Taking Digi Pack Photos

  

 In order to create our digipak, myself and Danny took a trip to take some photos. I thought it would be best (from research) that we capture the shots in a rural and natural environment as that is a well known element in the Indie genre. See http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/outdoors-guitar-urban-natural.html I took these photos with my digital Nikon D3100 which performed very well especially in the weather conditions as the photos didn't look as gloomy.

Indie Digipak Elements

From research and analysing various Indie digipaks, I have gathered together some conclusions of the elements that are used within their album covers.

CD Artwork Ideas...

I thought of some ideas for our CD artwork which could be possible options. From looking at a few, a plain background and text is a common micro-element on a CD, such as Ben Howard's album, where he has a black background with a simple white text. I think this could work well as it seems quite clear for the audience and simplistic.

I also thought of the idea of a naturalistic image as a background and a white text or a colour contrasting as the titles. Perhaps an image of the sun shining through the dark trees like the album cover of one of Kodaline's albums. I think this would look very creative and effective which would be a great idea to go for.

Shotlist Part II

Here is the second part of our draft shot list for production:

Shot 23 - Girl found under the sheets by the male, playing around "contentment in these sheets".
Shot 24 - Aerial shot of the couple lying in bed.
Shot 25 - Master shot of male singing with guitar on bench.
Shot 26 - Medium shot of couple playing in the leaves.
Shot 27 - Aerial shot of male falling into the leaves.
Shot 28 - Fade in from a previous shot to show him falling onto the bed.
Shot 29 - Male lying on the bed, turns head to see the girl isn't there.
Shot 30 - Master shot of the male lip syncing with guitar, whilst walking down the path.
Shot 31 - Close up of male's face to see him singing to the camera, lip syncing.
Shot 32 - Male sitting by a tree with the photo of him and the girl, long shot.
Shot 33 - Master shot of male singing with guitar at the tree, long shot, photo beside him.
Shot 34 - Overlay technique used at the same tree, medium shot of singer lip syncing whilst showing the past of the couple walking in the background.
Shot 35 - Master shot of singer lip syncing next to the tree.
Shot 36 - Shot of sun gleaming through the trees.
Shot 37 - Male walking through meadow.
Shot 38 - Sun shining through the meadow.
Shot 39 - Master shot of singing, medium shot.
Shot 40 - Goes into a number of different split screens with various shots.

Storyboard Part II

23. 1:28- 1:33

24. 1:33- 1:39

25. 1:39- 1:47

26. 1:47- 1:50

27. 1:50- (fade in)

28. -1:56

29. 1:56- 2:02

30. 2:02- 2:13

31. 2:13- 2:26

32. 2:26- 2:38

33. 2:38- 2:44

34. 2:44- 2:49

35. 2:44- 3:01

36. 3:01- 3:08

37. 3:08- 3:10

38. 3:10- 3:22

39. 3:22-- ends in various split screens.

Shotlist Part 1

Here is our draft shot list for our production:

Shot 1- Close up on hand placing CD in the disk tray of a music player.

Shot 2- Close up on a hand turning up the volume.

Shot 3- Mid shot of artist sitting on his bed, looking sad.

Shot 4- High angle, medium shot on artist retrieving a box.

Shot 5- Aerial shot of him searching the box for a photo.

Shot 6- Mid shot, of him lying on the bed looking at the photo.

Shot 7- Close up, Zoom in on the photo.

Shot 8- Cut to tracking of the couple walking down the street.

Shot 9- (master-shot) artist playing guitar.

Shot 10- Tracking of couple walking through a walk way to a bench.

Shot 11- Mid-shot of artist sitting on bench.

Shot 12- Mid-shot of couple sitting on bench. (potential for overlay).

Shot 13- Over the shoulder shot of artist looking at couple.

Shot 14- Train begins to drive by.

Shot 15- Cut to mid shot of artist sitting on the bench.

Shot 16- Over the shoulder shot, Cut to train station, couple have disappeared. 

Shot 17- Master shot

Shot 18- Pan, of artist getting up and leaving location.

Shot 19- Close-up, on artist playing guitar.

Shot 20- Mid-shot of artist walking away.

Shot 21- Cuts back to shot 6.

Shot 22- Gets up and leaves bedroom.

Storyboard Part I

Above shows our first few scenes up to 1:35 of our chosen song 'I'll Lie Here'. We have presented our storyline in separate parts as the whiteboard wasn't big enough to have the whole storyboard on there and we have limited time before our markings are rubbed off.

Number of seconds on each shot:

1. 0:00-0:03 secs
2. 0:03-0:05
3. 0:05-0:07
4. 0:07-0:09
5. 0:09-0:11
6. 0:11-0:13
7. 0:13-0:15
8. 0:15-0:18
9. 0:18-0:26
10. 0:26-0:30
11. 0:30-0:36
12. 0:36-0:42
13. 0:42-0:48
14. 0:48-0:54
15. 0:54-1:00
16. 1:00-1:03
17. 1:03-1:16
18. 1:16-1:19
19. 1:19-1:21
20. 1:21-1:26
21. 1:26-1:31
22. 1:31-1:35

Digipak CD Artwork

Analysis Of Indie Digipacks.. Back Covers

Artist: Bastille
Album: Bad Blood
Font: Recognisable font by fans used to symbolise the band. Same font as one used on the front cover. White coloured against the contrasted dark background
Composition: Everything is centred apart from the bar code which is in the right bottom corner.
Colours: Dark colours in the background, suggesting a spooky feeling as the album is called 'Bad Blood'. The headlights of the car delete some of the darkness.

Artist: Florence & The Machine
Album: Ceremonials
Fonts: Signature font for the artist name. Capitals for the other wording. Black font which is bold against the beige background.
Composition: Song titles placed in the centre of the cover. Writing at the bottom is spread across and the bar code to the right.
Colours: Quite dull colours, beige, white and black as the colour scheme.
Content: Title of album set out in the background in white giving a signature font for the album.

Artist: Arctic Monkeys
Album: Suck It And See
Fonts: Title of artist shown in their signature font, capitals and black -very bold. Simple, black font in capitals for the song listing.
Composition: Song titles more to the left of the cover within the lines of the band name. Bar code again in the right bottom corner.
Colours: Black font against a contrasted background of cream, very plain colours.

Artist: Kodaline
Album: In A Perfect World
Fonts: White, simple font for the song listing which is the same as the album name.
Composition: All written in the centre of the cover, leaving a gap at the top.
Colours: Black, white and blues in the colour scheme, leaving an emphasis on the song titles.
Content: Background image seems it is a distant view of a lake with mountains in the horizon. Image links to the album name 'In A Perfect World' as the sky colours and the view looks perfect. Back cover background is in contrast with the front cover background, as on the front they have used a daylight image although it could be situated in the same lake as there are mountains in the distance.

Artist: John Mayer
Album: Paradise Valley
Fonts: Capitals, white, fairly small but bigger than the numbers next to the song titles.
Composition: Song listing placed to the left top corner of the back cover, in the negative space of the background image -providing an emphasis on the artist. Bar code in top right corner, different to other indie albums, perhaps because there is an interesting image, leaving some more negative space in that corner than the bottom. The artist in the image is placed to the left, leaving room for the song titles so the wording is not spoiling the view of John Mayer.
Colours: Black, white, greys, greens, blues and browns are the only colours present in the back cover. A vintage, but highlighted filter may have been placed over the image to emphasise the bold colours in the sky and the black dog.
Content: Image featuring the artist of the album with his dog. In eyeline with the camera but looking to the left. Straight line through the near centre of the image showing the difference of the sky and the ground/grass/figures.

Overlay Test Run

Below shows our experimentation with the overlaying technique.

When editing on Final Cut Express, we attempted to overlap the both the scenes onto one another to give the effect of seeing the past and present in one shot. However whilst overlapping the images, the shots of the characters wasn't very clear, with a fuzzy, unrealistic feel to them. Therefore we decided to incorporate both the images together in the middle, although I am not sure whether this technique works well as I can easily notice the line in the middle where we split the scenes and joined them together. But I think if we keep the clip of the scenes with the overlay effect short but compelling as the audience will notice that the same character is in the shot twice.

Results Of Split Screen Test Run

To test whether the split screen idea works well with similar scenes to our music video narrative choice, we conducted a time to use the camera and film four different scenes. These include one showing the couple together, one when apart from each of them alone and one filler split screen which in our music video we intend to possibly show a performance scene such as a close up of a guitar. I think this idea works well especially the filler split screen as the listener's eyes are drawn to the close up although the split screen works effectively as the audience can choose a scene to lay their eyes on as they all tell part of the story. We chose the park to test this idea as it provides us with a playful experience as well as the natural scenery which is what we are aiming for in our music video.

Using this idea at the beginning of our music video would be a good choice to make I believe as it brings to the audience the interest of the video and draws them into the narrative of the music video.

Analysis Of Indie Digipacks 3

Artist: Ben Howard
Album: Every Kingdom
Colours: Blues, greens and whites.
Font: Large, capitals, at top of cover, simplistic. Artist's name takes up a quarter of the cover rather than the album name which looks much smaller.
Editing: It looks as if it has been painted with watercolours, which is significant as the image is of a diver in the water.
Symbolism: By diving underwater it looks like Ben is travelling to another kingdom which relates to the title 'Every Kingdom'.
Composition: Ben is presented at the bottom of the image diving underwater however although he is not in the light, he is still the main focus.
Location: Underwater in the ocean.

Artist: Lucy Rose
Album: Like I Used To
Subject: Lucy lying down on the gravel listening to an old fashioned radio in a rural location.
Colours: Dull, grey back ground but with the focus upon Lucy with the fair hair and blue, chequered shirt with the beige radio.
Font: Artist not in capitals but with the scale of capitals. Typically with the album name beneath but with a different font and capitals. Matched coloured font with the vintage stereo and Lucy's hair.
Editing: Focus has been made more on the subject of the imagery (Lucy and the stereo). Perhaps a filter has been made over the background to provide a more dull image against Lucy.
Props: Old vintage stereo implying she wants to incorporate her old fashioned style of indie into her album.
Location: Looks as though she is lying down in a rural location with hills and peace, also perhaps next to a lake as there is gravel.

Artist in Test Costumes

From previous research of the indie style in clothing, we decided to test the costume designs on the main character/artist in the music video. As Danny (one of the members of my group) had some similar clothing at home, he (as the artist in the video) took some photographs of him in the styled clothing choices for the video.





















I think the all buttoned up shirt and the skinny black jeans works really well as well with the baggy t shirt. However I think the green parker jacket might not be right for the video as it make him look bigger than he is and that's not the intention. Although this style may be right with the cold looking scenes with the girl when shown in the past.

Practice Filming Dates

Before we film our final idea of our music video, we intend to practice some of the techniques that are required for our final video such as the overlay and the split screen effects. On Wednesday 23rd of October, we have found a good time to experiment these filming techniques as we either have no lessons all day or only one in the morning. This practice will give us the knowledge and practice of how we will film and edit the real thing, also when filming the final product, the knowledge of how these filming techniques work will hopefully save time.

Final Idea For Our Music Video

Deciding on our final idea for our music video was a difficult decision to make, for example how and which effects we would use such as the god like figure (as explained previously http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/god-figure-idea.html ) or we use the singer as one of the character in the relationship. However we decided to not use the singer as the omniscient narrator but use him as the main male character who is demonstrated through the relationship with the girl and through lip syncing. I think this approach will work well especially as we can use the effect of the overlay of scenes as the singer is shown in the past and the present of the narrative.

I created this Prezi myself to make it more clear as to how the storyline will develop throughout the music video and how the techniques used will evolve.

Analysis Of Indie Digipacks 2

Artist: Dog is Dead
Album: All Our Favourite Stories
Subject: This album resembles the story telling of the band's lives, especially as the title includes "our" which shows all the band are included. The cover makes the audience to believe that within the music is the band telling stories, good and bad, about their lives.
Colours: Other than the 'space' hole in the centre of the cover, the colours surrounding seem quite childlike with the grassy green and light blue, perfect sky. The colours look almost fake like it's make believe.
Font: Typically capitals and large font for the band name, and with the album title placed underneath in a smaller font. Black coloured to stand out against the blue sky but to also match the 'space' circle of the cover.
Editing: It appears that they have cut a circle out of the original image and has become a path integrating into space which forms the illusion that all the 'stories' to be told in the album will enlighten the future and perhaps take a while in depth.
Props: The little boy is carrying books along with him implying that there are stories to be told.
Mise En Scene: The clothes the children are wearing imply that the band want to show their vintage side to their album by dressing them in old fashioned clothes.


Artist: Haim
Album: Forever
Colours: Other than the title of the album, the album is presented in a monochrome colour scheme giving it an old and vintage look which I think this band want to represent as something different.
Font: Haim have used big capital letters above the image of themselves to provide attraction to the album. Also with the bold, black font against the pure white background gives a typical contrast of colours emphasising their album even more. The name of the album 'Forever' is unusually in a red colour and they have presented it as though they have signed the album themselves.
Editing: The photo of the band looks as though it has been edited through to provide the faces with more white so they can be identified against the hair and the dark background.
Lighting: Lighting has been used to show a reflection in the windows which show what looks like hills or mountains.

Mise En Scene: The clothing seems vintage and western with the cowboy styled hat and tweed blazer. Also their hair seems chilled and relaxed giving a feel of unique. 

Artist: Kodaline
Album: Love Like This EP
Colours: Graduated fade of blue to orange/pink to green. -Gives a summer feel to the cover as the sea looks as though it is bouncing off the sunlight through the pink filter.
Font: Typically capital letters again for an Indie band, but not in a bold colour but in a darker coloured blue so it shows against the light blue sky. The album name is again beneath the band name and in a slimmer font and what seems a slightly lighter colour which focuses the eyes on the band name.
Editing: Filters have been used to give a loving feel towards the cover, they have incorporated a pink/orange into a green in the right hand corner.
Also with the dark colours of the people on the beach, it gives a bold comparison on the background.
Subject: It appears to be a boy and a girl on the beach demonstrating the meaning of love of having fun, relating to the title of the album "Love Like This".
Lighting: Lighting coming from the right hand side of the cover, or all through the centre above the sea, giving a sunset or dawn feeling.
Mise En Scene: Black coat worn by the girl implying that it isn't necessarily summer but perhaps Autumn/Winter, also a possible scarf being worn as well supporting this.


Artist: Daughter
Album: If You Leave
Colours: The colours used in this album cover are very interesting and effective as what looks like the cream top of the girl has faded into the trees to make the image look as though there is light shining through. The black skirt has also been faded into the background by fading into the dark grass, but there is also a clear representation of the hands on the bottom left against the grass which shows there is a person on the front.
Font: Again the band name is presented in capitals above the album title giving an emphasism on Daughter, but the album title is still clear and highly noticeable as it is in eyeline and centre of the cover.
Editing: Cream shirt made to believe that it is the sunlight through the trees, vintage or golden filter over the top of the image giving a autumn/spring look.
Composition: As the main singer of Daughter is a girl, you can see she has been placed at the centre of attention at the centre, and the other band members can be seen just about in the background beneath the trees on the left. -At first glance I doubt you would notice the two men on the left but only the female singer.

Analysis Of Indie Digipacks 1

Artist: Wolf Gang
Album: Suego Faults
Colours: They have used contrasting colours to emphasise the difference between the ground and the misty foreground. This has made the character more bold with a darker blue against the fog and autumn leaves.
Font: Century Gothic font used, provides a simple but accentuates the name of the album and band. They have made the band name stand out more by using capital letters, perhaps to catch the eye of their audience on a shop shelf.
Editing: Created a darkened and mysterious feel to the image, perhaps by adding a tinted blue filter to give the cover a cold/wintry look. Also the cross fade of the fog at the top of the cover provides a sense of danger.
Mise En Scene: Interesting and eye catching clothing worn by what is presumed as the male singer of the band. Dark clothing to highlight the mysterious effect, especially as the band name is Wolf Gang suggests that they want to represent a hunting/dark feel towards the listeners but intriguing as well. As Indie is known to represent a unique style, with the clothing being different to modern daily life, his costume really brings forward the genre of their music.
Location: The man seems to be standing/walking outdoors, emphasising a natural, rural location. It appears to be in the middle of nowhere.
Composition: The man appears to be in the central shot of the camera, suggesting a long shot of him which shows his clothing and the surroundings clearly and contrasting. Equal amount of negative space around him but used effectively with perhaps a deserted and mysterious forest.

Artist: The Walkmen
Album: Lisbon
Colours: Green filter used over the image with a white background giving a light but effective contrast of colour. Lady shown through the overlay of images but disguised within the green colour to provide an emphasism for the title.
Font: Similar to Wolf Gang's album cover, The Walkmen have presented their band name in bold but in black with big spacing between the letters to accentuate the name even more. In comparison to the name of the album, 'Lisbon' is shown beneath in capitals but in a much smaller font and italic, which I think provides the viewer to also take notice of the name of the album as well as the band name. It looks as though the titles are written in Times New Roman, giving a vintage feel to the cover, representing Indie. The title is also presented in the centre of the cover.
Editing: The Walkmen have used an interesting effect to their cover by overlaying two photographs giving a hidden meaning within the images. It gives the audience an interest into the cover as it makes them search perhaps obliviously for the hidden image and message as their is a girl sitting on a bench with an authentic building in the background. The cover also looks as though a green tinted filter has been used over the top but with a warm, orange feel to the corners of the main image, although there is light shining through.

Artist: Ron Pope
Album: Atlanta
Colours: There is a monochrome colour scheme throughout the album cover, which despite being a dull looking colour it also implies simplicity; which the band possibly want to be known for.
Font: White font with again spaced lettering in capitals, emphasising the name against the grey background. Name of album is slightly smaller and faded into the background, providing a focus on the artist's name.
Editing: Used an overlay of the same photo of the artist but 3 times across the album cover with a gradual fade. This helps to draw the attention to the artist's looks rather than the titles, giving the artist his distinctive own image.
Mise En Scene: Denim shirt showing the Indie side to his music and also with the slick back hair style, in the similar style of Elvis Presley.
Composition: His eyes are posing to his left as though there is something of interest in that corner. Not much facial expression, perhaps a surprised face. Eyeline at height of the viewers eyes, especially with the repeated, faded image of him across the cover, it draws the attention in.

Artist: Noah And The Whale
Album: The First Days Of Spring
Location: Outdoors, in the countryside, stood in long grass which what appears to be a windy day. The location looks as though it is related to the title of the album 'The First Days Of Spring', as it looks quite sunny and as if it was taken in Spring.
Colours: The colours seem to be quite neutral and primary, as the main two colours presented are blues and greens also linking to the Spring season.
Font: Typical Indie use in the font with capital lettering in the band name and the Times New Roman font. Album name in italics and much smaller, helping to focus the audience's eyes upon the name of the artist.
Editing: The photo looks as though it has been edited to give a more vintage feel through changing the saturation levels. Also Focus Shift has been used to emphasise the main member/singer of the band as the other members are in the background more out of focus.
Symbolism: As the 3 men in the background are looking up to the sky in search of something, this could symbolise worshipping.
Props: Camera being held looks as though it is an old film camera providing a vintage look to the album cover.
Mise En Scene: The band members are presented in casual, relaxed and simple clothing, however with the simplistic buttoned down shirt it shows that they are in the season of Spring as they aren't for example, wrapped up warm for winter, neither dressed down too much for summer.

Indie Digipack Back Covers

Indie Magazine Adverts

Split Screen Idea

Another idea that my group and I came up with from researching music videos, was the split screen idea. This involves a split screen throughout the video seeing a number of different perspectives, this may include shots of the location the narrative is based on or where the music video was filmed, personal views from the characters and for example, if a band performance, the camera identifies various views of the instruments used. The split screen is an effective technique to use as it provides the listener with a better view and understanding of the music video or narrative. I think this technique would suit our song choice as our song is about a love narrative, therefore the split screen could show the personal views from both the male and female in the relationship and what the after effects of the possible break up are.
Below show two examples where the split screen technique in music videos are used:

Daniel Powter - Bad Day

Daniel Powter's music video for 'Bad Day' invloves a similar narrative of a break up but explains the audiences questions of 'why', 'how' and the after effects through a few split screen. This allows the audience to see the cross cutting used but shown at the same time what the couple after the break up are doing with their lives. The split screen technique shows in the video about how the couple can't live the same happiness as to when they were together. Omniscience is also used in this video, as said on this blog previously, through the main singer describing the narrative by singing and lyrics as though it was him who went through this relationship break up and after effects. However he becomes a God figure as he's not the guy in the break up in the video he's singing as though the characters can't hear him.

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

Michael Jackson's music video for 'Billie Jean' demonstrates a very simple but effective split screen approach by subtly using, for example lamposts to divide the scenes up in relation to the narrative. Although his genre isn't similar to our chosen song, the video identifies another way we could go about this idea. For instance we could find a lampost in a park and show both the sides of the story of the male and the female.

Overlay Technique

As a group, we have decided to attempt the overlay technique in our music video which we got inspiration from Olly Murs' music video for 'Dear Darlin', where he uses an identical location and overlays his image to therefore identify how him and his girlfriend acted when they were together and the good times they had. This was done with Olly in the room, sitting on the sofa whilst lip syncing. I really like this effect and I think it would work well with our music choice as its a similar narrative of looking back at the good times of the love story. In order to succeed with this idea, we would have to film it twice in the same location with the camera still running throughout the scene, then we would edit it on Final Cut Express and cut, overlay and alter the opacity of the image to make it subtle but effective. 




This technique is very common in Photography where the artist has used Photoshop to create an overlap of photos. An artist that specialises in this area, Ho Ryon Lee, demonstrates the texture of photography being used and reproduced which is defined as photorealism (photo-like picture), so he took several photos of a model standing in a specific pose; the photos are then composed together via photoshop, and Ho Ryon then paints his finalised product on canvas. 

Male/Artist's Costume Ideas

Within my group, we started to think and research different clothing ideas for our music video. We intend to go down the Indie route for the male as it will match the genre (acoustic indie) of the song. Below demonstrates some ideas we researched on sites such as www.asos.com and on google images where different outfits have been shown in a 'Look Book' on various websites. 

This outfit above establishes the typical indie look with the all buttoned up shirt, the black skinny jeans and the black vans. Because on Asos it showed full male outfits, we didn't like the top half as much as the bottom half or vice versa, therefore we had to screenshot the top half (for example) and select a different bottom half that we thought would look more appropriate for our music video. I think the black skinny jeans work well as you see generally in the Indie genre artists wearing this sort of outfit but with a baggy or long top such as a shirt as we have shown. I also think that this outfit could be seen well with an acoustic guitar which we are including in our video.

Another outfit we thought worked well together was the one shown above, with the navy blue skinny jeans, brogues and a t shirt with a parker coat over the top, it represents again the
indie genre with a skinny bottom half and a baggy outfit on the top. I think the brogues work really well with the skinny jeans and due to research I found out that trends these days in mens clothing are very popular. I also researched various Indie artists such as Bastille (which is a indie rock group) who wear brogues sometimes when performing, doing interviews, photo shoots etc. As our artist is called Mike Dignam, I looked at his style to help ideas to incorporate together as he is an important part because his style will match his style and genre of music. I noticed from this research that he wears a lot of denim (e.g a denim jacket) and he goes for the all buttoned up shirt, sometimes short sleeved or rolled up sleeved.

<--Short sleeved all buttoned up shirt

Denim jacket used with indie acoustic guitar -->

 Brogues -->