Editing

Today Becky, Duresh and I started editing the music video and checking some lip-sync and making sure we were happy wiht the shots. We made good progress and managed to re-edit up until the end of the first chorus. After we had a break for lunch Becky and I came back to edit however Duresh did not. Becky and I continued to edit although we were not as familiar with using Final Cut as Duresh we soon picked it up and I now feel really confident with it. Becky and I re-edited the entire music video. We were not happy with the way we had edited in blocks and felt when watching it back it lacked fluidity and looked messy. After 3 hours of editing, watching all the footage and editing it too the music we finally finished editing the whole music video. Because of having to show the music video to the class on thursdaywe felt it was important to have the music video finished even if it was a rough version in order to get the best feed back and give us the best chance of improving what we had. I am so pleased with waht Becky and I have been able to do and I feel that although it is not perfect we have been able to put together a great rough edit that we can work on with the help of the classes feed back.

The Wanted

The band The Wanted were formed in 2009.  They are  classed as a ‘boy band’ and have so far released two top 5 albums and 6 singles which reach the top 20 in the UK charts. They have also created a strong following in Europe, Australia, Brazil and now America.

The Wanted, were put together by Universal in 2009 after completing a 9 month’s of auditions. They were looking to create a new boy band, as the success of the 4 piece boy band JLS had signalled a resurgence in the popularity of boy bands, and at time there was no competition for JLS. The band consists of Max George, Tom Parker, Nathan Sykes, Jay McGuiness and Siva Kaneswaren. Unlike boy band JLS who entered the music industry using reality TV show The X Factor, where instant recognition ensues for most contestants that reach the final 4, The Wanted had to generate their own publicity and build their own fan base. The Wanted instead toured the UK on a school and club tour. The band often comment on ‘the early days’ of working hard performing during the day at schools and going to perform at clubs and pubs at night.. This gained the band interest and fans from scratch rather than picking up on a TV audience. It got the bands music and name out, and the bands interaction with fans helped them to gain a really strong following. During the school and club tour the band would often send tweets to fans, answering questions and updating them on what they were doing and they also used a flip camera to record their day to day life and to send video messages schools they wanted to thank. These videos were uploaded on to the bands YouTube channel ‘thewantedmusic’. The band really enjoyed making these videos and realised they were helping to create fan interaction as the videos were being really well received. So band member Tom Parker came up with the idea of ‘Wanted Wednesday’. On Wanted Wednesday (every Wednesday) a mailer written by band member Jay McGuiness is sent to anyone signed up to the bands website, fans are encouraged to tweet ‘#WantedWednesday’ and try to get it trending and a video is uploaded to YouTube of the bands weekly activities, this could be promotion work, touring or behind the scenes of filming a music video etc. The videos are filmed by the band and/or their manager Jayne or tour manager Martin and give the fans a way to follow what the band are doing. They often also have competitions run within them for fans to win prizes which also encourages fans to watch the videos and tweet about the band. By getting fans to tweet about the band and trend their name the band were gaining free publicity.

    The band’s first single ‘All Time Low’ shot them into the charts where the band debuted at number one. The band did single promotion through a radio tour which saw them travel up and down the country and TV interviews. ‘All Time Low’ was so successful that the band was even asked to perform at the Capital Summer Time Ball held at Wembley arena. This was a huge leap for the band, from performing to about 100 people in a club to 75,000 people. This gave the band exposure and publicity by performing at such a well known mainstream music event. The band have since gone from strength to strength. They solidified their place in the music industry releasing their second single ‘Heart Vacancy’ which peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Chart and releasing their self titled album which peaked at number 4 in the official UK album chart. When releasing the album, the band played an exclusive Halloween gig. People wanting to attend had to get a wrist band from high street store HMV. The band were also asked to perform at T4’s Stars of 2010 show, which celebrated the best new comers to music, TV and film of the year. Perhaps the biggest achievement according to band member Jay, was being nominated for Best British Single for ‘All Time Low’ at the BRIT awards.  In March 2011 the band were even asked to release the Comic Relief charity single. They released 'Gold Forever’ the first song from their second album, which debuted at number 3 in the UK charts and raised a lot of money for the charity.  The band reached number 1 in the charts for a second time in the summer of 2011 with their single ‘Glad You Came’ which managed to hold on to the number 1 spot for 2 weeks in the UK and for 4 weeks in Ireland. This single has also had huge international success entering the charts in countries all over the world and has just earned the band their second nomination for Best British Single at the BRITS. In February of 2012 the band will be embarking on their first UK arena tour. The band have been drumming up excitement for the tour by tweeting fans, asking if they are excited, who has their tickets and uploading videos and pictures of the band rehearsing.

The band have become hugely successful across Europe, Asia, Australia and Brazil after supporting teen pop star Justin Beiber on his South American tour which gained them a lot of fans and publicity as Justin Bieber is such a global star who would attract a similar fanbase to that the band are aimed at. The band are currently attempting to crack the US market. Even though the band hadn’t done any promotion in the US when they first went over to New York, they  played a sell out show at the Gramercy Theatre. This shows the power of the internet as the band had been able to sell records and tickets and create interest without any formal TV or radio promotion. This year the band were invited to perform on the popular US chat show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and have just finished their first US Tour, selling out two of their shows in a matter of minutes and managing to get their single ‘Glad You Came’ on to many radio playlists all over the country. Their radio and club tour stratergy that helped them to make it in the UK, has also paid off in the US as their single ‘Glad You Came’ currently sits at number 12 in the iTunes chart and is even going to be covered by the cast of Glee in on of the episodes of the popular TV show. Even though the band have not been in the UK, they have still been able to keep in touch with the fans from the UK and all over the world using Twitter, mailers and their YouTube videos which shows the bands antics from their tour which were edited by band member Jay, as well as lining up a Channel 4 Fly-on-the-wall Documentary.

The success of The Wanted, shows the power of the internet in promoting artists and music as well as showing technologies ability to spread music and start careers for artists in countries that otherwise would not hear their music. Twenty years ago it would have been impossible for an artist to become successful and have an army of fans in a country where they had done no promotion, however this s The technology The Wanted use to keep in touch with their fans also embodies increased fan interactivity in the modern age and the ability for artists to connect with people on another level, which would otherwise be impossible.

Editing

Today I edited the footage we shot at my house yesterday. The section I edited was the second half of the first verse and the first chorus. The shots where I burnt the picture have turned out great. I was really happy with the way the footage looked. It looks professional and has a looks interesting and eye-catching so I'm really pleased. I pieced together the footage and I'm really pleased with how it looks overall. The shots and the edits work really well.

Media Filming

Today we filmed some scenes at my house. The footage me and Becky had filmed on Thursday had not looked exactly how we had hoped but luckily Duresh and I were able to go to my house with the camera and re-shoot this. We started off filming in front of a window, but I was not happy with these shots at all. I felt the lighting didn't work and the shots didn't have any effect and didn't look interesting at all. After some discussion we decided that we tried to use two other locations but both of these didn't gave the right effect either and looked boring. We then decided to move on to another shot we had planned to try and realised that by using some candles I had we could do the candle shot using the fireplace and mantle piece. We tested this and the shots came out really well. I think they look great and I am particularly pleased with them because we managed to overcome issues we were having with the shot and because they we found out how great the shot looked almost by accident. I was able to have input on the shots, which I think is really important, by using the screen and turning it to face me so that I could make sure I was happy with the framing and make any adjustments I felt were needed. This way I was able to have my own say in what we filmed and make sure I was happy with the footage. We then filmed some shots of me playing the guitar on the stairs. I bribed my brother to hold a light above me from the hall way so that the shot was light enough and made the shot look brighter and easier on the eye. We filmed the me lip-synching the entire song 3 or 4 times to make sure we could get a lot of good shots that we could use throughout the music video just in case we needed some extra performance shots as well as the footage we needed for during the first chorus. We then did my make-up for a shot of me crying to convey the emotion in the song. I then had to try and cry. I found this really difficult, but eventually managed to cry, which was much more challenging than I had imagined and then used water to smudge the make-up more. I was pleased with how the make-up looked for these shots as I wanted it to look understated by still show the emotion at the same time. Duresh did a great job on the make-up. I feel on reflection that the make-up may have looked better if we smudged it even more.

Record Company Research - Polydor

Polydor is a record company owned by Universal Music Group.

Polydor was originates from Germany. It was an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. It released popular music where as Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft became a classical music label. Polydor was Deutsche Grammophon's export label.

In 1972, Polydor merged with Philips-owned label Phonogram Records to create PolyGram in the US. Polydor continued to be run as a subsidiary label. The name PolyGram is a merge of the two names Polydor and PhonoGram. Throughout the 1970s, Polydor became a major rock label, as well as championing disco acts such as platinum-selling acts the Bee Gees and Gloria Gaynor. Through the 1980’s Polydor continued to do good business, but was being over shadowed by Mercury Records which was it’s sister label. In the beginning of the 1990’s Polydor began to under perform and as a result their was a staff cut and it shifted to operate under the umbrella of PolyGram Label Group, a newly constructed 'super label' designed to manage the operations of PolyGram's lesser performing labels. Polydor Records and Atlas Records merged, briefly called "Polydor/Atlas," and began operating through A&M Records. In 1995, Polydor/Atlas returned to being Polydor Records. Over the next few years, Polydor tried to keep itself afloat with new artist signings, new releases, and reissues.

Today in the United Kingdom Polydor remains one of the strongest labels in the country. Some of it’s most popular artists being Take That, Girls Aloud, N-Dubz, The Saturdays, Boyzone and Ellie Goulding. It also acts as the UK label for American-based acts such as Eminem, The All-American Rejects, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lady Gaga and The Black Eyed Peas. 



Album Art Ideas with Images

These are some album art ideas I have put together on PowerPoint. They are rough ideas so far and I have put on some images this time.

Media Filming

Today Becky and I filmed the cutaways of the Lego house and Lego heart i made as well as some other objects we thought could make interesting cutaways. We also filmed some shots where I set fire to a picture. This shot was a little dangerous as the picture burnt quite quickly but we were really careful and had a tin tray and some water ready to put out the flame. It was all safe and nothing was damaged. I am not entirely sure whether some of the footage we have is the best it can be. After watching it back and looking at some of the framing, I think it would be better to re-shoot using a closer shot and also have some footage where I lip-sync the song as the picture burns. But overall today was successful as now I know exactly what shots I want and what would work better and we also have some great cutaways to put in to the music video.

Media Editing

Today Becky and I were editing. Duresh was ill and as she had the tape with the footage we needed to upload on it this made it difficult however we have edited the footage we did have. Also we found out today that we have some more time as the deadline for the rough edit has been pushed back. This will mean we have more time to get all the edits perfect and also to re-shoot some shots that still are not quite right.