Thursday, December 22, 2016

GIFs

A GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a bitmap image format that uses a group of pictures in order to create a looping video. GIFs have become very popular and are very easy to create through websites like Giphy. GIFs are a good way to promote something in this case a band. Bands might have GIFs created of them which is audience participation which is a good audience promotion as the band doesn't have to promote themselves as the fans do it for them.  


There have been websites like Vine which in a way takes inspiration from GIFs as Vine was where people could create a 7second video and post it. But as times change and technology changes Vine have said that they are discontinuing the app. Quote from Medium "Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we’ll be discontinuing the mobile app." 

Sunday, December 18, 2016

DIGIPAK #5: Update inside cover

Having discuss and though a bit more about the digipack we have decided to not use the picture of the guy looking at the sun as the back cover but instead have it as the inside cover going over both pages.

Doing this gives us the opportunity to edit other images inside the bricks and also have word be slanted following the wall.

Friday, December 16, 2016

WEBSITE: Links

On the website we have created a bunch of links so it is easy to navigate through the website. Through research we found out that the most common amount of links to different pages on the website is 6 and so we created 6 links as well. We research artists websites that are popular now and have been to narrow it down to how many links, for example Charlie Puth has 6 links that direct you through the blog. Then there is an older band such as AC/DC that has 8 links. The links we have are BMTH (Home Page), Merch (Shop), Tour (Upcoming tours), Gallery, The Band (Info on band members), and News (new videos we upload and other info). AC/DC also had a link for Fan Mail but we decided not to use that as we didn't want to have to many links and we prioritised the other links.


We decided to go for the word Merch instead of Merchandise or Shop because Merch is more appropriate for our audience. Through our research we found most websites have Merch as it is slang and therefore fits more with our age demographic which is young adults. "Bullet For My Valentine" is one example of a band the used Merch instead of Merchandise or Store.We also have links above the page links, these are links to different sites such as social media. The links are to Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Spotify. We will add a Facebook link later as we couldn't create the link on the school system.
Instead of having a Home button we went for BMTH instead. The reason for this is because this was used in other websites of this genre such as Bullet For My Valentine. 

WEBSITE: Merchandise

For our website we created a merch site. In the merch site you can choose to buy merchandise that we have created for the band Bring Me The Horizon. Bronwen created the logo for the band as well as created the merch. At the moment we have six different merch items, 2 iPhone cases (black, white), 2 T-Shirts with a heart on it (Black, White) and 2 T-Shirts with the logo on (a small logo and a big logo). The reasons for using iPhone cases is beacuse most people own an iPhone and cases are very useful and because they are so small and cheap they are very often bought by fans.

Here you can see what they look like on the merch page.

When you first open the merch page you will see the six different products you can buy. When i am in the editing tool I can add new good or edit existing ones.
This is what the editing tool looks like.


When I click on a product it lets me add new or more pictures of the product and rename the product.


I can also change a lot of other things such as the price of the good, if the good is on sale or not, if the good is Out of Stock, the size on clothing and more.




PODCAST #11

SR



Script: 

Hey all, this is our 11th weekly podcast, this week we have focused mainly on working on our website, digipack and our social media. Kristian and I focused on the website. We put up the merchandise that Bronwen created and I created texts for the band bibliography and the introduction of the website. Furthermore, Bronwen finished creating the band logo, which we intend to put up on our social media next week. Also, next week we intend to speak to our band members for a re-shoot of the performance scene. We discovered that we had a lot of shots that we couldn’t use due to a camera being in the shot or shaky footage. Therefore, we will re-shoot the performance shoot in January.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

SR: Audience Feedback #1: Follow You

This is the first audience feedback that we got for our first draft of Follow You, it is only a 40 second clip and so the audience couldn't give that much feedback and said that the narrative wasn't clear yet.
UPDATE: Our audience feedback was also one of the reason's why we decided to change our track and idea. Some audience, including ourselves, didn't like the big difference in colour between the depressing narrative and the colorful performance.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

EDITING: Colour correction

The colour correction was used in the lyrics video to make a specific colour stand out while the footage was black and white. The effect resembles that of the movie Sin City where the movie was filmed in black and white but some vibrant colours where shown.

I created this effect on Adobe Premiere Pro as there is an easy effect that helps you with this on Premiere Pro.
I found a video on Youtube that helped me create this effect:



DIGIPAK #4: Back cover

For the back cover we are thinking of using a photo that we captured when we where filming the narrative.

The photo is of the singer facing the sun, with the sunlight hitting the camera creating lens flair over his shoulder. We will edit this photo using photoshop to change the colour along with the other photos we decide to use.

The other photos we are planning to use we will have to take later on, this was the only picture we already had which we think will look good.

UPDATE: From feedback we where given this picture would work better as an inner panel as it gives opportunity to edit other pictures in the bricks and also have words be agains the wall.

SR: Rough Cut #1: Follow You

This is the first 40 second rough cut that I edited together. As Kristian mentioned in his post there is some footage that we can't use due to the camera being in the shot or other reasons. Unfortunately, I tried to see if there was some footage we could use, but didn't find any useful parts.

Monday, December 12, 2016

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE update #3

This is the 3rd update of the production schedule I created and updated. It includes the tasks that we have completed so far, and the ones which are still to be completed. I always like to use color coding since it gives me a great overview of what still needs to be done. Unfortunately there is a big gap between the last task from November and the tasks in December. However, this is due to firstly difficult of coordination of the group and meeting up, since we all live in different parts of the country. 
Furthermore, we have been focusing on setting up the digipack, logo, website and our social media accounts, which we are each individually in charge of. Bronwen is in charge of our Instagram, Kristian and I are in charge of our Website and I am in charge of our Twitter. The Facebook page is something we split between the three of us. 

SR: CALL SHEET

This is the call sheet I created for our music video. I decided to do it a lot in depth, since this was one of my main targets this year - to do the call sheet better and be more organised in order to get a larger variety of shots. Personally, I believe that we were successfull with this task, since I brought the call sheets everytime we had a shoot. This allowed us to look exactly at what we had planned out and what we had filmed so far and hadn't filmed yet. With the simple use of color coding with blue for performance, yellow for narrative and orange for other events that required special equipment such as the balloon scene, we were always up to date on what to bring and what to film. 

I also believe that the call sheet contributed to the fact that it took us less time to film on the spot compared to last year, where we first had to discuss the shots on the scene of the filming. Furthermore, the amount of technology used on all the days of the shoots was great. We used 3 SONY Cameras and positioned them differently, 3 tri-pods, 1 Go-Pro and Kristian's Drone to film some drone footage. However, the drone footage was mainly for mise-en-scene purposes. 

I wanted to do this post after our shoot, in order to reflect on the effectiveness of the call sheet and what I definitely have improved on from last year. 

Sunday, December 11, 2016

LYRICS VIDEO: Draft #1



A lyric video for the song Follow You by Bring Me The Horizon put together using the footage we filmed for the performance shoot. It was edited using Adobe Premiere Pro, and a three way color correction was used to have the footage look black and white while still showing the color blue.

Improvements for draft #2:

  • Sync the footage.
  • Colour correct: use red as well to clearly show intertextuality to Sin city. 

Friday, December 9, 2016

PODCAST #10

SR



Script:

Welcome to our 10th weekly podcast. This week we had our mock exam, so besides looking more at sample footage, there was mainly revision going on. Also, we didn’t manage to shoot the color powder scene, due to a lack of actors showing up. Hence we will try to film it on the 20th of December. This week, we intend to create a full rough cut 1 with the narrative and performance together. I suggested that we for each week Friday create a rough cut, which we take turns on creating each week. Therefore this week it is my turn to edit rough cut 1. Also, we then intend to film audience feedback every week, in order to be able to provide evidence of our journey. This week we will be looking at our website and the creating of our merchandise. Furthermore, Bronwen will be creating our logo, which we will then photoshop and put up on our social media. I will be updating our production schedule and creating a post on call sheets and our social media.

FOOTAGE: Narrative Rough Draft #1




This is a very rough draft of the narrative. There is still a lot of editing still to do this was just to get feedback on what was good and what can be improved on.

Improvement's:
  • Before music starts edit to the beat
  • Remove shaky footage
  • Might use layering (0:18)
  • Use layering where one half of the screen is empty/out of focus
  • Experiment with filters
  • Don't have female protagonist on screen for to long, might ruin the immersion
  • Experiment with having two of the same person on screen (eg 0:28 have him stand next to himself)
  • Shot the drop through editing
Notes:
  • Intertextuality to Blair Witch Project at 0:23
  • The singer is not glamorized and due to this audience can identify 


Thursday, December 8, 2016

DIGIPAK #3: Design



Here are some ruff idea of what the first idea is for the digipak. The front cover is of the singer holding an umbrella which is intertextuality to the real album that we are creating a digipak for where the logo is an umbrella the location of the band im not sure where to place but in this design it is on the right next to the medium close up shot of the singer with just the initials of the band (BMTH).

The back will have a long shot of the singer standing in a tunnel with the sun hitting the camera creating lens flare, The name of the songs in the album will be in the center going down the back. The font is not yet final we will do more research on that in a later post as well as the costume the singer will be wearing in the picture.

When you open the digipak there will be pictures of the band members in different locations with different filters on the picture. In the border of each picture there will be the initials of the band (BMTH). The CD will be in-between the covers so we can have a separate design for the cover. The costumes the band members will be wearing will also be experimented with but will be of the same concept as the performance shoot.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

JP: Stabilizer



The school received some cheap new 3 axes gimbals for the media department. While they aren't as high quality and professional as a Steadicam, they cost about 10x less than one. A real Prosumer Steadicam Solo starts at around 300. These can go up to tens of thousands of dollars for professional film making.
For our needs in school the 30 AFUNTA Pro should do just fine. Kristian (a fellow student) and I began playing with and learning how to properly use and balance the gimbal. We made this short video on how to setup and use the gimbal with some test footage.

Friday, December 2, 2016

PODCAST #9

SR



As Sophie has been off school, she was the one to record our vodcast today. Before recording, Bronwen and Sophie went over everything we had done and wrote a script, which Sophie then recorded using Final Cut. 

Script:


Welcome to our 9th weekly podcast. This week we each looked at our sample footage that we have filming over the past 3 weeks. Bronwen and I edited some footage and in our group of 3 we concluded that we need to shoot some more footage of the narrative, to show more of the relationship between the female and male protagonist. Furthermore, we looked at the digipack this week and decided that we should do individual photoshoots for each member of the band. Kristian also worked on our website to get it up and running. We decided to split the work between us by having Kristian and me looking at the website, Bronwen doing our band’s Instagram and Facebook and I will be running our Twitter account. 

Next week we will shoot our color powder scene, which is going to be the audience interaction in our music video. Also, we intend to film the missing narrative scenes and work more on blogging on digipack, merchandising, audience and website.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Performance Shoot Problems



This video shows a few of the shots we filmed for performance. These shots are shots that we can't use because there are either cameras in the background or the footage is to shaky.

  • The first clip the camera is clearly visible and the camera isn't to shore where to focus. We do have footage from this angle where these problems are fixed. 
  • The second clip the footage is to shaky and the camera is tilted which in some cases could work to get a message across but in this situation it doesn't work.
  • The third shot was filmed with a drone and therefor was hard to film with when I was the only one with experienced with flying but I am in the band. The problem was that one of the band members are hard to see and the drone moved which resulted in cropping out half of the other band member. I think the drone footage would be good to have as it expands the use of technology and can look very good if its done right. 
  • The last shot was filmed with a GoPro. Most of the GoPro footage can be used but this shot is to shaky.
  • In the last shot the drummer is seen smiling which is not what we want as we want them to be sad and angry. 
  • The things we really want to avoid next time is shaky camera, bad framing, and smiling.   


BV: Gun Footage: Why we won't be using it

For our music video, we decided to film 2 different endings, and choose which one to use after filming both. 
We have decided to definitely not use this ending- Where the main character pulls a gun to his head and there is a fade to black- As we thought it would be too problematic. 

Violence in music videos is less more common and tolerated than it would be in Film. Because of this, we decided to decrease the amount of violence in our video. 
To add to that, a violent ending to the video would restrict where it would be shown, (For example, certain TV channels may not want to show it), therefore giving our video less views and opportunities, specifically with our young adult Target Audience.

Using Final Cut Pro X, I edited some of the gun footage together. We shot this on two separate occasions (once without tattoos, as a practice, and once with) 

Friday, November 25, 2016

PODCAST #8

BV

DIGIPAK #2: Idea

I have been thinking about the design for our digipak and will describe it in the post. This might not be what we end up using in the final but gives a ruff idea of my idea. The front cover of the digipak will feature the singer holding an umbrella as that is the album logo. The front will also have the tile of the album over it. The colour of the text or font used i haven't decided yet ill see what I think looks best.

The back of the digipak will have the back of the singer walking towards the sun with the sunlight blinding the camera. The back will also include the titles of the songs that are included in the album. As of yet I have not thought about where the barcode or colour the text will be, this is something I will experiment with.



When you open the digipak there will be a single picture of all the band members with a border on the pictures. On the picture there will also be the BMTH letters. The disk will be in-between the pages like Bring Me The Horizons "THATS THE SPIRIT" digipak. The CD will have its own art which we will discuses later on.




Tuesday, November 22, 2016

DIGIPAK #1: Research

Digipak is a patented style of optical disc packaging. Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one ore more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.
To the left you see a template of what a digipak looks like.
The digipak was made to resemble a vinyl with the cardboard covers but instead of holding a vinyl it holds a CD.

The good thing about digipaks rather than a CD cover or a Vinyl is that it is smaller in size than the vinyl but lighter in weight then a CD this makes transport cheaper and will also mean that shops can hold more inventory of digipak.

Digipaks have become very popular, due to the artwork they appeal to collectors, because of the paper feel it targets the nostalgic fell of vinyl. Because of its popularity it has a target audience on youtube of unboxing videos.

To the right you can see an example of what a digipak looks like. In this example you can see that you can open it to have 3 sides rather than a CD which only has 2.
On one page you can see the main cover which has the title of the title of the cover. On another page you can see a list of the songs that are on the CD. On the last page that we can see you have a medium close up of the artist.

Depending on the digipak whats on the pages might change. Some have a bunch of text but the most common is photos of the band or artist.

Bring Me The Horizon do have a digipak for their album "THAT'S THE SPIRIT". I found an unboxing video for the digipak and their box set (the video is in Spanish and the unboxing doesn't start until 2:35). It is very simple with no photos used only a black background with either white font or a different colour black. On the back there is a list of the songs, a barcode, music label, parental advisory warning and trademark message. The inside of the pack has one painting which goes over both pages with bright colours. The disk is in-between the paper and you have to grab it by the top to get it or you have to slide it out. There is also a booklet with some information on.

Friday, November 18, 2016

PODCAST #7

KO



7th weekly podcast.
This week:

  • Updated website
  • Researched different websites 
  • Filmed some narrative scenes
Next week:
  • Film all planned narrative 

Friday, November 4, 2016

PODCAST #5

KO



There is a mistake in the video where it says Podcast #3 when this is actually Podcast #5.
This week:

  • Filmed Performance 
  • Updated production schedule 
  • Started working on website

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Update #2

Today, I updated our production schedule (update 2) after we have filmed some footage. Unfortunately our female protagonist wasn't able to make it and so we weren't able to finish filming the entire narrative. We have also decided to choose another female protagonist, which we will be talking about in our 4th podcast. 


Thursday, October 27, 2016

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-ShirtsJumpersCaps 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.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

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.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

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.


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.

Friday, October 21, 2016

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 29th . 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

Thursday, October 20, 2016

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.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

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.

Friday, October 14, 2016

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.