Record Label Reseach

When creating the ancillary tasks we have to reference a record label, and they have to sign bands of the same genre and style.
My media studies teacher suggested looking into post-rock bands and the labels associated with them, and I also looked into record labels associated with the genre of rock which I had identified.

the first record label I identified was Fat Cat records.


I got to this record label through the band sigur ros who I had Identified from my research into both music videos and Record labels. However from research into the types of band they often signed, I found the genre of the music was too dissimilar to my own.

Because I thought, though not completely right I was along the correct lines in terms of a record label, I used sigur ros as a band to work from, so I used last fm to find similar bands and from there found different labels.

One of the labels I found was Chemikal Underground, they are a record label which focuses on post-rock/rock bands, I found them through the band mogwai via last fm. Because they were related to the genre of my song, and often signed bands which had a similar style to the one I have chosen.

Second Shooting Session

Originally I planned to film on Tuesday 11th, but although I had said to meet in one location two of the band members were waiting elsewhere, and the other member had said they were available but weren't so it was postponed to the next Wednesday.

In the end however postponing the filming was beneficial, I managed to get all the footage recorded and as I was filming it began to rain. Luckily we were filming in continuity so throughout the video, the band members will get progressively wetter, which I felt would give an interesting effect and tie in nicely with the conventions of the genre and themes/feel of the song.

First Shooting Weekend

On the Saturday of the weekend I had my first shooting day, the shooting was of the main performance of the band at my first location, the top of the hill. I set up the bands early in the morning so we could get the shots before the sun was too high in the sky. unfortunately though I had got some footage we had to end the filming prematurely as it started raining.

I would have continued but the band members' had expensive equipment which they understandably didn't want getting wet.

The Sunday however was far more fruitful, I managed to get all of the footage filmed at the new location(location 3) with just the singer of the band.

Location 3

The third and final location for my music video. this is the location for the section of the video with only the main singer. to juxtapose with the two other locations which were quite rural this is in a more urban environment as suggested in the audience feed back I had from my presentation.

Location 2

This is the second location which I will be using, this will be for the scene where the band is gathering without their instruments

Continued research

When researching into record labels I stumbled across the band sigur ros, the style and tone of their music was very similar to that of my track so I begun looking into some of their music videos,

the video for their song Glósóli particularly stood out to me as I thought the locations, lighting, colour grading and all round shot composition up until about 3:50 were very fitting for the genre of this song and my own, also this video reflected the sorts of ideas I had for my video.



Thinking about the new urban part of the music video I found this video by the group mogwai, I liked the use of slow motion here and the sense of isolation the video manages to create.

Audience Feedback

We had to do a presentation on the ideas we have so far for our music videos, the idea was to get audience feedback on our plans for the music video, focusing on the positives, and also finding the potential flaws in the idea.

As I mentioned before, part of my idea was to have the band performing in a studio, however people said that perhaps this wouldn't fit the rest of the video seeing as it was all outdoors. this idea was changed to instead of having another location with the whole band, having just the singer in an urban location.
Also having just the singer in a scene is a common convention seen in rock music videos, even though I've found rock videos tend to focus on the  band as a whole conventionally, there is still a focus on the singer as an individual over the other band members.

Much of the rest of the feedback was positive, the suggestions that were put forward echoing and reinforcing the ideas and themes I'd already begun to build.

Testing the new Cameras

Last weekend I borrowed one of the new media cameras in order to get to grips with them so that when comes to actually filming the music video, I will have a basic knowledge of how the camera functions.

I took a few pictures and a couple of videos, here's a small collection of some of the better ones. because the cameras we've had before have been quite simple compared to these I focused on learning not only how to use the camera but how to use the more advanced  techniques they allow us to do.
specifically a far easier, and more powerful way of manually focusing and zooming.