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CD Digipak Annotation

Analysing the technical genre conventions of other artists’ CD’s has allowed me to understand how the star image in conveyed in my genre. As well as this, when making my own digipak, I can use this analysis as a baseline checkpoint to ensure my own product has the same amount of detail and includes the same elements as this CD from the band ‘Movements’. Creating a blueprint of how to represent the star image will help give the correct connotations and denotations to the audience, as well as helping conform to the genre conventions more accurately to make a product that the audience won’t reject prior to even listening to the contents of the CD.

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Audience Interaction with Social Media Page

Researching and analysing social media pages from artists similar to, or in, our genre is essential to ensuring we understand the technical conventions of a band’s social media page. Analysing the way AIDA is used throughout the social media pages, as well as how information, personal identity, entertainment and social interaction (Blumerler & Katz) are integrated into the content has improved our understanding of how to make successful content that will promote and market the artist as a brand effectively. This information we have gained will greatly influence our social media page and the content we share.

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Social Media Page – Key Terminology

After analysing the social media platform of the band ‘Movements’, it has allowed me to consolidate my knowledge of how a successful band in the same genre as us structures their instagram page.  All the elements I analysed all contribute to the end goal of increasing revenue through social media. These techniques can be used to increase awareness of the band, increase merch sales, drive more traffic to streaming platforms and increase the overall status and popularity of the band. It is important to use the correct technical conventions to ensure our social media page reaches our target audience through the use of algorithms, that recommend users pages based on them being conventional and similar to other bands they already listen to. Now that I have analysed all the relevant features, I would be comfortable in creating a social media page to carry out a successful marketing campaign.

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The Look Book

My group and I created a ‘Lookbook’ to help compile ideas for what style we want our digipak to be in. All the compiled are taken from tour posters or album covers from other artists in our genre of pop punk. This allowed us to come up with a colour palette and which font styles are typical of this genre.
We concluded that there is an extremely wide range of influence throughout the genre due to there being large amounts of sub genres and niches within it. However, one thing that resonated throughout was that the media is very graphic and heavily edited and the star often is not the main centre of attention. As well as this large bold texts with contrasting colours are often used.

 

We will use this information to help us create a digipak that reflects the conventions of our genre, but will also take into consideration that there are generally very varied influences in the genre therefore we have more freedom with our digipak and aren’t confined to a very specific colour palette or font. This will influence our social media page through how we display our artist with their posts and bio.

5 Key Descriptors for our genre:

  • Bold
  • Energetic
  • Grungy
  • Grainy
  • Minimalist
Made with Padlet

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Our Mission Statement – The Package Brand

The song ‘Jet’ by Citizen is the song we used for our music video and will be on the tracklist on our digipak. The Digipak is for the album of made-up band – ‘Sonder’ therefore we will need to create an integrated advertising campaign to compliment the release of the album.

By creating a mission statement and marketing strategy, it allows us to have a clear idea and brand to create continuity for our artist’s campaign. Our call to action and USP will allow the audience to be persuaded into listening to the album as opposed to rejecting the text.

Going forward, we will take into consideration these factors that go into making a successful package to promote the release of the album.

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Peer Feedback for Draft 4

Feedback from other media students is an extremely valuable way of improving our music video. We collected feedback from 3 different students and compiled them as shown below;

Peer Feedback Compiled 

  • ‘To begin with I think the MES fits the genre well. The dark colours of clothing helps establish this gloomy and alternative form of music that gives this grungy/punk vibe to the performers. I like how in the narrative the actor is wearing just a basic outfit being plain white tee-shirt and denim trousers as it reflects that this boy has insecurities and a lack of identity so these clothes help him almost blend in so he does not feel judged by bringing notice to himself’
  • ‘I also like the low key lighting in the performance yet again illustrating a dreary atmosphere. I like the bright overexposed sort of lighting when the actor is walking around in the yard reflecting when he is outside he is feeling exposed and everything for him has become almost dizzy, flustering and dreamy for him as he is lost and feeling overwhelmed’
  • ‘I think the acting is really good and the performer shows a lot of passion making it super convincing that he is the real singer’
  • ‘The use of the broken mirror was an excellent choice to convey this boy is feeling insecure. I think using the yard was confusing at first but then I noticed it made a lot of sense with the lyrics and was very clever’
  • For the performing shoot I think the room has a dark feel to it with the blue stained glass and the broken light above. The shots were steady and the variety of distances, angles and movement was very good and flowed well with the music’
  • ‘I would say the start image was okay but the singer is the main indicator you listen out for when listening to alternative indie therefore the singer needed their costume to stand out slightly more as the base guitarist and lead singer both were wearing similar black clothing whereas the drummer had a white tee-shirt on which makes him stand out which may have been a good thing for like a heavy metal song where the drummer has a lot more significance and isn’t such a simple sequence for them’
  • ‘I would also say that it would be nicer to see some other transitions’
  • ‘Lastly my biggest thing is I think you need to include more narrative shots in your music video as of now it is a little to much of performance and not a clear enough storyline, there feels to be a big chunk during the middle that needs to be broken up by some narrative shots just in order to make the video a little less repetitive and I also believe although you can gather the main message of the storyline from the few clips I think it needs to be developed a little further at least’
  • ‘Some of the lip sync was visibly out of sync and some of the lighting during the shots of the  whole band would of been a little bit better but overall it was really great’
  • ‘None of your clips drag on, they are all nice quick shots. The shots also have a good range of angles and distances. It isn’t boring and the movement in the clips fit together very well. Near the end, you have some shaky transitional effects that look really cool and effective. You have some shots with good angles and lighting’
  • ‘I don’t understand the narrative. What’s the story behind the main character? Has he been through a breakup? If so, I like the cracked mirror, it gives the impression the cover star feels broken too… Why is there a guy walking around miserable outside- is he part of the story?’
  • ‘There’s a few shots that are blurry, I think some of these are on purpose, but it looks like some should be a better quality to me. Specifically one near the start, or the shots of the second guitar playing out of focus’

We have taken this feedback on board and made necessary changes in order to improve our music video. A very common criticism was regarding our narrative which was highlighting the lack of shots which contributed to the narrative having little meaning to it. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of footage to help this and to create a story out of the narrative, however we do have enough footage to allow the narrative to create some sort of meaning and almost act as a theme of loneliness and depression radiating throughout the video. In regards to the blurry shots and other criticism that cannot be changed, that is something that is out of control at this stage in the production, but we will aim to use alternative shots where possible.

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Draft 3 – Specsavers feedback

After completing our 3rd draft of our music video, we were provided with feedback from Specsaver’s creative department employees who film and edit professionally as their jobs. We were mainly given feedback regarding effects, post production and our narrative.

The main few points were:

  • We needed more narrative in our music video with a variety of shots to help keep the audience engaged because watching a music video that is solely performance based be boring and can cause the audience to stop watching it
  • We were shown how to colour correct to ensure all shots were at a similar colour level as well as how to create an adjustment layer so we could add colour effects to the entire video evenly
  • We were shown how to duplicate our performer to make our narrative more interesting and creative to make up for the lack of story telling.

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Music Video Draft 3 – Teacher Screencastify

The feedback from our teacher allows for another point of view regarding our 3rd draft music video, allowing for feedback that we may not have thought of otherwise. In general, the feedback was mostly positive, however, there were a few key points to improve on, such as, including more narrative shots throughout the whole video, not just the start, more close-up shots to increase the connection and proximity of the vocalist and more canted shots when in energetic sections in order to further enhance the energy.

Key targets for improvement:

  • Add the rest of the narrative shots and sequence them so that they portray a theme
  • Add special effects and transitions to make the video more unique and visually stimulating
  • Add a title and ending sequence to introduce the song

 

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Draft 2

The second draft of our music video has started to include our narrative performance. Unfortunately, our narrative shoot doesn’t align with our expectations and is sub-par, therefore it would make more sense to turn the video into a mainly performance driven video, compared to our previous plan of having it include equal amounts of narrative and performance. At this stage in the production, it would be slightly too late to film a second pick-up shoot, and since we are working to deadlines, it would be a more effective use of our team to try and make what we have the best it can be.

4 things that worked

  • Performance is convincing and the actors look like they are playing the song and giving credibility
  • All shots are well synced
  • Variety of shot angles and distances
  • Good camera movement to enhance energetic moments

4 things that should be improved

  • Inconsistent camera exposure and lighting
  • Lack of narrative content
  • No filters
  • Narrative doesn’t convey a lot of meaning

Reflecting on what could be improved is important to our group so that we can make necessary adjustments to narrative and performance to conform to the genre conventions of pop punk. Setting goals and targets will help structure our feedback and help filter out the unnecessary and help us focus on what is important to make the video a product that won’t be rejected by the audience.