My digipak presentation

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AcuvPz7iPH4JZGZwM3EzanRfMzc4Z3BiZ3E2aHo&hl=en_US

Feedback

Excellent work, sustained research and evident planning for the CD digipak - for which you have taken a real lead.  Please check the use of capitalisation and spelling on the posts.  I also like the way in which you apply theorectical idea's into your research.  Well Done.

Lanmou Original Design For Digipak

this is one of the ideas I have had for our bands Digipak, The inspirations have come from street art, as some albums are inspired by fine art I have decided to go with more controversial art to show that our band is new, rebellious and anti-authoritarian.

the background is an image I created earlier this term, the reason for using these colours is to represent the style of music that this band plays and to hint at their style of lifestyle, these colours also attract their target audience, who has been described in my previous blogs 

online shopping for Music

there are many sides now dedicated to selling and trading of albums and styles of artists such as

Dog's on Acid 

Amazon now sells Mp3's 

and as everyone knows we have the classic I-tunes. 

some sites cater to more specific audiences, such as Dogs on acid, this site is more dedicated to niche market (& 'underground') audiences and artists, these sites charge quite high prices to their audience for the music they promote. 

Dogs on acid is the Uk's biggest Drum & bass site, this site caters to all electronic musical genres that are classified as 'underground'. the site is boasts the largest number of users for any site catering to 'underground' electronic music in the world. 

the reasons to the sites fame is that they use the site not only for discussion between the users but as well with the artists and producers who release the music to DOA, they also sell music and goods, as well as tickets and have regular discussions about all that comes under their spectrum and what doesn't, 

This attracts many users as DOA is not specific to the british audience, whereas the site for 'the Drum and Bass Arena' is specifically tailored to the UK audience that is heavily involved in Drum and Bass and a much more limited electronic musical style.

these two sites where established within a short time of one another, the original site for DOA was established at the same time but was shut down so the creators renamed it and it was reopened in 2000. 

the two sites have had much disputes between one another as they are the two largest sites that cater to this musical genre, this has created much interest in both sites, although now the disputes have been put aside and users are starting to use both sites. 

there are different buy music online, depending on your own musical preference, 'Sound Jam MP' created in 1990 was a music player developed to just be a simple music software to play music. it was later bought by Apple .INC in 2000, this was then developed into I-tunes. 

I-tunes is possibly the most recognised music selling organisation, having come out to the world at the same time as DOA and The Drum&Bass Arena it has provided music to the masses catering to no specific musical genre and has no capability to as questions to the various artists. 

I-tunes same as DOA and The Drum&Bass Arena are all free to use for anyone, but you must pay for downloads. 

The Main reason to I-Tunes fame is due to mass advertising by Apple .INC and that they give the software away for free, as well as free upgrades to the system. this being payed for by all the users of I-tunes and Macs.

 

album covers and different inspirations

these Cd covers are different ideas for the kind of look that i wish to develop from, the wrighting on Springsteen's album and on the gorillaz albums are both simple and effective, this gives inspiration for simplistic righting. 

the end pictures are to represent the kind if digipak art i am hoping to create. 

WHAT IS A DIGIPAK.

What is a Digipak, it is a modern approach to a CD cover, it is ment to represent to the audience what the band is all about, their image and their style.

Digipacks don’t always stick to conventions, different aspects changed, for example the album cover from Katie Melua where she is advertising her own self, and her own beauty.

This can be explained by the quote ‘men act and women appear’ –John Berger.

this quote basically states that a man will want to make/ create an overdone look to market themselves to a mass market of their choice, or to an audience member that is not familiar hoping that an over the top look at the band from one image will be enough to attract the audience member. 

this shown in these album covers

• Gorillaz- demon days 
• Medina Lake- from them, through us, to you 
• Immortal Technique 
• the Heavy- great vengeance & furious fire 
• any Iron Maiden album 
• any Avenged Seven Fold album 
• Kya Bamba albums 1-6 
• Guns and roses 
• Hadouken!- music for an accelerated generation
• Hollywood undead 
• Bliss N Eso- walking on air 
• Prodigy- their law
• Blink 182
• Pig Iron 
• almost every Dubstep album ever 
• Wu-tang clan(every album)

this is not set in stone for all artists such as 

• Gentleman-serenity 
• Crazy Town- butterfly 
• Collie Buddz- playback 
• Arctic Monkeys- whatever people say I am, im not 
• Professor Green- Alive till im dead
• Sean Paul- Trinity 
• Eek a Mouse- mouse or man 
• Jimi Hendrix- are you experienced
• Kero one- windmill in the soul 
• Billy Idol- idol

Whereas an album cover like Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits, he is already established as an artist so he has no reason to advertise like new upcoming artists do, this means that the conventions for him have no real need to be there. He has chosen however to stick to the conventions of the digipak.

album art inspired by fine art.

The image of the funeral for a friend album cover is polycemic, this means it has many meanings.

Funeral for a friend has probably gone for this album as a marketing tool to show themselves as being quite dark, peace full and obscure, this shows that they are catering to their target audience and representing their musical style.

The reason they have gone for this album cover is to show the creativity of their band as a recognition, the reason they used a fine art painting was for intertextual reference of cross media, it is also for familiarity to the audience, this leads the album to be open to many different interpretations, this means that the audience is then caused to think and then get interested.

In HMV CD’s are set in alphabetical genre in order to promote the artists along with many of their own style, this is so that when the target audience is walking in HMV looking for an album and they start to look around for other bands in this genre, they then get interested in different looks and interesting album covers.

This means that the album cover is ment to be attractive and obscure to the audience browsing through the albums in the same genre as the one they are looking for.

Albums can juxtapose different ideas, such as the album for ‘New order, Power corruption and lies’ this showed an imaged of painted flowers that are wilting to insight controversy.

The digipaks have to stay within certain media conventions for the genre, and for the conventions of a digipak, for example, name, artist, titles, and song list. Some other conventions are the righting style is very simplistic, and the lettering style is the same for the album name and artist name, as well as for the track list.

revised cast list.

Tom Barnet:

                                        Ed Nightingale                              Philip Von Dreschel 

permission letter to Columbia

Hurtwood House School

Holmbury St. Mary

Dorking, Surrey

RH5 6NU

Columbia Records UK
Derry Street 
London W8 5HY




To Columbia Records UK,


We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

Electric Feel- MGMT


With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.


The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.


Yours sincerely


Ian Heritier, Nicola Duckert, Richard Hill and Will Day


Hurtwood House School

review of the story board

after having had discussions with the group and with the media editing group we decided that we are going to cut the narrative to be a lot shorter and the switch to the 'Electric Feel' faster in the video, this is because everyone in our target audience had been to a house party so we don't need to show to many shots of the narrative that happens before the hose party,

THE CUTS:

• him dancing with the random girl
• possibly some of the shots of him falling over the couch 

this sequence of shots where taking to long so we have cut them, this will allow for the video's narrative before the 'ELECTRIC FEEL' to be shorter. 

we have decided to make the set more of a massive prop, my this i mean that after the 'ELECTRIC FEEL' we have discussed the idea of moving the props around, this means possibly moving the couch onto the wall allowing a shot like this to happen, 

as for the actual set walls, we are going to cut many holes into the panels and then from the outside we will shoot lights into the room, it also allows for shots shooting though the holes. 

shoot day

"Electric Feel’ - Lanmou

Shooting schedule - 18th November 2011 

Studio Performance shots [UV] - 9:00 - 13:00

1. Wide Shot - Whole Band
2. Close up full frontal - Singer
3. MCU - Singer
4. Profile Shot - Singer
5. Staggered Profile Shot - Singer 1+2
6. MCU - Guitarist
7. ECU - Guitarist’s Fretboard
8. ECU - Guitarist tapping foot
9. MCU - Bassist
10. Close Up - Bassist’s right hand
11. Wide Shot - Synth/Drum player
12. ECU - Fingers on Drum-machine
13. Close Up - Synth
14. Detail Shots (time allowing)

Studio Narrative Shots ‘Normal’ - 14:00 - 16:00

1. MCU- Dude enters door, goes right
2. MCU - Dude grabs drink, walks off left
3. POV - Holding Drink
4. Profile Shot - ‘Electric Girl’ dancing
5. MCU - Girl dancing 
6. MCU - Dude sees girl
7. Close Up - "
8. MCU - Girl turns and looks over
9. ECU - Girl's eyes
10. Wide Shot - Dude starts dancing over
11. Two Shot - Both dancing
12. Details - Dancing
13. Close Up - Them getting closer
14. Close Up - Dude closing eyes
15. Close Up - Him opening eyes (electric blue lenses :)
16. Wide Shot - Band's POV, them kissing

Studio Narrative Shots ‘Electric’ [UV] - 16:00 - 18:00

1. Profile - Them getting out of the kiss
2. Zoom out - Changed surroundings into 'electric craze'
3. Wide Shot - Crowd Party
4. MCU - Crowd members dancing
5. Wide - Crowd Part
6. Details of Dancers (UV paint etc.)
7. Funky Disco Ball
8. Wide Shot - Lasers and Smoke and crowd
9. Crane Shot - Aerial view of band from front
10. OTS Shot - Girl smiling at guy while dancing
11. OTS Shot - Guy dancing with girl
12. OTS Shot - She pulls him into the crowd
13. MCU - he follows her
14. Profile - Kiss (fade out)

Guildford - Semi-detached average dwelling. Post 18:00

1. Exterior Shot - People arriving at house party. (Better if in twilight.)
2. Exterior Shot - People leaving house party (Must be night-time.)

Feedback

A sound set of post entries which has met expectations set - conceptually some really good idea's but need more detail in evaluation and crucially links to media concepts.

There are one or two ways to develop the blog.  First to begin using a wider range of blogging tools - there are lots of well presented images, but use of Flickr or powerpoint will increase the creativity that is shown on your blog.  Second the valid, detailed and reflective comments that you make need to be developed further with  key media concepts and theoretical ideas;  for example, link the planning to star image,  or how set design and lighting link to mise en scene and/ or what model's of lighting you are using in relation to your set - key, fill, directional, discuss the intensity and colour and what you  are trying to represent about your artist. 



THE ELECTRIC FEEL

To show this part of the video we are having many differences in the set and lighting.

the first part of the video is set in naturalistic lighting, the party is a bit slow moving.
once the 'electric feel' kicks in the part becomes more wild,
for this we are thinking

• strobe lighting 
• ultraviolet lighting 
• creating holes into the wall to shine different lights through the holes
• 
  

lighting design

This was the initial set design. 

revised set and lighting.

the initial idea was to have the set as a small house party, with simple standard lighting. After the narrative was over, we would switch to lighting the set using

• strobe lights 

• ultraviolet lights 

the set starts in dim lighting. 

After having had a talk to the lighting and set designer for our set we had to rethink a few of the kinks in our set, and in the lighting design. 

we have now gone with the set for a house party owned by parents not the person having the party so the walls will be wallpapered and the floor will be made of wood, he have made the room a bit smaller to accommodate the lights which we are going to set around the entire set, these lights will switch on during the time that the electric feel comes in.

the lighting is important to the star image as it sends the right images we want to represent our band with.
we have divided the shots into two,

1. people at party nothing out of the ordinary
2. ultraviolet lights (important to the mise en scene of the 'Electric Feel')

the lighting is important to show to the audience what it is we are trying to say about the band, our target audience could be described as being in the bottom three classes of the social ranking.

ELECTRIC FEEL STORYBOARD

this is the animatic we made for our story board, I have never made an animatic before. 

the process of making the story board was long and frustrating, as soon as we thought we had it some new problem would arise. 

for the story boards I started out by drawing the individual performance shots, then later realising that I had left many out, after I had started to deal with this problem, we changed the number of people in the band and what they play so some of the shots are irrelevant. 

the process of editing had taken longer than I had hoped, but in the end we finished it. 

after having had a chat to the set designers here we decided that the electric feel needed to be more of a capitalised point in the video. this video is more of basic visual outline for the video than an accurate representation. 

for the editing stage of this part I found it more stagnant and boring visually than other projects I have edited, the process was enjoyable as it did mean that we didn't have to get the cuts to be accurate to what is going on, it was more of a base outline. 

we started the process by placing the clips into bins (files)

we also named each individual shot as this made the process faster and stopped us having to find each shot every time we wanted the shot in.

this is what the full editing program we used looks like.

for the editing we found the beats and edited them to it.  this bar above shows how we found the highest and loudest beat in the bar to know where to cut accordingly.
This is a screen recording, from when we edited our animatic:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8uvPz7iPH4JODljYzU0MjEtMTQzYy00ZTc5LTlkZDUtYzQ1ZWUzYmYyYmI1&hl=en_US   

Cast list

• Main Guy - Tom Simpson, Jack Barton, Ed Nightingale,
• Singer/Guitarist - Tom Barnet, Jack Barton, Bobby
• ʻElectric Girlʼ - Jess Adam, Ella,
• Bass/Background Singer - Tom Barnet
• Synth/Drums - Philip,
Dancers
• Bethany
• + 4 more

Crowd - Whoever is in PS or wants a bit role on the day.

Reasons for casting
Ed: Even though he is an A2 student, from past experience we know that he can act and
would fit the role exactly. From seeing him in drama productions last year, we know that he
can act well

Ella: Was our second choice for the 'Electric Girl', and we chose her in the end because
our first choice looked to similar to the main character we were casting and we need
contrast between the two. She also does drama, which is why we chose her over our first
choice.

Philip: We chose him as the synth and drum machine player for the band, as he DJ's
professionally at home in Germany, and has his own rig. He also looks suitably 'indie' and
from a performance back at the boarding house, we know that he will look fine on camera.
Our other cast members have not been solidly decided, but we have the following
down as prospectives:

Tom B: Can play both bass and guitar to an acceptable standard, and is an option for
either the guitar or bass player. He can also sing, and has had much praise from his music
teachers. At the moment our only proposition for a bass player

Bobby: Is an incredible singer and guitar player, and has a quite mysterious look about
him. He would fit the desired image of the bandʼs frontman perfectly. He is our first choice
for the frontman, but we still need to ask him.

Jack: Does theatre, can act well and can sing acceptably. He is our backup man in case
the above two are unavailable for some reason.

Tom S: Our backup in case for some reason Ed is unavailable or taken ill on the shoot day.
Jess: Initially our first choice as the 'Electric girl', she has become our backup as her facial
features are too similar to Ed's, and in case Ella is missing on shoot day.

props list for the Media Music Video shoot

Two microphones with stands

Bass guitar- provided by student

Guitar- provided by students

Synth-

Drum machine

Beer Keg- ask Hurtwood inn

Cigarettes- provided by students

Led lights

Throwies lights

Stack amps

House standing lamps

Red plastic beer cups

Stroke lights

Uv lights

Costume- Indie alternative clothing (Skinny jeans, baggy t shirts,…)

Indian head dress
Smoke machine 
disco ball

institution for our artist

The record company which I think 'Lanmou' would be signed to would be EMI as they sign a large variety of different artists, to this we include : 

• snoop dog 
• Katy perry 
• iron maiden 
• Raekwon 
• Smashing pumpkins
• Swedish house mafia 
• T-REX
• Tinie Tempah 

our target audience would be between the ages of 15-25. The music is for both sexes, the reasons for this would be that the males and females would enjoy the music, and those sexually attracted to the artists would buy merchandise to have their idol on the wall of their bedroom. our target audience would be within the B/C/D social classes (B= MIddle Management, C= Supervisor or skilled manual, D= semi to unskilled manual). the target audience would be considered risk takers in their lives. they could be classified as being:

• Trendies(Crave attention)
• Innovators(Wish to make their mark)
• Rebels(want to remake the world in their image)
• Groupies(just want to be accepted)

our digipack ideas

this was the original idea for the digipack. We created this adding our own writing style to an image found on the MGMT site under the fan art tab, http://www.whoismgmt.com/us/art this is a link to the site.

after this initial idea I created this:

this digipack was created using my own photographs, and photos of my own work, how i achieved this was by layering up the images playing with how predominant they where on the cover for the band, to this I then added the same writing to the cover.

the layers consist of these images:

and one more I cannot find.