Designing Print

For the print I used a general overlay effect to add a nice finishing effect on top of the images I took to make it look more authentic.
For the back cover I tried to make it look like he was looking down at the tracklist, and then tried to fit the song list on top of the bricks so it fit in between the brick work.

For the front cover I used a basic yet effective text which keeps the stylish original idea of crystal castles music, then I put the album name along the billboard,  I then added an effect to make it look like the text is on the billboard.
The album name Not alone relates back to the general idea of being alone which is portrayed in the album cover but the different pictures relate back to my music video with the bust stop idea.




I edited this to make it look like there is nothing in the background to make him look even more alone.

For the side underneath the CD I designed my own vinyl CD which went well with the whole authentic Crystal Castle idea which I was trying to use.

Second Shoot

 I then hired out the camera again on the friday In order to take pictures for the second shoot.

 With the new planning of locations I managed to get all the shots I needed for  the digipak!

First Shoot

On the first shoot not enough photos where taken to be able to create the digipak therefore I had to go for a second shoot, although here is the pictures from the first shoot.

The places where I had planned to take the shots that night had been made unavailable due to road works, therefore I had to re plan places for shots.

I took these range of shots for the back cover.

 

Print production plan up to deadline

As I go through steps for the digipak I will post updates and screen grabs to show the steps I used to create the digipak.

Basic Ideas for Digipak

Here is my first ideas for my digipak, I plan to go into more depth and use the 6 digipak layout, I plan to keep a whole theme throughout the whole digipak, this being a being alone night theme, so all the shots on the digipak will be of an unknown male being alone in various places related to the music video, in all of these it'll be at night in the dark. Some of places that I have ideas for are :
- Bus stop
- Inside of bus
- City Street
- Blurred Street Lights/Car light
This on carries on from the idea given in the pitch of the general theme of the song of someone being alone in the dark and also conveying the idea of the bus stop and the street lights.

Print Production

From my earlier post I have decided that I will go forward with that idea for the track list, which is the shot of the back of the bus which I will take on a normal double decker bus, this will be a more zoomed in shot so there are limited amounts of windows and we will hopeful get an empty bus.

I plan to be creating a 6 page digipak, similar to the one displayed here on the right, the album title we are still deciding on but then simple word "tomorrow" seems to be the most likely idea.

Digipak and Advert Research

.

Basic Digipak Reasearch

What is a digipak?

Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD packaging. It has become popular by holding CD and DVD’s from the same artist, combining the release of a new CD with a DVD.

Digipaks typically consist of a book-style paper board or card outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.

What is the purpose of a digipak?

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak  is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets.

The History

Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to CD casing to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Paks often used generically. Giving record companies no other choices whether to choose between CD casing or Digipaks. Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s.

Redundancy/Entropy

Redundancy -  Is a media product which is very predictable or conventional in a message, therefore it is something which is highly predictable

For example saying 'Hello' would be a predictable way of greeting someone, therefore making it a very high 'redundant' message.

This house on the left would be an example of a redundant image, as its a predictable normal house.

Entropy -  Is a media product which is highly unexpected therefore making it 'unpredictability'

A Text is entropic if it contains unpredictable elements.

This house on the right however is unexpected therefore making it an entropy media product.
    


As for my music video itself..... 

Print Ideas

Now we have started think towards and researching our print tasks of creating a 6-page digipack and advert, I began to come up with some ideas for the digipack. First of all to coincide with the bus scene we plan in the music video, I thought the back page with the track list could be shot in a bus, the track list could go along this window, I researched to see if anyone else had already used the idea, but could not find any authentic album covers using the same idea so therefore it was a new original idea that went well with the album. I also came to a conclusion that the digipack would be quite dark, this is down to the fact most of the music video will be shot at night time.

A little Bit About Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi home productions. The duo released many limited EPs between 2006 and 2007, and two eponymous albums in 2008 and 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Their debut album was included in NME's "Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade" list at 39.

Creativity

Creativity week 
In creativity week we trained ourselves to be more creative with unusual items sounds as play dough and coloring with felt tip pens, may seem simple and very basic, but it really helped us to be a lot more creative when thinking of ideas for our music video and our digipak's for the music videos.


Ken Robinson and Creativity 

When you talk about creativity, the best way to approach this is through the use of Ken Robinson, he is well known for he views on creativity in learning. He believed that, ‘Education oppresses one's creativity, as they have to abide by rules in education such as being set specific tasks and not being able to be creative by making their own up.’ In media lessons we were instructed to be creative. 

Feedback

Feedback
To make sure that we had a strong idea, my group had to present a pitch to the rest of the class. This has helped us as it made us realise that we needed to consider the lighting in our music video as we plan to film in the dark. Here are a few feedback quotes from members of the class that I have replied to and explained how my group and I will work around these problems.


"Logistical issues may be the change of weather which might effect the video but I think it would be cool if you use that to your advantage as it would tie to the lyrics of the song."
My group and I will work our way around this by making sure that we film when there's no snow forecast and when the ground is dry - also if it does rain then we will not be able to film in the woods because equipment would have a high risk of being damaged.

"Don't think the idea's matched to the target audience."
We plan to make an audience profile and to carry out further research into our target audience to get an accurate view of our target audience and who will be interested in the song and video. This will help as it will give us a clearer view of what the audience will want to see in the video and what appeals to them.

"If you are filming at night , how will you be able to have light in the scene. Maybe not taking full advantage of lighting equipment"
We were planning on using a lighting kit , however if this is not possible than we will have to consider shooting in a well lit area from streetlights, film at twilight or just film in the day and darken the shots during editing. However using a lighting kit would be the most professional approach. We will just have to consider health and safety. Furthermore we need to draw up a risk assessment for this to help us avoid any accidents when filming. Also my group and I will have to look and experiment with the lighting equipment to see how much we need of it and whether we will use it at all and scrap the scene in the dark.

"Accessible locations and not too many people needed."
This proves that our nearby locations will be an advantage to filming and we will be able to shoot during college time also and if we have any cast from the college than they should be available to film during college time.

Pitch

Crystal castles

Moodboard

Our first Synaesthesia for our video

To help find an idea for what to do for our music video, as a group we used Andrew Goodwin's theory of synaesthesia. We Played the music and shut our eyes and then what ever ideas came to our heads we wrote them down and then managed to put all of our idea together leaving us with our final idea. 

The song we have decided to use is Crystal Castle Ft Robert Smith of The Cure - Not In Love
- The scene will be set in the woods during the day
- They take some kind of pill
- Then run around the woods having fun (feel like in a dream world)
- Suddenly the Boy realises he's on his own in the woods
- Flicks to memories of him being on his own
-At a bus stop at night (in black&white) him in colour (singing)
-Shot of him walking down the high street everything flashing by (singing)
-back to reality shot. Girl finds him and tries to bring him out of his day dream but it flashes back to his day dream. 
-We will be flicking through all these shots then it will come back to reality and he realises he is not alone and him and her walk into the night together.

Final Choice Of Song - Not In Love

The song we decided to do after much thought and discussion is:

Crystal Castles - Not In Love ft. Robert Smith (The Cure)

Despite this being a quite well known song there is no music video, also we got permission of band to be allowed to use the song.

Andrew Goodwin - Music Video Analysis 3

Nero - Promises

Andrew Goodwin's theory is once again used in this video. In the Song Promises the song is punctuated in just Versus and choruses. This song is also quite up beat we think of dance when thinking about this song. However Synaesthesia brings more of a contemporary style dance, which is abnormal for this kind of music. But this is shown in the video as when there is there is dancing it is all soft and smooth. whenever the song is played really loud through synaesthesia I personally think of being out of control, which in a way this video connotes. 

Here we see a two shot a a man and woman in a deep depth of field making them the focus of this shot. There are a variety of shots through out this sequence.
 They are all very random to connote that things are not quite right in this place. Some of the dance shots have been put into slow motion to get into the rhythm of the song, but when the pace speeds up the movements get sped up and there are lots of jump cuts to different movements, making everything seem quite confusing.
This connotes that everything is a little backward in this place.
As the background is all white and everyone is marching, and they are taking some kind of pill. We think that this is a place of insanity. However there is no intertextual link
This video also doesn't follow the Narrative as there is no indication of promises.
The video connotes Nero as an artist as, as all the shots done are quite abnormal which connotes Nero's uniqueness.
 In addition to this to contradict the stereotype of this kind of music, slow pace editing used as they only use 31 shots a minute. Which is very abnormal for such an up beat song. The video is disjunctive and not relevant to the song and large amount of the song are very different to the lyrics indeed.

Andrew Goodwin - Music Video Analysis 2

50 Cent - Candy Shop

The choruses are punctuated as during the chorus all the shots are focused on 50 Cent and theres just cloose ups of him during the chorus, and then during the verse it is mainly focused on the girls in the candy shop being seductive towards 50 Cent.

The are many examples of the video being illustrative during the video, and the music matches upto the video in many ways, examples of this being at the start during the lyrics"lick your lips" 50 Cent points downwards, another example is during the lyrics of him calling himself the "love doctor" and him being with a girl who is wearing a nurse outfit, the last example is during the lyrics "its a race for who can get undressed quicker" and then the girl in the video whips his clothes off.

The film to an extent follows the narrative throughout, although it may not be how some people typically picture their ideal candy shop, but this is how 50 Cent pictures his view of how his dream Candy Shop would be. There are certain bits where the narrative is slightly different, but at the same time most lyrics are backed up with the video.
The part of the story which is withheld is how at the end it goes back and 50 Cent is just dreaming at the end which is not expected.

The image that the star is presenting, is that of a superstar image and then video almost is presenting how he has made it with the flash cars, the big house and the hot girls.
He's creating an image of the fact he is powerful and rich, by from how the car he drives to the clothes he wore by how he wears the big fury coat the sort of clothing that pimps would wear.
During the music video the same theme of the verses being on him then the chorus of the group of woman idea is played without. This bit of cinematography is a nice effect and is repetitive throughout the film.
This video is literal throughout due to how the video is matched exactly to what is happening through the film therefore making the video very literal indeed, especially with bits such as the love doctor (shown above) and her whipping of his clothes.

Andrew Goodwin - Music Video Analysis

DJ Fresh - Louder

Right from the start of the video there is a large amount of establishment shots so set the scene. The song is in a sequence of verse bridge chorus and this is repeated throughout the whole song. Through the verse the two girls just do what we would assume to them as casual skating skating. Then as he song gets into the bridge their skating speeds up.
The video once again doesn't follow the narrative. The song is about music, where as the video is all about being young and having fun. There are a variety of shots through out the video. I'm guessing the camera is on some kind of track following the girls along. There is a large number of shot/reaction shots as it shows the one girl doing something and the cuts to the other girls reaction of what she's done. Also there are many match on action shots showing the girls do a trick then showing a close up of it, (for example fancy foot work) this puts more emphasis on the excitement of the video.


 Long shots on the the girls show off their attractiveness to attract male attention. To get the affect of the skateboarding the camera pans as it goes up and down the ramp, and also is put in to slow motion to make it more effective. 

The video has no real relevance to DJ Fresh as an artist. However the fast pace editing connotes how up beat the song is and exciting the video is. The use of intertextuality in the video has linked this modern music song to something more 80's. when we see skating we think of 80's disco. 

The video is disjunctive and not relevant to the video at all.

Andrew Goodwin Analysis

Andrew Goodwin has identified a number of key features in music videos. They are:
Andrew Goodwin's theory is of what he identified in music videos, these being, A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics. A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music. Genre-related style and iconography present. Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist. Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females. Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.

He says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require. Voyeurism is used to increase the video’s attractiveness, particularly to males, whilst intertextuality is often employed in humorous videos.