Website 1st Working Page - Update

 Website Update:

1st working page looking to be finished. I will try to include some more details at a later stage if I have time (maybe a short teaser for a tour, some more merchandise items, etc)

• All social buttons work (you are directed to the appropriate webpage for whatever button you click)
• Most elements are animated/moving (the images do not effectively show this)
• The Mr. Blue Sky single is interactive (hover over image to see vinyl)
• Included merchandise page with both Mr Blue Sky related merchandise and other CDBoy related items (e.g. pre-order for the next album)
• Interactions with fans through twitter, featured some fake twitter handles with fake tweets for audience engagement
• Teaser for next "era" of artist - went for an autumnal mise-en-scene with dark greens and browns, serif fonts etc.
• A footer with appropriate social buttons and disclaimers, as well as an invitation for an newsletter
• A secret easter egg (the user can click on the bunny at the footer to find a secret poster, with a call to action to enter a raffle)

Other elements to note:

• Created a font for the website (most of the text is written in this font)
• The Mr Blue Sky album cover is a homage/reference to Tyler the Creator's Flower Boy album

1. Writing and easter egg for the second page complete. 30 second audio/visual element completed, but needs to be uploaded to website.
2. Shooting for video done (might redo bits if they don't look as good as I want) but still underway with animating.

30 Second Audio Visual Content

 For my 30 second clip for my webpage, I decided to make an interview with the minor characters appearing in the music video, who will be posing as CDBoy's mum and dad. A big part of my star persona is his positive relationship with his parents - something many young people would aspire to have.

This is my completed video, with editing similar to WIRED's twitter interviews that they host. However, this is much longer than 30 seconds, so I will aim to condense the content of the interview into a short, 30 second TikTok.

Planning - Script for my Audio/Visual

Here is the rough script that I gave to my actors to perform for the interview for my website.

Script

S: Hi everyone I’m Sarah Dulieu

D: I’m David Dulieu, and we’re the parents of CDBoy. 

S: His new single Mr Blue Sky – which you can stream on literally every streaming service and watch the new music video link in the description – was a bit of a tribute to us, from Eric.

D: You asked us questions on twitter and we’re gonna answer them. 

So @cdb0ystan1 asks What was eric like as a child? Omg I bet he was so cute heart emoji heart emoji heart emoji.

S:

• He was such a sweet child

• A bit lonely as an only child so he turned to music ever since he was young

D:

• Since Im a musician too he would always try to copy my guitar playing and would always sing along and I thought music would be a good avenue for him

S:

• We had some financial troubles, so we had to move around quite a bit, and that definitely took a toll on him

• But we saw his music skills progress and him and his father would come up with songs and do covers all the time 

• He was too nervous to be in the choir and didn’t have enough friends to start a band of his own, so he started uploading music to YouTube when he was like 14. Don’t go and look for it because it’s terrible

S:

• But despite all the hardships and the loneliness and the issues at home he was always trying to look at the bright side whenever he could. And we’re so proud of him for that.

What were erics biggest influences?

D:

• Well technically speaking me. I was his biggest influence. For those of you who don’t know mr blue sky was a song that I made up with eric back when he was a kid, it was like our anthem. I showed him how to play and then he just ran with it.

S: 

• But yknow I played a lot of radiohead in the car in the morning, I loved weezer, the arctic monkeys, a LOT of ELO. But Mr Blue Sky isn’t really like any of that, since it was more erics attempt at a new genre of music as a tribute to us. Isnt he nice?

•

• He’s tyler the creators biggest fan – im sure you can tell that pretty easily- he’s a big queen fan and he’s getting into a bit of 10cc at the moment. Oh and when the happiness mcfly music video came out he couldn’t stop watching it, if that counts.

How did you guys react to erics transition? I hope you were accepting …

D:

• Of course we were jesus do people not have faith in us (worse to that effect)

S:

• Eric knew he was different the moment he knew what being different meant. We never pushed him for answers until he was ready and we never pushed him to be something he’s not.

• As soon as he said he wanted to we took him shopping in the boys section, we got his hair cut and all that and it was really good to see him finally come into himself

• He was clearly uncomfortable as a child and it was sad to see him feel like that but we are so happy to be able to support him as he matures now

Give us a funny story from when CD boy was a kid pls!!!

D: 

• Not exactly so funny for Sarah and I but eric had weird eating habits as a kid. Like really weird.

S: 

• We found him one time trying to eat our cabinet. He was about 2 or 3 and we had no idea what possessed him to do it or what about or cabinet looked so delicious but he was giving it his best go. 

19/09/2022 Progress

 Long Weekend Goals:

• Record all musical instrument shots. Piano, guitar and vocals, including a fret-board shot for the guitar riff in the song.
• Record more general footage of my main character for the second half of the song.
• Finish recording / reach a conclusion to my music video.

At the weekend, I accomplished two of my three goals. I now have a complete master track for the guitar, guitar closeups, fret-board closeup and vocal aspect of my music video Each element that I recorded can be swapped in at any time, with all of the audio synced successfully.

As well as this, I continued with more of my editing and filming. My timeline as of this weekend looks like this, with the left section being film I have decided upon and am happy with, with a few tweaks and adjustments. 

My timeline last week looked like this, with a concept I was less happy with.

Alongside editing, I am also sketching out the rough lines for my animation. I have decided against properly animating anything as things may come up or I may have to make adjustments to my clips, so I should not commit to anything until I am sure it is final. While I have not reached the conclusion of my video yet, I feel more confident in the direction it is taking and will continue animating and recording in my spare time. During the week I have found a video I wish to analyse further, and hopefully reference in my video - Happiness by McFly.

I am struggling with finding intertextual references to use in my video, so I aim to speak with my peers soon to see if they have any ideas or references I could include.

I have not started my website yet, but am continually taking images and drawing pictures for when I do. I have a generally good idea of how my website will appear and I will aim to begin planning this next lesson.

Photos taken 06/08/2022

 

Music Video Draft - No Animation

 

This is the second/third draft of my music video with an adapted storyline. Whereas before I had a storyline that appeared too niche and specific, I have expanded it for a broader theme of Eric exploring the day around him. This draft has some animation, and some sketches outlining the animation that will go atop of it - which will be finished at a later date.

Photoshoot #1 - Out the Window

 

Taken - 1st August

I intend for these images to be used as posters and promotional material for my website, as well as using it as an opportunity to test out my camera and the method of shooting. A tower was assembled outside of my window in order to shoot from my first story window. In these images I will superimpose my animated characters around the main character.

^ The tower that was used.

Generic Research - Close Textual Analysis - Music Video #2

 Close Textual Analysis - Music Video #2 - Take on Me, a-ha

This music video is a combination of video recordings and pencil-sketched rotoscoping animation. The narrative is simple - a girl is sitting alone in a cafe reading a comic. The comic comes to life as a hand reaches out to take her into the cartoon - where the narrative then tur
ns to a love story. They get chased out by the other characters, ad the lead singer (one of the cartoons) comes into the real world with the girl, and the video ends. Throughout the video there is a theme of the "love conquers all" stereotype, a popular theme within the genre - and the narrative itself is reminiscent of a comic book narrative, with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end - a hero and an enemy who are somewhat caricatured.

This video is heavily narrative based, providing a sense of escapism for the audience. It is in accordance to Andrew Goodwin's music video theory, as there are multiple close ups of the main artist/singer's face. There is a clear representation of lyrics, but rather than having a literal representation, the director has decided to use more direct means of addressing the audience, creating a self-contained story.  The video is a hybrid of linear narrative and performance, but focusing heavily on the romance narrative elements. The audience of this video are the observers, who get to experience the romance unfold, and the target audience would be male and female equally due to its themes of love- primarily middle classed young adults, who would come under the Aspirer psychometric.

There is a clear opposition in mise-en-scene throughout this video, with a stark contrast between the naturalistic, beige and brown tones of the cafe, and the contrasting black and white of the pencil sketches. This creates a literal escape from reality - the neutral colours give an impression of a mundane setting, whereas the drawing is extremely visually impressive.

Costumes are casual, yet stylish, and befitting of the New Wave genre, and helps accentuate the importance of the animation elements-  they are not presenting themselves as particularly flashy. This is something I wish to achieve in my video, to not overshadow my animation elements.

The way performance and narrative are hybridised in this video, as well as the style itself of cartoon interacting with reality - is very influential to how I wish to approach making my music video. Obviously, my scale is much smaller, and I will be avoiding the rotoscoping process as it is much more complex than what I can achieve, but it creates an exciting mise-en-scene that I wish to reproduce in my video, and I may choose to make intertextual links to this video (for example, my main character could look through a comic-book, similar to the one in the video) as it is an extremely influential video in the world of animation and music.

Generic Research - Close Textual Analysis - Music Video #1

 Close Textual Analysis - Music Video #1 - Fell in Love With A Girl - The White Stripes

The White Stripes “Fell in Love with A Girl” music video, which is well known as being a masterpiece of stop motion. It is a fun, ingenious music video that utilises stop-motion animation entirely through LEGO bricks. The video itself is extremely abstract, using only red, blue, yellow, black, and white bricks, with the classic rectangular LEGO shape – so no special parts such as minifigures or bevelled bricks.

The camera is static throughout the whole video, and camera movements are simulated only by moving LEGO bricks. Occasionally, match cuts are used to hide the transitions between different styles as well. Due to the movement of the two-dimensional blocks, the images are very hectic and lively, but still provides the typical stop-motion appearance with the flickering of the camera and the slight imperfections in the bricks.

The video itself is almost entirely performance based but has a very slight element of narrative in the beginning that sets up the entire video. It briefly shows a little boy – the director’s son- building a wall of LEGO bricks. This is the only scene in the video that shows anything other than LEGO bricks, and very briefly creates a narrative – these bricks are meant to be the creation of a child, or more accurately, are fun and meaningless in nature, simply meant to create an interesting visual effect. The video also follows a cyclical structure in the sense that the boy creates a black screen of bricks and the video ends on a black screen as well. The simple technique of narrative creation used in this video is very inspiring and has highlighted the importance of getting my narrative elements across in as short a time as possible.

Importantly to my research, the video upholds a very solid brand identity with their use of colour – staying entirely within the brand identity of Jack and Meg White’s signature red, black and white. While this is seemingly a simple design choice it greatly influences the mise-en-scene of the video creating bold, striking visual effects that are befitting of the White Stripe’s music and genre.

Planning - Storyboarding on Adobe Animate

Rather than creating a physical storyboard using paper and pen, I decided to use Adobe Animate to create a rough storyboard for the shots that I should include, and how long they should be shot for.

However, I have found that in several areas I have timed things wrong and the animatic is too fast- but I should be able to correct this and get the same ideas across.

 

Planning - Animation Test

 

Here is a small animation test I conducted to see if I could create the effect I was originally aiming for.

How I made, and intend to make the animation in my music video is as follows:

1. Shoot the video I wish to create an animation over.
2. Run it through Adobe Premiere Pro with the Warp Stabilizer effect if necessary - I need the shots to be as still as possible for overlaying animation onto.
3. Import the video into FlipaClip, my main tool of animation, on my iPad. If there are more complex shots I intend to use Adobe Animate, which gives me lots of rotoscoping capabilities and other visual effects.
4. My animation is at 4/5 frames per second, so FlipaClip automatically cuts down the video to show five frames per second instead of 30. By importing the video into the programme I am able to draw on top of the video on the layer above to see exactly where my animation will be placed in relation to the video.
5. If my animation has elements that will be cropped, I do not erase them in the animation on FlipaClip. I use the entirety of the canvas and draw the whole character (for the most part) to keep things consistent and allow me to move the animation around slightly if need-be (trust me, it just saves time in the long run). In this case, I animated the bee even when it was behind the window so it looked smoother when it emerged.
6. Once the animation has been made I set the background to a bright green, or a bright colour that is not shared in any of the colouring (making a green screen)
7. Import it into Adobe Premiere and resize it so that it fits the screen. Apply the "Colour Key" effect from the effects panel and colour-drop the bright green so that the green-screen is applied. I often have to play around with the tolerance and feather tools to make it look clean and remove any green spots.
1. In this example, the bee goes behind the window, so I had to utilise masks to achieve this.
2. In the effects controls panel (where you are able to change the size, rotation etc. of the video selected) I created an opacity mask and adjusted the edges of the mask so that it fit the four edges of the window. Opacity masks allow only the calibrated shape of video to appear, so I made two masks for the two panes of the window that the bee is visible in.
3. I added a light drop shadow to make it look more authentic.
4. I then exported the video as a H.264.

An easy to understand tutorial on masking can be found here.

Planning - Concept Sketches for Posters

Here are the initial concepts I had for my designs for the webpage, posters, etc. This was relatively straight-forward as this was one of the first concepts I had for my star identity. I will try my best to achieve the correct angle as seen in the first image but this may be difficult to achieve due to the height of the window in question.

Planning - Rough Plans for Website

 Some rough plans on the layout of my website, with annotations from discussion time in class. I wanted to create a fun, action-packed and visually appealing website with lots of digital convergence with animation from the music video.

Planning - Concept Sketches for the Logo

 

Here are my concept sketches for the CDBoy logo. I decided upon the name CDBoy in reference to TVGirl, a popular band that is popular within my 16-25 year old audience. 

This is one of the logos I have decided on - made out of a CD I scanned on my printer.

Audience Research - Audience Profile

• Name: Maddie Hall
• Gender: Female
• Age: 19
• Occupation: Catering / Waitress
• Annual Income: £19,000
• Location: South-East England
• Psychographic: Aspirer
• Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles: Likes to wear clothing that is considered alternative, but still tries to maintain an online identity on social media. Places importance on individualism and is an advocate for social change. Thinks of herself as stylish and current in terms of "alternative" style and cares about celebrity culture. 

Pitch Presentation

Audience Research - Focus Group

 Primary Audience

Name: Max McCabe

• Age: 17
• Gender: Male
• Occupation: Student, Retail Worker
• Psychometric Group: Aspirer / Explorer
• Interests: Listening to / collecting music, drawing / animating, gaming
• Favourite Music Genre: Indie Pop
• Application to Brief: An interest in art and animation means that Max will particularly enjoy the visual elements of my music video. I intend to make the animation lively and colourful. Max enjoys when music videos follow a narrative and maintains a consistent aesthetic, and I intend to have reoccurring themes in my music video. This will particularly appeal to him.

Name: Liza Evers

• Age: 17
• Gender: Female
• Occupation: Student, Retail Worker
• Psychometric Group: Aspirer / Explorer
• Interests: Listening to music, politics, TV, musical theatre, film, social media
• Favourite Music Genre: Classic rock, indie pop
• Application to Brief: Liza has a keen interest in consuming pop culture and will therefore enjoy the intertextual references I intend to include in my video. It will also appeal to her in the inclusion of social media links and "perks." Liza enjoys music videos that involve an interesting "theme" or motif- and the reoccurring visual effects will particularly interest her.

Name: Eric Dulieu

• Age: 17
• Gender: Male
• Occupation: Student, Retail Worker
• Psychometric Group: Aspirer / Reformer
• Interests: Gaming,  drawing / animating, collecting gaming memorabilia, animals
• Favourite Music Genre: Video Game OSTS and Indie Pop
• Application to Brief: Eric is also interested in art and animation and will enjoy the interesting and unique visual style my music video incorporates. Eric also appreciates when there are realistic incorporations of unrepresented social groups in media- so the inclusion of a transgender main character will appeal to him particularly.

Name: Kenzie Adedeji

• Age: 17
• Gender: Female
• Occupation: Student
• Psychometric Group: Aspirer / Explorer
• Interests: Drawing / animating, biology, anime/manga, listening to / playing / creating music, photography
• Favourite Music Genre: Indie Rock
• Application to Brief: The art style and mise-en-scene I intend to create with my music video is in-tune with the art Kenzie both enjoys and creates. The inclusion of two characters with two different social groups will appeal to Kenzie as she has an interest in media that represents underrepresented social groups. Kenzie also enjoys photography and will enjoy the variety of shot-types I intend to include in my video.

Secondary Audience 

Name: Dave Reeson

• Age: 54
• Gender: Male
• Occupation: Communications Director
• Psychometric Group: Mainstreamer / Reformer
• Interests: Playing music, collecting guitars, bicycles / cycling, TV drama, the outdoors
• Favourite Music Genre: Alternative
• Application to Brief: The genre of music my music video will include is one that Dave particularly enjoys. The bright colours, blue skies and colourful mise-en-scene resonates with Dave for his love of the outdoors. However, some of the references I intend to make may not resonate with Dave due to his older age.
  
  
  

Name: Sarah Reeson

• Age: 55
• Gender: Female
• Occupation: Writer / Poet
• Psychometric Group: Reformer 
• Interests: Freeform art, poetry and writing, gaming, music, TV drama
• Favourite Music Genre: Electronica
• Application to Brief: Sarah values representation in media as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, so will particularly value the representation of gender and sexuality in my music video. She also has a great interest in art and will see the value in the form of animation my video will take - frame by frame alongside live-action.

Planning - Annotating my Lyrics

 

Here are some rough ideas for my music video based on the lyrics. My idea is that the Mr Blue Sky motif represents my artist - he is the Mr. Blue Sky and influences the world around him with his art and creativity.

Audience Research Moodboard

Industrial Research - Music Video Theorists

Andrew Goodwin – identified 7 main aspects of a music video which audiences should look out for. ​

·       1) Links between lyrics and visuals – the visuals will illustrate, amplify or sometimes contradict the lyrics.​

·       2) Links between music and visuals - these may compliment, contradict or amplify one another​

·       3) Genre characteristics – including specific use of lighting, camerawork and props.​

·       4) Intertextual references – to other music videos, TV programmes, films, etc.​

·       5) Notions of looking – the objectification of women, themes of looking and voyeurism, encouraging the viewer to desire the artist and their lifestyle.​

·       6) Demands of the record label - usually the representation of the artist, recognisable motifs for particular artists, etc.​

·       7) Performance based, narrative based, or concept based – a video will usually fall into one of the above categories, although sometimes will be in more than one.

 

Roland Barthes – said that texts may be open or closed. Narrowed down the action of text into five different codes, which can be applied to any narrative – including music narrative videos.​

·       The hermeneutic code - the voice of truth. The code of enigmas or puzzles: The way the story avoids telling the truth, dropping clues and help create a mystery surrounding the narrative or character. This makes music videos very interesting.​

·       The enigma/proairetic code- the voice of empirics. The code of actions – any action proposed has to be completed in a logical order or sequence. The result of these actions form the plot of events within a text. ​

·       The symbolic code- the voice of the symbol. Composed opposites or themes within a text, presenting something or someone that is the complete antithesis of something or someone else. Done in the use of contrast, where new meanings arise out of the opposing and conflicting ideas. ​

·       The culture code- the voice of science. Looks at the audiences wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology. Relates to the audiences and makes a video more interesting and realistic.​

·       The semantic code- the voice of the person. This points out to any section in the lyrics that suggest a particular meaning by a connotation which the story suggests. The connotation is what is symbolised.​

 

Vladimir Propps – suggested that every narrative contains 8 different character types. They are called the "spheres of action". Many of these character types are identifiable in narrative music videos.​

·       The dispatcher – who makes the villain known and sends the hero on a quest.​

·       The magical helper – who helps the hero upon his quests.​

·       The princess – the reward at the end of the quest, who the hero adores – representative of new equilibrium​

·       The villain – which enters conflict with the hero in some way​

·       The father of the princess – who gives tasks to the hero, but Propps says that the father and princess are not often easily identifiable​

·       The hero – the protagonist to embark on the quest for better / the princess​

·       The false hero – takes credit for the hero's actions, tries to have the princess to himself.

 

Richard Dyre – suggests that icons and celebrities are constructed by institutions for financial game and to target specific groups of people. Celebrities are constructed to represent "real people" experiencing real emotions. Stars are created by the music industry as to serve a purpose- which is creating profit from an audience because fans idolise these stars and provide income through buying music and products.​

·       Audiences and institutions – Dyre argues that increasing the brand identity benefits the institution as they become a household name and increase sales in every aspect of media.​

·       Constitutions – Similar to the audiences and institutions aspect of his theory, saying that increasing brand identity around a star benefits constitutions.​

·       Hegemony – Known as culture – the idea that audiences relate to the star because they have a feature that they share, or something they admire within the star.​

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