Website Draft

For our website design we had problems creating a live website with the original program we chose. We decided then to create a website with Serif PagePlus 11, as it would be an easier option. This meant we had to redesign our plan for the website,as our original idea couldn't be achieved on serif. We took the main image we aimed to use on the front cover of the digi-pack and put it on the home page to achieve a consistent brand identity. We also used the house colours of blue, red and white on the homepage for a similar effect.

This is the draft of the homepage for our website. At this draft stage we have difficulty making the website live with the images still visible, so when we complete the website i will post a link on my blog to the live site. At this stage there are a few conventions we would like to meet typical of an artist's website, such as a YouTube video of the music video we created on the homepage as we saw this featured on many other websites. Other websites i've analysed also include a wider layout, whereas ours is more vertical so i'd adapt our website to fit this convention.

Website Planning - Typography

To give our artists a brand identity we will have to keep a certain style with them and show the band displayed in a certain way one of the ways we can do this is by the typography , the font, logo and house color. Here our some samples for logo : They are all in black at the moment but we will incorporate the house colours of red blue and white when we chose a logo.

For the website font we have analysed other website designs and decided the font needs to be basic but inkeeping with the artists brand identity we are creating. We may use a maximum of 2 of these fonts so not to confuse the audience and make it look messy, here are a few fonts we like and will ask our target audience to decide their favourites; these will be the ones we use.

Website Planning - Design

As we have chosen to create a website displaying our artist we wanted to use a programme that will help us produce a website that appeals to our target audience and also fits in with the genre of our artist. Using the website Bandzoogle.com, we created a template of the homepage of our website. As you can see from the image here we took a screen grab from our music video and embedded it on the tshirt of the girl on the homepage. This relates our music video to the website therefore tieing together the different aspects of our artists material. The house colours we are using are blue, cherry red and white which feature heavily throughout our music video and will also be seen on or digipack. We will also use these colours for our font and in the header on the website to keep the aspects of the video and website consistent.

Website Flat Plan

Genre Research

I have chosen two bands that are of a similar genre to our artist, "Two Door Cinema Club" which is of the indie genre of music. I will analyse theses artists websites and promotional material and compare them to the ideas we have for our band and how we can incorporate typical features of that genre into our material.

The first artist that has a similar genre and style as our artist is Vampire Weekend, an indie rock band from New York City signed to XL Recordings. Their latest album "Contra" is shown here:
As you can see the house colours are muted, light colours such as pale yellow, violet and white. The mixture of pale colours suggest a wealthy, vintage theme especially with the young woman wearing Ralph Lauren polo shirt that doesn't appear to be new. The large, straught edged font contrasts to the vintage look to make it stand out against the muted background. The woman fills nearly all of the space on the cover, with her eyes staring directly at the audience engaging them with the cover. However, she is set back from the text showing her lack of importance against the artists name and album name.






This is Vampire Weekend's website. They've clearly displayed the woman on their album cover again on their website, to tie the two together and establish the brand identity. They've focused on the eyes to draw the audience in again but placing the text over her face so people concentrate on what's being said. They've used hyperlinks on "click to buy", "listen" and "lyrics" to allow people to fully engage with the new album and give them as many opportunities as possible to view it before buying it, therefore gaining repect from their audience. The house colours are shown again here to provide consistency across their products, and as the image is zoomed in we can see the grainy effect of the picture, reinforcing the vintage theme.

Friendly Fires also has a similar genre and style to our artist, they are an indie-dance band and also signed to XL Recordings. Their latest, self titled album is shown below:
This album cover is very different to that of Vampire Weekend's. The house colours are considerably darker; black and dark green, however white is also incorporated here to act as a contrast to the dark colours. The typography is simple and delicate, an opposition to the striking image below it. The broken shards of the mirror seem to be reflected a natural scene, blurred through editing, with what looks like a snake behind it. I believe the idea behind this album is to allow the audience to decipher it how they wish as it's a confusing and subjective image. Maybe this is a reflection of their music?






The artists website links well with their album cover, establishing their brand identity. The same delicate font used for the logo is used again here, and the same shards of glass and splattered paint are used to relate the two together further. The dark, earthy house colours are also shown again in their website, establishing a connection between the website and album cover, one that the audience would remember and recognise as theirs.

Through the analysis of other artists of a similar style and genre to mine, i can see that similarities between both my ancillary tasks is pivotal for establishing a brand identity for the artist and also the audience im aiming my product at.

What Makes an Effective Album Cover?

An effective album cover reflects the the genre and individual brand identity of an artist. For example the White Stripes album "The Hardest Button to Button":

The layout for the White Stripes album is very simple; the black and white layout makes the red typeface stand out and therefore highlighting it's importance. The contast of black and white also draws your attention to the centre of the album cover where most of the detail is focussed.
This cover holds a clear connection between the music video and promotional material, house colours are seen across all their products for example. The button created in the O's in "Button" could be an image motif as it also appears in their music video.
The album cover also represents the the rock genre of the artist, through the uneven lines, sharp edges, and harsh, in-your-face style colours.

The designer has therefore made this album cover effective through:

• The clear relationship between the video and album artwork - through colours, images and themes.
• The choice of image, font and colour.
• Making it interesting/desirable overall.
• Developing the artists star image and brand identity.
  
• Reinforcing the genre of the brand.
  

What is a digipack and how we aim to use it

A digipack is the same as an album/cd cover but with all the dimensions and folds, to make it into the cd packaging. The most common dimensions of a cd cover design are 57cm x 14.5cm . 57cm is for 4 panels of 14cm each and a spine. The digi pack can flip open like a book can have three parts so that one side opens to the left and one side opens to the right .The digipack must have an envelope or casing- usually a plastic press to store the dvd/cd , this is usually encased in front of a piece or paper. We want to do ours as a three fold , here is a template i found on the internet.

Filming Diary

First Day of Filming, Sunday 10th October
I will display the pictures and comments of our process of our first day of filming on fickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55668688@N06/

Monday 25th October
In our original storyboards (shots 22-25) we would fulfill our "guy gets the girl" concept with a twist by him winning her over with a space hopper, however this particular prop was not accessible to us so we had to think of an alternative to complete our concept.
We came up with the idea of using candles spelling out some of the lyrics as this would continue our theme of lyrics being incorporated into the music video. However we didn't have enough candles to spell words so we settled on a question mark which provokes the audience to engage more with what he could be asking, in turn thinking about the lyrics without actually reading them.
The idea we had was the guy would ring the doorbell at night and the girl would look open the door to find him waiting with a question mark displayed on the floor. We liked the idea of the light of the candles standing out against the darkness. However when we came to film this, it was raining outside and we couldn't think how we could compromise by making the scene inside, as it wouldn't make sense. We decided to re-film this scene another day when it was dryer outside, therefore leaving us with a more successful image.

Thursday 28th October
Today was alot more successful in terms of the weather and the overall mise-en-scene. The rain had subsided and we were able to get more effective light positioning. We decided these shots fit in well with our concept and will therefore replace shots 22-24, which will change on our final storyboard.

Last day of filming, Sunday 31st October
Today we managed to get all of our performance shots filmed for our music video. These shots will appear as an introduction to the music video and willl also be cut to back and forth in the chorus and between scenes.

Shooting Schedule

Sunday 10th October - Majority of filming completed

• 12pm-3pm - all scenes of girl rejecting guy
• 3pm-6pm - all scenes of happiness between girl and guy
• 6pm - 7pm - general shots, eg lyrics written on posters, shots of clown etc
• 7pm - sunset shot

Sunday 25th October - Performance shots and other night-time scenes

• 8pm-9pm - performance shots
  
• 9pm-10pm - "guy gets the girl" shots
  

Final Storyboards

Audience Feedback from Film Pitches

Click on the images to enlarge.

Positive feedback from our audience:



Even better if...



These words clouds were created using wordle.com

We recieved a huge amount of positive feedback from our target audience, which made us confident our ideas would be well recieved by other members of our target audience and would fit well with our chosen artists music. However, the ideas on how we could improve our production from our target audience were also very helpful, for example many mentioned colouristaion to help reflect the mood of the characters in our music video. One person suggested over exposing the final shots to emphasize that sunny, happy feeling. Another suggested a more diverse range of camera shots, and upon examining our draft storyboards we've seen that more diversity in this area would greatly benefit our music video.

Music Video Pitch

In this video me and my friend are pitching our ideas for our music video to our teacher and other students in our class. After the pitch we recieved feedback from everyone that i will upload onto my blog, where they comment on what they liked and what they thought could be improved.

Lyrics Annotated With Ideas

Two Door Cinema Club – Something Good Can Work

• Our interpretation of the song is that it's being sung in a motivational way towards a girl as she wants to make something of herself
• We are going to create a twist on this interpretation so a guy is trying to to motivate the girl to make something of herself with him.

Our ideas that match the lyrica are written in bold.

Mostly narrative idea, some performance shots incorporated to enhance visual excitement for the viewer.
There's a spanner in the works you know,
you gotta step up your game to make to the top.
So go!
Gotta little competition now, - idea: 2 guys in 2 different cars (one better) main girl gets in other guys car (not main character) medium shot from back of the car ans girl gets in the better car and main guy behind reverses away
you're going to find it hard to cope with living on your own now.
Uh oh! – Split screen – one of girl and one of guy – fades into chorus
Uh oh!

Let's make this happen, girl you gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for you. – General idea of the guy trying to make the girl happy
And you know that it will.
Let's get this started girl, we're moving up we're moving up It's been a lot to change but you will always get what you want.
Took a little time to make it a little better,
it's only going out, just one thing and another,
you know! – Webcam shots of guy singing lyrics to girl, split screen of rejection?
You know!

Took a little time to make it a little better, it's only going out, just one thing and another,
you know!
You know!

Let's make this happen, girl you gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for you. – Rapid costume change, pace of cuts follow music
And you know that it will.
Let's get this started girl, we're moving up we're moving up but It's been a lot to change but you will always get what you want.

Instrumental – guy gets cake in face, stop frame animation of his reaction shot happening.

Let's make this happen, girl you gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for you.
And you know that it will. – Close-up of guy’s face winking
Let's get this started girl, we're moving up we're moving up but It's been a lot to change but you will always get what you want.

Let's make this happen, girl you gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for you.
And you know that it will.
High angle shot of couple hugging with stop motion heart being drawn around them
Let's get this started girl, we're moving up we're moving up but It’s been a lot to change but you will always get what you want

Location Ideas

These are a few pictures we took as locations for some of our shots. We chose the general location of our local village in particular as it's easily accessible to us and fits in well with our production idea. When taking these pictures we had trouble with lighting and the overall mise-en-scene as it was raining and the ground was wet, but we plan to film on a brighter, more cheerful day to reflect our idea for the music video. The link directs you to a photostream on flickr with comments i made of the location selections.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57920293@N02/?saved=1

First Draft of Storyboards

Draft of Storyboard Ideas

We have written a plan for every shot of our music video and what we plan to use in each shot.

Shot 1: Close up shot of guy playing guitar during very first notes of intro with artist name, title of the song, record label and directors and producers.
Shot 2: Close up shot of drums as they enter the track.
Shot 3:Shot of main character's face as he changes reaction, cut using stop motion in time to the beat.
Shot 4: Idea of point of view shot of from the girl as she walks to location.
Shot 5: over the shoulder shot from behind guy as he walks behind her "something good can work" written on the floor in the gap between them.
Shot 6: Medium shot of girl with friends at a park location.
Shot 7: Idea of two guys driving up to her
Shot 8: Her view of the guy, possible over the shoulder shot?
Shot 9: He thinks she's looking at him - reaction shot
Shot 10: She gets in the other guy's car
Shot 11: Close-up of his sad reaction
Shot 12: Medium shot of couple in car, see guy reversing away from the rear window.
Roughly 40 second intro goes into verse
Shot 13: Medium shot from behind couple in car showing them talking and happy
Shot 14: Medium shot from behind main character in bathroom, lip syncing the lyrics, checking armpits.
Shot 15: extreme close up of flowers. zooms out to see his face as he's holding them.
Shot 16: Girl comes up receives flowers and smiles
Shot 17: Side angle medium shot of guy walking looking happy, then sees flowers in bin
Shot 18: Close up shot of him looking sad, sad clown comes up next to him through a panning shot, gives guy a balloon with a heart on it as panning shot continues to follow balloon as he lets it go.
Shot 19: Webcam view of guy singing lyrics ( voyeurism)
Shot 20; Split screen of her rejecting him on the computer and him reacting
More performance shots?
Shot 21; Stop motion of him in 4 different shots in 4 outfits, then fast cut montage of all 4.
Shot 22: medium close-up, she sees his outfit and likes it.
Shot 23: he has a cake in his hand with lyrics on it, camera follows cake as he walks
Shot 24; Shot of her accepting cake and then pushing in his face, stop motion as cake gets closer to his face and his reaction changes.
Shot 25: close up of guy sad with cake on his face, pan out and clown comforts him
Shot 26: medium shot of guy walking then noticing space hopper sign in shop window
Shot 27: wide shot, he brings her space hopper and she's happy
Shot 28: close up of his face as he winks
Shot 29: shot of girl in trolley as guy spins her and camera follows.
General sense of movie happiness - using intertextuality of black and white shots
Shot 30: establishing shot of couple in the tree and nice objects in tree
More general shots of girl and guy happy together
Shot 31: Overhead shot of them hugging as stop motion heart gets drawn around them.
Shot 32: Medium shot of them looking at each other - zoom out to see them on space hoppers.
Shot 33: Shot from behind as they bounce off into sunset and fades to black.

Target Audience Research

To create a successful music video for my artist i need to know who im aiming the music video at, so they will enjoy what they see thus wanting to watch it more. Two Door Cinema Club falls under the indie genre for music, meaning the target audience for this genre will be mainly teenagers and young adults, both male and female. This would also mean most people of the target audience would be in education of some sort or just entering employment, and falling under this audience myself i feel i have a good idea as to what others in the target audience would want from a music video.
Being a young target audience, i feel they would look for something fun and exciting in a music video, with an element of humour so not to take things too seriously within the content. I also believe, as this target audience is on the brink of adulthood, they would enjoy watching a music video with things like wild parties and crazy romances, things that intertwine adulthood with teenage life.

Why We Chose Our Artist

Two Door cinema Club performing at Reading Festival 2010

For our music video production task we chose Two Door Cinema Club as our artist. After scouring the "unsigned artists" pages on websites like Myspace, we didn't find anything that appealed to us. We then thought back to our times at music festivals we'd attended previously in the year and admired the vibe the artists created and the excitement it generated within the audience. One of our favourite bands from Reading Festival 2010 were Two Door Cinema Club; the eclectic atmosphere they created really got the crowd going and we thought we could mimick their enthusiasm into a music video of our own creation.

Song Use Confirmation

Ive print screened the e-mail we sent the management of Two Door Cinema club asking permission for the use of the song "something good can work" for our music video and the reply they sent us back.
(click on the images to enlarge)

The Online Revolution

Here i will be comparing the ways in which two different artists have promoted their material. Lily Allen has used the interent to promote her music and image and here's how:

Lily Allen

Lily's myspace page is what got her recognised and propelled into stardom. She made this page on the popular social networking site near the end of 2005, and by 2006 she was signed to Regal Recordings. The style and design of the page was a reflection of Lily's personality and music which attracted the likes of teens and members of record companies looking for the next "big thing". Lily set the standard for many other artists on myspace, all vying for attention from an audience and record labels, pulling out all the stops to set themselves apart. Allen benefited a great deal from the online revolution, generating a loyal fanbase who witnessed her rise to fame and stayed with her through critical judgement. Lily capitalized on the growing concept of internet popularity and because of it has become am award winning musician, talk show host and actress.

Snow Patrol

Snow Patrol are a band with a very different success story. Their fame was achieved through tireless gigs and self promotion, in other words traditional methods of promotion, opposed to the online revolution as used by Lily Allen. Snow Patrol formed in 1994 and weren't successfully signed to a record label until 2002 with Polydor Records. Before they were signed, the band spent years doing gigs at unis, shoddy clubs and even nominated themselves for a mercury prize (unsuccessfully). After many failed attempts, Snow Patrol finally rose to fame in 2003 with their major label debut "final straw", making all their hard work worth while.

The introduction of the online revolution gives audiences and artists a wider range of opportunities. It's made the way audiences consume music more interactive, therefore engaging a wider audience within todays youth. This broader audience spectrum means a larger revenue for the artists to gain resulting in more moeny to spend on promotion. It's also a much more quicker solution to promotion than self-promotion, and allows artists to be more creative with their image and how they're portrayed.

Goodwin's Theory

Applying Goodwin's theory to my music video production means including the following:

1. Demonstrating genre characteristics, e.g. a dance performance for girl/boy band.
2. A relationship between lyrics and visuals e.g. illustrating a relationship or contradicting it.
3. A relationship between music and visuals e.g. illustrating a relationship or contradicting it.
4. A visual style, e.g. close ups of the artist ans star image motifs which occur throughout the artists work.
5. A frequent reference to the notion of looking e.g. the voyeuristic treatment of a woman in an R'n'B video.
6. An intertextual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc).

Current CD Cover Design Analysis

This is a CD cover design by the band "Goldfrapp". As you can see they've based the concept for the design solely on the artists image. The lead singer features heavily on the cover and shows that she is an important selling point for the band. The house colours are simple and natural, with white featuring throughout, which connotes purity and innocence. The two different fonts keep the cover interesting without confusion, inkeeping with the overall image theyre trying to convey. The costume gives the impression of quirkiness and individuality, making it that bit more interesting to look at for the audience - something we aim to do with our CD cover. The out of focus background pulls our attention to the artist more and highlights her importance again within the band.

This cover design is from the artist "Coldplay" for their album "viva la vida" which translates to "live the life". The image shown in the background is a painting of the fench revolution, the image connotes viloence and anger but also victory, probably the idea the band wants to convey for some of their songs. When i first saw the image, i thought the font used for the title was supposed to look like paint, but relating to the image it resembles a splattering of blood. Using white against the background makes the font more modern, standing out against the archaic image. This stands out to me against other more generic CD covers, through the use of the image and and the way the text is displayed and also how subtle bright colours, like red and blue, stand out against the duller colours of brown and green.

Branding

These are a few pictures of the solo artist Katy Perry's merchandise. They include posters, badges, stickers and t-shirts; just a few of the wide variety of merchandise available to her fans. This merchandise is available on Perry's website; www.katyperry.com and the purpose of them is to promote her as an artist and also her new singles and albums. For example the stickers on the bottom left corner promote Katy's song "Hot'n'Cold" and also her album named "One of the Boys". The design of the merchandise also reflects Katy's image of a quirky, unconventional, colourful girl, a girl that others look up to and idolise. I believe they are successful merchandise as they fit in with the image of Katy that's being portrayed to the audience and make the audience want to be a part of her crazy fantasy world.

Coursework Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following options:

1. A website homepage for the band
2. A cover for it's release as part of a digipack (CD/DVD package)
3. A magazine advertisement for the digipack (CD/DVD package)