Final Project

Digipak Feedback - Group Post

Audience Feedback to music video - Group Post

Feedback:

Joe and Karl both liked the variety of angles that we included throughout the music video, karl said that he really liked the fast pace editing just before the beat drops where we go through 9 different scenes really fast to highlight the pace of the song picking up. Joe said that he enjoyed how we broke up the footage so that it didn't repeat itself and feel repetitive. In particular he liked the scenes in the bumper karts as it contrasted to the other establishing shots, he also said that he thought the idea of putting the clips of us cycling around in between events shows how we got from one place to the other and when asked about how professional it is they compared it to the likes of Calvin Harris and Duke Dumont in which we identified before hand as artists that we had visions of replicating.

Mood board - Group Post

Audience profile - Group Post

Franky - 17 years old

Our target audience for this song would be between the ages of 16-24 because these are the ages that most listen to dance music. It would be predominantly a male audience but it is also aimed at females as everyone can enjoy the Dance genre which is shown at many concerts and festivals, the gender difference is almost even.

D.O.B - 21.02.1998
Place of Birth - London, UKOccupation - Sixth Form Student
Class - Middle
Fashion Taste - Vintage Adidas
Annual Salary - Paper round - £30 a week
Favourite Music - Dance, House, Electric
Past Time - Used to play Rugby but stopped 2 years ago because he was too lazy and couldn't be bothered to wake up on Sundays and Saturdays
Favourite artists at the moment - Calvin Harris, Sigma, Kygo and Robin Schulz

Darken day - Lyric analysis - Group Post

First of all we had to listen to the songs lyrics in detail and find out what the song is actually about. we came to the conclusion that this song gives you a sense of freedom makes you do what you want and no one can tell you what to do. The following examples are lyrics from the song which explain this.

"you can't stop me" - this is implying that you are in control of yourself and no body can stop you from following your dreams

"ill leave you standing in my dust" - this could mean that you have left everyone else behind and done your own thing so they are standing in your 'dust'

"don't let anybody stand in your way" - this is another line that tells you not to listen to anyone saying you can't do something or be something, do
what you want and see where it takes you

"don't let anybody darken your day" - don't let somebody ruin your day and make you feel bad, don't listen to negative people and always stay positive

"don't feel like giving up" - if you are doing something you like, it can be hard at times but don't give up. In the end it will be worth it and always think back to why you started in the first place.

All of these lyrics are very positive thoughts and make you feel like you can do anything you desire. This sparked our idea for the music video as we just felt like going out and enjoying ourselves. This links not only into the lyrics of the song because we are not letting anything get in out way but it also links to the sound because the song is fast paced and we are always on the move.

Animatic - Group Post

Storyboard - Callum, Max, Tom

Storyboard:

• The first couple of shots from the storyboard are establishing shots which give the audience a taster of what the music video is about and what genre it is, you also get the impression that the people in it are the people behind the music video like Discolsure.
• We also have a variety of low angles and high angles which not only means that it will break up the footage of constant action when the beat drops but it will be more suitable to edit and cut to the beat making it more effective and in time with the song.
• Slow motion establishing shots when we are walking around London and building up to doing the activities work really well as the start of the song is quite slow before the beat drops and we have all our high adrenaline activities with lots of actions and a variety of shots with close ups, first person, high - low shots, whole body shots.

Pitch Sheet with ideas, inspiration and narrative - Group Post

Planning: Group pitch to class

Key points from feedback:

1. To know what activities we want to do and plan them so that we don't just go up to London and have nothing planned
2. Because we are shown in the music video we will take the place of the band.
3. Make sure the video isn't just dominated by the GoPro footage and we have a variety of shots.
4. Consider involving other people on this 'journey' with us so that its not just us in the music video.

Planning: Initial decisions - Group Post

Research: Links to similar artist/band - analysis

Avicii - The Nights 

This songs genre is dance/progressive house and the song we have chosen is also of the dance genre. 

Some of the shots in this music video is similar to what we want to do for our video being first person and various activities. 

This shot of him on the bikes is very achievable and would look great in our music video. 

During the song when the music is building up, the clips are slower and simple. But when it gets faster and the beat drops that when it picks up the pace and the activities start. For our song we have a similar idea to this because it would fit the music perfectly.

Finally there are some time lapses used throughout the video to that fit in really well as it shows time go by and their journey to these places. We want to include some sort of time lapse into our video, wether it be riding our bike or a time lapse of the train journey to London.

Research : Links to similar artists/bands - analysis

Research : Links to similar artists/bands - analysis

Sigma & Diztortion Ft. Jacob Banks - Redemption 

• This video is an example of what we want part of our final project to look like; the use of establishing shots and close ups on facial expressions conveying enjoyment is a key feature
• The genre is dance/house and this linking ot our song gave us ideas that we knew we had to constantly convey happiness throughout
• In addition the use of slow-motion shots was a strong characteristic that we wanted to involve in our video because its a simple way to create suspence in an atmosphere whichis what we wanted to illustrate to audiences
• Overrall we want our video to create suspence but then create constant excitment for audiences to experience. With the use of activities as seen in another artist Duke Dumont, it will conjure an atmosphere of excitement
• We want to take ideas from all of these videos and explore them in our own way to illustrate our capabilities of producing a music video

Research : Links to similar artists/bands - analysis

Duke Dumont - I Got You

• Duke Dumonts music video I Got You is a very strong example of what we intend our music video to be like.
• We will take segments from the music video and adapt them in our own way to keep it as close to their music video with copying it completely.
• The first part of music video is particularly eye catching and is really what we intend to do with our own video when he gets out of bed and wakes up to walk out onto his balcony in the first person point of view.
• Not only is the genre of music similar to the piece of music we chose but it also contains the main theme of our video through him doing various activities throughout the day in which its all recorded in first person to give the audience a real idea and feeling of what he is doing e.g. jumping off the boat into the water.
•  Even though we wont be able to do some of the activities that you see in Duke Dumonts music video we still intend to have the same affect by using other activities.

Research - Target Audience

Our target audience is teenagers and young adults aged 16-24. This is because we know that this is the most popular age group that listen to dance and house music. I know from personal experience as I went to Wireless 2015 and when Avicii came on, the majority of the crowd was our age and some a bit older, there wasn't really anyone under the age of 16. Also as we are all 17/18  in this group and we all love this type of music we would also be part of the target audience we are aiming to hit. 

Our knowledge of the genres helped us also figure out our target audience, for example dance and house are becoming more popular in today's society than they ever used to be and some songs are even reaching the charts: Fast Car by Jonas Blue is a recent dance single that hit the charts and it growing quickly. This is massively different to how the charts used to look years ago because it was all pop music and now we see a massive variety.

Even research onto social media helped us as we could see what type of people follow the artist. For this example I used Avicii as not only was he one of the biggest inspirations for our music video but he has such a big fan base so it was interesting to see what range of people were following him. As you can see below, his Facebook has the biggest following by quite a massive amount at 19 million likes on his page, and it even tells me that I have liked the page along with 26 other friends. And these 26 friends are all within the target audience, on Instagram he has 3.2 million followers and on Twitter he has 1.7 million. In one button I could simply press the followers and it would show me everyone who followers him so I could get an idea and the majority of people that followed him were people within the ages 16-24. The advantages of following such a big artist is to be updated of any events/festivals they might be going to and to see behind the scenes and music videos on release, it gives the audience a reason to follow. 

Research - Unsigned artist/band research - Group Post

We have many options to find unsigned bands and artists but the way I did it was this.

I used this website called 'www.bestofbritishunsigned.com' where there are hundreds of unsigned artist all across the UK wanting to get their music out there.

There is a music map on the website where it shows where each person is and has a description of what music they make. I came across 'Goldstar' from 'Cambridge' who makes dance music. 

I opened the links to his sound cloud and really liked some of the music he makes. After discussing with our group we came to the conclusion that we wanted to use one of his songs called "Darken Day".

I sent him a message on Sound Cloud asking if we can use one of his songs and this was his response.

Now that we have permission to use his track we are able to move forward with our music video and start thinking about the next step. We will also have to look into similar bands/artists to see the conventions for a typical dance music video. 

Research - Genre

Research - Genre

Genre means a style or category of art, music, or literature. Since we are exploring the category of music, the genres of music are endless. To start of we needed to find out which genre we would want to use for our music video, as this key part will shape our whole idea for a music video. Rnb / Hip-hop / Rap would have been a good choice for our group since the majority listens to it regularily. yet we didnt think that we could achieve a high level with having the main artist center stage all the time and our ideas were very limited

Rock / Indie was the one genre we knew we would be able to fall back on incase evrything went bad in our first choice. This is because there is a wide range of unsigned artists throughout the UK due to it being the birthground of major rock/indie bands. 

House / Dance music was the genre we knew we wanted to follow through. This being because everyone in our group doesnt just listen to the music but loves it aswell so we know how we ould represent this through a music video. once we had decided this we knew what we wanted to do in our video following first person views like in videos by Sigma and Duke dumont. 

Research - Genre

Research - Genre

To start of, we needed to know as a group what genre of music we were going to do. To find this out we each said what genres we like and found out similarities. For example, me and Callum like rap/hip hop but Max doesn't enjoy that as much. 

On the other hand max listens to more of the rock genre but me and Callum don't listen to that. 

Eventually we found out that we all liked house/dance music so we settled on this and went searching for music in that genre.

We know that house music/dance is popular at the moment as many songs are coming up the charts such 'how deep is your love' and 'house every weekend'. So we had a lot of inspiration and guidelines to work on. 

Research: Magazine Advert

Research: Digipak analyses

• A digipak does not just include a CD and its case, its essentially a marketing campaign, every part of the digipak is there for a reason and is there to try and catch your eye. The end goal is for it to make you buy the CD by standing out to you on the shelf.

Two Different Types of Digipaks:

1. A 6 Panel right-tray clear gloss UV digipak.

• A 6 panel right-tray digipack would usually be used for CD singles or a special edition of the CD.
• The inside panel can shatter easily and is prone to breaking.
   2. Digipak with recycled tray made from sugarcane.
• inside the Digipak there can be one or more trays which in this case are made from recycled sugarcane which is a positive for the environment.
• Due to trays being made out of recycled sugarcane they are not brittle and not prone to breaking with ease.

     J Cole - Forest Hills Drive (2014) 

Genre?

• The genre of J cole's digipak is very conventional and modern day looking, it ties is perfectly with his genre of music being hip-pop / rap. The front on the digipak is very conventional in the way that the artist J Cole takes center stage, by putting himself center stage on the front of his digipak it allows people instantly to know what they looking at. 

Font size, lettering and font styles?

• When looking at J coles digipak its very easy to look at in the sense that nothing stands out dramatically, you dont have massive red writing that you eyes are instantly drawn to but a very basic but effective front cover. The colour scheme is also very basic but effective, he has only used colours like blue,white and green. 

Image?

• The image on the front cover is of himself ( J cole ) and is a photograph of him sitting on top of a house. the Angle of the picture in looking upwards towards J cole which may symbolize his power, the name of his album is called " Forest Hill Drive" which ties in with the trees that are in the background behind his head.

Representations ?

•  The representation of the digipack is very good compared to the everyday hip-pop/rap albums that are being made these days. Many hip-pop/raps albums these days are heavily criticized by the media for giving off the wrong image of guns, alcohol and violence.

Audience?

•  Its a very specific group of people that will buy this album in terms of age, someone aged 40+ will not walk into a shop, see his album and go and buy it, unlike artists like Eminem who has a huge following and doesn't need to put his face on the album for people to buy it J cole has to put his face on it as identity of who he is.  

Research: Seminal Video's

Detail analysis on a Seminal Video

Detail analysis on a Seminal Video

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen (1975)
 What genre is the music and how is it reflectd in the video?
The Genre of music is a mix between oprah and hard rock which at the time was a totally new concept of music which attracted audiences of all ages. At the start of the video we have the four band members faces singing in an operatic fasion and nly halfway through the song the rock section kicks in.
 How do the images relate to the lyrics?
There is no relatin between the lyrics to the images since this was the main song that put queen into the spotlight of a new generation of music.
 How do the images relate to the music?
During the music video, the facial expressions and the way they are singing relates to the genre of oprah, aswell as when the rock section starts, it shows them playing their instruments on a stage with flashing lights in very ostentatious outfits. 
 How is the artist presented to 'sell' them? How important are close ups?
The constant close ups of their faces during the start of the video and when the rock section stats clearly shows who they are as a band and how they perform. Since there had been nothing like this before in that generation of music, it made them extremly famous for the song itself and who they are.
 Is there any reference to 'looking'? Are female presented voyeuristically?
When the rock section starts, there is a constant looking at each of the band members in their outfis and playing their instruments while the lights shine upon them also tries to convey to the audience who they are.
 Can you spot any intertextual references? What are they? 
None
 Is there a narrative? 
The narrative is about a person who has been put into prison for a murder and he confesses to his mother that he has actually killed someone, he feels regret but he knows its too late. After being convicted and locked up, the narrator becomes angry and sings out his sufferings in a rage. He demands to be freed rather than executed. The narrator has accepted his fate, probably a fate of execution. He returns to his original state of remorse and sings out his troubles quietly.

Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters (1999)
 What genre is the music and how is it reflected in the video?
The genre is post-grunge or alternative rock and it is refleted in the video by the relation to drugs and what the band members are wearing. We  also see on the tv screen them playing in a massive festival with fans screaming and jumping around which portrys the genre aswell.
 How do the images relate to the lyrics?
The images are conveying the effects of drugs and hallusinations since the band members play almost all the key people in the video. Also the name of the song links to the video since at the end the actual band members on the plane have to learn to fly since the pilots and everyone else on board has taken drugs by accident.
 How do the images relate to the music?
On the tv we can see the band at a performance which relates their rock music to the video, also them being rockstars we have the flight attendants and a girl who is actually the lead singer as fans of the band ho are trying to get autographs of them.
 How is the artist presented to 'sell' them? How important are close ups?
They have sold themselves in this video y playing as almost every actor so that audiences constantly see them even though they are playing a different character. There ar constant close ups of the band since they look at the faces so we can see who is playing who for example we have the close up of the lead singer while he is playing as the pilot as he drinks his coffee which has the drug inside it.   
 Is there any reference to 'looking'? Are female presented voyeuristically?
We have the male flight attendant staring at the female one while he is filling up the coffee even though the female attendant is played by the drummer. As this happens we see that he doesnt check the coffee machine since drugs were stashed inside the machine and obviously results into coffee that has been drugged accidentally.
 Can you spot any intertextual references? What are they? Is there a narrative?  
The music video for the song takes place on an commercial airliner, parodying the movie Airplane!, and by extension, the films Airport 1975 and its sequel Airport '77. Two airline mechanics (played by Jack Black and Kyle Gass from Tenacious D) smuggle and hide their narcotic known as "World Domination brand 'Erotic' Sleeping Powder^" in the coffee-maker. This ends up incapacitating everyone who drinks the coffee. The take off sequence, in addition to the crew members hiding ulterior criminal motives, are a near shot-by-shot homage to the film Airport '77. The band, having avoided the coffee, mirroring Karen Black's role in Airport 1975, find themselves forced to land the plane. For the video, each band member  portrays himself as well as several other roles, including an FBI agent who arrests the two mechanics.

Route 94 - My Love
 What genre is the music and how is it reflected in the video?
The genre of music is house, we can see it reflected in the video since its in a club with people dancing and getting close to eachother. we can also tell its house because of he dj set and the simple 4/4 beat.
 How do the images relate to the lyrics?
The lyrics talk about touching eachother and the subject of love, in the video we can see people dancing and grinding together with people making out and it also talks about getting high which relates to us seeing people taking drugs.
 How do the images relate to the music?
We can see all the people in the club dancing to the music and we can see the main person following this girl since they both find themselves attractive. It could be referring to them trying to find love.
 How is the artist presented to 'sell' them? How important are close ups?
We can only slightly see the artist being the dj at the start but this music is more attracted to teenagers so i tries to seduce and intice teenagers to go to clubs like that and listen to their music.
 Is there any reference to 'looking'? Are female presented voyeuristically?
Throughout the whole video we have the camera looking at everyone dacing exotically and kissing. This intices younger audiences since the females are alwys being stared up and down wherreas the men are not because this tries to atttract more males to the music.
 Can you spot any intertextual references? What are they? Is there a narrative?
It follows a young man (Jon Fleming) as he enters a club, dances with a young woman (Lorena Fain), leaves with her, they embrace in the rain and later at her house it is implied that they have sex. She then showers and he leaves. Just before the video ends, it turns back to normal colour and the young man is shown walking out in the rain.

Research: Magazine Advert Analysis

 Research: Magazine Advert Analysis

Digipacks

Digipacks

A digipak is a book-style type of CD packaging with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD attached to the inside. Digipaks are visually appealing and allow the artist to creatively convey the artist's song and image

What is included in a Digipak?

• Photographs - usually of the artist, however creative images that reflect the artist, and or the music's message can be used. 
• A track list - often including writing credits
• One box with a disk impression, in which the disk will be placed in front of 
• Information about the music label, musicians, a message from the artist, copyright and year of release
• Barcode and QR and a logo for the record company

Digipack Layout

This is a simple 6 page layout of a digipak, this is the type of layout I will be using for my digipak. I plan on using this design since a 6 panel digipak provides a larger canvas for CD artwork and information about the band. It also includes a stem to print the name of the band and album so it looks professional and can achieve full marks.

Example 1: Duran Duran

My first example of a digipak is this digipack for the remastered version of Duran Duran's album Rio. The original was released on the 10th of May 1982 and this remastered version was released on the 7th of  September 2009 as a Special Edition digipak.

The main purpose of this new digipack was to obviously remind people of the album. Since it was originally released in 1982 and was remastered in 2009, they are obviously still around as a band and so there is no need to put that actual band on the cover as everyone already knows them and they already have a star image motif.

The original can be seen on the left and the remastered digipak can be seen on the right. Both versions have kept along the more animated style in terms of the lady featured within both of them. However there is a lack of colour in the remastered version in comparison to the old; the new being predominately black whereas the older was red. The point in this could be to suggest how the band has changed within the 27 year gap between the digipaks. The band have matured more and are more official and so have gone for a more sophisticated black colour to represent this rather than the red they had before. It also brings a big contrast to the two albums and so people are more inclined to buy it if they are fans of Duran Duran as it's a different piece more merchandise (especially as it was labelled as a limited edition remastered digipak).

Example 2: The 1975

The main image on the front cover is a black rectangle with white lights around it creating a white glow, this simplistic album cover is quite appealing to it’s target audience, as they are a alternative/indie rock band, the dark greys and blacks are colours commonly associated with rock. The album cover doesn't’ contain any images of the band, just their logo of a black rectangle, this could be in order to attract a certain audience – their core fans who know them and respect them purely for their music and to attract people who are mainly interested into the music opposed to the bands looks which is stereotypical for boy bands- they gain a fanbase according to their visual appeal. This album cover is fairly simple , although it does not scream rock, there are some definite connotations to it.  

The text used is consistent throughout the album, the use of the light to make the bandname/album glow as well as the lighttend rectangle follows the theme of a contrast between light and dark which is consistent throughout the album design. The fact that the album is self-titled could be to show that because the band are fairly new they want to broadcast and advertise themselves as much as possible, so when people think of their music they think of the band and vice versa. The boldness of the album title shouts rock, with rock being a loud genre of music, the loud font is a definite representation of the genre. Never the less, sterotypically rock albums are quite bold and have a wide use of colours and bold images where as this album only has a stand-out name, the rest of it is visually lacking in colour.

The album follows a simple grayscale colour scheme, this is a huge juxtaposition to their music which is a mixture of synth pop and alternative rock. 

This colour scheme is consistent throughout all of the bands released material, EP’s etc. 

The CD is matte black which follows their rock style, alike the album cover the CD is simplistic but lacks vidsual beauty, there’s no text which is unlike a typical album. 

The back of the album contains a track listening and company acknoledgements, this is very typical of the back of an album, once again the grayscle colour scheme is used. 

The inside album booklet contains pictures of the band members, this helps appeal to a female audience who will find them attractive and will listen to their music because of this, this also reinforces their original fanbase who know who they are, this imagery can be seen as something of sentimental value to fans.

Research: Magazine advert analysis

Research: Digipak analysis