Digipak artwork

After doing the appropriate research, I then came up with this idea for the front and back panels of the digipak. They incorporate ideas and characters of the animation, and come together like a collage, giving an over-all quirky and related look. It also show some of the inspiration I took from Elliott Smiths New Moon digipak, an album thats artwork focuses on the collage effect that I was hoping to go for. 

Regina Spektors album artwork for 'Far' follows this pattern as well, but i a slightly more subtle manner. 

To come up with these drafts, I first of all decided on a few central images to use in the digipak from the animation. I then pieced them together in different ways to get these two final drafts. I think that i'm most likely to use the fuller, brighter digipak. 

Target Audience Research

 I began my research into my target audience by looking into his record label, and seeing who else is on it's record label, as it's likely the site website will announce James Yuill news as well as the artist you may already be a fan of, the link below has a list of the other artists that would be linked to James Yuill, this means that I can target fans of those bands as well as the fanbase of James.

Moshi Moshi records

I then looked searched online to see his other online presence and found that on his site, he has links to most social networking sites, on which I found the fanbase I would be aiming for.

James Yuill

James Yuill facebook

Finally I researched on itunes the sort of artists that appear from who else liked the artist I was researching. So the artists listed belows audience will also be connected with James Yuill, and therefore possibly my music video. An interesting fact about researching my artist on itunes revealed that on that particular music output he's considered Alternative, whereas on Facebook, he's considered electro, showing that he is split between genres, and therefore indicating how interchangeable and wide his audience is.

Digipak Research

In order for me to start planning my digipak, I have researched into what a digipak looks like, the dimensions and have tried to find examples so I know what kind of thing I'm going to be doing. I found that there are a variety of different styles made, all with differentiating sizes. Below is an example of a finished digipak. The style of digipak that I'll be using has 4 panels, all at the size 5"by 5". 

On the front of the Digipak, you tend to only see the band name, and title. However, on the back you have information about the label, a barcode, track names and the copyright information.

On the first inside panel I've found that it can have either the information you'd usually find in the booklet that comes with the case, or a photo of the artist, and occasionally more album artwork. Then, on the second panel, it is generally where the CD is kept. This panel can either be black behind, or have continued artwork. 

Above is an example of the back cover for Fleet Foxes digipak.

To research further, I also looked at what James Yuills past album artwork, to see the type of style that may be used. After looking at this I found that his current album artwork is in a very illustrative style, something which I will try to incorporate into my digipak artwork. 

Treatment for music video

After analysing the music videos I looked at, I've decided that an animation will be the way to go, I have also finalised the track I want to make the video for, which is 'Head Over Heels' by electro/alternatice artist 'James Yuill'.

This means I will be making a music video that will fit with the conventions of electro/alternative music videos, which i think indicates that my video will have to be a little quirky, another reason I have chosen to use animation. I will experiment with the style of animation I'm going to use, but I will focus on a stop motion cut out style, using 2d style puppets to represent people. The way in which the animation is framed I hope will mimic the normal camera shots, making the narrative look more convincingly real along with the animation style. 

My idea for the video is to show a faux TV show, which features a couple that are falling out of love, the woman in the relationship then leaves due to unhappiness, eventually being followed by the male, and asked to come home, which she does, leaving a happy ending. This fits slightly ironically to the main chorus line 'I can see you're head over heels for me', which we see isn't true, until the end when they reunite. 

I want the characters to represent a normal couple, but as I want the animation to be visually quite cool, I need to plan the surroundings in which I want the couple to be living, as well as clothing.

Above is an example of how I hope to make my cut out puppets move-able, and shows how the overall look of the puppet will be. I chose to leave the butterfly clips visable, because I thought that, when finished, it will add to the quirky style, and improve the animated puppetry style. 

Permission letter

In order to use the track I have chosen, I've written an email to the record label James Yuill is signed to, stating that I would like to make the video and use the track, and then where the track would be available, and who it would be available to, below is a screenshot of the email I sent them, I will hopefully get a response to my own email account.

Introduction

 In this blog I will document the process of making my music video, for A level curriculum, and the process of creating a Digipak and advertisement based around the same band. This blog will include all the aspects of planning I have been through in order to create the final production. It will also include the final production, digipak image, and advertisement. I will update this blog as each aspect is done, and comment on the process, issues I've come across, and how I've overcome them.

To decide what I'm going to do for my music video, I've looked at a few music videos that I like, that i may get inspiration from, I've gone for the musical genre of electro/alternative as I have in mind an artist of this genre, by looking at these videos i will finalise this plan.

The first video I looked at is 'Hi' by Psapp. The music videos made for Psapp are videos that generally use animation as their medium, an aspect which I'm very interested in when looking into how I might do my music video. The genre of this track fits more into the alternative that electro but i thought i'd look at it because of it's quirky style. 

The video is a very cutesy style video set in what looks like some form of musical recording room, but it then cuts to close up of different parts of the room which then shows that the room is partly drawn and created by cardboard, with part real objects. 

                                                        

                                                 

So it's based in a fairly real looking environment. We also see different creatures appear made from the inner parts of electrical equipments The narrative of this video generally appears to be either fitting along with the lyrics of the song, or the idea of the electrical equipment being alive and messing about.

                                                

                                                

To fit in with the vocal part, the TV shows a face that sings along with the words and the smaller electrical creatures playing the guitar and keyboards, creating represented performance within the video. There is a happy sense throughout, which fits very well with the style of  the song, the way in which the characters are animated to move, and the way they are lit tends to connote happiness.

                                             

The video incorporates a visual graphical representation of the lyrics within the video, when a book animates the sentence she is singing, linking the animation which appears quite random into the narrative. The mise en scene of the piece, thinking about lighting and framing of the animated creatures tends to overall suggest enjoyment of the music we're listening to. The lighting also suggests a sort of mood within the piece, as it's all downlit, occasionally with different gels, like blue and green, added that give the idea of night-time. There's also a use of silhouettes that adds to the night theme, and also adds to the sharp stylistic look of the animation. Camera/frame wise, we see mainly long shots with the occasional close up, which i think accentuates the idea that the moving creatures are small in comparison to the rest of the room, and edits seem to be straight cuts, and the occasional zoom transition. The cuts to each frame are irregular but generally quite fast, approximately 28 per minute.