Another idea we had was to have a heavy inclusion of watercolours and art work in our DigiPack; a common Indie convention. We experimented with this in our preliminary Digipack and personally, I felt it went really well as we had half photo of myself and then a watercolour drawing of the other side of my face. The run off, of the water colours conforms to indie conventions perfectly, as its a unique and independant idea which the indie genre is all about. Friday, 12 October 2012
DigiPack Information and Ideas
Alongside our music video, my group and I have to produce a DigiPack for our artist's CD. In order to do this we have had multiple planning sessions on what we could do to create the most effective DigiPack as well as conforming to the Indie genre's conventions. To do this, we will need to do a photoshoot of the artist. An idea we had was to do the photoshoot on the same day as when we film our music video; as this will correlate and reference our music video as well as keep continuity in a set theme throughout our DigiPack. Such as, if we film our music video in the forest then also do our photoshoot in our DigiPack, then there will be a noticeable fimiliarality within and throughout our DigiPack.
Another idea we had was to have a heavy inclusion of watercolours and art work in our DigiPack; a common Indie convention. We experimented with this in our preliminary Digipack and personally, I felt it went really well as we had half photo of myself and then a watercolour drawing of the other side of my face. The run off, of the water colours conforms to indie conventions perfectly, as its a unique and independant idea which the indie genre is all about.
Another idea we had was to have a heavy inclusion of watercolours and art work in our DigiPack; a common Indie convention. We experimented with this in our preliminary Digipack and personally, I felt it went really well as we had half photo of myself and then a watercolour drawing of the other side of my face. The run off, of the water colours conforms to indie conventions perfectly, as its a unique and independant idea which the indie genre is all about. 
Location Research
To avoide having an abscene of filming locations, I decided to research possible locations which suit my group and my creiteria. We've all decided that a forest scene would look great, especially as our songs lyrics can be interpretated in a way which could represent outdoor aspects; such as "lamplight" which could symbolise sunlight. A few great locations for this would be Alas Wood in Stansted Mountfitchet as it has various public walkways and more hidden ones leading up and into the forest which would offer some great shots.
Cambridge City is another lcoation which I feel would offer a great location for our music video. Being a stark contrast to a froest scene, the urban surroundings which Cambridge City offers are second to none. Cambridge, being a student city but with an array of historic buildings including the University of Cambridge itself, would offer some fantastic angles and unique locations which only Cambridge could offer. Analysis of Fun's DigiPack
In order to improve my knowledge of a professional looking DigiPack, I looked at the band Fun's first album and annotated the entire DigiPack which included: the CD, Front Cover and back cover.
Thursday, 11 October 2012
Analysis Of DigiPacks 2
Artist: Noah and The Whale
Album: The First Days of Spring
Location: Outdoors, in the country side, they're stood in long grass on what appears to be a windy day. The location also relates to the title, as it says the first days of spring and the photo looks quite sunny and as if it was taken in spring.
Colours: The colours are actually quite neutral and typical of being in the countryside, as the photo has blues and greens as main colours in it.
Font: Use of bold font for the band name really brings the audiences focus onto the actual band and you have to look into the album title more as the font is smaller and lowercase.
Editing: The photo itself has been edited to give a vintage feel to it through the use of the saturation.
Symbolism: As the three in the background are looking up towards, this could symbolise worshiping.
Composition: The camera is slightly looking up to them and they're not in the centre of the image as they are placed nearer the bottom, with only the top halves of their bodies showing.
Lighting: The use of lighting is very natural and fresh looking, as it is soft lighting.
Props: The only props used in the cover are an old camera which fits in to the convention of the indie genre as it is vintage and old looking.
Mise en Scene: They are dressed in simple, casual clothing, in shirts and denim
Position: The lead/front man is stood further forwards and is more in focus than the other three in the band which could mean he is the singer, although he isn't the centre of attention as he is positioned to the right.
Location: Outdoors, in the country side, they're stood in long grass on what appears to be a windy day. The location also relates to the title, as it says the first days of spring and the photo looks quite sunny and as if it was taken in spring.
Colours: The colours are actually quite neutral and typical of being in the countryside, as the photo has blues and greens as main colours in it.
Font: Use of bold font for the band name really brings the audiences focus onto the actual band and you have to look into the album title more as the font is smaller and lowercase.
Editing: The photo itself has been edited to give a vintage feel to it through the use of the saturation.
Symbolism: As the three in the background are looking up towards, this could symbolise worshiping.
Composition: The camera is slightly looking up to them and they're not in the centre of the image as they are placed nearer the bottom, with only the top halves of their bodies showing.
Lighting: The use of lighting is very natural and fresh looking, as it is soft lighting.
Props: The only props used in the cover are an old camera which fits in to the convention of the indie genre as it is vintage and old looking.
Mise en Scene: They are dressed in simple, casual clothing, in shirts and denim
Position: The lead/front man is stood further forwards and is more in focus than the other three in the band which could mean he is the singer, although he isn't the centre of attention as he is positioned to the right.
Artist: Two Door Cinema Club
Album: Tourist History
Subject: Floor tiles and a cat, the cat is actually quite an indie thing because of the representation behind it and in a lot of tumblr or even twitter bios from people that listen to the genre of music the link 'i love cats' tends to be present.
Location: Is somewhat unknown, you can only assume that it would be in a location that commonly has tiles so probably at home in a kitchen or bathroom focusing on the floor. This provokes some thought from the audience to where it actually has been taken and the meaning for it which is typical of indie artists as they like a good hidden meaning.
Colours: Despite having quite a few colours within it the overall concept is a minimal colour scheme as at first glance it could appear to be in black and white, only the markings on the cat’s fur and on the tiles and the cat’s eyes really look colourful.
Font: The font used is big, bold and white and of course it is in capital letters, a trait most, if not all indie artists tend to do on their album covers. The band’s name is also written in their signature, logo looking font which is used on all of their future/past albums. The album name itself is hard to recognise but is still written in the same way as the band’s name which makes it effective, just a lot smaller.
Editing: The top of the image is very dark and looks as if they have used a half vignette effect, it has definitely been contrasted a lot and the colour has been altered to give off a vintage vibe as the whole album itself looks very retro.
Symbolism: There aren’t any obvious concepts or symbols within the album cover, the image doesn't obviously link with the album name or band.
Composition: All the text on the image is centred.
Lighting: The lighting is very dark in the image; however it has probably been editing to look like this.
Subject: Floor tiles and a cat, the cat is actually quite an indie thing because of the representation behind it and in a lot of tumblr or even twitter bios from people that listen to the genre of music the link 'i love cats' tends to be present.
Location: Is somewhat unknown, you can only assume that it would be in a location that commonly has tiles so probably at home in a kitchen or bathroom focusing on the floor. This provokes some thought from the audience to where it actually has been taken and the meaning for it which is typical of indie artists as they like a good hidden meaning.
Colours: Despite having quite a few colours within it the overall concept is a minimal colour scheme as at first glance it could appear to be in black and white, only the markings on the cat’s fur and on the tiles and the cat’s eyes really look colourful.
Font: The font used is big, bold and white and of course it is in capital letters, a trait most, if not all indie artists tend to do on their album covers. The band’s name is also written in their signature, logo looking font which is used on all of their future/past albums. The album name itself is hard to recognise but is still written in the same way as the band’s name which makes it effective, just a lot smaller.
Editing: The top of the image is very dark and looks as if they have used a half vignette effect, it has definitely been contrasted a lot and the colour has been altered to give off a vintage vibe as the whole album itself looks very retro.
Symbolism: There aren’t any obvious concepts or symbols within the album cover, the image doesn't obviously link with the album name or band.
Composition: All the text on the image is centred.
Lighting: The lighting is very dark in the image; however it has probably been editing to look like this.
Artist: The XX
Album: Coexist
Subject: The letter/symbol 'x' filled with a picture of what appears to be petrol/oil residue on the ground.
Colours: White background, rainbow colours used within the 'x'.
Font: Not a specific font, but still big and bold which is common of this genre.
Editing: An image has been cut into the shape of an 'x' this has made the outcome to be really unique.
Symbolism: The X simply is part of the band’s name, but it could be taken to mean very different things for example uses of it in everyday life is as a letter, the plus symbol and the times symbol.
Composition: Centred subject which makes it more pleasing to the eye.
Subject: The letter/symbol 'x' filled with a picture of what appears to be petrol/oil residue on the ground.
Colours: White background, rainbow colours used within the 'x'.
Font: Not a specific font, but still big and bold which is common of this genre.
Editing: An image has been cut into the shape of an 'x' this has made the outcome to be really unique.
Symbolism: The X simply is part of the band’s name, but it could be taken to mean very different things for example uses of it in everyday life is as a letter, the plus symbol and the times symbol.
Composition: Centred subject which makes it more pleasing to the eye.
Artist: Hedgehog
Album: Blue Day Dreaming
Subject: 3 people, the middle woman is looking up to the sky which could relate to the word day dreaming from the name of the album as she is not focused on a clear object it looks like she is day dreaming. The other two people in the background are both looking in different directions, one down and one straight forward although you can only tell from where their heads are as you can't see the eyes.
Colours: There are minimal colours with green and orange added onto the artwork as well as blue which relates back to the album title again, 'blue day dreaming' which is also in blue. Blue as a colour comes across as cold, and sad so maybe it means that the songs on their album have sad hidden meanings.
Fonts: Again, they have used big, bold and capital fonts for the band’s name and used a mixture of upper and lower case for the album name.
Composition: The cover is split bottom half for the artwork image and upper half for the text. This also makes it look that the centred woman is looking up at the lyrics which could show that she is the lead, probably the singer. It's usual for the front/lead artist in the band to be centred and further forward than anyone or anything else on an album in the indie genre so they've followed certain conventions as they have also used artwork which creates a very unique and individual cover.
Props: Sunglasses hide the eyes of what we can see of the faces of the two people in the background.
Album: Blue Day DreamingSubject: 3 people, the middle woman is looking up to the sky which could relate to the word day dreaming from the name of the album as she is not focused on a clear object it looks like she is day dreaming. The other two people in the background are both looking in different directions, one down and one straight forward although you can only tell from where their heads are as you can't see the eyes.
Colours: There are minimal colours with green and orange added onto the artwork as well as blue which relates back to the album title again, 'blue day dreaming' which is also in blue. Blue as a colour comes across as cold, and sad so maybe it means that the songs on their album have sad hidden meanings.
Fonts: Again, they have used big, bold and capital fonts for the band’s name and used a mixture of upper and lower case for the album name.
Composition: The cover is split bottom half for the artwork image and upper half for the text. This also makes it look that the centred woman is looking up at the lyrics which could show that she is the lead, probably the singer. It's usual for the front/lead artist in the band to be centred and further forward than anyone or anything else on an album in the indie genre so they've followed certain conventions as they have also used artwork which creates a very unique and individual cover.
Props: Sunglasses hide the eyes of what we can see of the faces of the two people in the background.
Analysis Of Digipacks 1
Album: Further Seems Forever
Colours: dull grey back ground highlights orange and yellows in the centre of the album cover. Disjunctive and incomplete image of the face implies an emotional or personal style of song. The image is also looks as if it has been painted on; artist themselves may have painted it which gives it more of a personal touch.
Font: Capitalised, times new roman font implies a statement from the artist. Also, as the font is an old style of orthography, it gives the impression that the artist has been around for a long time.
Editing: The saturation has been altered to emphasise a contrast between both the dull grey and the bright orange and yellow colours.
Symbolism: The female face which has been painted could either be the artist herself 'Penny Black' or some other person which the album could have been dedicated to.
Connotations: Unfinished painting implies a piece of work half done, the album itself could be one half of another album possible to follow it from the artist.
Composition: Side on painting of the female, audience have an impersonal relationship with the artist. Lighting: bright colours imply a positive style of music which the artist has produced
Album: The Five Ghosts
Colours: Black and white effect implies a old style to the band; either the band themselves have been around for a long time or it links to the idea of 'ghosts' which is the album name. However the red font colour for the bands name 'Stars' highlights the bands name despite it being positioned in the top left hand corner.
Font: the times new roman font echoes the ghostly old feel to the album cover as well as further implying that the band have been around for a long time.
Editing: The overlay of the of the 4 children gives the impression that they are indeed ghosts which correlates to the album name. However the faded overlay makes the audience search for the ghosts and shows an obvious and unsubtle hidden meaning.
Symbolism: symbolises being haunted and being watched. Gives a horror or chilling aspect to the band. It could also symbolise a tragedy taken place, either a real life one which the band know about or a fiction one.
Lighting: there is a heavy presence of low key lighting within the picture with accentuate the ghosts in the album cover; it also links to the Victorian imagery in the album cover. The low key lighting also gives a dull and washed out impression to the album cover.
Props: The bouquet of flowers which the young girl is holding shows her innocence and her youth. Making her seem young and pure which evokes symapthy for her as well as the other ghosts in the image.
Artist: Noah & The WhaleAlbum: Last Night On Earth
Colours: As the band are a vintage indie genre band; the washed out, dull colours are a typical vintage type of colours giving them a, somewhat, old fashioned personality.
Font: The capitalised font gives a tabloid/ broadsheet headline feel which implies that the band are wanted to be known and in the 'headlines', a subversion of the indie genre. The italics of the album name 'Last Night On Earth' implies an artistic style to the band; which is a convention of the indie genre. The then times new roman font under the bands name, implies that they have been around for a while despite the band themselves still being relatively young.
Editing: The overlay between the picture of the band and the night time city scene, implies that the band are urban based and originate from a urban place. The camera flare in the top right hand corner of the image is another typical feature of the indie genre, therefore further establishes them as a indie band.
Costumes: The band are all in smart attire, shirts and/ or a suit, implying a certain formality of the band as well as a possible target audience. However, the undone top buttons and rolled up sleeves shows that they are, somewhat, subverting from the smart and sophisticated style. Also, as the overlay image shows, it is a night scene and therefore the picture of the band is at the end of the day therefore they have become less smart.
Sight lines: Each member of the band is not looking directly at the camera which has taken the picture therefore implying a impersonal relationship with their audience; making them harder to engage as a band and establish a relationship with them.
Album: Piramida
Colour: There is a monochrome colour scheme throughout the album cover, which despite being a dull looking colour it also implies simplicity; which the band want to possible want to be known for. Symbolism: The random, obscure and abstract background of the swirling and jagged images within the background of the circle allows for an open interpretation. The artistic style to the album cover is a common feature of the indie genre, therefore the band are clearly conforming to this genre. The 3 dimensional triangle in the centre of the circle further emphasises the abstractness of the album cover and further allows for open interpretation.
Font: the capitalised band name is a common feature of the indie genre however as it isn't bold and enlarged it subverts the convention to some extent as well as further accentuating the simplicity style which the band seem to be going for. The lower case, slight italic font of the album name is off centre and barely draws any attention to it and therefore the audience focus is directed to the main subject of the album cover; the abstract drawing.
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
Voice Recording Of Our Planning Discussion
We recorded ourselves discussing the main topics which will feature in our music video. These include: performance, main ideas, cast, shot types, location and props.
Monday, 8 October 2012
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