Digi Pak

Lana Del Rey

Not only are we creating a music video, we will also be designing and creating a digi-pak for our artist. We want to create a realisitc and professional digi-pak that consits of all the typical conventions. By creating a digi-pak it will let us be more imaginitive and will let us as a group add our own unique and personal traits. Whilst we are filming the music video, we will be taking photos of the main bits of footage we think would be excellent to have as our front cover, and in our digi-pak. We will not only be showing our video skills but our photography skill also. With the digi-pak it will add to the creation of the trademark we will be creating.

 Lana Del Rey's album cover is extremly eye catching the image of the artist herself is the main focus of the image but due to the dazzling bright blue sky, we as the audience pay attention to the scene and setting, due to this we are again paying attention to the theme of nature which we have seen throughout our continued research. The image of the artist is very powerful she has a strong expression on her face and it feels as if she is looking out to the audience creating a personal effect. The title of the album 'Born To Die' again follows the typical artist/band logo that I have previosouly blogged about. The image does not link in with the album name, which adds a unique twist making the artist stand out and ensuring the audience she is not just the ordinary singer. The colours used on the album cover are very sweet and innocent the white connoting innocence, purity and youth, whilst the blue represnting the nature but also connoting carefree freedom.

The back cover of the album complelty contrasts the feel of the front cover, the colour is very vibrant and gives off the sense of passion and urgency. Having the back cover, contrast against the front suggests that the actual photo image is the artist trying to portray herself but the reality is the back of the album, where we see that her music contrast the innocence we get from the image.

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Inside the album cover we are again shown the two contrasts on the front and back of the album cover. An image similar to the one of the artist as the main image is used again just with a different positining of the artist again implying the same message and connotations as previously. The booklet inside the album cover, shows the contrast theme portrayed on the back of the album. The pages have the lyrics to her songs making it seem personal to the audience, and let's them feel as if they are taking part when the artist is singing. The blood across the pages, shows a different side to the artist again, suggesting that she has a 'bad girl' side and is not as sweet and innocent as people may think she is. It feel's as if the artist is giving you an insight to what should be expected by the album.

 

This is a very entertainign and successful digi-pak I partically liked the different sides it showed to the artist, showing that she is not your standard singer, she likes to have her own freedom and create something she feels will attract her targer audience. We will be taking a few points and skills from this digi-pak but will not be following the style and colour scheme. We want to keep ours simple and freash. We will be adding a image of the balloon, which will be the main focus and also some of the scenery from the beach where we are filming, this can link in with the a location being in the background of this artists album cover.

 

 

 

 

 

Magazine Advert

Florence + The Machine


The main focus of the album cover is the image used, which illustrate's the type of artist Florence Welch is. The image is very stricking, Florence is standing in a forest surrounded by flowers and birds, linking back to the theme of nature thoughout indie pop music videos. Florence is taking along the theme of nature with her following the codes and convenctions of her genre of music. The plasic representation of the lungs is replacing her necklace and representing the name of the album 'Lungs', having the album name and the unique visual image on the CD cover, connotes life, to breath is what keeps us a life and singing is obviously a keen passion for Florence, suggesting that singing is her life.

The magazine advert is exactly the same as the album cover, the same stricking image, the logo and band name are all still in the same place. The image on the magazine advert has been darkened slighty giving it more of a melancholy feel, which could be linked to the type of magazine the promotion was shown in. By using the same image as the album cover  it grabs the audiences attention, they will recognise the familiar album cover with the magazine article, hopefully either paying attention to the article or increasing sales on the album. Even though keeping the same design for the magazine advert is a very simple idea it creates an iconic and familiarising image each time they advert or album cover is seen by the target audience, unknowingly they will link the image back to the artist creating a better promotion.

When conducting my research I also came across a second magazine advert for Florence + The Machines album 'Lungs'. This time the magazine article is using a different eye catching image, the magazine article still uses the former place the logo stood on the previous advert and on the album. The image used still is promoting the album, and will still be associated with the album cover and band. The floral, naturalistic theme still runs through the advert by the use of flowers, the vintage feel is still evident and of course the lungs can still be seen taking over the main image for the advert. This advert is very effective is it promoting the bands new album and keeping the audience on their toes, letting them see the different and quirky ideas Florence's album holds in store for them.


As a group we have taken all the research we have conducted together on board, we have a clear idea of what we will be adding into our music video, digi pack and magazine advert and how to make it realistic and following the theme we will be portraying throughout the music video. The research we have found has been highly helpful, we will be incorparating it all into our projects.

Balloon

In the music video we will be creating there will be many black and white shots and clips, we will be using the red balloon to symbolise the love the girl in the video has had for a previous boyfriend. Throughout the video, the girl we will be having in the video will be travelling around with the balloon as if she does not want to let go of her memories of her ex boyfriend. At the end of the music video, we are going to see the girl letting go of the balloon, to signify her moving on. We are also hoping to put the balloon in the sea, and catch some footage of the waves bringing it in and out of shore. To make the balloon stand out to it's best ability, that will be the only coloured image in the black and white shots. It makes it seem important, and will be iconic throughout the whole video. This will make the balloon stand out and grab the audiences attention to it's full potential. The balloon we be seen throughout our promotion, it will be easily recognised and associated with the artist.

Below are a few pictures to try and set the secne for what we are wanting to create. They are both set on a beach, and have someone holding the balloon in ways that we wish to catch when we are filming.

Magazine Advert Research

Noah And The Whale

The magazine advert is an extended version the band have used of the album cover, which helps with the recognisability for the promotion of the album. The text is written in the blue sky which helps make the text managable to read and for the audience to see straight away. Having the logo, in the blue sky can also link into one of the songs on the album being called 'Blue Skies', which could be a very clever link to the audience first listening to that song on the album. To add to the promoting of the band, there is a free download this could increase their fan base, as people who haven't heard of the band may take a listen to the album if it's for free, hopefully then adding to future sales and more promotion for the band. The magazine advert is not complex, and looks very professional and clean. It has all the essential conventions for a magazine advert, the release date the image if the band a website link and a quote from someone that has listened to the album. We are going to be adding these conventions from the magazine advert and adding them into our own to create a realistic promotional advert.

 

Logo Research

 

 

 

 

From my previous blog you can see we already have an idea on the image we wish to havea place in our logo. When conducting some research into logo's of indie pop artists we found that they usually do not have an image, it's just bold text. The typography used in many of them is block, and even though they don't use drastic eye catching colours they are just as effective in grabbing the audiences attention. We are obviously going to incorpret the type of text in the examples above, we are not going to have floral writing just bold block letters to follow the typography used of the male singers above. We have taking into consideration that many of the above artists do not use an actual image in their logo, just the use of text placed in a certain individual way. We are going to follow this and have our logo, as text. But for the certain album cover, digi pack and magazine promotion we are creating, we will be including the balloon from the music video, to create a symbol with the audience as they will associate the balloon from the music video when seeing the album. We decided to do this, as we want to add our own unique twist to the promotion of the album and song. 

 

 



The album cover by Noah And The Whale, has a very simplistic colour schme, the image is however stricking and eye catching. The logo is placed perfectly center, and does not distract away from the image used by the band. It's iconic and recognisable, and fits well with the image used. The name of the band, is very bold and having the use of capitals make's it stand out and grab the audiences attention without having bright fancy colours. Having the logo black, fits in with the genre and type of music they create, being calm and collective and not 'in your face' as other genres of music are. We are going to incorporate this into our own logo, following the codes and convenctions of the indie pop genre. 



Chosen Song

We have chosen to use the song 'Lovers Eyes' by the band Mumford & Sons. The song is from the genre of music we are focusing our music video around. The song has lovely lyrics about love, we foind them really nice and thought we would be able to create a realistic music video based upon them. Recently we created a small survey on our blogs and asked people in our Media Studies class, and family and friends to answer. After narrowing our song choices down to three, we put our favourite one's on and asked which song was the best to use. The comments we recieved back from the survey was majority saying to use 'Lovers Eyes'. We got together as a group and decided that we wanted a male cover of the song, we found many covers of the song on YouTube, and once we found our favourite version of the song we emailed them asking if we could have permission to use their song in our music video. We recieved a reply and we are able to go forward and use our first choice cover of the song, the proof of the permission will be uploaded onto the blog very shortly.

Logo

This is a first sketch of the logo we will be having on our album cover, digi pack and in the magazine advert we will soon be creating. It links in with the iconic red balloon we will have throughout the video to create a symbol for the band.

On the string of the balloon will be the bands name. This creates an unusual image, we have considered that the text might be hard to make out in the products we will be creating, so we will make the typography bold but still small so it is in proportion with the size of the balloon.

Our Pitch

This is our presentation, where we discussed our ideas on the music video will we soon be creating.

Mood

As a group we have discussed the atmosphere and mood we are wanting to represent through our Indie pop music video. The song we are using has a very calm and slow soothing melody as it's about two lovers that have lost touch with the connection they used to have. We are wanting to have most of the video in black and white which will help us show the sad, melancholy image about the loss of a relationship towards the audience. The song's pace pick up's at times when the song is progressing this is where we are wanting to add colour scenes and splashes of colour (the red balloon), but also shots in colour when the female is having flashbacks of her past relationship.

 

We also decided as a group that by having the contrast of black and white shots with coloured shots will make each different scene stand out grab the audiences attention as it will be eye catching. The shots will be chance repeatively, which will again represnt the difference in the females feelings during her relationship.

 

 

The shots that we will be filming in colour are going to be shot in a home made effect which will make the music video seem more personal and believable allowing the audience to have an insight into the relationship and feel as if they are apart of it. One of the main factors we are having in the music video, is body language we want to portray this by the use of many complex camera shots. We are going to focus on the arms, and features of the face, but more importantly the movement of the hands. We are going to have shots of the couple smiling and laughing but focusing on their features instead of the whole body and face to represent the love and friendship the couple once had. We want to have a feel of vunerability in the music video, as we are representing the happy times in the relationship and how that can quickly chance to lonely and depressing. We will be showing this by the female walking along the beach alone taking in her surroundings. The flashbacks being in colour will suggst the warm happy feeling the female had during the relationship contrasted with the harshnes of the black and white. We are hoping to catch a few shots of the waves crashing againt some rocks, representing the pain and unhappyiness the female is now going through. 

Our Pitch Presentation

Favourite Album Cover

This album cover 'Progess' by Take That , suggests the growth of the once young boy band to the 'manband'. It also represents all the earlier riftd between the band members, have been forgotten and they've moved on and made 'Progress.' The image used for the front cover on the album uses all the members of the band showing all their participation. In each album cover they are all shown in the image, how big or small they are always there. The image adapts the iconic ape to man image.

The album cover is very simple, it only consits of one main colour and then the simple colours used on each of the band members. The brand identity, can be seen through the faces of each band member as they are the main image on each of their album covers. The brand identity can be seen through the text, every album cover always uses the same font making it iconic and well known to their audiences.

Song Choices

We have selected a number of songs that we all agree fit in with the theme and genre of the music we are basing our music video around. We will be finding a cover of the song that we finally decide, and ask for permission to use the song when in the editing process. As a group we have decided which songs are our favourite, but we would also like other opinions so we can take them on board.

Here are a few songs that we are thinking about using. We would like your imput into which song you prefer.

The links for the video and songs are below.

The Last Unicorn by Passenger

 http://vimeo.com/6642458


Lovers Eyes by Mumford & Sons

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWNq89joPrI


James Vincent McMorrow- Higher Love

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c__noWWtdZg

Please leave us a comment with which song you prefer the most.

Thanks.


 

Group Change

Kelly Senior has now joined our group in making the music video for our final project. Luckly Kelly was also doing the same genre of music we were also doing, so now we have double the amount of research and lots more new ideas to combine within the final project. We are still going to stick with our original plans but add some different ideas from Kelly's research so hopefully our final project will turn out even better.