Digipak - research

Digipak
Research from http://www.mediaheaven.co.uk/digipak.htm

A digipak is a CD or DvD cover/case. Furthermore, digipaks have dimensions 139.5mm x 6mmx 125.5mm for a cd case. It is mostly made from thick card and is shatterproof to allow graphic display. The digipack packaging is also versatile, which you can have up to 8 or more panels. A good digipak increases the value of the product, the reason for this is that the cd-cover can endorse people to buy a cd, very similar to readers buying books based upon the cover.Digipacks were designed to attract the consumer to buying the CD rather than downloading.

For our digipak CD cover this is how we would want our digipak to open, the disk will be in the middle and the band information will be on the pack,there are four sides to the digipak cover on the first side there will be details of the online fan site, images of the band, tours and links, will be souring it.

The front case will be a dark image of our artist, his pose will be looking up into the sky, as so it looks like he is soul searching which is a good reference to his music.

When you open the digipak, it will not be like the one above as all the other surrounding sides will have information and track listings.

Information about who produced the digipak and other mentions will be on the right flap and the booklet will be on the left. The background will be natural locations which we will take using a digital camera.

To create the project i found a website which was suitable for our useage, it contained templates which represented our work. From the website we downloaded the template and used it on adobe photoshop.

Location - planning

or our music video, we oringially wanted to film in a small bedroom with posters about knife crime and dark and gloomy highstreets with the dog walking down the road.

When it came to the point in time when we were filming, we had been unsuccessful in finding the right location for our music video, so we filmed in a large park called Cannos Park as it had many different scenic locations and many other features such as a park which meaned it changed our original storyboard. We also thought that it would show a parody of a dog running around a park with no owner to controll it meaning that it could do anything it wants.

Deadmau5 ft Kaskade - I Remember - research

Although this video is not exactly our idea it coincides with themes which we have also chosen, it is also set at similar times and locations to the ones we hope to use. So it is a good example of shot types that we could incorporate into our video.

Throughout the video we keep returning to the main location an abandoned warehouse where the two male characters are shot together but at unlike angles showing the space they have. As well as this there are at least 5 other locations that the video cuts to which creates diversity and tries to keep the viewer interested.

The colours used in the video are mainly colours and natural lighting but there are parts where it becomes shady as well as blurry. As for the most part of the video it is set at dusk, for our music video we could adopt a alike colour theme.

How to analyse a music video...

How to analyse a music video...
Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

New Artist - research

With our last artist we found that the music tempo was too high, this was becoming an issue as we were unable to create a fast paced action thriller as it would have become too difficult. Moving on from our previous artist (Rick Waldo) who was a good artist and his music which he produces is good but we were just unable to sync it well with our production. The new artist found by Oliver in our group called Jonny Hants was found over a social networking site called MySpace. The artist’s music was very strong and meaningful lyrics, the song that we are using called "I bleed" has lyrics in it about self harming and how his wounds have healed. I am unsure if this is his previous experiences, as we have been unable to meet up with him as he lives in Portsmouth. As a change of music, there is a change in footage and shots that we use, due to some of our footage being distorted and becoming un-useable we decided to change the idea. The idea would consist of a man (Joshua Mizrahi) a dog owner, who has lost his dog, the dog will be portrayed in a dog costume worn by Oli Resler . We used the typical stereotype of where you would see a dog such as parks, roads and general locations which we found whilst filming.

The artist's current MySpace


He has written an about me section which I will include below:
"i started rapping at about 16, never really took it seriously, ive always been into my music and there wasn’t much that i would really pay much attention to in school. After i left school i never knew what i wanted to do like most people, i did good at the subjects i enjoyed but never really took them any further after leaving school, i guess hip hop has always been a big part of my life like most people i play music every day, i got my first chance at 18 to go into a pro studio and have a little mess around but back then i had no foundation for my songs, a few bad things happened in my life , looking back it gave me something to write about, since then i have been getting better and better with my music and I’ve put up a few examples of my latest work, i don’t have anyone to make beats for me so if anyone’s out there plz holla, i also have strong writing ability every word you hear is my own"

From the above it shows that he has a general passion for music and found it as a way to focus his negative energy. He speaks about bad things happening in his life, but like most artists they use their personal experiences to create songs which have a meaning. In his writing above he proves that he has a strong writing ability and every word is his own, this shows that the lyrics from i bleed are true. On his MySpace there is a video for this music tarck created, not sure by him or someone else made it, it's a montage of images and personal pictures showing his life.

Pre-Production Story Boards - planning

Digipak CD Cover - Re-creating Snow Patrol CD cover - research

During a double period of media studies at school, we are fortunate enought to spend an hour with an experienced ICT teacher who is able to teach us photo editing. The photo editing software in which we use is called Coral Draw and Coral Photo Paint , this proggrame is similair to those such as Adobe Photoshop. The task in which we where set was to re-create a recent Snow Patrol Cd cover. If you look in depth to the image you can see that its comprised of three seperate images and clever photo editing. We where given three images a statue, wallpaper and music notes to use to re-create this image below.

The Filming did not come out !!

Once coming back to school from the weekend, with the tape in our hand and raring to go, we went to the media editing suite to only find that whilst batch capturing the footage we found a issue. The footage had broken half way through the filming; we had to come up with a way to re-film quickly. We have decided to re-film the part of what we lost on the 29th November, the shots which we have been able to save where good and useable. The cause of the problem was that where the tape is placed in the camera, was dirty, so whilst we were filming it wasn’t capturing it properly.

Roles chart - planning

Music Video Inspiration - research

To start, we decided on a certain theme which we would run across the central theme of the music video. We could not decide on what techniques to use as so many came to our heads when we were brainstorming. Our track that we had chosen called "First Encounter" gave us all an instant idea which was "Urban UK Teens”. The song does not contain lyrics so we had to come up with a narrative as this would work best with a song without lyrics but just beats. So our first thought was to make it a serious thriller style music video, but then Oliver in our group told us he owned a rather realistic Bear costume, the idea of using a costume came from the "Deadmaus" video "Ghosts and stuff" it portrays a human in a ghost costume playing pranks and running around town aimlessly, which could change the mood but keep it serious. Here is what our costume looks like:


The main event that came into our heads after long and hard discussions we decided to go ahead with comedy and thriller to see if they could accommodate each other so we could say it was pastiche as well as parody. We wanted to create a homicide scene where the bear would be dead and lying on the floor helplessly. We would have two actors dressed up in homicide suits to create a realistic image of the scene and they would be doing a CSI style of murder investigation with dusting off prints and taking images. For the cameras of which they are holding we would create a flash off the computer editing software at school to change seen to have a different cut from fade to black. Some of our inspiration for this scene comes from the "2 Pac video: Ghetto Gospel"





From this video we see that we have a medium shot of a group looking over a body and a pov shot of women trying to get through the crowd. We decided to imitate this scene by having the bear dead and homicide officers taking photos, the actor that we are using for the broken hearted women would be crying over the body. We have numerous amounts of different shots high and low as we have two cameras to help.

Saussure argued that signs only make sense as part of a formal, generalized and abstract system. His conception of meaning was purely structural and relational rather than referential: primacy is given to relationships rather than to things (the meaning of signs was seen as lying in their systematic relation to each other rather than deriving from any inherent features of signifiers or any reference to material things). Saussure did not define signs in terms of some 'essential' or intrinsic nature. For Saussure, signs refer primarily to each other.

Research - Focus Group & Questionaire Questions and Results

In our group, we decided that it would be beneficial that we are to have a focus group. The focus group would be filmed in a studio in school. The reason in which we choose our school studio as it has a plain black background and there was professional lighting as well as the convenience for our students that would help us. The filming would be done on a Canon SLX; this would give us professional results. The group would have two boys which are in our year of school called Ben Nachman and Greg Bromley both aged 17. We would ask them a series of questions on the music, to start off we would play the music and then record their initial reactions such as if they smile or look blank. When it came to editing our footage there were a few complications that we came across in the editing of the first footage, we found that the tape was distorted and damaged. So once the footage was on the computer it came out jumpy so we decided to scrap that and re-film with the same students. The second footage which was done two days after the first recording and is currently being edited it on Adobe Movie maker 5 and will continue with it over the next couple of days and post it on the blog when finished. For now we have completed the batch capturing, which was done, (22/10/09) and as a group compiling the video together. The video will be finished by the 23 october and then one finished i shall post it into my blog.

Questionnaire

To gain an insight into what people think about when they view a music video, we decided to create a questionnaire. The questionnaire incurs a series of well put together questions to gain the most amount of information. We created 15 questionnaires with 7 questions on them to hand out; we had a good variety of ages as we found lower school student as well as people in our year. With the results we had received we made into pie charts to compare the results easier.

These are our questionnaire questions:

1. What age group do you fit into?
2. What genre of music do you listen to?
3. What do you like to see in a music video?
4. Do you like a political message to be addressed in a music video?
5. Do you think global issues should be addressed in a music video?
6. Does the cover of the CD affect your choice of purchase?
7. Do you like animation in the music video?

Questionnaire Analysis
Double click to enlarge images

Looking in particular at this result, we can see that the majority, the light turquoise colour preffered to see female actress' in a music video. This does not come to any suprise seeing as 60% of our students we used where male. Looking into the theory of why men do prefer to see women in a music video is part of the male gaze coined by Laura Mulvey's initial description of scopophilia in 'Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema' Screen Vol.16. No. 3 (1975).

Music - research

The image to the left of the text is the artist that we are using. We have now found an artist which we are happy with and the style of music. The style of music is "Electronic" which works well with our fast paced action, gritty music video. The artist was found by chance as a student in our class has a connection with the clubbing industry as he DJ's regularly. He had told us about an artist which he thought we would work well with our idea. The artists name is "Rickwaldo" is an artist from South East London, he is a producer as well as a DJ. He DJ's on a regular basis in clubs such as "Ministry of Sound” and “SeOne". Some of his influences such as artists like Daft Punk, Crookers, Stevie Wonder, Fatback Band, Sly and the Family Stone, MSTRKRFT, Herve, Hoxton Whores, Eric Prydz, Chris Lake, Sebatien leger and many more. He is currently unsigned at the moment and is still trying to get his music across to the public by doing and organising club nights.

This is a link to his current MySpace http://www.myspace.com/ricardoburress

This is the track that we will be using:

Initial Ideas - research

To start we all sat down and decided on what sort of music we would like to go for, it was from Electro to a Pop. We were not heavily swung by the pop band which we shown called "Super Smiler" it was not the band itself that we did not like it was just, as a group decision we decided not to go ahead with it as we did not have much interest in the genre of music, as well as trying to create an original piece rather than filming a band. So we decided on going down the root of DJ mixes. With DJ mixes there is only music and instrumentals and sparse amount of vocals. This leaves us great freedom to design a video to match the music. Some ideas of DJ mixes such as this private producer, which is a style of music called "house". This is a style of music mainly seen in the clubbing scene. The video below is a sample of chill out house music.

House music its sound are more developed than melodic, with stress on a dance beat and additional vocals. In essence an electronic creation tracks from earlier recordings, drum machines, synthesizers, and sequencers house music is exclusive in its interchange-ability of persons.

To find a piece of music which was not copyrighted was hard as we all like mainstream music but by trying to get permission could be very difficult. We were fortunate enough to have a DJ in our class called Jared Phillipo he's currently a DJ at public events as well as being able to produce music at home, on software on Mac computer. Jared decided to help us out and give us a track called After Sgock Baseline which was a Electro style of music, he made a while ago when he was first starting out, in our group we each separately listened and then came in the next morning to speak our mind about the song choice. Following the concept of synaesthesia (a model developed by V.N Volosinov in 'Marxism and the Philosophy of Language' 1926/86) we are able to listen and write down our immediate thoughts of what this music has to offer.

Other Ideas for music

When we were all brainstorming our ideas it became apparent that we knew a great drummer, so then we came up with a completely different idea, we thought of doing a drum and bass song which we thought would go great with a location such as Brighton with its great scenery. When we looked further into this genre of music, we found that it would not accompany scenery such as Brighton as it’s too natural and friendly. The ideal space for current Drum & Bass music is a Warehouse or an abandoned style house with large ceilings and large areas of space, so derelict buildings would be ideal.