Designing The Digipak

Designing The Digipak

Website Research 3

Website Research 3

Indie Pop Band The XX website- http://thexx.info/home/

Digipak Conventions

Conventions of a Digipak

Digipaks can be used for both CD's and DVD's. There are two main reasons as to why CD's and DVD's both have digipaks, the first reason being for product protection and the second reason being for product promotion.

Digipaks for CD's help sell and promote the artist's/band work a significant amount. The digipaks are also extremely representative of the artist's/band which is why it is key that the digipak is presented in a certain way, has certain images and font styles etc. People will use these elements to help recognise the artist/band and set them apart from other competitors in the industry.

Here is a list of CD digipak conventions:

Front-

• Artist name
• Album title 
• Image of the artist/band 
• Parental Advisory label (only if some songs have explicit lyrics)

Back-

• Artist name
• Tracklist
• Production credits
• Barcode
• Record Label
• Record Label website
• Image of artist or colours/image connected to the artist/band

Spine-

• Artist name
• Album name
• Distribution number

Booklet Front-

• Iconic image (Image linked to band/album or image of band)
• Credits

Booklet Contents-

• Images of artist/band or related images to their genre
• Full lyric sheet
• Track by track credits
• Full credits

CD-

• Image of artist/band
• Artist name
• Album title
• Record label
• Credits and Copyright
• Compact Disk trademark

When creating my digipak for my band I will include all of these conventions in order to seem as realistic as possible. If there is something different about my digipak, there should be a promotional reasoning behind the reason e.g. the look of the front cover on the digipak.

Official Band Website

Published Website

Link -http://cdeabr1.wixsite.com/palmsthebandofficial

 The home page of the Palms website takes you to a simple yet sophisticated short slideshow of various different images of the indie band. The first image that appears is the official logo of the band. It is only fitting to have the bands official logo as the first image to appear so that people can immediately recognise their logo and understand who's music artist website they're visiting.









The next page that the website visitor can go to is the about page. The about page 'does what it says on the tin' and tells you about the band, how and where they began and more. The 'About' page also contains professional critics opinions of the band.

You can then visit the music and videos page where you will find the bands official music video for their single 'Luna' and you can preview listen to some of their songs on their new album 'O M E N S'.

If anyone wishes to see the 5-man-band live, you can click the 'Tour' page which takes you to a page with their U.K. tour dates on. It also takes you to the official tour dates video which they have posted on their social media. The page also contains a Reading and Leeds festival poster. As the band are performing on the last day of the festival (bottom of the poster right hand side you can see their name) it was only fitting that they included tickets for the festival also.

Fans/website visitors can find images of the band members on the 'Gallery' page. The images have all been photoshopped on ps6. Lighting effects such as using gels were used to help improve the quality of the photos along with giving the desired effect.

 The 'Social Media' page brings you to a page full of the bands different social media. The bands twitter and latest tweets appear on the screen along with their single Luna on Spotify and if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will find the bands official Instagram where they post fun pictures and videos.

A devoted fan can purchase different items from the store page. People can purchase items such as jumpers, a hat, a phone case and the bands official album 'O M E N S'.

People can check out what they have added to their cart by clicking on the cart symbol/image next to the menu bar at the top of the page. 

If fans wish to get regular updates about the band or even if their favourite merchandise item has some back into stock they can sign up to the website by clicking on the 'Sign Up' page and filling out their details.

Overall I believe I achieved and managed to mirror a typical indie band music website. I still managed to put my own spin and style on the website which is still kept within all the conventions of the indie band music website that I understood whilst doing my website research. I gave the band a cool style that would be like by many indie-pop fans. This website would be a successful, functioning and popular website if it was made for a real band.

The whole website has a blue/pink/purple and peach colour scheme, just like the digipak. I wanted all my products to flow and fit together, which it now does. The website has all the typical conventions of a music website and has a particular style that is extremely suiting to my mixed gender band and their genre style.







 

Band Costumes

Costumes

Filming

Diary Entry 4

Production days 4-5



These 2 particular days were harder to film. Days 4-5 took longer to film as we were outside in a public so people were walking past and cars were constantly getting the way. In particular everyone found it difficult when we all had to film on the roads. We constantly had to stop and re-start filming clips due to these problems. I ended up leaving the camera rolling most of the time so that we could work more efficiently.

Again, because we are all friends we did all enjoy working together and natural bloopers happened. We had to re-film clips as sometimes the band members would laugh. I didn't particularly mind this as it made the process of filming more fun and less serious. This ended up showing in the video as it gave a fun and energetic look to some parts of the video which is representative of youth.

When it came to filming the tracking shots of Rees this is where things became a lot more difficult. I was having problems with the focus on the camera and whilst filming out the car window of my friends car. I was focusing more on my safety whilst trying to catch a good shot of Rees riding beside the car. We also had problems finding a long road clear enough that wouldn't have many cars down it. This made our clips limited due to constantly having to stop as well as Rees warning me and my friend Hannah (the driver) that there was oncoming traffic. A major factor that I couldn't help was the way the camera was shaking. This was impossible to not have. Neither I or my school owns a dolly, therefore there was no guarantee that the tracking shots would be smooth. The shots were also hand held which also added to the problem despite how hard I tried to keep the camera as still as possible.

There were also some clips that I couldn't carry through properly. This was mainly the clip with Ben walking and the camera pretending to be a POV shot of Rees riding. The clip was supposed to be more fast paced and should've ended up zooming past Ben at the end. I tried my best. I attempted this shots myself 4 times and even had to ask George to attempt to film the clip to see what I should do. Neither of us were able to get the perfect shot as we weren't quick enough and if we were the camera would be too shaky. It is also important to state that in this clip the camera was still attached to the tripod so running with a tripod, in the middle of the road, trying to keep the shot as still as possible, and trying to get a quick movement was extremely difficult. At the end,  I used my second attempt (which was the best clip) in my music video.

Filming outside also was difficult as the weather was constantly changing. In the morning specifically we had rain then we had sun in the rest of day. Due to the sun, it looked like it wasn't very cold, but it was. I had a few complaints from the band members about the cold and them wanting to get all the filming done quickly. This was one of the main reasons as to why we had to stop filming and carry on another day.

I managed to get all the shots that I wanted to get and followed through all my plans. The band members were extremely helpful in this process. My partner and I were extremely happy with the results that we came up with from days 4-5 of production.

Filming and Shooting

Filming and Photoshoot

These were the first 3 days where I took videos and images for my music video. It was a fun process and I managed to get what I wanted done without any hassle. As I could control the environment in my schools studio it was quick to film and I didn't face many problems. The only problems I had whilst filming during these three days were trying to get the band members who didn't really know the song to lip sync to the song properly. I had to film the band members 4/5 times each as they would laugh or mess up the words. We had fun whilst shooting the video and because we are all close friends it was harder for everyone to keep a straight face. The band members tried their best for us and all gave me clips that I was extremely happy with.

 I also had problems with the heat that was being emitted from the lights used. I would get complaints about the lighting being too strong and hot. The fact that we were in a small black room as well didn't help. I suggested that the band members left the room which directly next to an outside area to cool off. I also had problems with some of the props and the way some of the band members were playing the instruments. As I had stated before, none of the my 'band members' actually know how to play any instruments so to be able to pull off playing guitars, a keyboard and drums convincingly was hard for them all. I tried my best to guide the band members despite not knowing how to play any instruments myself. As I know the song very well I knew roughly what movement should be happening and pace. I believe this helped how the overall product looked.

Whilst filming as well the band members also helped put their ideas in to the video. We all got inspired and the mixtures of all of our ideas added something extra to the video that my plans originally didn't have. The band members were all extremely helpful and all complied with whatever I asked them to do. We couldn't help having a laugh whilst filming and taking pictures. It was an extremely fun project that we all enjoyed taking part in.

Animation

Animation On Adobe After Effects

It is fair to say after an a horrible experience in the past two years of doing Media Studies, year 11 and year 12 proved to me that After Effects was an extremely confusing programme to use. Initially whilst planning my music video I did not intend to use this programme, however, when I saw an easy step-by-step animation tutorial on YouTube I wanted to include it in my own work. This was the tutorial I followed-

I found that this video was extremely helpful. I was able to edit clips that I had already put into my music video without problems. All I had to do after editing these animation clips was add the fast colour corrector wheel in order to finish completely editing that certain clip.

Here are some screen shots of myself and my partner animating some clips of the music video-

So following the tutorial all we did was :

1. Select the clip we wanted to animate in our work area on Premiere Pro.
2. Open the clip up in After Affects.
3. Select the paint tool and brush tool.
4. Start drawing on our video frame-by-frame.

We decided that we wanted animation that wasn't too overwhelming or intense and have something straightforward yet artistic. We decided to animate the people and the musical instruments in order to make them stand out. As we had planned to use a colour affect on some of these clips we decided the colour white would pop the most and suit the clips that will be animated without the colour affect on the image. We decided also not to be too neat with the animation as we thought it would make it look more fun and would suit the bands edgy style. We have seen this messy look upon young indie bands many times such as the band - Rat Boy. 

Despite how easy it was to animate the clips it was an extremely long process and I would often find myself and my partner staying after school to finish animating these clips frame by frame. We also didn't like how some of the were fully animate as we thought this made it look a little bit harsh. Therefore me and my partner - Cole decided to break the animation up a little bit by not editing all the frames in the clip. This in turn saved us time and gave the required look we were going for.

Final Filming Location

Final Filming Locations

This is  our local area. We decided to stick to the local areas as the group could all meet quickly, we knew the local places and we knew that there were not going to be many people in the street interrupting our filming.We also knew the best places the film and so used this to our advantage whenever there was a nice day with good weather to get everyone together quickly to film for our music video. We also used this location as it was easier for us to carry our equipment and at times the equipment was a bit of a hassle to carry. 

Music Video Timeline

Music Video Timeline

Band Logo

Creating The Band Logo

When it came to creating a band logo I started with the simple idea of replacing the 'L' in palms with the silhouette of an actual palm tree. This was what made the logo stand out from other competitors in the Indie genre and overall music industry. I took to after affects with this side and decided to try different simple font styles with a similar skinny/classic look to it. I was able to manipulate the palm tree image as well as the letters and decided that the following logo had the best look and would be easiest to read.

This style is current and simple. This means that the band can use this logo and on any style of digipak no matter which direction their style chooses to go down. This logo will go with any style. It is simple yet stands out. The idea of replacing the 'L' with the palm tree is original and many members of the public would immediately recognise the logo and link it with the band. 

Treatment Feedback

Treatment Feedback

As a task in class, I had to pitched my treatment to my media studies class and receive their own ideas about my plans for my music video.

What went well:

• People understood my narrative and thought that it would fit with the song.
• They liked the animation ideas that I had for the band clips.
• They all agreed that I understood all of my genre conventions and are well applied to my music video.
• My locations are close by and their easy areas to film in with not too many hazards. 
• They all liked my editing style and said that it will stand out.

Questions I was asked and what I replied:

1. Who will be in your music video? - I plan to use my friends that are confident enough to be in front of the camera. I have chosen my friends Ria, Rees, Ronnie, George and Ben. I think these people will help me out the most during production and are most understanding about my plans for the music video. 
2. How will you make sure that all 5 members of your band will be together all at once? - I have looked over all of our school time tables and used a group chat to talk to the band members to ask when they were all next free. As we all live close to each other and all attend the same sixth form we will not be facing many problems about meeting up and recording for the music videos as the locations that I plan to film in are not that far.
3. Will they be lip syncing a lot to the song? Do they know the song? Do they play instruments? - I plan to use lip syncing in my video however, I don't want to use it throughout the music video as it will distract from the narrative of the music video. Therefore I will only be asking the band members to lip sync to the song. 3/5 of the band members know the song and only 2/5 haven't heard the song before. I  have already asked the band members to listen to the song in order to familiarise themselves with the lyrics of the song. Unfortunately, all of my band members do not play any of the musical instruments, however I do not plan to use many clips of the band members playing their musical instruments. I plan to use shorts clips of the band pretending to play the instruments to the beat of the song.
4. What is the overall message that people are going to get from the music video? - Hopefully my message is that there is always another chance at love. They will understand that two members of the band are in love each other and aren't prepared to let each other go/want to start something new. This is why at the end of the video I plan for the 2 band members to look lovingly at each other when they are together.

Improvements:

1. "Be more specific about what you are going to film."
2. "You need to make sure on how to film your clips and where exactly".
3. "Because you will be filming out in the public you will need to be careful about match on action and cars and pedestrians in the background".
4. "You need to work on grouping the different clips but at the same time you need to make all the clips flow."
5. "You can use interesting shots. Make sure that you use different height and types of shots e.g. close ups and wide shots."