Copyright and record labels

An important feature of the back cover of an album is the copyright text, without it, it looks bare and as if something is missing. I will include copyright text on the back and so I have to research the contents of the copyright text in order to make my digipak look professional and realistic.
the text always starts with the year that the album is being released, followed by the name of the band and the record label who produced the album. this is followed by lines of text that are exactly the same in every copyright statement which warn of things such as replicating and lending the album which is prohibited.
My copyright text:
2015 The Crookes, under exclusive licence to Fueled by Ramen. The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Fueled by Ramen. Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, reproduction, public performance and broadcasting of the record is prohibited. Made in the Uk.

Another feature that was important to research was the record label that I would use throughout the marketing of my artist. Different record labels are specific to different genres and artists and so I have to choose an appropriate and realistic label and feature them on the copyright text and their logo on the digipak packaging itself.
I looked at some record labels that are connected with British rock bands and found these:

Virgin Records-
You Me At Six are signed to this label and so initially I thought they may be suitable for The Crookes, however after some more in depth research, i found that more high profile pop acts typically belong to this label and so i decided it was not suitable for my artist.






Sony Music Entertainment-
a popular record label that many bands are signed to, however, again the acts most commonly associated with the label are pop acts such as Adele, Bruno Mars and Calvin Harris





Fueled By Ramen-
this record label is heavily linked with rock/indie bands, for example Fall Out Boy, Fun. , Panic at the Disco and Twenty One Pilots (duo much like my artist). and so I have chosen Fueled By Ramen as my record label as the bands signed by them make fun and energetic music similar to The Crookes, so i feel this is the most suitable record label to chose.

digipak planning

For my digipak, I have decided to use images of the sea instead of an image of the band. I have chosen this because not only do indie album covers never feature a photograph of the actual band, but also because it relates to one of the tracks on the album 'waves'. This is a common thing to do for bands-they either name the album after, or base the artwork around a song on the track list, not necessarily the main singles from the album.

 

By researching on several websites for high quality images to use on my digipak, I found this image that I will use as the background image. I will crop it slightly and alter the colour levels to match the feel and colour scheme that I am aiming for (more blues, greens and pinks) as this matches the most frequently appearing colours in my music video. 

I am also using an original image that I have taken. This image is a cropped version of a photo I took on holiday in the canary islands of waves against a cliff. I feel that this image will go well with my found image as it creates contrast between distance-far and close up shots of the sea.

I intend to combine the two images together by using geometric shapes e.g. a triangle or hexagon with the close up inside the shape and the found image as the background. I have found that many indie album covers feature some element and use of shapes, with scenic images. Additionally, I feel that by using images of soft waves and subtly combining them, it will create a relaxed, laid back feel which is an ideal state to listen to music in and project the image and attitudes of the band in general.

I also did some sketches to design a band logo for the inside of the digipak.

 

 I decided to use the two letters of the band name and link them together. Firstly I tried to continue my use of shapes by putting the letters inside a circle or triangle, however this looked very boring and wouldn't translate well onto Photoshop. I believe that the most successful and minimalistic logo design is the T within the C as it has the most potential to represent the band and make them recognisable and during live performances, it would be on the kick drum or on the backdrop.

Targeting my audience

I used several pieces of iconography and specifically used the mise en scene to appeal and access my target audience. 

Trying on sunglasses-I included this sequence of shots to enable my audience to identify with the girls in the music video. For many young people, especially those in my target audience, fashion is important and sunglasses tend to be a key staple in many people's outfits and so this identifies with the activity of shopping which many young people do with their friends. Additionally, the clothing for sale in the background is similar to the style of clothing that I believe my target audience wears and buys. 

Graffiti wall- I am trying to attract an artists and creative audience and so by incorporating contemporary artwork and street art into the music video, it makes it more accessible to my audience and more appealing too. Additionally, the bright colours along with Jeremy messing around having fun against these backgrounds encompasses the young, energetic, free image I was aiming for

Underground- Famous iconography of London so it is a familiar and recognisable sight to my London audience as they use it often which would make them more likely to watch the video if they can personally connect with something. 

Looking through art prints and records is specifically aimed at my target audience as these are two important interests for them.  Also, some prints in the background featuring the union jack solidify the bands' British origin and the typical nationality of the target audience. 

Editing

Editing has been a slightly different process throughout my music video production compared to my film opening production. As there are a much greater number of shots, I have edited them in a way where the clips are ascending upwards, overlapping the clip before as only the top clip is shown. In my last project, I was able to line the footage along one line, however in a music video, the pace of editing has to be much faster. 

By using the audio wave forms on the original track, it has made it much easier to edit to the beat of the music, making it look much more like a music video as making it easier and more pleasing to watch. 

A new skill I had to learn whilst editing is how to edit the lip syncing to perfectly match the original track. I completed practise exercises to learn how to link the video to the original wave forms so that the lip syncing was in time; these exercises were the Britney Spears re-make as well as editing a small sequence for 'You wanna what', a country song. Additionally, an issue I have had throughout this editing process is loosing time rendering, as the lip syncing clips were much longer than usual, and so they took a long time to render. To reduce this time as much as possible, when filming, we filmed each verse separately to make the clips shorter than one clip lasting the whole song. 

feedback on music video

In class, we did a peer feedback session where the other class watched our unfinished music videos to suggest what could be adapted or changed to make it more successful, as well as offer feedback on audience and brand image.

Describe the brand image:

 

What conventions of the form/genre can you see clearly?

 

 

 

 

What is your favourite shot in the music video?

• chorus-all characters are singing
• bright backgrounds
• birds eye view of the girls walking and the pictures
• snapshots of the girls having fun

 

Who do you think the target audience is?

 

 

what do you think could be added/adapted in order to improve overall impact of the music video?

• different setting for artist/crop shots so artist is alone in the shots
• change mise en scene of artist-its less thoughtful considering he is the one you need to brand
• faster pace of edit to carry fun vibe

After gaining this feedback, we have decided to re-film the lip syncing shots as they did not fit in with the fun, colourful mise en scene of the rest of the video. Initially, after filming him in a room with a white background as we were limited with time, these shots were not atmospheric or presented any image of the artist which is what the video is supposed to be about. We will re-film the lip syncing in the same setting as the girls-we will film against graffiti backgrounds in Camden to create a running image and atmosphere throughout the video.
This feedback was very helpful in validating our filming and how we approached our audience as the feedback from the brand image and the target audience is accurate to what we intended to achieve. Additionally, it has helped me in deciding to change the video to make it look better, and more exciting and to properly sell and brand my artist.



Album covers

I have decided to do some further research into album covers to get an accurate idea about what they usually have on the front. Despite my research of Lower Than Atlantis' album cover, i have found that almost all rock/indie bands never have the band members themselves on the cover. this is probably due to the fact that generally in the rock genre, their popularity and brand are not focused on their image, but more on the music itself. 

All of the covers, despite not having a relation to the artists in terms of appearance, the photos always have strong links to the album title or the title of a song on the album.

The Killers, a very popular band, never feature themselves on the front cover of their albums, this is because they have a very distinctive theme of artwork that is on all of their covers and so their appearance is irrelevant to selling their music as they have already established an image. this suggests that they have no need for them to appear on their covers.

 Additionally, You Me At Six, a popular British rock band have also never featured on the cover of any of their albums. They are probably most similar to my artist as they are of the same nationality, music genre and fan base and so their marketing techniques would be similar. I can also take inspiration from this album as i like the layout of the song titles on the back being in the middle and also the continuation of the image from the front to back. 

I have also found that the disks belonging to the albums tend to be quite plain. The typical design of them is that they are a plain colour, usually monochrome and they feature the name of the album and often the band. This simplicity is typical of the genre as album artwork tends not to be very extravagant but they also continue the themes and colour schemes of the rest of the album artwork. 

Digipak analysis