PODCAST #4

BV

SR: INDUSTRY: Monetizing

For our website we also need to come up with ideas for merchandising. Therefore we looked through different bands such as the ones we blogged on for social media and of course also Bring Me The Horizon themselves.

Nowadays, bands sell merchandise to get an extra income. They dont earn as much from concert tickets or CD sales anymore since it is easier for people to stream or pirate music. 

On Bring Me The Horizon's official website, there are quite a lot of merchandise that are available to purchase. These include:

When Bring Me The Horizon performed at the Rock A Field music festival here in Luxembourg, they couldn't include all of their merchandise, because there are loads of bands that are trying to sell their merchandise at a festival. Therefore, they include the most important merchandise that people are guaranteed to buy at a festival such as T-Shirts, Jumpers, Caps and with time, bands have started to sell phones cases on festivals as well, since a lot of people have smartphones nowadays.
The merchandise on their website are not just the typical T-Shirt orHoodie, but include backpacks, phone cases, watches and many other things, which you can view on their  website.

Fall out Boy, had quite different merchandise from Bring Me The Horizon. Their merchandise included these bobbleheads with the names of the band members on the small platform the bobbleheads are standing on. This can be purchased for 50$. However, the band is being portrayed as quite "Hipster" with the look that they have such as the hat on Patrick's head. They could have included the band members holding guitars or having Joe sit by the drumkit on the platform. On the website you can also buy as well as other T-Shirts,jumpers and wall flags.

Rise Against merchandise is more focused on different types of T-Shirts, such as for example this one with the cover from Rise Against newest digipack on there. They were however also the first of the three bands where I saw the CD in the store. The two other bands had quite a lot of merchandise, but their CD's weren't included. Whereas Rise Against included both CD but also Vinyl of their newest album The Black Market.

WEBSITE: #1 Starting

We created the website on the 21th of October but we didn't start to edit it till October the 25th (View Here). One of the first things we did was add Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube to the links list in the top. Wix gives you a templet to work with when you first start a website. The picture you see above is what the website looks like now on the front page.

We added a small the genre and name of the band and it created a small summary for us to use. There are three pictures that are on a slider which we have not chosen. We still need to learn how to use the website as if you scroll down there are three of the same "posts".

There are three of the same "buy album posts" where you can listen to the tracks on the album as well as buy the album. We will probably end up using this if we can use Bring Me The Horizon music instead of the default tracks that have been provided.

Lower down on the web page there are tour dates that also have been provided for us. They are random dates and locations which if we can get to have Bring Me The Horizon dates we might use.

At the bottom there is a "Shop" with random products and random prices set for us.

INDUSTRY: Merchandise

In this post I will talk about different merchandise for different bands.
Bands sell merchandise to create some extra income. Now a days bands dont earn as much from concert tickets or CD sales as people can easily stream or pirate music. So to earn more most bands sell merchandise. Most bands sell the normal merch such as T-SHirts, Hoodies, caps, and other clothes. I will be listing some more unusual merch.

AC/DC sells dog tags with the AC/DC logo on them. Dog Tags are necklaces that soldiers use in the army but have become very popular as a form of jewelry.

The music producer Deadmau5 has headphones created for cats. There was only made 10 functioning cat headphones and the price was set at $1000. The headphones are a smaller version of the Deadmou5 Sol Republic headphones and where created for Deadmou5s cat.

The band Fall Out Boy also has a bunch of different merch on being wall flags. There are almost like posters such made from fabric and if you look in the corner they have holes in them so you could use it as a flag.

Five Finger Death Punch sells finger-less gloves with their logo on which is of knuckle busters with spikes on them with 5 F D P in each circle.

This is most likely the most bizarre merch of the ones I found. Kiss sells a lot of special merch, one which is a coffin. There are a few Kiss Coffins 2 of which are Deluxe edition. On the description it says it can also be used as a drink chiller while you are still alive. Kiss also sells a Limited Edition Pinball Machine for $12000. But for those who arent willing to buy for such a high price there is also the Pinball Machine -Pro for $6500


The band The Rolling Stones also has a lot of merch. It has merch for all ages even baby's this might be because people who who grew up listening to the rolling stones might have baby's now at will then buy a baby rolling stones romper. The rolling stone also have a book which you can buy on their website. They have two Exibitionism books Hard and Soft Cover. They also sell cufflinks with the the logo on them.

The band Twenty One Pilots sells a bunch of merch the most special one being the TOP Ukulele. Its priced at $125 which is more than double what a normal ukulele costs.

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Update #1

This is the 1st update of the production schedule I created, which included the dates we will be filming on and which cast needs to be there for the different dates. It also shows, which parts of the music video we will film and for how many hours we will be filming on.

Production schedule 2 from Sophie2401

VODCAST #3: Target Audience

To find out more information about our target audience I asked a few different people if they new the song and band for 4 different songs.

PODCAST #3

SR/KO

Script:

Last week we edited the sample scene and also updated our production schedule. We included which particular part we were going to film on each date and which cast should be present for the specific shoots.  

This week we will talk to all the band members and make sure that they each know what to do for the filming on Saturday the 29^th . Sophie is also going to finish the call sheet, so that we have shot directions for Saturday and also we intend to do a video that the band singer can watch so that he knows approximately how to perform. 

Social Media

We have created a Twitter, Instagram, and a YouTube account for our project. We also created a website using wix. At the moment they are still in progress, as we haven't filmed a lot or taken the band pictures. The link to all the social media is down bellow:

Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Website

MUSIC VIDEO Eg7 (Genre Specific): Linkin Park - Numb

Artist: Linkin Park
Album: Meteora
Genre: Alternative Metal
Song: Numb



The song "Numb" by "Linkin Park" is in the same genre as "Bring Me The Horizons" "Throne" which is why I will deconstruct it so we get some inspiration for what we might want to do in our video. The video has both narrative and performance which is something we will most likely have. Throughout the video they use a filter to make everything look darker and less colorful which isn't uncommon in the metal genre.

The performance clips take part in a dimly lit church with natural light and some candles. When they film the performance the camera is always moving. Most of the time it is panning so you can see the whole mise-en-scene of the church. The band is placed on a stage at the end of the church aisle.




The costumes the band is wearing are black or dark green, Most of them are wearing army clothes with the DJ wearing a MP (Military Police) jacket and the guitar player wearing a tactical vest. Some of them also have earrings or necklaces and the piano player is wearing a cap backwards. All of this fits with the metal/rock genre. The main singer however doesn't fit with the stereotype of a main singer as he has white/blonde hair and also wears glasses.

The narrative part of the video follows a girl struggling to fit in in high school, This fits with the target audience as some of their audiences are going through the same. The female protagonist is wearing the same type of clothes as some of the band members, a dark green military goat and what looks to be an army backpack. You can also see that she has cuts on the inside of her arm from self abuse.

Throughout the narrative you see the female protagonist not fitting in and there are some uses of special effects such as a time laps where the female protagonist is seen in normal time. At the end of the video the main protagonist runs into the church but no one is there except the instruments.

Target Audience: BMTH (Magazine)

For audience research I will be looking at some magazines that have featured Bring me the Horizon. Then I will look at the genre for those magazines and that will help use determine who the target audience is for the band. The picture where found through a google search and there are a lot more but these 2 magazines are the ones they mostly featured in.

Bring me the Horizon have featured on the cover of AP (Alternative Press) many times. You can see from the photos that they have features in issue #248, #268, #299, #327, and more. By looking at APs Website I saw an article that was tilted "18 tattoos that will send chills down your spine". This tells me that the age range is centered at around 20 year old as they are the ones who generally get tattoos. Other bands that have featured on AP are such as "Twenty One Pilots", "Crown the Empire", and "Panic! At the disco".

BMTH have also been on the cover of Rock Sound a few times. Other bands that have featured on Rock Sound are bands such as "Twenty One Pilots", "Green Day", "30 Seconds to Mars".

Rock Sounds age range is slightly lower than AP as Rock Sound features some bands that arnt as heavy such as "30 Seconds to Mars". Although on there website there is mentions of alcohol which is 18+ in England. The age range of both magazines i would say is around 18 to late 20s, but AP focuses more on a heavy metal group.

SR: Sample Scene #1

This is a practice video/sample scene that Kristian and I filmed with the band on the 16th in order to get some footage for our sample scene and try out different locations. We also wanted to try out different positions for the band members, in order to see who would fit the different instruments best and ofcourse fit and get the role of the leadsinger. 

Despite using social media to advertise and having auditions, it has been quite a challenge to find people who can play an instrument and who wanted to take part in the project. Therefore, we decided to go for 5 people, who we thought, looked suitable for the role, with some change in costume for the real filming ofcourse. 

Since this was only a practice, we didn't have all 5 band members there, we didn't have all the instruments either and we didn't spend time on doing make-up since we wanted to focus on the set-up first. Also, not all members knew the lyrics, which means that it was hard to focus a lot on lip-syncing when I edited this. 

I did however, try to use two different video effects. First of all, i wanted to see how it would look with the video effect, but it was also quite sunny that day and so the outside scenes wouldn't have been suitable for the actual real footage, since the mood is supposed to be quite depressing and the weather should link with the mood. If it does turn out to be sunny on all the days we are filming, Kristian has quite a lot of experience with editing so that it still looks dark outside, since this was the case for his film opening at AS-Level.

PODCAST #2

KO

This is the 2nd weekly podcast.

SR: Metalcore Branding on social media

Social Media accounts are nowadays the best way to keep in touch, keep your audience informed. It is a great way for bands to sell themselves to their fans and let them know what is happening in their lives right now. This let's their fans/audience get an insight to their life, which is very often what keeps them interested into a band. 

For my analysis of metalcore branding on social media, I decided to look at the three bands: Slipknot, Bullet for my Valentine and Asking Alexandria, since they are the same genre as Bring Me The Horizon. 

Slipknot: 

Like many other bands Slipknot use their Twitter account to let their fans know when and where their next show is. With a tweet like the one on the left, they let their fans know where they can by tickets, and tweet a picture of them on a poster with the date and the time of the venue. As mentioned above this is a perfect way to get in touch with most of their fans. With their over 1.70 million followers, that get a notification when someone they follow tweets something, they reach people over the whole globe only within a few seconds, rather than it being on posters on the streets, where people often just walk past it. 

By then tweeting a picture of themselves in front of the audience they played for in mexico, they include their fans in their tweet. The "gracias"(thank you) is a little touch, which then makes the fans seem special, because the band thank them in a special way and include the language from the audiences home country. 

On Facebook, Slipknot have more posts than on twitter. However, some of the posts are still the same such as the one where they tweet "Gracias @knotfestmexico". Whereas other posts such as this one on the left are different. This post that has been combined with a picture, let's their fans know that they have reached the KNOTFEST and that they are now in Mexico. This gets their fans excited, because they know that they are in the same area as their favourite band. 

With their 1.9 Million followers on Instagram, Slipknot are on top ofTwitter and Facebook able to reach an even wider audience that might only have Instagram. 

Bullet for my Valentine: 

With their 321K followers, Bullet For My Valentine aren't as popular as Slipknot or Asking Alexandria on Twitter. However, the band usesTwitter and the rest of social media in the same way as Slipknot, which is to promote themselves. In this particular tweet, they did for example advertise for a meet and greet that their fans could get with the band. Again, the tweet indicates the place, the time and the date of where it will be taking place and what exactly will be happening. If they wouldn't post this on social media, there most likely wouldn't be as many fans as there are with when they tweet it like this. 

They have a similar amount of followers on Instagram too. However on Facebook the band has over 8 million likes, which indicates that their audience simply uses Facebook more thanInstagram or Twitter. 

This would also explain why they have a lot more posts on Facebookcompared to Twitter and Instagram. On Facebook they do also share their personal experiences such as one of them having breakfast. Again this makes the fans feel as if they are part of their life and it interests them to know what they are doing. 

Also they then write "See you tonight Perth" as a reminder that they are playing a concert tonight and reminding the audience who still wants to go that they might still be able to attend. 

Asking Alexandria:

Asking Alexandria are also a quite famous band with their 1.02 M followers on Twitter. On their tweets such as the ones on the left, they have the title of their band name and then the titles of the songs from their album "10 years in black" below. 

In the first post, they again as the other two bands advertise by telling their fans when tickets go on sale. This is a quick and efficient way to advertise for tickets, which will reach all of their twitter fans withing seconds by getting a notification on their smartphone. This is also considered easier for fans, since they do not need to go online and find out when the ticket sales start. With the tweet they have also put a link to their website where you can purchase tickets and see what dates the different concerts are on and in which place. 

By then tweeting later "Tour kicks off tonight!" they are providing fans with the message that tonight their tour starts and they might still be able to get tickets if they haven't purchased them yet. Also, asking fans a simple question such as "Which show are you coming to" makes them feel as if they can interact with the band and talk to them directly to tell them where they are going and that they can't wait to attend the concert. 

Ofcourse they also useFacebook to reach fans, since they have over 5 million likes on their facebook page. This means that with the use of different social media they can reach their fans that maybe only have one of the social medias they post on. By adding somethins simple such as the calendar here on the right at the top of the facebook page, it is easy for the audience to track when the next concert is. The button "Interested" has then also been added so that fans can click on it and it comes up as a reminder the day that they then play the concert. 

Besides that they have the same posts on Facebook as they have onTwitter with even more such as News from Asking Alexandria featuring the leadsinger of the band. This allows the band to directly address their fans by talking to them online. 

Asking Alexandria do for example not have as many followers on Instagram as they do on Facebook and Twitter. This indicates that their audience is more on Facebook and Twitter rather than Instagram. 

Metalcore branding on Social Media

To interact with audiences bands now have their own Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. To get an idea of what colors, fonts and styles where used im looking at different bands in the same genre.

Bring Me the Horizon:

What can be seen in both of YouTube and Twitter homepage is that black is used for both of the profile banners. The banners also have to logo but the Twitter logo is to the right and almost invisible along with some text in the center that says "THAT´S THE SPIRIT" That is equally as visible as the Logo.

On the YouTube homepage the logo is in the center of the banner and instead of being barely visible it is white on the black background.

The YouTube page has a link to BMTHs Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud and iTunes. The Twitter only has a link to the website.

Both the pages have a photo of the band but there are some differences. The Twitter Photo has the band sitting in what looks like a cinema.The singer is siting in the center frame while the other band members sit scattered around. Some are wearing hoodies and they all look serious. The photo is also black and white.

The YouTube photo looks very different to the Twitter Photo. The YouTube Photo has the band sitting together looking at the camera. The main singer is still in the center but the other band member are sitting right next to him. The photo is also not in black and white but instead has a light blue background. The Band are also wearing different clothes as they are wearing T-Shirts or jumpers.

Linkin Park:

 Linkin Park has a different style then BMTH. First both the YouTube and Twitter banner and profile picture are the same. Instead of having the band for the profile picture its just the logo with no text.

The banner has the logo in the center with band name underneath. In the background there is a picture of what look to be a music soundboard that is out of focus.





The Twitter also has a link to their website just like BMTH did. On the YouTube page they have a link to their website, Google +, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Linkin Park has related channels on its YouTube

page. The related channels are other artist they have worked with and also their label company.

Alice in Chains:

 Alice in chains properly has the most different banner and profile picture out of the 3 examples. The YouTube banner has the band standing in what looks to be a car park or something of the sort. The band members all have long hair and are wearing black clothes. The main singer is looking at the camera while the rest of the band is looking straight ahead.

The profile picture looks a lot more different. Some have short hair and the picture isn't as dark. They are also wearing brighter clothes and jeans. They are also in different positions.

The Twitter profile picture is in the same location as the YouTube profile picture but the band is placed differently.

The Twitter banner is very different as it is a white background with the name of the band in all caps written along in black so it really stands out.

BV: Treatment

Bronwen wrote a treatment for the idea for our music video, whereas Sophie applied the pictures and theories. The treatment is something that could be handed out to people when presenting a vodcast or spoken explanation of our idea.

GROUP:

We are creating a music video for the song ‘Follow You’ by Bring Me the Horizon. Our group consists of Bronwen, Kristian and Sophie. The brief of our project is to create a music video, a website and a digipak. 

SUMMARY:

To summarise our idea, we will combine both performance andconcept and will also include some aspects of a fragmented narrative. We are going to have the band performing in an abandoned location and also outside. We will also have the lead singer in other locations such as a bathroom and bathtub. There will be a female protagonist who will actually be a ghost, and we will achieve this through different editing techniques such as layering. The lead singer will slowly grow more and more crazy, thinking about the girl. The female protagonist could actually be someone in his life who passed away or just be representative of a relationship ending. We will use colour powder and black balloons during certain scenes.

INSPIRATION: 

We took inspiration from a great variety of music videos by various artists and genres. As examples, we were inspired by the use of colour in Up in the air by 30 Seconds to Mars, where they use color powder and in Bagboy by Pixies, where there are colored cereals in the bathtub.

We were also inspired by Joe, a previous media studies student from our school, as we really liked his use of layering, where there is a clear link between visuals and lyrics as well. We want to use one of Andrew Goodwin's suggested features of a music video, which is too establish a clear link between visuals and lyrics. There is one scene, where our leadsinger sings "Cross my heart and hope to die", where we will get a Pig's heart (achieving verismilitude) and have him squeeze it toconnote his pain. 

MISE-EN-SCENE + CASTING: 

As the mise-en-scene of our music video will be crucial in obtaining a professional and believable final product, as well as achievingverisimilitude, we put a lot of thought into it. 

For the mise-en-scene such as costume for our band members, we got inspired from rock bands such as ofcourse Bring Me the Horizon themselves, THE 1975, My Chemical Romance and Fall out Boy, whose logo you can see here on the right of the post. 

Ofcourse, we also needed students who could fit the role and who had some experience with playing an instrument. Therefore, we held casting sessions where we filmed students from our school and outside of school as well in order to get a variety and have students/people who fit together as a group and are keen on doing the project with us. We had advertised for this via social media such as Facebook and had found males who were very keen on taking part as a band member. We will discuss, who we are choosing as our band members in our Podcast 2. 

We will dress the members in black ripped skinny jeans and black jackets, ripped t-shirts and black boots such as Doc.Martens/sneakers such as all black Converse or Vans. The lead singer, and also perhaps the female protagonist will have skull face paint on their faces, inspired by the TV show, American Horror Story. Some members will be wearing eyeliner and we have also ordered some materials in which we can create temporary tattoos to put on the band members necks and arms. 

Bronwen will design and draw these tattoos as she is an art student who has designed tattoos before. In order for the tattoos to stick, we ordered "water based-ink-jet-water transfer paper" from Amazon, which can go into the copy machine and be printed out with nice tattoos that Bronwen will draw by hand. The tattoos, will be based on what the Bring Me The Horizon band members have and also other rock bands such as You Me At Six, but mainly Bring Me The Horizon. This means that they will contain tattoos such as a skeleton, cross etc, which we will be evidencing on our blogs soon. 

The female protagonist’s makeup and outfit was inspired by the female characters in the Fall out Boy song, My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark. She will be wearing black skinny jeans, a crop top with some cleavage and a leather jacket. Her make-up will consist of dark, smokey eye makeup, mascare and a dark red lipstick. 

AUDIENCE:

In our investigation of target audience, we found that the main audience of alternative rock like the songFollow You, is males aged 16-25. This means that the video also should appeal to a male audience (Laura Mulvey, male gaze theory), which is why she will be wearing those type of clothes. 

DIGIPACK + WEBSITE:

On Sunday, we have our first shoot, where we will also be doing a photo shooting with the band members, which will most likely be the cover of our digipack together with a logo of the band that we will create ourselves. We will do a post shortly, where we will be investigating for different fonts that fit into the genre and could potentially be used for our digipack. 

On Monday the 17th, we will be creating our website for our band and start setting up our social media accounts. 

Locations

For the location scouting we looked for something old and dark. We looked at old factory's, warehouses and substations. We all went to as a group to look for locations. I will also look at some potential places to shoot before the practice shoot. Here are some photos that I took of the location.