Digipak examples

Here are some digipak examples from the indie genre:

Creative Decision Making

After discussing the importance of keeping a track of our creative decisions, I've decided (very creatively) to make a new tag and regularly list our new decisions.

Our most prevalent choices are key to our music video and are:

• A strong feminist lead/message 
• An upbeat, military theme
• Nature and 'green' themes (one of our motifs)

Digipak template

Digipak's can have multiple panels and sides, however when creating my digipak I plan to only have 6 sides. This is a perfect template for the digipak I will be creating!

Digipak Analysis

Here's Bon Iver's digipak for his self entitled album Bon Iver. As an artist, Bon Iver falls into the indie folk genre and so the music is very soft and melodic with very vintage elements to it. This can clearly be seen through the digipak, such as the traditional font that ties in with the very traditional folk elements of the artist. Even the front cover is of a traditional country landscape, which again links to the folk aspects of Bon Iver.

Landscape Shots

Landscape shots are a crucial element in our music video, so we're planning on using a vast variety of them. Our music video wants to portray a mixture of urban life and greenery, so a mixture such as these shots would be ideal for us to capture.

The middle shot inspires us the most, as it mixes the two most important elements of greenery and high rise buildings, so we'll definitely be finding out where this place is and shooting there! The downside of getting shots such as these are how busy they will be however, so we'll aim to be getting the shots early in the morning, hopefully getting a skyline such as the lower image.

Filming: Pt. 2

After having shot the outside running parts, we decided to momentarily move on and start shooting the inside gym scenes. We decided to set up our own studio in the corner of the school gym with a few lights and a plain backdrop, as we wanted to create a professional studio look. We used a variety of different gym equipment so the inside shots would look realistic, which we think we did successfully through the plain backdrop and expensive gym equipment (thanks PE department).
I'm not too enthralled by the shot's we've managed to get, so I think we'll be re-filming a few in the future, but for now we're just going to sift through what we've got and make them work.

As you can see, Janadhi looks completely exhausted by all of her extensive working out!

Digi-Pak

Today in class we started to look into Digi-Paks for our artist. We discussed the importance of them and how they benefit the artist, along with how they'd suit our own personal artist. Here's what we found out:

What is a Digi-Pak?

• A Digi-Pak is an album cover alternative to jewel case packaging.

What do we use them?

• Digi-Paks are an important asset when advertising and marketing an artist to sell a product. 

Benefits of using a Digi-Pak vs. Jewel case:

• More ecologically friendly.
• More compact, lighter and often sleeker.
• Less likely to break, almost 'shatterproof'.
• Larger space for graphics.
• Versatile, can accommodate a booklet.
• More panels available, can have 4, 6, 8+ panels.
• Looks more premium in comparison to regular jewel case.

Paper Storyboard

Here's the original storyboard that we first completed on paper! The images that we created weren't very good, but the description is a lot more detailed than our animatic storyboard so we will be using both of them (The animatic outside, the paper inside).

 

Animatic Storyboard

Here is our long awaited animatic storyboard. It took ages to complete but it's finally done and we're really happy with it! We think it's a lot more easier to understand than our paper storyboard and a lot more portable with all of us having mobile phones, so this is the story board we intend to use from now on while we're out filming.

Filming: Pt. 1

Last Friday my group and I decided to start filming our music video and travelled down to Kelly's area; Lea Valley. We spent around 4 hours travelling to the location, filming and generally running around, but it was all worth it as we got some pretty good shots! We've realised that filming a music video is going to be a lot more extensive and longer that filming last years 3 minute film but so far it's been pretty fun. Here's what we got up to!

Audience Feedback (again)

We're having to collect more audience feedback (questionnaire) so as to determine our audience (who we're targeting our music video at). My group and I have a pretty solid idea of who we're targeting, but holding audience feedback will help back up what we've already decided. By having more audience feedback, we're also observing a wider audience and potentially discovering more people to feed our product to. We're also hoping to find a pattern correlating between certain groups of people, which will hopefully be displayed through the questions we will ask.

The questions we're planning to ask are:

1. Age
2. Occupation
3. Gender
4. Ethnicity
5. Hobbies
6. Region

During class we researched different styles of questioning and the difference between open and closed questioning. Open questions are questions that lead to longer answers (What do you think about the weather today?), whereas closed questions generally create short yes or no answers (The weather's nice today, isn't it?). 

I'm not sure whether to conduct the questionnaire online or personally, but we'll figure it out soon.

Storyboarding

So storyboarding is taking a lot longer than we originally thought it would due to us constantly changing our mind about certain shots, along with the sheer amount of shots we actually want to create. Saying that, we're almost done now though, so we're organising our animatic and then storyboarding will be all done (Finally)!!

Exploring further ideas

Alongside the inspirational and feminist messages we're trying to portray in our music video, we're also trying to create a narrative to go with it. We're sticking with the army theme, but we're now also considering going down the path of exploring neglectful parents as well. The first thing I thought of that relates to what we're trying to portray is the British film Fish Tank, a film about a troubled 15 year old girl with a neglectful mother and no father. The film is also set around a run-down flat based in London, which is a set that we're also hoping to use for our video.

This Girl Can!

The National Lottery recently released a feel-good, woman empowering advert entitled This Girl Can, and it's everything that we want to portray in our music video. We really like how upbeat and inspirational the advert is, along with what it stands for. We plan on including a heavy sport theme throughout our own video, along with the message 'if you want something, go get it'. Here's the advert:

Band Name: Vlog

A little vlog on our process:

Tracklist

The track list has been conquered! All of the Gaelic words we were considering for our actual band name have come in very handy, as we've managed to reuse some of them for the tracks. Here they are:

• We Fall (the song we're using)
• Telling the Tale
• Cara
• Where We Come Home
• Set in Stone
• A Few Sweet Nothings
• Victory 
• Core
• Unseen
• Our Island

+ Bonus track list

• 1634
• At Our Best
• Whiskey

All of the tracks have a little Irish meaning which we think is really cute, and makes the entire project all tie together.

Album Artwork

Now that we've decided on names for our band and album and have put together a track list, I've decided to look at album artworks that I'll be pulling inspiration from. So far, I really like these select few, even though I won't be able to pull ideas from all of them.

The xx - Coexist

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Rae Morris - Unguarded

Phoria - Display

Band Name and Album Title!!!

We've got it!! (We think)

Ceol (pronounced Ky-ol) is a Gaelic word meaning 'the rhythm within us'. So naturally we've decided to steal both the word and the meaning for our band name and album title. We decided on Gaelic due to Kodaline being an Irish band and because its an obscure enough language to not be cliche, yet still very effective.

Band Name Brainstorm

In order to brainstorm some band name ideas, we've taken some inspiration from our favourite bands. Looking into the indie genre, the names that we already like are:

• MØ 
• The 1975
• The Neighbourhood
• Amber Run
• Bon Iver (French translation of 'Good Winter')

We're currently really liking the idea of having a band name in a foreign language that translates into something pretty in English, or a foreign word with a lot of meaning. 

We've looked a few words in more obscure languages, such as Norwegian, Swedish and Gaelic.

• Kodein (Swedish for 'Codine')
• Bra Vinter (Swedish for 'Good Winter')
• Fjord (Norwegian nature word)

MØ - Walk This Way

I recently watched the music video Walk This Way by artist MØ and instantly thought of our music video. Even though my group aren't aiming to create a lip syncing/performance video, this video still links to our own through the active sports elements that runs through it. I really like how upbeat both the song a the video is, much like our own.

Permission Email

Due to copyright issues each group has been asked to compose an email addressed to the producers of our song choice, asking permission to use their music. Mr. Jacknife Lee was quite hard to track down, but we managed to find his email and ask his consent.

Treatment Pitch (The ACTUAL Pitch)

So here's the filming of our pitch, even though it's really dark and also really quiet. Hopefully you'll get the gist of what we're saying, but if not then the Prezi for the pitch has already been uploaded.

Pitch Vlog: Audience Feedback

So, the pitch happened and we got some feedback. This was the outcome:

Treatment Pitch

So today's the day that we present our pitch to the rest of our media group! We've spent quite a while putting our prezi presentation together and sorting out each of our separate parts, so we hope it goes well! Here's the presentation:

Kodaline: Background info

Kodaline are an Irish band, originally known as 21 Demands, and formed with their new name in 2011. As 21 Demands, the band were unsigned but are now signed RCA records (owned by Sony Music Entertainment). They fall under the genres 'Indie Rock' and 'Indie Pop', making them perfect choice for our group. The song 'Ready' is also one of the 'less known' songs on their album 'Coming Up For Air', which is also a good factor as less people will be familiarised by the actual music video.

Kodaline - Ready

So, we've decided as a group that we want an upbeat, inspirational song to use for our music video and we think that Kodaline's 'Ready' would be perfect for this. Here are the lyrics:

KODALINE - READY



You tell me that you're ready but you just don't know
My eyes are getting heavy and it's starting to show
I'd never seen it coming, never seen a thing
Maybe I'll get through whatever's coming to me

'Cause I've been so unlucky, I don't know what to say
I'm running out of money, I've been wasting away
I'd never seen it coming, never seen a thing
Maybe I'll get through whatever's coming to me

If we fall, we fall down
If we fall, we fall down
If we fall down hard
I'll be ready to crawl

I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it all

Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you
It's easy to get nervous, I've been feeling it too
Yeah it's kinda crazy, yeah it's kinda dumb
But never let the pressure overpower the fun

'Cause yeah I'm sure your parents probably said it to you
Follow what you love and you will love what you do
Never let the pressure tell you that you're not
Capable of being anything that you want

If we fall, we fall down
If we fall, we fall down
If we fall down hard
I'll be ready to crawl

I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it all
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it all

I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it all
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it all

Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you
It's easy to get nervous, I've been feeling it too
Yeah it's kinda crazy, yeah it's kinda dumb
But never let the pressure overpower the fun

I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it
I'm ready, I'm ready for it all

Final song ideas!

So, we've had a long and hard think about which song we want to use for our final music video, and we've managed to narrow the choice down to these three!

Kodaline - Ready

Mikky Ekko - Smile

Amber Run - I Found

Indie Genre - The xx

The xx are an English band that fall under the genres 'Indie Rock', 'Indie Pop' and 'Indie Electronic'. They formed in 2005 and have been signed to both XL and Young Turks. The xx would be a great band for us to use due to the mixture of both male and female vocalists, however their music is very mellow and soft in comparison to the more upbeat tracts from the indie genre. Here is the music video to 'Chained':



I really like how the music video is a lot more of an abstract narrative instead of a performance video, unlike quite a few indie music videos. Even though the music is a lot slower than most indie songs, the slow motion action shots managed to fit the video perfectly as well, which I also found very interesting and have taken a lot of inspiration from.

Indie Genre - Passion Pit

Passion Pit are an indie pop, indietronica band that have been signed to Frenchkiss and Columbia. Although they're a lot more electronic than we originally wanted, Passion Pit would be a good band for us to use as their songs are upbeat and would be really great to make a music video for. We're also looking more towards male artists now as we've found that we prefer the music a lot more (and therefore wouldn't mind listening to the same song on repeat for a year... as much).

I personally wouldn't want our music to embody this one as I'm not a massive fan of the 'Star Image' spinning in the video, but I do like how abstract the video is towards the end. The moving lights add a really psychedelic element and adds well to the more 'simple' black background.

"Find an example of a music video that is filmed in black and white"

Today in lesson we were asked to pick a question and answer it on our blogs. I picked to find a black and white music video, so here is my favourite one: PVRIS - My House.
The black and white element is this video is really important as it adds to the unnatural and ghostly element that the video is centred around. Due to this, it links really well with the lyrics and the imagery used, creating an even more mysterious feel to the video. Here it is!

Indie Genre - Lana Del Rey

Here is Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness. Lana (Lizzie Grant) has been signed to a variety of labels, including Stranger, Polydor and Interscope and is established as an indie pop, sadcore and psychedelic rock artist. Lana Del Rey would be perfect for our artist because the group all loving her music and her being female, however due to her being so well known and mainstream we wouldn't use her.
The video Summertime Sadness is a narrative video with abstract elements, which is something I really like. I also like the vintage feel to the shots and how they look like burnt film, as I think this makes the video quite unusual and interesting. The variety of shots and the transitions between them also makes the video interesting, as they all link together to create a strong narrative.

Prelim task

So this is our preliminary task of Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk! 33 seconds of pure entertainment. (Just kidding). We came across a few hiccups in our prelim which has helped us decide what we will and won't include in our actual music video, such as the fast paced editing required at 0.13. We really struggled to find a way to create the shot, and ended up spending around 3 hours figuring it out. In the end, we decided to open a new project on iMovie and played around with splitting clips and mixing them up which really helped with creating the final product. We also struggled with lip-syncing in and having everything edited to the beat, but we managed to overcome a lot of those struggles by slowing down a few clips. We wish we had taken a few more shots though, as it would have made the editing process a lot less daunting and stressful.



Further explanation of what went well and what didn't go so well:

Góða Tungl

Although not part of the indie genre, Samaris' Góða Tungl is one of my all time favourite music videos. I really like the sequence of shots at the beginning and end of the video, especially as they're all edited to the beat. I also really like the 'oddness' of the video, such as the match of the beach with a bed and the dance continuing through the mix of shots. This something I'd like to inspire my groups final music video, although our lack of Icelandic beaches and hospital beds could make that a little difficult. We could potentially use a song like this for our final video as the song falls under electro, however a band like Samaris would not be ideal as (unfortunately) none of us can speak Icelandic very well.

Indie Genre - Bon Iver

Bon Iver is an indie rock band that was created in 2007 by Justin Vernon. The band has released two albums: 'For Emma, Forever Ago' and 'Bon Iver, Bon Iver', along with a B-Side entitled 'Blood Bank'. Justin Vernon released first album 'For Emma, Forever Ago' independantly, however is now signed with label Jagjaguwar. The band has been nominated for 4 Grammy awards (won 2), nominated for 2 Brits and also 1 MTV Music Award.

The music video Calgary by Bon Iver doesn't conform to common indie characteristics, which usually includes a performance of some type. Instead, the video is quite abstract while still containing somewhat of a narrative, which is something that I like in music videos as I think it makes the video really odd and captivating. Even though I like the how strange the video is, I don't really like how slow it is and is something I hope to avoid when creating our music video.

Planning and filming the prelim task!

After a lot of discussion, my group has decided to go with Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk for our preliminary task. We really like how upbeat the song is and hopefully the strong beat will make it easy for us to edit along to it. The video also has a variety of shots and a lot of content, so we hope that replicating this video will challenge us and help us result in a better music video when it's time for the actual final coursework product! Although pop isn't the genre that we want to use for our final music video, we chose the song because it was easily recognisable and the video was more technically challenging than the videos that we looked at from the indie genre. We've had a really fun time filming half of the video so far and it hasn't appeared to be as daunting as we thought it would be, so hopefully the rest of the filming will go smoothly as well!


Here is the original Uptown Funk video:

Genre Planning

As a group we've decided that the genre we're most likely to pursue for our final music video is the indie genre. The group all enjoy indie music, so we'd all be satisfied with the song chosen and hopefully there'll be no squabbles! Along with this, we feel that indie would be best for us as the lyrics are usually quite slow and therefore we'd be able to lip-sync them a lot easier. Also, indie music usually holds a strong beat which will allow us to edit to the beat easily and hopefully produce a good music video!
In addition to the indie genre, we've had a look into electro-rock/electro-pop as these genres also have good beats that we can edit well to. These genres also don't produce a lot of videos and when they do they're pretty abstract, so that will stop us from trying to subconsciously replicate anything and help us to produce a more original music video.
For now, we aim to focus more on the indie genre, so I've collected a few music video conventions common to the genre indie:

• Often uses a narrative
• Occasionally includes diegetic sounds (i.e. birds chirping at the beginning of the video)
• Shots tend to include close up, establishing, long, wide and are usually cut up with fast paced editing or are slow (depending on the beat)
• Emotion is conveyed
• Black and white is commonly used

Abstract Video

Samaris - Tibrá





1. The video conforms to common characteristic of the electronic genre.
3. The music and visuals link, as the video is edited to the beat. In addition to this, the music is very 'chill', which is also demonstrated through the video.
4. No 'Star Image' is created, as the artists are not featured in the video.
5. No reference to notions looking.
6. No inter-textual references.

Performance Video 2

Warpaint - Disco//Very - Keep It Healthy





1. The genre does meet some characteristics, as the music video features a performance and a dance routine, common of indie bands and girl bands.
2. The lyrics and visuals do not have a direct relationship with each other.
3. The video edits to the beat, ex. 0.21, 0.27.
4. The artists are given the majority of shots, creating 'Star Image'.
5. No frequent reference to notions looking.
6. No inter-textual references.

Performance Video 1

The Vaccines - Teenage Icon





1. The video features genre characteristics of a rock video which can be seen through live performance in the video.
2. The lyrics do not connect with the visuals.
3. The video has been edited to the beat, ex. 0.47, 0.52.
4. The artists are all given equal screen time, however the vocalist of the band is given the 'Star Image', as he is given many close-up shots.
6. No inter-textual references are made.

Narrative Video 2

Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers





1. The common characteristics of the genre indie pop isn't explored in this video, as pop videos aim to appeal to a general audience instead of sub-cultures, much unlike this video which can be seen as slightly unusual.
2. The music and visuals have a strong relationship, as the video illustrates a woman chasing a man, directly linking to the lyrics "I'll follow you, deep sea baby".
3. The video only edits to the beat on occasion (ex. 1.12,  1.21).
4. The music artist is given a few more close ups than the other person featured in the video, however the two are given very similar screen time. There's a shot of the artist looking directly into the camera at 3.57 which sells the 'Star Image'.
5.  The woman in the video is seen to be fully covered in cloth which desexualises her, however the close up shot of her kissing while looking directly into the camera is quite provocative.
6. There is no inter-textual references.

Narrative Video 1

Soak - B a NoBody





1. Characteristics of the genre (indie) matches the video as it illustrates a very young, somewhat budget video similar to many other indie music videos.
2. Illustrating - "Be just like me", the collection of balloons and the meeting at the end of the video demonstrates the link between the people used in the video, connection the lyrics to the visuals.
3. The video is edited to the beat, with shots occasionally changing with a new beat, (ex. 2.45, 2.54, 3.02).
4.  The 'Star Image' does not have many close up's, the vocalist is given similar screen time to the other people used in the video.
5. The female body isn't treated voyeuristically, and the 'notion of looking' isn't explored.
6. There is no inter-textual references.

Andrew Goodwin's 'Music Video Theory'

1. Genre Characteristics: style and iconography, (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).
2. A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
3. A relationship between the music and visuals, (e.g. editing to the beat).
4. Multiple close up shots of the artists to create visual style, a 'Star Image' to sell the artist.
5. A frequent reference to notions looking, (screens within screens, mobile phones, billboards and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body).
6. Inter-texual references to other media texts may be present, (e.g. films, TV programmes, other music videos etc). Often used in humorous or parody videos.