Digipak and Advert
One of the first
tasks within the research and planning was to create mood boards of varying
album covers, which then had to be grouped as you saw appropriate. Of these
album covers, the most iconic and memorable ones originated from two groups.
These were minimalistic and brightly coloured/illustrated. I soon established
when thinking of what my digipak was going to be like that designing an
illustrated product would be very difficult and only be a success if completed
to the highest standard. Therefore creating a minimalistic digipak seemed the
most viable option, as it could match conventions of real products.
Moreover the
adverts which tended to accompany such albums were either copies of the digipak
converted into a poster or used the same images, fonts etc. As I result I
realised that continuity between the two media products was essential to
creating an identity for my artist as well as making my work appear authentic
and credible. I feel my work reflects this, as the pieces match and have both
been inspired by the same existing media products.
A product I used
for such inspiration was the Arctic Monkeys 5th album ‘AM’. I felt this was a
minimalistic design, but still had a strong style which stood out from other
albums. I also believed I could convert features they used for my own work, to
make it a success. The first of these was to use the idea of a line running
through the whole digipak (as on AM) within my pieces of work. However I would
choose 2 lines and these would primarily come from the underlining of the
Artists name on the album cover and advert. These lines then continued
throughout the whole digipak, including the booklet. Not only do I feel this
created a bold style, but it showed the continuity which the first drafts
lacked and the development I had made. Moreover like on ‘AM’ it split up the
track list and I felt although this was for no logical reason, it aesthetically
worked well and livened what can be a dull part of a digipak. In addition
challenging the line on AM I opted to make my lines thicker and straight, as I
believed this created a bolder more powerful impact establishing the artists
name as the main focus of the products.
Meanwhile the use
of the black background was to create a slight mystery about the artist, as
well as feeling that using a coloured background would make the album glary and
off putting. Whilst most Indie/Indie Rock albums tend to use black backgrounds
if images are not used such as the 1975, so I stuck with conventions. Also I
think using a coloured backing would perhaps lead the audience to believe the
album was a pop album, which would quickly accidentally alienate my intended
audience.
Despite this I did
use a white background on the back and disc side of the digipak, as well as
selected pages in the accompanying booklet. I did this as to avoid the album
giving the impression of heavy rock which is not my genre, which with the red
text could’ve been assumed and also liked the contrast it created. It could be
argued that AM is all black but not a heavy rock album, this is true but that
is their 5th album so people know their genre and are likely to buy
the product because they like the music, regardless of the artwork.
Furthermore I also
took inspiration from The Black Keys 6th album ‘Brothers’. It was clear from my
first draft that the Images used were boring and uninspiring. As a result I
decided to change tact and avoid the use of images on the digipak and went for
a plain yet bold black background. Such a background made the text appear bold
and also followed conventions of many albums which avoid the use of images in
preference for a more powerful focus on the text. I felt the power created on
the front of ‘Brothers’ was achieved by the font used, therefore I researched
this font and found it o be called Cooper Black. I then used this in my own
work for a lot of my text; however I didn’t solely use it I felt it would then
lose its effect, becoming boring and predictable. Moreover I didn’t use The
Black Keys idea of making the text literate and stating the obvious, as I felt
this would simply be copying and look cheap. The other font I used ‘Alien’
contrasted well with ‘Cooper Black’ as it was more pointed as opposed to
rounded. I also on occasions used it in red as to differentiate between the
artists name and the album’s title. Meanwhile because I didn’t have the unique
nature of The Black Keys ‘stating the obvious” the change of font added a
different dimension which it was until then lacking.
Furthermore this
additional font made differentiation between areas of text within the digipak
easier and clearer. This was the case on the spine of the album as the lines crossing
here would’ve not made it clear as it splits the three words as opposed to just
the two phrases. Such a technique follows conventions where different sections
of text located close together are shown apart by either of change in font,
text colour or size.
I added a barcode
and the Sony record label logo to the back of my digipak to make it look
authentic and match the conventions of real albums, which were backed up by
accompanying the legal details placed below this, adding credibility to my
pieces.
The track list was
put in the same font as my album title indicating its lesser importance
compared to that of the artists name. Whilst the lines on the digipak although
not in any logical way split the track list, making it look less boring and
slightly different from usual albums that just have the track one by one in a
vertical list.
All the above
information for the digipak also applies to the same features on the poster.
This enabled continuity and an identity to be created, as well as being the conventional
way to link the album and advert. The only real difference apart from the
different formats is the inclusion in the bottom left corner of the bands
website address and twitter name. I chose these as such contact details are the
most popular among people today and especially that of an indie audience. Meanwhile
such information is concise but to the point so doesn’t detract from the
minimalistic style of the products.
Although I wanted
my two pieces to be minimalistic I also knew that something more of an insight
was required of the artist. So I decided to design a booklet to go with my
digipak, as this way the minimalism of the album and advert were undisrupted. The
booklet followed the same design as the other elements, incorporating the same
fonts and lines. At the start there is a message to the people buying the album
thanking them personally. This is a touch I added after seeing it in the
booklet for ‘Scouting For Girls, The Greatest Hits’, I thought it worked well,
adding credibility to the album and represented the artist positively. In
addition the booklet contained a variety of images of my artist, as I believed
it would be something fans would want to see and is used in many real products
to make people feel closer to the artist whose music they are buying. I framed
the images as I thought this style was effective and is often used by young
people when posting on social media sites, therefore I felt this would suit the
audiences preferences.
Finally the use of
just the three colours black, white and red I felt not only made the pieces
bold, but kept it original and followed the conventions of these three colours
going together and complementing one another.
Music Video
When looking at
music videos in the planning and research stage of the coursework a lot of videos
produced were of an illustrative nature. Either because they were narrative and
explained (showed a clear relationship between the music/lyrics) the lyrics or
they were a performance style video. Initially my first draft video was a
mixture of these illustrative techniques, but the combination meant that
neither of the techniques stood out strongly and it was not very clear as to
where the video was going. Some videos are a mixture of the two but I felt it
would be very hard to match such conventions.
Moreover the idea
of making a video of an Amplification nature or Disjuncture was not going to be
possible. This is because with the video being discordant from the song it
would not be clear to the audience of the relationship and ruin the songs
reputation. Whilst the videos of such a style are hard to replicate and don’t
often work with new artists, as they often come with established artists.
Therefore I didn’t thin k I would be able to achieve such conventions.
After deciding to
create an illustrative video of a performance nature, I looked at the theorist
Andrew Goodwin and what he believes to be the conventions of a music video. I
attempted to follow these as to make my video authentic. Whilst with my video
not being disjuncture I felt following conventions as opposed to challenging
them would be key to making my video a success.
Firstly I wanted
to match the conventions he stated, starting with Through Beats Seeing the
Sound. I quickened the speed of my cuts and their frequency to match the speed of
the music and when lyrics started/stopped. Therefore I added more cuts as the
video initially was boring because of the long cuts. Because of this my video
appeared more conventional and realistic due to the more frequent cuts and
speed of the video.
Secondly I wanted
to make the song by The Vaccines appear to have been sung by my artist.
Therefore I used all males as well as drums and 2 guitars to match up with the
instrumental parts of the song. I felt this style in the video was reflecting
the style of the song and kept up with conventions. However in parts my lip
syncing wasn’t the best so authenticity often wavers as a result of this.
Although the playing of the drums does look real and the close ups of this
enhance its realism and live up to conventions.
Thirdly with my
video being a performance not a great relationship was built between the lyrics
and the visual. But I did use two locations (the car and outside band
performance) to create a different narrative. I did this by having the artist
one by one leaving the car and performing individually before being joined by
the others. This didn’t have any relation with the lyrics but was an idea the
Arctic Monkeys had used in their video for ‘R U Mine’ and I adopted the idea to
give my performance video a different dimension. Although this did partly
challenge conventions of a performance video, it was more of an addition to the
genre than an alteration and mainly matched conventions.
Narrative and
performance
As I have
mentioned with my video being a performance where the visuals didn’t match the
lyrics this relationship was not the strongest. However Goodwin sights that
often the audience makes its own decisions about the messages a song is giving
off. Therefore although this relationship might have not been the strongest I
wasn’t too concerned as it still represented conventions, especially that of
performance videos. Additionally Goodwin says most artists mime, however that
it is in their best interest for the video to look authentic. As a result I had
my artist singing and then removed this audio on Final Cut Pro, this way it
still appeared authentic and matched conventions.
The Star Image
This was important as there were 3 members of the band in my video, with
(in the car) the main focus on the predominant singer, because of the cameras
position. Meanwhile I was able to light the car with small portable lights and
its own internal lights, showing the focus on the artist. However externally
for the band performance it was hard to light the band well, I used car lights
but these failed to fully light the entire band. Therefore the convention of
Star Image was compromised because I used two locations. But it can also be
argued that if I had just used one location the video would have lost this
dimension and become repetitive and boring. Also my video doesn’t incorporate a
lot of close ups upon the members faces, so more of this star image convention
is lost. This isn’t my video challenging conventions, but more a reflection of
the difficulty to match such conventions all the time.
Relation of
visuals to song
I have already explained the lack of relationship between the lyrics and
visual, but not too much about the song and accompanying visuals. I aimed to
reflect the instrumental aspects of the song in terms of the mise en scene, by
using as drums and 2 guitars to match up with the instrumental parts of the
song. Not only did this match the song but it also correlated with conventions
of other performance music videos. Also when not showing the band performance
the drummer when in the car was drumming the back of the front seats, to ensure
a continuation of this relationship.
Technical
Aspects of Music Video
In terms of technical aspects I used the same camera throughout the whole
filming process of my video. This was done deliberately to ensure a
continuation of the quality of footage produced. This lived up to conventions
of a music video and their maintained visual quality. A video that does
challenge these conventions is Jake Bugg’s ‘Trouble Town, whereby he uses
different cameras to create varying visual effects. Finally relating to the
mise en scene I ensured the car was empty and when filming the music video on a
driveway no items/or rubbish were in the frame. This made it look like a authentic
production and accounted for the matching of conventions.
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