Planning:More Album Cover Ideas

In our music video we feature multiple shot from inside a classic mini cooper so we thought it would be a good idea to incorporate it into our album cover. The retro mini fit perfectly with the theme of our music video which is parody of a classic song. We were going to use a photo from the front of the mini showing with the whole band inside on the front cover and the back of the mini with the track list on the reverse side but after taking a few practise shots we felt it just didn't quite work like we hoped it would with mini taking up most of the space on the cover with the band members being hard to clearly see.
Thoughts for our front cover







However the back shot from the mini that would have the track list on it would not go to waste as it would eventually become the template for our final back cover.

The original back cover design

Planning:First Album Cover Ideas

We originally thought that our album cover should have every member of our band riding on a 4-man tandem bicycle as we believed this theme would fit very nicely with our bands name which is the 'bike locks'. However, when we searched for one we found that they were VERY expensive to rent and even harder to actually collect , so,we went for the next best thing which was each member of the band on a different mode of transport (scooter,bike,tricycle etc.) which is what this sketch depicts.

The reason for which we decided against using this as our final album cover was due to the fact that even though it matched the theme of our band it had no link with our music video which we thought was something that would be important to include so we decided to change it again.

Planning:Band logo evolution

The evolution of the bikelocks pic.twitter.com/2jasRjXFBY

— The Bike Locks (@TheBikeLocks) 4 March 2016

As a band we decided on the name 'The Bikelocks'. This is because the song which we are creating a music video for is 'Stuck in the Middle with You' by 'Stealers Wheel', obviously as we don't want anyone to steal our wheels we need locks for our bikes

Hence why in our logo the man is wearing a bicycle helmet. The logo started out with a child wearing the helmet and we collaborated over messages all chipping in our own ideas until we finally came to the final design. The guy has evolved from a child to something we believe would look like a typical audience member as well as fitting with the genre of the music from our video. 'Stealers Wheel' are a rock, folk and indie band but we believe the long hair and beard is a stereotypical view of these genres. The indie and hipster feel is reinstated by the glasses which are of a style that is typical among these groups. We feel that the drawn style also has an indie style which suits our band and was then finished off with the band name on the top of the helmet. 

Planning:Production company logo

This is our original idea for purproduction company logo, it is a basic drawing that was done by the most artistic member of our group (Frank) on an iPhone but from this we managed to get an idea of a rough design and the style that we were aiming for.


From this logo we then were able to adapt and change it using Adobe Illustrator and a Bamboo pen and tablet. We wanted the amp as it would clearly show that it was a music production label and we liked how we could add our name into the sound waves to give it our own personal touch.

This is the final design and the logo which will be the forefront of our company FGMB. We wanted to make our new logo look realistic and professional but at the same time maintain our style. We drew the stereo free hand on a draw pad from our memories and it is therefore an exact representation of what we want. We wanted to keep it minimalistic but feature some colour to make it stand out some more.

Planning: Responding to feedback on the rought draft of our music video

We had a lesson where our class was able to watch each others music video productions and give feed back to one another. Everyone in the class were all given sheets to fill out during/after watching our final cut of the music video. They ranked the video on a star basis (out of 5), gave positive comments, areas for improvement and then linked in concepts and theorist.
The following images are photos of our audience feedback:

One of the main problems people had with our music video was that inter-textual reference to reservoir dogs was hard to understand, especially those who had not seen the film or scene prior to seeing our music video. To combat this problem we decided we would film an extra scene and add it to our final music video. This scene included a flash back to one of our characters watching the actually seen in reservoir dogs on a TV which would hoped would allow audience members to visually see what we are trying to-recreate, therefore, making their understanding of our inter-textual reference much easier.
 

Planning:Behind the scenes-Music video set- Filming Days 1&2

Here are some links to some short videos we have taken for the set where we recorded our music video and uploaded to our bands YouTube channel:
 
 These videos  show off the mise en scene that we are going to be using in our final music video as well as giving the views a bit of an inside look into the normal lives of the band members. These video will be embedded into our band website for the same reasons.

Planning:Band Website

We have chosen to use the website Wix to create our band website on. This free website offered us a great range of templates to use, especially band related ones.This is the one we picked:

We chose this template as it already had the colour scheme and layout we had originally planned to use. The website allows us to alter all of the photos, banners, video and information boxes which was incredibly useful when it came to customizing it to our liking. We plan to create a custom header create social media pages related to our band that we can link to from this site like most band website have. We also have a few photos taken from our music video set so we can create a gallery and add it to the website.

Planning:Risk Assessment

This is our risk assessment form for a location in Sheffield. We understand that we are entering a an old abandoned warehouse which could pose potential hazards and have therefore come up with appropriate measures to prevent an incident from happening.

Planning:Filming Location Scouting

The location which we would like to use is located in Sheffield but are awaiting a response from the owners of the location for permission to film there. However, even though is further drive than our other option we believe it is better suited to our needs. The old warehouse bares resemblance to the scene of Reservoir Dogs that our music video will attempt to parody so is exactly what we are looking for.

 

 

Just in case we are unable to get our desired location we went and scouted another location.With this location being in Chesterfield it would make filing much easier. However this set was a little cramped and needed to be cleared if we were to use it for filming the Reservoir Dogs scene there but it did offer a perfect back drop for the scene we had in mind. The main downside to this location was that area of space we were given was in fact so small that we would have to record our band performance shots at another location which would take even more time to film and would not really fit with the band shots we had already planned out.

Planning: Permission Request

To ensure that our music video does not get taken off YouTube due to copyright issues I decided to  send an email to Stealer's Wheels record company (A&M Records) requesting permission to use the song fairly:

Planning:Rough storyboard-Steelers Wheel Stuck in the middle with you

Our group created a rough story board to give ourselves an idea of what shots and ideas we could use in our final music video. We will be doing another story board to finalise our ideas in preperation for filming.

Planning: Pitch Video

Here is our pitch video, where we pitched our music video ideas to a production company. In this video we discuss why we have chosen the song  'Stuck in the Middle With You' for our music video, how we are going to incorporate intertextual references to the movie 'Reservoir Dog's' and why as well as discussing the theme we are going to be aiming for in the music video.

Planning:Song decision making

Our group was unable to come to up with a decision for which song we should pick to do for our music video. After some debating, we decided it would be best to get the collection of songs that we though would be worth considering doing for our music video and put it up for a vote. After listening to each song,we rated them on how much we liked/wanted for it to be the song for our music video, out of 10.



After the votes were calculated and compared it was decided that Stuck in the middle with you by Steelers Wheel would be our song choice for our music video.