Research Into Target Audience - Initial Research

Revised: Digipak Research

To begin planning my Digipak i researched other artists albums who had a similar genre to that of The Wild Wolves. Initially i mainly looked to the front covers of the albums (as they are usually the first impression, and the back-cover/inside relates to the front) and found some pictures that i have posted below. I thought that by looking at a group of front covers by similar artists, I could establish and utilise any generic conventions seen in their album pictures.

This first CD cover belongs to James Morrison's first album, Undiscovered. James Morrison's music is little like The Wild Wolves, as it is more Indie-Pop than Indie-Folk, however he supports the Indie-Folk/Pop image with his soulful Indie music. This album cover is a simple image of him, the artist, marketing him to his new audience. The space in the picture includes his name and the album name, and there is a lighting effect/lens flare from the top right corner behind the artists head.

This next album cover belongs to Florence & The Machine - a relatively new "big" Indie band that has risen quickly in popularity. This album cover prominently focuses on the image of the lead singer (Florence) and the title of the album, "Lungs", with the text and the added imagery of a paid of lungs hanging from her neck like a necklace. This shows the bands Indie genre by developing a unique and interesting album cover whilst still focusing on the band - a marketing requirement.

The above 2 pictures (Jamie Cullum, Bob Marley) sport the artists face taking up the majority (and nearly the whole) of the mise-en-scene. This clearly shows the marketing aspect to the album, and also how important the image (and style) of the artist is. Each album cover has it's own unique feel to it, with Cullum's being cast purple and Marley's emphasising the warm colours (representative of Folk music).

Paolo Nutini's work is more colourful than the other productions (with Cullum's being just one flow of purple). Nutini also displays the animation side in his productions, which relate to his one animated music video and his genre (with animation and Indie becoming more strongly linked). These album covers above show his sense of his own music (colourful) and focus on how he is portrayed to the audience - animated, friendly, holding a guitar...

An image of the artist is shown in all of the above album covers - telling me that for a successfully Indie album cover, I must focus the mise-en-scene directly upon the artist, whether this is a large shot of the artists face, or a recurring image of the artist as seen in Nutini's "these streets" album cover.

Another recurring idea throughout the productions is the unique addition to the digipak - and the relation it has with a music video produced by the artist. This tells me that to make the digipak as attractive as possible, I should make a connection between the imagery on my digipak, and the imagery in my music video, to encode a personal flare of the artist into the print productions. This has given me a wide variety of ideas regarding the animation in our music video, which can be a strong link between productions, and a strong unique factor to my digipak.

Disney President: Simba

Simba (The Lion King)

Simba, the King, son of the late King Mufasa, is a perfect candidate for the President of Disney. Simba already knows and holds great responsibility; leading his tribe, being a father, and having to look after his multiple friends from hunters, bigger animals, or power-hungry relatives (such as his Uncle, Scar).
A Disney President needs to have these qualities. Leadership, compassion and bravery are a must have. The elected Disney President needs to be able to progress with new ideas to promote the company and keep it successful. They also need to be a quick thinker, and develop fair and effective solution. Simba is able to provide all of these, as his experience as a Prince cub and his experience as a King and a loving Father has allowed him to utilise these skills.
Simba's life has not always been smooth, but he is consistent throughout his life of his passion, love and success. Simba is able to make friends with just about anyone (including a Warthog and a Meerkat) and this, combined with his fatherly skills, allows him to lead in a fair and just way.
However, as Simba is a King, this provides him with the opposite skills, of leading the way of survival, and doing what is best for everyone in the long run. This is an exeptional skill for a Disney President, as he will be able to lead a just and long running company, increasing and supporting its popularity.

The Disney President will probably need to be comfortable in the spotlight. Simba is used to this! He has appeared in multiple films and has given special appearances on TV shows (through which he has shown what a good animator he is), showing his connection and passion to the film/TV industry - a good factor for a competitor of a media industry president.
If all of this wasn't enough, Simba is a lion. Lions are known to be brave and logical, two important skills of leadership. He won't be afraid to take risks to keep the company successful, and he will be able to think logically and clearly to develop a solution for any problem.

By the end of this extremely strong campaign for Simba, you should be prepared to vote for Simba, as this would be a vote for success. If that hasn't convinced you, just think, Simba is a talking lion! That would certainly promote Disney to the world - having a brave, strong lion with the gift of human speech!

Goodwin's Music Video Analysis

Andrew Goodwin developed a useful way to analyse music videos, which has proved to be a useful reference point for our own music video analyses. (while writing in "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" - Routledge 1992)


Genre Characteristics
The video should demonstrate genre characteristics, so visual aspects that are suitable to what sort of music that is going with it. For example, a stage performance for a rock video, but then a dance routine with singing for a boy/girl band.

Lyric & Visual Relationship
There is usually a relationship between the two, either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting, to strengthen the song and the music video (so maybe audiences remember/like it more).

Music & Visual Relationship
Similar to the genre characteristics, as visuals connect with the music, and also similar to above, as they can be illustrative (guitar with a guitar solo), amplifying or again, contradicting (for example, Blink 182 is a rock band but made a music video that looked like a boy band, for contradicting humor).

Visual styles
For example, bands and their record labels will need close ups of the artist to sell the artist, or the artist may develop motifs which can recur across their other music videos and other work.

Notion of Looking
Reference to this notion of looking, for example, screens within screens/telescopes, etc.

Voyeuristic Treatment of the Female Body
Nowadays this is obvious in R'n'B music videos or rapping music videos, to demonstrate their wealth/luck and how women want them because of their musical skills.

Intertextual Reference
These references could be to films or even TV programmes with which the music is associated, for example music videos showing film clips are usually in the soundtrack to the film, so the two medias can advertise each other simultaneously.

Research Into Newer Ideas for Music Video

As we are changing our ideas for the real life section of the music video, I have decided to do some research into what sort of generic mise-en-scene features are usually found in Folk-Indie music videos, and if our newer ideas (posted previously) match or mirror these features. The artists in the pictures supporting this research are The Kooks, The View, Paolo Nutini and James Morrison. These artists all have a similar style of music, and they all have strong musical links to the Indie-Folk/Rock/Pop category.

Firstly, wood/neutral settings do seem to pop up within this genre of music videos, including the fore mentioned bands. The "simple" setting is a popular feature to the mise-en-scene in these videos, shown in the photographs below of James Morrison, The Kooks and Paolo Nutini. James Morrison is featured at a beach, with high cliffs. Although this is beautiful, it is also very simplistic, as his video features him walking along this beach, however we see barely any of the beach (as we see more of him). The Kooks pictures are featured in a blank room, and outside the Eiffel tower. The blank room has its obvious simplicities, however the Eiffel tower setting is less so. The way these bands use the setting is ideal, as the camera focus is on them, having the background fuzzy and out of focus. This gets the audience to concentrate on the artist more, as well as including an attractive mise-en-scene.

The next few pictures (including The View, James Morrison and The Kooks) show the artists singing in the mise-en-scene, towards (but not directly at) the camera. This is an extremely popular feature to Indie genres for music videos, as it gives the artist a chance to show off their talent. However, these video clips aren't usually from live performances but from staged-live performances for the camera, for example, James Morrison's picture below where he is playing in the middle of a busy street (perhaps London). The uses of the miming to their own song doesn't have a preference to whether they use a microphone or not. In the pictures below, The View and The Kooks are both using one, however James Morrison is not. This seems to be an option, but the microphone promotes the "live" performance aspect. However, a microphone is used in settings where its suitable, for example The Kooks' and The Views recording stuido look-a-likes, however James Morrisons busy street wouldn't be suitable, perhaps meaning we should not try to use a microphone in the middle of our woodland setting.

The next feature is the instruments. Some of the above pictures have already shown instruments being used wherever the singing is used, and this is usually the case. The following pictures furthur support this notion, with Paolo Nutini, The View and The Kooks. These artists have clearly used their musical abilities to promote the band through their music video (as well as in their songs). As mentioned above, the bands seem to use singing as a popular aspect to their videos, and the use of instruments from the main band member, and the rest of the band (usually situated behind the main member). This promotes the image of the band AS a band, marketing them as a whole to the audiences who consume their videos. As we cannot use a whole band, we are just using an actor for the main band member, which is also popular in this genre (however usually, there are shots of the other members). After looking at alot of videos, we decided we will definately be using a musical prop for the video, to promote the musical image of the artist through the video.

I also looked into the use of a wolf, which surprisingly was quite popular over many genres. In James Morrisons video "You can't stop the rain" (Stills shown below), there are shots of real life wolves (which unfortunately, we are unable to use) shown in a similar setting to the artist. There isn't a wholly main concept based around the wolves in either the lyrics or the video, however it does make the video more interesting to watch. This shows that although the use of a wolf is a popular concept, we need to use it correctly to make it successful.

Revised Animation for Music Video Ideas

After finishing shooting our animation and watching it back post-edit, our teachers gave us some valuable criticisms and advice.
For starters, the animation was too slow moving to fit in with the fast-paced song we had chosen. We ended up re-editing and speeding up the pace of our animation to see if the pace of the mise-en-scene matched the tempo of the song. This helped alot, as we decided it looked much more interesting and we could add many more exciting visuals, making the animation and the music video better to watch.
Another point was that the animation was rather "boring" in a sense. This was mainly because the animation was mainly shot as a long shot or medium shot, with no interesting variation or change. Over the past week we came up with newer ideas to integrate into the animation, and captures close-ups, extreme long-shots, and medium close-ups of the wolf in the animation, providing a good variation making it easier to watch and much less boring.

Revised Ideas for Digipak

As we have changed our ideas for the music video, including actor ideas, setting ideas, and a new plot, I decided I needed to update and improve my Digipak ideas.
This has included using the new actor, and ideas of strong links between the visuals in the music video, and the pictures for the Digipak.
I am planning to edit the photos, to make them look surreal to fit in with the theme of the animation in our music video. I plan to do this by using an editing tool I discovered on Microsoft Word, that transforms an image to "Black and White" (not grey scale) showing high contrast and creating an effect similar to our shadow puppetry. I believe this will market the artist still, but create an interesting mise-en-scene that will attract consumers.
I also want to include various shots of the artist (the actor, Tamas, posing as the artist) to keep with marketing the image of the band. I am planning to use similar generic costumes to the one used in our music video.
I have also been advised to link the music video and Digipak in more than just the ways I have fore mentioned. This could be done by using screen-shots of our music video, then editing/tweaking them so they fit in with the Digipak. I plan to use this idea for some of my covers. For example, I could use an image from the video for the back-cover, and then add text to it for the song names and small-print, creating an interesting image that links subtly to the music video, keeping a consistent mise-en-scene throughout my productions.