Importance of marketing

The audience I am aiming for are followers of indie and alternative music, in order to appeal to this demographic I will need to market my product accordingly. Traditionally, music videos serve the purpose of promoting a single or an album, and I will be promoting STOKER's debut album 'moral panic'.

Hypodermic syringe theory- AS Revisit

The hypodermic syringe theory suggests that audiences are 'empty vessels' and vulnerable to impression from what is shown to them through the TV, music videos, books and radio. In AS, I became aware of the hypodermic syringe theory when researching and planning for our thriller opening Incognito I learned that there were many elements of our thriller concept that would be seen as dangerous influencing. For example, the characters in our thriller opening all appeared to be smokers: we wanted smoking to be a consistent element throughout to pay homage and make an intertextual reference to that of the popular 'gangster' crime sub-genre, also suggested by follows of the aforementioned theory to be a bad influence on its audience.  

'Incognito' 2016

Music video theorists

Sven E Carlsson

Carlsson said that music videos fell into two categories:

• Conceptual
• Performance

A conceptual music video is one that follows a story/narrative, such as Fatboy Slim- Weapon of Choice, in which actor Christopher Walken dances and flies around a hotel.

A performance video is one where the band themselves mime the words or play the instruments as a fabricated performance for the video, like Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, in which the band mime the lyrics and their instruments.  



My music video will be heavily conceptual, with a running narrative throughout it. My story will consist of a vampire planning a party to try and overcome their social stigma, brought about by aspects of the media. When no one turns up to the vampire's party, they are very sad, but one person shows up and, due to either self-fulfilling prophecy or perhaps just instinct (it is the former though), they kill their only friend. 

Album final cover

Editing progress-10/03/17

Editing Progress- Friday 10th March

Today i finished my first draft of my music video. I used colour grading to make the dancing scenes near the end of my music video appear dream-like and happy, in contrast to the darker, colder colour grading on the final reveal shot which shows the vampire's kill. 




Here is the first draft of lights out. I am currently editing bits that have been suggested to me by my teacher. I hope to have the final edit on here by the end of the month.

Editing progress- 09/03/17

Editing- Thursday 9th March

Today I managed to reach the end of my music video with footage, meaning I now have a full sequence in place to tweak and edit effects on. It is a basic sequence at the minute but this now means that I can apply effects based on how I know the order of the footage goes in my project. Tomorrow I plan to add a couple of overlays on top of some bits and colour grade the entire music video to make it look more professional (or less amateur). I will also apply more 'Warp stabiliser' and maybe revert the effect off of some footage where I feel necessary. My media teacher watched the completed sequence today so I could see if the concept made sense to others, to which he responded that it did make sense, but I will have to export a copy to show to different audiences, perhaps those who completed the questionnaires for me, to see if the video has the same reception.

Editing progress- 08/03/17

Wednesday 8th March

Today's progress

Editing progress- 7/03/17

Tuesday 7th March- Editing

Today in editing I wanted to add a diegetic sound over the top of the music video to give the effect of fourth-wall breaking in auditory terms (perhaps 'sound barrier breaking'). I achieved this by using the razor tool in PremierePro to cut a segment in the middle of the song where I wanted the sound effect to go, so that the song, instead of being one singular section, was split into three.

 After this, I applied the 'Exponential fade' effect to the end of the first section (the whole song leading up to the diegetic sound) and the 'Constant gain' effect to the beginning of the third section (the music increasing in volume again after the sound effect has occurred). In the middle section, I adjusted the volume of the music via Audio effects control and turned the volume of the 3 second segment down to a suitable volume in which you would be able to hear other noise on top of. 

Shortly following, I downloaded a royalty free sound effect of a doorbell ringing and imported that onto my timeline, placing the sound effect on top of the 2nd segment of the song. The result: the volume decreases and stays decreased until the doorbell has rang in the music video, before increasing to its original volume again for the remainder of the video.

Here is a video tutorial I used for help in adjusting sound in Premiere Pro

Editing progress- 3/3/17

Friday 3rd March- Editing 

Today I spent one hour editing my final project and managed to edit footage to the second verse of the song. This would be about 1 and a half minutes in. I am finding myself experimenting with the Warp Stabiliser effect a lot on Premiere Pro as some of the filming I did via hand-held cameras, particularly the footage shot on the iPhone 6s. The stabiliser effect gives a smooth and professional look but I should be careful in using this sparingly as I still want intertextual referencing to old grind house horror movies which often feature shakes hand-held camera shots, such as Evil Dead. 

Editing progress- 02/03/17

Thursday 2nd March

Today I gathered together both the DSLR footage and the footage shot on the iPhone 6S onto Premiere Pro and arranged them into order. When importing the iPhone shots onto the editing timeline I had to adjust the screen settings as the format differed from that of the DSLR footage, meaning there was an inconsistency. I edited for about 3 hours and managed to piece together the first 50 seconds or so.  

Album name ideas

This week I've been trying to come up with a name for STOKER's debut album. I want it to fit the same theme as the music video will, about self-fulfilling prophecy. I think in my ancillaries (like the website) I might promote the band as semi-political (which would fit the sort of edgy conventions of being an indie follower) and thenceforth tie in all the products: the music video, the album, the website and the band. 
yeah, that sounds good. 

So my thoughts so far are something like:

• The Thomas Theorem 
• Moral Panic
• Stereotypes
• Subjectivity

Or something like that. The Thomas Theorem would be a reference to the concept of the same name, whereby something is made real because people believe in it, sometimes also known as the Tinkerbell theory, after the typical theatre production of Peter Pan in which Tinkerbell remains alive after the audience protest that they believe in fairies (they do).