Band Posters

Band Posters

In order to get our band well known I created some posters which advertise the band. The first poster shown below has three monkeys which represent the three band members. The Mediterranean Monkeys logo also appears in the bottom right hand corner of the poster, showing off out iconic band name. The colour scheme is mainly bright blues in this poster which symbolises peace and depth.

The second poster shown below has represents the monkeys as gods. This also connotes that the band members of the band are god-like and listening to their music will leave you feeling like you've came from heaven.

Inside Booklet

Inside Booklet

After creating the front and back covers we decided that the case was missing an inside booklet. Again, I used Adobe Fireworks to create an inside fold up cover which includes the lyrics and an inside image for both songs on the album. 

Website

Website

We needed a way to keep in touch with our fans, letting them know when all of the upcoming tours, albums, singles etc are coming out. In order to keep everyone in touch I cretaed a website for the Mediterranean Monkeys. This official site keeps everyone in touch with the band and allows them to book tours, listen to their latest tracks and get exclusive interviews with the band.

Click this link to visit our website

Knee Socks Final Video

Knee Socks Final Video

Our finished video!

Knee Socks Album Cover Printed

Knee Socks Album Cover Printed

After the CD cover was created and printed I put them in some old CD cases and took photos of the results. They are shown below and everything seemed to go okay.

Knee Socks Album Cover

Knee Socks Album Cover

What do all CD's need? A CD cover!

In order to create an authentic product we decided to create a CD cover for our album 'Knee Socks'. I used Photoshop to edit the photos for the front and the back. Most of the stages are below with short descriptions of how I created them and why.

This is the original photo which was used. We had to use a couple of tables stacked on each other as the background which will need to be removed later. 

I tried using the magic wand tool to remove the background but this didn't work as much of the background was left behind. 

After the background removal didn't work, I decided to focus on putting the knee socks on the legs. I used photos found online and managed to edit them onto the legs as shown above. I edited the right leg first.

Then the right leg after.

Once both knee socks were edited, it was time to sort out the background. I managed to remove all of the gaps in between the table and make the background smooth (this took a lot of patience). 

After this I sorted the background, I cropped the image so that it will fit the CD case. 

I then added a light desaturated colour effect to the image, and added the small images and text to the spine of the CD case. I tested out the CD at this stage in a case and realised that the text needed to be slightly smaller, along with the images.

After this, the Arctic Monkeys logo was added, along with the track list and CD title. THis is the back cover. 

After the back was done, I added a retro effect to the front cover in order to catch the consumers attention.

I then added the 'KNEE SOCKS' text to the front. In order to catch the consumers attention and intrigue them I decided to make the text inverted and backwards. 

To finish off the front of the CD case I added the Arctic monkeys logo to the top of the left hand corner of the cover.

Knee socks footage

Knee socks footage

I decided to take some of our raw footage to show the transition between original and final versions, and to explain how we filmed and shot the music video.

Shot 1 - The Intro 

Although the footage below is about 9 minutes long, I wouldn't advise that you watch it all as it is very similar throughout. However, as you can see by quickly scrubbing through the video we decided to shoot it all in one take instead of stopping and starting the camera. This meant that we didn't loose any footage and it allowed us to include footage which wasn't originally meant for the video. It also made it easier when editing, as we didn't have to try and upload multiple video files at once when making the intro.

Shot 2 - The jump

When recording the jump for the music video we decided to record it multiple times in multiple different positions. This allowed me to edit the video and see which video would be the best one to use with the other footage. Although some footage wasn't used at the beginning as originally intended, it was still helpful in the production of the final video. Three of the videos are below.

Shot 3 - The lip sync

This was probably the most difficult to record as we recorded it multiple times until we thought we had gotten it right, but some of the music was still out of time to the lip sync. However, the crab shot helped take all of the focus away from the lip syncing. The original videos are shown below, and some more lip sync work may be needed before the final production.

Shot 4 - The sway

The most difficult part of this was getting everyone to sway in the same direction and keep in time with each other and the music. However, eventually we managed to get the last part of the filming done so that we could get started on the editing.

Knee Socks Intro

Knee Socks Intro

In order to help introduce us to the course we were given the task of making a 1 minute long music video. This is to test out our different skills and refresh our memory when using all the hardware and software. When we got given the task the first thing we had to do was choose a song to make the video to. because this was going to test our creative skills we decided to do it to a song which didn't already have a music video. We decided to do it to the song 'Knee Socks' by Arctic Monkeys. We started off by taking some practice shots and listening to the song multiple times in order to try and learn both the lyrics and the beat of the song. After coming up with a base idea we got started on filming. In order to download the song and avoid any copyright laws we paid for and downloaded the song from Google Play in MP3 format.

The YouTube version of the song is below along with the lyrics below that.

    

You got the lights on in the afternoon
And the nights are drawn out long
And you're kissing to cut through the gloom
With a cough drop coloured tongue
And you were sitting in the corner with the coats all piled high
And I thought you might be mine
In a small world on an exceptionally rainy Tuesday night
In the right place and time

When the zeros line up on the 24 hour clock
When you know who's calling even though the number is blocked
When you walked around your house wearing my sky blue Lacoste
And your knee socks

Well you cured my January blues
Yeah you made it all alright
I got a feeling I might have lit the very fuse
That you were trying not to light
You were a stranger in my phonebook I was acting like I knew
'Cause I had nothing to lose
When the winter's in full swing and your dreams just aren't coming true
Ain't it funny what you'll do

When the zeros line up on the 24 hour clock
When you know who's calling even though the number is blocked
When you walked around your house wearing my sky blue Lacoste
And your knee socks

The late afternoon
The ghost in your room that you always thought didn't approve of you knocking boots
Never stopped you letting me get hold of the sweet spot by the scruff of your
Knee socks

You and me could have been a team
Each had a half of a king and queen seat
Like the beginning of mean streets
You could be my baby

You and me could have been a team
Each had a half of a king and queen seat
Like the beginning of mean streets
You could be my baby

You and me could have been a team
Each had a half of a king and queen seat
Like the beginning of mean streets
You could be my baby

You and me could have been a team
Each had a half of a king and queen seat
Like the beginning of mean streets
You could be my baby

When the zeros line up on the 24 hour clock
When you know who's calling even though the number is blocked
When you walked around your house wearing my sky blue Lacoste
And your knee socks

When the zeros line up on the 24 hour clock
When you know who's calling even though the number is blocked
When you walked around your house wearing my sky blue Lacoste
And your knee socks

Knee socks
Knee socks

1st Practice Piece

1st Practice Piece

After speaking to past students and teachers who have taught this course, I realised that the music video is going to be very different to the Thriller. Although with our music video we don't need to worry about the audio as the music track will take care of this, there are more difficult things which needs to be taken into consideration. One of these things was the timings of the music compared to the visuals. This can make a big difference between an excellent music video and an good music video. In order to try and conquer this chaklenge we decided to record a bit of footage at a party and try and put it in time to the Black Eyed Peas 'I gotta felling'. As this song has a fast paced beat we needed to take this into consideration. This also gave us an opportunity to try and make the most out of a small amount of footage (which we have learnt that this won't happen when it comes to the final project). This is the finished version below.