Tracklist for Digipak

After doing a survey to see which appropriate songs to use for the digipak, in order to make it seem as realistic as possible, this is the songs that I have chosen to use:

1. Suddenly I See - K T Tunstall (music video) 
2. Florence + The Machine - Dog Days
3. Haim - Falling
4. Paramore - Decode
5. Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness
6. Birdy - Skinny Love
7. Lana Del Rey - Dark Paradise
8. Paramore - Still into you
9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads will roll
10. Amy Macdonald - This is the life

Tracklist Survey Response

This is the first response to the songs to use for the tracklist. As shown the most popular choice is Florence + The Machine, this is very helpful as this is a sound that is very similar to the one that we want to produce. I am going to use all the songs that were chosen above as this numbers up to about 9 songs which I feel is a respectable amount of songs. I am really glad I done this survey because it has been helpful in choosing appropriate songs to use. 

This is the other response too which helps me to see what people think of the genre of the band and the majority was Indie which is our main sound. 

New typography ideas

After getting feedback from the class after our brief, one of the main things that needed to be changed was our typography. This is because some people felt that it connoted horror and did not reflect the genre of our band. After looking back I agree with this and so does the other members. We need to decide on another typography for the band, these are some of the ideas that I have come up with. When we are back in school we can discuss all of our ideas and then come to choosing a definite one, we could also make a survey for a few to get a better perspective too.




I feel like these typography's are more suitable because they are quite simple which reflects the look of the bands simplicity and carefree nature. Also, some give an outdoors feel which is an aspect that we feel needs to be portrayed in the typography to convey our indie vibe.

Tracklist Survey

This is a list of possible songs that I could put into my tracklist. As I am not sure on what songs to put into it I have created a survey so I can see what the most popular songs are for the specific type of genre then I can consider choosing the most popular ones for the tracklist.

These questions are to clarify that the song choices I have suggested are suitable for the type of genre. If I have feedback which says otherwise then I will possibly change them. The last question is for peoples opinions and if they have any other ideas too. - Click here to take survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WBBJMXD

Story Boards

Planning Story Boards 

This is the beginning of the story boards that I have started drawing up. We have come up with ideas for each line of the lyrics, and also in a way that it has a basic narrative and is also well presented. We have started story boarding early so that we can make sure that we properly plan the overall music video. As we have quite a lot of different locations we will have to make sure that we have lots of takes when we are filming just in case it goes wrong. We will also have to be prepared to go back up to London in order to re take certain parts. I am really happy with our progress as we have started planning very early which is essential for the overall outcome of our music video. 

22nd October

Journal

We were supposed to take pictures today for our digipak but again there has been issues regarding the weather. As the pictures are being taken outside and we have minimal props it is essential that we make sure that we have a good day to take the pictures on. As we keep having many problems with this, we are going to have to take the pictures on any day that it is not raining, even if it is still bad weather. We cannot take pictures in the rain because we do not want to ruin the equipment and also we don't want to ruin our overall look of the band.

Props

Our main prop will be an acoustic guitar for the digipak and the music video. This is because when we have looked at other music videos the conventions show that music instruments are shown in the music videos. It will make the band seem quite organic and signify the importance of music instead of just image.
We will not be having many props in the digipak, others may be a microphone stand or empty bottles to emulate the idea of partying the night before.
Our sole image is mostly to do with the scenery, and the scenery is probably the most important part.

21st October 2013

Journal 

The weather has been really bad so again we've not been able to take our pictures for the digipak. We have spoke to our teacher and because we probably will find it hard to get a sunny day we have decided to take our pictures anyway. We are going to take our pictures tomorrow (22nd October) and we are going to the local woods. We are going to wear our costumes and etc and then take the pictures. IF they do not look okay then we will have to take them again. We have the week off to also take more if we don't like them.

Advertisement analysis

This is my analysis of some advertisements on albums of the bands 'Kings of Leon' 'Florence and The Machine' and 'Oasis.' All of the bands have similar genres to the band that we are going to construct, this is useful because when I come to making an advertisement I will take on board the conventions of similar bands too.

Locations

Here are some of the locations that we would like to use for our music video and also for our digipak.
We are interested in:

• Danson Park 
• Local Woods
• London Bridge 
• London Camden 
• Trafalgar Square
• London Eye 

All these locations are outdoors and as we have thought about Goodwin's theory we are thinking that these locations could convey the relationship of visual and lyrics. Although these are the locations we would like to use we need to decide what we are going to film in each place and also organise a date so we can go to London and try and film it.

List of Actors

• Hayley Sollis (myself)
• Megan Mead
• Holly Wright

As the band is supposed to be a new band we felt that it would be more appropriate to just use the band members in the video, as this could come across confusing if there was other people in it.

My Digipak Ideas

These are my first ideas for my digipak that I am going to produce. This is the album cover, which shows the band all together with their heads together. I imagine this will be taken laying down, and it allows the audience to get to see what the band members look like as they are a new band, it also allows the audience to get a first indication of their genre too. 

 This is the interior and exterior ideas for my digipak. For the inside I thought that having a panorama image spread across would look very interesting. The idea is to have the band laying on grass/ flowers or somewhere with open space and to have the picture extended. This allows to have scenery in the picture so the band is not taking over the space too much and also highlights the idea of being in touch with nature. Also, the idea would be that they would look like relaxed which again highlights the genre. The exterior makes them seem very united as a band and also indicates that they are fun and carefree, reinforcing the idea of highlighting their genre and also adapting to conventions of indie bands who seem to have a fun and carefree nature about them.
This is just my first idea for the digipak, this could change due to weather or other reasons.

Fashion Ideas

After our discussion today we realised that we needed to think more about what we are going to wear for our digipak pictures and also for our music video, as the overall look will be very similar. I have created a collage of pictures of different aspects that I think we need to apply to the over all look. We all agreed that we should wear similar things but not exactly the same. Also, it's not going to be too styled as this goes against the conventions, of taking fashion and looks as a major aspect, and we do not want to do this. However, for our genre we need to use fashion to portray to the audience the type of genre that we are which is indie/rock and I feel that this can be conveyed with the use of clothes/makeup/piercings etc.

Presentation

This is our group presentation that we are going to present to the class to show our ideas and plans for our music video. We have included things such as the record label, a video of pictures of ideas for our video, the audience profile and more. From doing this and presenting it to the class it allows us to hear the feedback from other people. This is a good thing because it can help us with new ideas or ways that we can improve the over all band.

Survey Results

This is the feedback we had from the survey that we done. The reason for the survey is to get a better perspective from other people of our ideas instead of ourselves and our class mates. I liked the feedback about the ideas of it being an all girl band because this is quite unique and also the fact that this is seen as a positive thing from other people. The majority of the people also agreed with the name of the band too which was something that we found difficult to come up with. We are also going to take on board the things that could be improved. This was helpful for the group because it allows us to change things or improve things about the band that we are going to create.

Discussions 1

This is a recording of a group discussion regarding our ideas for our digipak pictures and for the music video. We chose to record it because it will allow us to go over and listen to it again and again to remember ideas that we have had. As we could not take pictures today, instead we came up with ideas which we speak about in this recording.

Certain parts that we discussed were:

•  Jump cuts for the beginning of the music video 
•  Intertextual references in our music video 
•  Adopting Goodwin's theory of a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals and ideas to do this 
• Using the green screen
• Locations to film eg: London, Camden 
• Ideas for the chorus 
•  Conventions to adopt or going against 
• Point of view shots 
• Fashion ideas eg: makeup, clothes, hair ideas

13th October 2013

Journal:

We were supposed to take pictures today for our digipak but the weather is quite bad and not suitable for what we would like. We have arranged another day to take pictures. We need the weather to be reasonably good because for the 'look' of our overall digipak we would like it to be fairly sunny and not raining! It would also allow us to lay in the grass as this is something that we have planned to do for our pictures too. Also, we have discussed other aspects of our overall planning for example the digipak and also initial ideas for our music video.
We need to have another discussion so we can decide on the props we want and all the locations that we are going to use, and when. Luckily, we do not need a list of actors as it is only us but we may have a few other people in our music video, this will be another thing that we need to discuss. 

Blog Feedback

This is my feedback from my teacher about all my posts on my blog and the things I have done well and how I can improve. I have completed all the tasks to improve it such as: Explaining how all my posts are related to our product Green screen Label gadget Commenting on Goodwin Brief Journal posts

10th October 2013

10th October 2013

We have started discussing ideas for our music video, and I have made a video with a selection of pictures.
We thought that we needed to film a lot of it in different locations so it's not boring and more appealing and fun. We have thought of locations such as: Danson Park, Local Woods, London, Hall Place and more. These locations allow us to be in a nature related scenery and this is what we have seen in other music videos of a similar genre.

Florence + The Machine Analysis

This is my individual digipak analysis of florence and the machine. I chose to analyse this digipak because I thought it was quite interesting and different to their usual ones. Also, florence and the machine are one of the bands that we have looked into when researching, this allows me to find conventions in digipaks of similar artists.

Music Video Ideas

This is a short clip that shows pictures which suggest the ideas that we want to present into our music video. I have included pictures such as: sceneries, fields, friends, parties, guitars and different locations. The idea of this is because it applies to Goodwin's theory of a relationship between the music and the visuals. The idea of the song 'Suddenly I see' and lots of different locations makes a relationship here. It also conveys the genre of our band, from researching into many different music videos it has shown they are quite laid back with little storyline, all presenting different locations too.

Audience Profile

This is our Audience Profile for our band 'After Midnight.' We chose the age group of 17-25 because the group hold connotations of staying up late and partying and we feel that this is a suitable age group to target for. The target of females is also used because the band is all female so this would be suitable too. The occupation of 'student' and no income could also suggest rebelling and having quite a carefree nature, just like the band. The idea of commenting on not liking mainstream bands is important because we like the idea of our band being independent and we are trying to shy away from the idea of being mainstream, mainstream typically holding conventions of being pop and the most prominent aspect being image. In the likes we have included likes that we think a fan of this group would like and also their dislikes too.

3rd October 13

Journal: 

As a group we have started to come up with more ideas for the type of images that we would like to have in our digipak and for what we are going to put into our music video. I thought that for the digipak  we could have an image of the three of us laying on the floor, preferable grass, with our heads together and looking away from the camera and laughing. Also I had another idea which would be the back of the digipak. I think a long shot of us from behind, and a sunset rising or setting in the background. This also relates to the title of our band 'After Midnight' and gives connotations of partying all night and being quite wild, making us seem quite edgy.

Regarding the music video, our initial ideas is to be in an outdoors location. This could be either the woods, or a park, or empty fields as outdoors locations are typically shown in the music videos that I have researched into. Also, we thought that if we filmed one of us playing the guitar this would also portray our indie/folk/rock genre too.

Surveys

This is a survey for people for the research and planning for our band 'After Midnight.' From doing this it will allow us to have a better idea on whether our typography and label of our band is suitable. Also, we can get a clearer perspective on the audiences view of our band. We can see if our ideas are suitable and if it actually appeals to people too.