticable. We were worried as we were doing a running scene at that point so we didn't want it to appear he was running from right to left, and then in one shot, left to right. As the shot wasn't to far in to the reverse angle and it was a high angle, you really didn't notice it unless it was point out to you. Although we got away with it the first time round, we learnt that we have to take extra care and plan out all shots down to the exact detail as this time we might not get as lucky with our shot.

Avenged Sevenfold DigiPak

The 'Avenged Sevenfold' DigiPak mostly contains art work. This is  the front cover to the CD, and then the 3 folded sections layed out.. As you can see, It shows these skeleton characters (each one representing a band member) on an abandoned boat, with a city and boat burning in the background. It makes you think that these skeletons are some sort of pirates that have have caused hell and upset for other people. This artwork representaion relates a lot to the songs that have been put in this album.

This is the inside of the layed out CD, as you can see they have
their band logo in the middle section with the 2 CD's either side. On the left hand side you have the actual album 'Diamonds in the Rough', and on the right you have a live performance of that album. This feature only comes in the digi pack. Behind the center section, there is a book filled with art work and thanks, this is also included with the DigiPak.

 

This is the artwork that comes in the booklet. This artwork shown are drawn pictures of the band, to make them look deceased/mosterous. They show each band member and on a couple of them the have information on the band, or credits on who helped them make the video and album. You can once again see that their look relates to the songs that have been put on the album. The DigiPak creates a feeling that this album is dark and heavy which is exactly what the album is. It's esssentially giving you and idea of what to expect when listening to the songs.

 These are other pictures that have been included in the art work. They are images of live performances, and past album artwork but slightly changed. These kind of images have been used by the band in every album they make. They like to include skeleton character in their work. On this particular picture they have the skeleton looking through a monical, at a diamond. This relates to the title 'Diamonds in the Rough' and has been used as the main image for this album. The live perfomance pictures gives something for the fans to remember. They take iconic moments from one of their Gigs (these from the DVD) and put them in an animated/hand drawn style for the fans to relate to.


This page in the DigiPak includes all credits, special thanks and other information. This tells you all you need to know about the artwork, song wirters, record label etc. This page was put in at the back just to give everyone regognition. This page is at the end of the booklet, the artwork on this page shows an empty room with musical instumentsand litter over the floor. To me it looks like a room at the end of the gig (which is why it's at the end of the book). I think this shows that all the art work has a meaning behind it.

Lilly Allen and the use of Social Networking.

Digital Package - CD Cover Analysis (Kiss)

Kiss

Destroyer

The album ‘Destroyer’ has unique but fitting art work to the style of the band. In this image they have chosen to be animated to get across a marvel comic book super hero theme relating to their characteristic costumes. They have chosen this particular pose on top of a hill in the sky to show that they are on top of the world and in control. This is because their lifestyle consists of having sex, being in a rock band and having everyone love you (the ultimate lifestyle a stereotypical man can get).

Creatures of the Night

‘Creatures of the night’ this album cover shows the band members in 3 colours, blue, black, and white. All the colours are dark relating to the title ‘Creatures of the Night’. They are also made to look like creatures with their eyes. They’ve been given cats eyes in this picture along with their face paint to make them look like mysterious animals. The mysteriousness of the artwork can also be related back to the costumes they wear. The superhero, masked man costumes comes across mysterious to the audience.

Both of these cover art relate directly to the band itself. This isn't what we will be doing for ours. As the idea of our band is based around a couple of friends who aren't big, popular, or have a lot of money so the album art work will probably be a picture of the band or something in the pop art style. We will do this as we can't really relate to the band in the ways 'Kiss' can because no-one knows who our band is as this would be the first album we (the band) have produced.

Narrative Theories

Foo Fighers - Long Road To Ruin

Todorov’s Theory

¨Equilibrium – The normality in this video is when the doctor doesn’t have the girl (the prize) that he’s after. At the beginning when he’s trying to save the boy he’s trying to get the girl but fails when he tries to kiss her.

¨Disequilibrium – Half way through the video the doctor gets the girl and it shows you clips of what they’ve done together stating that they are now a couple.

¨New Equilibrium – The new equilibrium is when the doctor loses the girl and she runs off away from him when he’s preforming at a gig. The doctor tries to chase after her in a car but end up driving himself off a cliff as he knows he won’t get her back.

¨

The normality in this video is the doctor and woman being apart where as the disequilibrium is when they are together. This isn’t a common theme in most music videos but the foo fighters chose to do it despite that.

¨

Propp

Doctor/Singer – (Hero,)tries to save the child and wants the girl. This puts him in the ‘hero’ role.

¨Woman – (princess or prize) This is who all the men are fighting over, but what our hero (the doctor) wants most of all

¨Blonde doctor assistant - (The false hero) I thought he was the false hero as that's the description the character best fit. At the beginning of the video you see him as a womaniser which gives off the impression he’s after most girls and could be after this girl, but in the end it turns out she wants the main doctor.

¨Injured child – (villain) This was the only role I could put for him as during this music video he doesn't like the idea of the doctor and his mum getting together so he then throws darts at the doctors/singers record.

¨Man in red – (villain) Threw out this music video he harasses the woman at the beginning and then proceeds to throw darts at the doctors/singers record. This because he wants the girl but can’t get her.

Levi Strauss & binary oppositions

¨The only binary opposition I see throughout this video is Good vs. Bad. When the doctor is saving the little boys life on a couple of occasions he was wearing white, this is when the woman is interested in him and pays most attention to him. This is his good side, saving lives and getting the woman. However when the doctor/singer is wearing dark colours he is singing at his gig in the mall and driving. This is the bad/evil part of him because he dances and sings with another girl up on stage, his ‘prize’ girl that he likes see’s him and runs away from him not wanting anything to do with him. Also when he drives off the cliff and dies on his pursuit to find the woman he is wearing black. When he dies he is wearing black, relating death with the colour, and when he saves the little boy’s life, he is wearing life. Its all about Good (life) vs. Evil (death)

Questionnaire and Results

Ellie

Copyright Letter

For our music video, it is important that we keep it legal, and don't commit fraud through copyright. In order to certify this I wrote this letter to CLM Entertainment.


Colin Lester, for CLM entertainment, signed the band in 2007.
Colin Lester is a British artist manager of R&B, Pop and Rock Music acts.


He has managed the careers for numerous commercially successful British and international artists. He was awarded 'The Peter Grant Award' for outstanding achievement from the United Kingdom's Music Manager Forum in 2002.
In 2007, Lester was awarded the prestigious 'Gold Badge Award' by BASCA (The British Academy of songwriter and Composers Association) for his work with UK songwriters. 

Ellie

Star Image.

For star image I’ll be looking at the band '30 Seconds to Mars' and 'Lordi'. I’ll be comparing the music videos and ‘This is War’ and 'Blood Red Sandman'. I will be comparing the both videos in relation to who gets most screen time in videos and why.

‘This is War’ is a video about Jared Leto as a soldier in war. He is the main actor in the music video, there are others acting as other soldiers but the focus isn’t put on them. Jared Leto is a former actor and model so it’s no surprise the screen time goes in his favour. They take advantage of Jared Leto’s sex appeal by using a lot of close ups of Jared Leto in action. They show him in clips shooting as what we presume are terrorists. By showing the bravery and manhood of Jared they are enticing the younger female audience to purchase/watch the video. During this video Jared gets about 30% of screen time, which is a great amount of time. With the good looks and acting skills Leto posses due to his past careers, they producer of the video felt no need to hire a lot of actors to play the roles that Leto could.

‘Blood Red Sandman’ is done by the band 'Lordi'. The screen time is shared between all the band members but not because of the same reasons '30 Seconds to Mars' had. 'Lordi' are guys dressed up in monstrous suits much like the band 'Slipknot'. In the video 'Blood Red Sandman', the meta narrative is about a girl stuck in this haunted house and there are monsters trying to kill her. In this case the Monsters are the band. The band are shown about 45% of the time due to them in the performance aspect and all members acting as main characters in the video. The time split between the monsters is fairly equal to show all the monsters. They have done this because as each band member is essentially a character, the fans will naturally pick a favorite character (band member). This way by showing all in the music video, it keeps everyone happy. The song 'Blood Red Sandman' is about supposedly the greatest demon/monster that there has been and he's being summoned or is coming back from somewhere once again to murder/haunt earth. By having all the band members in this video it could fit in with the lyrics that these demons (the band/followers of the 'blood red sandman'), are haunting this girl and bringing back the message that the 'blood red sandman' is coming back. Therefore by having all band members it shows the greatness of this demon they're singing about. 

A video in comparison.

We the Kings – Skyway Avenue

I decided to research some music videos that could maybe give us an idea for what to do in ours. After a couple of hours of research we found the song ‘1985’ by the band ‘Bowling for Soup’ helpful to some extent. Through out the majority of the video the camera is focused on the band members playing in the garage. This gave us some ideas for angles to use and where to place the camera, but unfortunately the lighting and costume that they used in this video did not fit the Meta narrative that we wanted to create. The lighting was too bright and they used Intertextuality in the costume area. The band dressed up as lots of different acts like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Manson. In our video we want to go for the Indie look so we won’t be using the costume ideas or the lighting as we need that to be low-key. So despite not getting everything we wanted from this music video we did at least see some good camera shots and angles in this video.

The next video I saw was a song called ‘Skyway Avenue’ by a band called ‘We the Kings’. This video and band were exactly what we were looking for. The basic story line is a boy calls a girl from the previous night (we presume he met her at some sort of club), he then goes on a date with her with her not thinking it going to work out and him really eager to see this girl. Towards the end of the video their points of view switch as he doesn’t want to be a rebound for this girl and she begins to really like him. At the end they walk away happy together. Now although this isn’t the story line that we’re looking to create, it is a long the line of a teenage hook up. The actors are very similar to what we’re looking for as well. Only one main guy and one main girl. Through out the video there are a couple of friends that you briefly see but they don’t play a major role. These are the roles that we are looking to fulfill in our video.

Not only is the story line somewhat similar, but also the performance aspect is exactly what we are trying to recreate. The performance is based in a garage with low-key lighting. The garage has old bits of cars and basic junk surrounding the band members either on the floor, or on the wall. This is what we will be trying to do to make it look as if the band hasn’t made it; they’re not big and are willing to practice anywhere to fulfill their love of music. The camera angles used are what we want to use as well. In the performance aspect the camera is mainly held at a high angle looking down on the band from the front. I like this view because you get the entire band in the shot but obviously the lead singer at the front will be the focus of the shot. This allows him/her to go up closer to the camera or step back a little to show emotion about what he’s singing about. With this camera angle you can also see if the singer is jumping or swaying, these actions will reflect the pace and tempo of the song. The lighting will be low-key in our video, much like the one in the ‘Skyway Avenue’ video. We chose to use this lighting because it represents the fact the band is out of the lime light and are undiscovered in the music world.

The costumes used in the acting part of the video could be used in ours. I like the casual look that is used with just jeans and a t-shirt, but if we are using our lead singer as an actor we may have to go back to the indie look once again. As we want to create the look of the ‘not so popular’ group of people, we would prefer to go back to the indie look as we want to give off the impression that the band are trying to fit in with others by the way they dress (the common indie look).

The plan is to use the indie look throughout the video. This is why the costumes ‘We the Kings’ used in the performance aspect of their video can’t be copied into ours. They went for the casual jeans and tight t-shirt throughout their video where as we want the indie look. The costumes we will want to use will be very similar to what ‘The Kooks’ use in the majority of their videos. Such as ‘Seaside’ and ‘She moves in her own way’.