Advert Analysis 1 - Nirvana

This advert is one of the most influential and recognisable album adverts of all time.  It was created for Nirvana's album 'Nevermind'.  The main image can be interpreted in many different ways.  However, the interpretation that our group agreed upon was that this image shows the greed of society.  The infant used in the image is clearly very young, most likely not even 1 yet.  The baby seems to be in a state of tranquillity.  He looks very peaceful, and is floating which shows he doesn't even need to concern himself with balance.  Which further represents the imperturbability of the shot.  Thus, this baby, who is yet to know anything about the world or how it works and is in a complete state of serenity, still looks towards money, and almost seems to be swimming towards it.  This is a perfect representation of how modern society is consumed by greed whether people realise it or not.  This may well be the theme which Nirvana were trying to go for with their album and the songs within it.  We will use this to help us with our own advert as we will use an image which we feel perfectly presents the emotions of the album tot the audience.

        

  At the top of the page, there is large, black and blocky font used for the band name, this is also the largest font on the page, as this is the most important text for the advert.  Underneath, is the album name.  The name is in black font as well, but the font that has been used is quite wobbly, as though it is underwater which is relevant to the image.

          Underneath the baby there is the date for the album release.  Like most of the font on the page, it is black.  It is large, but not as big as the band and album name as these are both recognisable bits of text that will attract the audience.  We will situate the date for our album in the same position as this is very conventional for album adverts.

Underneath there is the web address for the band so the fans know where to find out more.  There is also smaller text explaining the 'deluxe' features of this album .  It is things such as the re-mastered version of the album, rare recordings and live performances.  This is important as it explains the reason this album is 'deluxe' and not just your everyday album. We will include some bonus features like this as well as a copyright disclaimer to make it seem more official.

There are a few stickers used on the advert such as a black sticker saying 'NIRVANA 20 NEVERMIND' indicating the 20th anniversary of the original album.  Another sticker in the bottom right explains that it is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray.  then one with a barcode which is scannable via most mobile devices.  And some information to find out more about the image.  To improve on this we will add stickers outlining the social media platforms which our band has a presence on.

New Time Lapse

Tonight we decided to go up into town to film the sunset which we couldn't do the other night due to traffic. This time, we had agreed that we wanted a darkening time lapse of the bridges to go right at the start of our video which wasn't in our rough cut version. We decided that we wanted to re-shoot this because we wanted to use a fixed lens to get a better quality shot, something which we decided against in the rough cut, and what a difference that made!

We also wanted to be able to get a more effective shot by getting there at a different time to ensure we caught it getting really dark with all of the lights changing around the Millennium Bridge unlike in the previous version where it only really starts to get dark towards the very end of the clip which wasn't what we were after. This time however, was a great success and is indisputably better than our original time lapse.

After looking at the time lapse footage we got, we are really happy with it as we weren't expecting the Millennium Bridge lights to change colour so this was a really nice extra touch to our video and we feel that the time lapse at the beginning, although not completely necessary, joins the beginning and end of the video really well as at the end you see our main character walking down the quayside.

Here is a photo of Becca and Annabelle watching and holding the tripod in place due to the wobble of the bridge in the wind.



Trying To Re-Shoot Our Narrative

Today, we have begun re-filming our narrative for the video. Unfortunately, attempting to film today proved to be extremely problematic for us for a number of reasons. Firstly, as we decided to change the location for the main character's bedroom, it meant that we had to borrow a mirror to use at the new location, from that point, the person who had kindly lent us it accidentally cracked it. From that point on, our fortune's went down hill.

Secondly, we travelled into Newcastle to film our time-lapse shot, which on a Friday, allowing only 45 minutes during rush hour meant that we got there closer to 5pm rather than before sunset at 4:08pm. However, this couldn't have been helped and we were extremely unlucky with traffic. However, the time-lapse can be filmed any night unlike the narrative scenes which depend on the actors being available.

Thirdly, when we finally got round to filming our video using the heavy tripod. We found that we didn't have the plate which attached the camera to the tripod. This meant that we had to physically hold the camera and make sure that the camera didn't move whilst we filmed. This was totally impractical and will have most likely had a negative impact on the quality of what little footage we managed to get.

Finally, we attempted to use the shoulder mount for the scene where Orrin is walking down the stairs. Unfortunately, whilst attaching the camera, we found out that part of it was missing and this meant that the camera wouldn't stay steady on it and would move forwards and backwards during shots. This proved to be the final nail in the coffin of our day's filming and we decided to admit defeat, late into the evening.

We have planned to go out on Tuesday evening next week when we all finish school early to ensure that we make the sunset in time. We will also ensure that we check all of the equipment has all the correct parts when we go to collect it from the department before we take it all the way up to Newcastle. Hopefully this next shoot will go much better than this weeks.

New Band Members for Final Cut

We have been filming our performance footage ready for the final cut and the main change is the members in the band. In our rough cut, we had a 4-piece band of all males. Now we have a 3-piece band with 1 female. We decided to do this to subvert and come away from general stereotypes about rock bands. Generally, they are all male and are also usually a 4-piece.

We think this was a really good decision as it works really well with the story of seduction and temptation of women in our narrative for the video. We also thought that it would be interesting to subvert a very common stereotype to make our video something really quite different.

 

 

Singer & Guitarist - Alex Booth

 

 

Bassist - Annabelle Hill

 

 

Drummer - Jamie Adams

 

 

We have kept the same actors for our narrative clips because we felt that their performance was very high quality and we also knew that we could trust them to put the time and effort needed into all of the shoots to create this video.

A Look At The Filming Process From Our Perspective

Below are a couple of clips in which we are trying to film footage for our videos. As you can see, obtaining the footage which we need for the video and recording footage of band members are two different things. These amusing clips serve to show how much organisation it takes to get those shots and why directing band members makes such a difference in getting final-cut quality footage and that you can have a laugh too whilst filming a music video. 

Changes We Are Going To Make To Our Narrative

From our rough cut, it was apparent that we would have to re-shoot almost all of our footage for the final cut. This was due to a number of reasons.

Firstly, much of our rough-cut's narrative was shot in the dark with only street lights for natural light, making a lot of it look extremely grainy. However, after more training using the cameras, this should  no longer be a problem for us as we know how to address this problem if it occurs again.

Secondly, the shots which we originally got were nowhere near close enough to the characters in order to express their emotions and expressions. This made the characters appear too distant to what we wanted to do and so re-shooting this means that we can adjust the composition of our shots and focus attention of them rather than their surroundings.

Thirdly, the location of the main character's bedroom will have to change unless we can transform it from what Orrin's bedroom actually looks like to something a substance abuser would live in. This means that we may or may not have to find another location before we start filming. However, this may cause us some complications as Orrin's room has a mirror in it which provides us with a good shot of him and Laura on the bed.

We hope to be filming these scenes at the end of this week.

Our Hypothermic Vlog

The weather that we had on the day of filming our performance reached a point where it was that bad to the point where we decided to vlog the whole ordeal to show just how bad it was trying to film in the cold and the wet. However, through us all persevering with it, we managed to film everything for the performance in just one morning in spite of all the challenges that the cold presented to us.

In this clip, we had just run back to the minibus as the rain started again for about the fourth time that morning. We had to ensure that we did this each time the rain got too heavy in order to protect the cameras which would have otherwise been damaged with all the water. We did use freezer bags and umbrellas to protect the cameras from light rain, however once it really started to pour down, we were left with no other choice but to get the cameras back inside.

This did take quite a large chunk of time from us when we were filming which we would have used ideally to get a few more re-takes to ensure that we had enough high quality footage  but that wasn't really possible unfortunately. We are happy with the footage we have and we think it is a lot better than our rough cut band footage, and even better again than the footage we got the first time we re-shot it.