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War by V

The journey towards the impossible…

+Contents of presentation…

1. Conventions of music videos/ conventions of music video of chosen genre.

2. Advertising V; A look at digi-pack and poster/ Links to actual video.

3. Audience feedback, what people thought.

4. Use of media technologies

+Background to piece: Group members…

Myself and Danny worked together last year on our WAFTA award winning title sequence ‘Spencer.’ A combination of creativity and technical ability has allowed our group to flow effectively whilst also maintaining a high quality of work.

Conor Luxford entered the group this year, equipped with fresh ideas on how to bring a new wave of imagination into the group project.

+The band, values and ideals…A look at what drives the band, and the ideology behind the brand that is, ‘V.’

+ Audience…

At the commencement of the project, we decided to draft the basic version of what we considered to be the archetypal fan of the music of V.

The several main features of the profile were of an unreligious, middle class professional, who are also inclined to be anti-establishment.

+ The band ideology…

The ideology of the band was automatically assigned due to the nature of the video itself. Because of the political anti-war status of the music video itself, the band would naturally share these views, thus resulting in V. adopting these views, and expressing them through political statements, as seen in the final product, and in the image above.

+How we implemented these ideas…

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The video…The product itself, and it’s relationship alongside the band.

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Synopsis of video…The video can be broken down into several key segments that each collectively make up the effectiveness of the music video.

1. The use of stop animation to effectively dictate the idea of a filming sequence, and the subsequent impression this gives.

2. The use of regular filming shots, which would eventually go onto be edited with a sepia contrast creating an atmospheric shot that connotes the idea the group is trying to convey, that war is bad and dark, and therefore shouldn’t be presented in a positive light.

3. Use of the logo throughout the music video, appearing at several times, reinforces the idea of an up and coming band trying to make it in the business.

+The masks…

+Letter to Masquerade…

+Use of Goodwin’s Theory…

Lyrics and visuals

Use of lip-syncing equated to a correlation between lyrics and visuals, and this can be seen directly through the shot to the right…

Our use of the coffin scene directly correlates to the line in the song that reads, “friend only to an undertaker.”

Music and visuals

The footage taken of Lawrence performing the song directly links to the music playing, subsequently allowing us to convey Lawrence as choreographing his dancing to the fast beat of the song.

The sharp movement of the stop-motion shots is choreographed to be in time with the beat of the music.

+Use of Goodwin’s theory 2…

Genre characteristics

The psychedelic rock displayed in the video allowed us to make the video unique and revolutionary in terms of what we as the makers could do. This resulted in the trips to London and the focuses of the piece. We also decided to follow the trend of psychedelic rock by adopting a particular cause on which we would campaign with through use of the song.

Intertextual references

The music video itself s in its entirety a whole intertextual reference, referencing many wars as well as featuring several famous London landmarks, including Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

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Ancillary texts…A look at the poster and digipak….

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POSTER:On the right you will find my poster, and you will see how the music video itself and the poster co-exist effectively. As you can see, my use of various colours highlights the revolutionary theme that the video is trying to compute. The underlying and potent use of the peace logo signifies once again the message of peace, and the central image also reiterates our focus on the politics of war. My decision to place this image in the centre of the poster was made in order to fully enforce the potent nature of the peace. My use of vibrant colours will also appeal to the target audience, whose liberal approach to life will allow them to be more unguarded in their acceptance of posters.

+ DIGIPACK:

My digipack design is once again indicative of the rest of our project. The front cover of my digipack is purposely neutrally coloured in its design, and as a result, the two figures in the foreground of Bush and Blair each stand out more as a result. My decision to design the typography in red and black echoes the approach of the video in subtly and yet effectively reflecting the necessity of peace, as red connotes blood and black connotes general darkness. The second panel design is once again indicative of the music video itself, and reflects the view that although the Union Jack is respected around the world, my use of the church window filter on Photoshop also represents ther loss of life seen by Britain in our struggle to maintain peace.

+ Digipack 2…

My third window portrays a picture I took on Parliament Square, and shows a lock that reads, “free the square.” I applied the “darkness” filter onto the image, and also used the painting tool to instigate the music video approach of blood and subsequent war. My fourth window also conveys a series of images depicting famous world leaders of the last ten years, representing those that played some role in either the War on Terror or War in Iraq.