Digipak rough template

This is a rough template of our digipak. It has been useful for us to sketch this out because it will guide us when we are making our proper digipak- we know how we want to take our images and at what angle. In addition to this, it helps us with organisation skills.

Digipak analysis of professional product

In this post, I am going to analyse this digipak cover of the band 'Goldfrapp's seventh tree'. My group and I decided that it has a very novel-like look which may be part of the theme and genre. The artist is presented on the front cover with a blurred background to divert the eye to the artist. Also, the artist is standing in a half-turned position which connotes mystery or deceit.

Within this digipak, there is a big poster included. This is designed to be put up on fans bedroom wall to increase the fandom as it can be seen regularly. The owl is shown in most photos and therefore seems to be significant. Also, the position in which the artist is standing connotes religion which may be an indication of the genre of the artist.

Choice of fonts

These are some of the fonts we have looked at for our Digipak font. We tried to chose fonts that represented and reflected our romance genre.

We chose this font because it was in Italics, which basically reflects the seductiveness of romance. The font looks as if it has been drawn in pen as well, which makes it seem like the type of font you would see in a diary. It is calligraphy which connotes romance/love.

We chose this font because it gets straight to the point, the one heart signifies the romance genre and the fact that it's is weathered shows that the relationship is going through some hard times. The use of capitals make it stand out and they also make it seem like the 'Dream' holds a lot of importance to the narrator.

We chose this font because because it reflected the Garden of Eden, with the vines coming off it, which is usually linked to love. Again, it looks a little like something you would see in a diary which makes it more romantic as well. Also, the connotations of Adam & Eve falling in love while in the Garden made  it an easy choice because it's a widely used connection.

In my opinion, I think we should use the second font because it looks like an abstract font, it's straight to the point and it's not too complicated in terms of design. It is Bold and Stands out to the audience attracting more fans.

What is a website?

A website is a collection of web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web servers, usually accessible via the Internet, mobile phone or a LAN. Nowadays, most people use websites as an initial source for information. In the music industry, many artists interact with their fans via websites. For example, Beyoncé has a website which she regularly updates with latest pictures, news and music videos. In addition to this, she has links which lead fans to pages where they are able to join her fan page or pages which lead to products such as perfumes and merchandise which can be ordered.

What is a Digipak?

A digipak is a type of packing made to store CD's. It is usually made of cardboard with a plastic  holder inside for one or more disks. It can come in a 4 panel box or a 6 panel box. The Rihanna digipak shown below is an example of a 6 panel one. Many fans started to buy digipak's in the early 2000's in order to feel more involved with the artist by owning something physical which they could hold rather than a downloaded song on their mp3 player/iPod. Many digipak's also have many features in them such as posters and lyric booklets which entice fans and encourage them to buy it.

First day of filming

Here are some images from our first day of filming. As shown in the pictures, all team members are focusing on the production and are taking equal part in ensuring everything is perfect and organised.

My practice CD cover

In order to refresh my memory of how to work Photoshop, I made a practice CD cover. I believe this will help me to complete my digipak with more ease as I now have better knowledge of the effects which can be used on Photoshop. This CD cover took me only 20 minutes to complete so I believe that I will be efficient and effective with my time management whilst producing the digipak for my production.

Analysis of professional artist website

Logo

This is the logo that we designed. We want it to be the logo for our video and brand of 'Alice Smith' and her song 'Dream'. It will be associated with her. The first letter is out into a large heart to show off the genre of the song. Also, it will stand out and attract target audience which is the sole purpose of a logo.

Chosen Song

Choosing a Music Track

The final group choice is:__Dream- Alice Smith_______________________________
We chose this song as it isn't the conventional R&B song. Therefore we can play around with th concepts and contradict the R&B genre. Also, the song has much scope for a narrative music video as well as performance.

Track	Title	Artist	Genre	Postives	Negatives	URL
1	Freakin	"TV"fuc.kingz	Hip-hop	Has a catchy tune	Is too repetitive. Has little scope for good dance moves or narrative suitable to match beat.	"TV"fuc.kingz
2	When my life is over	"TV"fuc.kingz	Hip-hop	Good beat	Again, the song has little scope for a good dance routine. Perhaps too much rapping.	"TV"fuc.kingz
3	Dream	Alice Smith	R&B	Has good scope for a narrative as well as performace.	Maybe a bit slow. However, we can work around this as the dance routine can be made to match this.	Alice Smith

Location Recce

Location Recce

Animatic

Roland Barthes

Barthes was a French literary theorist who believed that all narratives share structural features that are brought together in various ways. He believed that texts could be unravelled in different ways. Barthes suggested that there are 5 codes which help to unravel meaning in a narrative. They are the following:

• ACTION CODE- This code applies to any action that implies a further narrative action and resolution is produced through action
• ENIGMA CODE- Narrative device which teases the audience by presenting a riddle or puzzle to be solved
• SEMIC- the denotations of the image/imagery
• SYMBOLIC-connotations of the image/imagery presented
  
• CULTURE-device which the audience recognise and associate with a particular culture.

Parody and Intertexuality (Lilly Allen-Hard out here)

Lilly Allen's recent video 'Hard out here' has caused a lot of controversy as it has many sexual references and intertexuality as well as a major theme of gender inequality.It takes a feminist stance on how women are often portrayed as sex symbols and furthermore the stereotypical image of women presented in the media. Throughout her video, Lilly Allen makes very obvious intertextual references to Miley Cyrus'  most recent VMA performance. She does this by making her backstage dancers 'twerk' in the same way Miley Cyrus did. This shows that Lilly Allen has particular views about twerking as she parodies it. Many people may also make comments about her choice of backstage dancers acting out the sexual references e.g. sucking bananas and twerking as many of them are black. It may be said that racism is being portrayed through this.











Robin Thickes music video of 'blurred lines' is also parodied and referenced in this video as the silver baloons at 3.07 are similar to the ones from Robin Thickes video where it displays an explicit message about him. Also, both videos are objectifying women as Lilly Allen shows that women should be in the kitchen washing the dishes or satisfying men by fulfilling their sexual needs. Robin Thicke objectifies women by showing that they can be 'liberated' by men only and that they are 'domesticated' by men.

Music Video Exhibition Institutions

There are many  institutions which are used primarily for music video exhibition. For example;

Viacom are the owners of MTV, which owns 100% of the company since 1985. It is the world's most watched television network by youths reaching more than 578 million households in over 162 countries worldwide. It is a very influential network and leading multimedia brand as it promotes music, fashion, lifestyle, news and politics.
The initial purpose of MTV was to play music videos 24/7, however they don't play music videos all day anymore even though their spin-off channels do such as MTV Jams and MTV Hits. In addition to this,  viewers can also play videos on-demand at MTV.Com. In this case, the music played on MTV.com is chosen by viewers themselves. The music played on  MTV is chosen by the public in a sense. This is because the music played is chosen according to album sales, popular downloads and most popular videos on MTV.Com.

Youtube is a video-sharing website which is used by more than 1 billion unique people worldwide each month. Also,  over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on youtube which is equivalent to every person on earth watching an hour!! Google is the owner of youtube and has been owning it since late 2006. It was created by three former paypal employees in February 2005. It operates as a google subsidiary and allows users to sign up and upload unimited amounts of videos. Media corporations such as BBC, Hulu and VEVO upload their content via this site as part of the YouTube partnership programme.






Itunes is a software which is part of the Apple group. It allows users to buy, listen to and sync music/ videos onto their Apple devices such as iPhone and iPod. This software was developed in 2001 and is constantly updated to provide users with the best service.

Vevo is a music video website owned and operated by Google, Universal studios, Abu Dhabi Media and Sony music entertainment. The chief executive officer of Vevo is Rio Caraeff. Vevo serves many different countries such as UK, US, Germany, Greece, Australia. it was launched on December 8th 2009 and continues to be successful up until till today.Vevo has a goal to attract the high-end advertisers in order to make larger profits and maybe to settle for a higher-end, wealthier target group.

SBTV, also known as 'SmokeyBarz TV' was founded by Jamal Edwards on 2nd November 2006. However, it ran from August 2010 onwards. It is a company run by a very small amount of people (12 employees) thats work on webbased viral content at different music events. SBTV have their own YouTube channel as well as a website which displays alot of their content and even unprofessional footage. SBTV  content is designed to appeal to those interested in the grime, British hip-hop and acoustic genre.

Kim and Kayne music video

Kayne and Kim's new music video is banned from a lot of sites as it is controversial and 'x-rated'. It was such a big issue that it managed to make front cover of 'heat' magazine. This may have an impact on both celebrities and any of their future music videos as well as music videos as a whole. The reason for this is that many people are starting to ignore videos anyway and appreciate just the music due to the typical 'busy' life and multi-tasking; not many people have time to sit there and watch a 3-4 minute music video when the song is the main part and could be listened to while washing the dishes! Multi-taking is one factor, but videos like this cause people to cut off from watching music videos much quicker especially parents who think that the explicit content could have an impact on their children.


Shot-to-shot parody re-make of the music video



James Franco and Seth Rogen decided to make a parody of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's 'embarrassing' music video. This proved to be very effective as it was publicised and gained many views and a lot of appreciation. 

Moodboard

Crew Requirements

In order for pre-production and production to be successful we need a reliable crew to share the work load there is a lot of planning and organising that will take place on the up coming weeks before filming and we all have to play our part relaying on each member of the group to do the work that they have been set. Once planning is complete filming will begin we will need all crew to attend so we need them to be flexible with there time as any time that we can film we will need to in order to get it complete , punctual will be priority if we set a time to meet they well need to meet this time we may be unable to start with out them and if they are not there , time will be wasted not just filming time but other members time will also become a waste as they may be left unable to do anything. crew must be able to use the camera this is likely as this is the second year of media and filming played a large part in the previous years , this will be needed as taking a number of different shots and angles for each seen to give more footage when editing and also a better variety of shot types will be very time consuming and hard work will will have to share the filming taking turns using the cameras for each shot or scene having just one person filming will be unfair on that member we will all have to take our turn and to do this everyone must be able to use the cameras effectively.

Equipment List

Equipment List 

Contingency Plan

Working as a group and making decisions together as a team is very important, everyone should have their say and play an equal part in the pre-production of our music video. Sharing work out equally, will reflect how our ideas will come together as one. We are aware that people will fall behind if they miss lessons or if they're ill. It will only become a problem if there is no communication between us, then things will be disorganised and messy.  To prevent this from happening, we will email each other and text so that we are always informed of where each of our team is.

In terms of filming, only one from our group will be the main protagonist, so it won't be as difficult to contact someone who is close to us. If she does fall ill, then we will be able to shoot certain scenes with just backing dancers, to help keep the production going! The filming will be divided equally and quickly, as we will all have certain things to do, and it will increase the amount of work we get done. Since we have four people in our group, everyone will always have something to do to help the other one out. Even if someone is not able to attend filming, we will have 2 or 3 people who will be able to utilise the time properly.  By using social networking sites/apps such as Facebook or Whatsapp, we always keep in contact with each other.

Our ideal place to film may not be available right now, but we will always have a back up, just in case things don't go to plan. We would film in similar places, even if we can't get the setting to look how we want it to.