Student Digipack & Magazine Advert #2: The New York Fund

Here is another example of a digipack and magazine advert from a previous student that used a song from band "The New York Fund" called "Nobody's Home".
*Image*


Use of colour on the front cover is very good in my opinion. It is dynamic, and appeals to the teenagers and youngsters of today. The colourful lines against the black background really stand out well and the artist and track name text on top of the colour bars is the easy to notice. Despite the quirky nature of the text, I don't think it is as clear as it could be - I certainly had to give it a second glance to read what was on the front cover. This however might work in their favour, as the casual passer by in the shop might have to go back to read the cover in more detail...

Student Digipack & Magazine Advert: Blighters

A digipack is an essential marketing tool that comes along with a CD purchase. They commonly have a front cover that attracts the attention of the audience and offer more information about the tracks on the album, as well as including other features such as lyrics.

A past student example is this, from "blighters/".

*Image*

The colour contrast on the front cover has been tastefully done and works well. An image of a guy and a girl walking away from the camera is the most predominant part of the cover. You could say that the image and the colours involved of blue and green highlight the intended mood of the image, as they are quite melocholly colours and may be trying to communicate to the audience that the track may be rather emotional and of a rocky, industrial manner. The colour gradient usage and the predominant feature of a sole photograph is something that I will potentially be using on my own piece, with careful thought about the colours used so it fits the dance genre I am doing (potentially darker colours as it is a darker drum&bass/dance song, but this will be investigated during the design phase). The simple text of just "blighters/" on the front cover is to the point, and does not detract away from the effectiveness of the image - whereas if there was too much text, it may detract from the effectiveness of the image and its colour correction.

Past A2 Media Video - Blur: Boys and Girls

First things first. I've been looking for this song for ages - because it is actually brilliant! This is a music video produced by a A2 Media Student... and I think it's actually quite good.



Strengths

• The whole idea of the "gender swap" is one that has been executed really quite well. 2:36-2:52 is a good example of what the opposite sex would conventionally do. The 1st shot is something convenionlly associated with the ladish behaviour of a guy. The pouting and checking your appearence is something typically females do more than males as they worry about their appearence more.
• Lyrics/Video link is something that is common place throughout the entire video. The "streets like a jungle" lyrics links to the image of the 2 guys going across the road. "Take your chance" lyric links to a picture of someone filling in lottery tickets.
• The practice of on the beat editing is strong and correctly used in time with the music around 75% of the time.
• Use of visual effects was good as we had the guy running in front of the animals @ 0:40 (if not abit random with the colour adaption @ 0:47/2:14). The dancing arms at 0:25 were quite cool too!
• Lip-sync (1:52) is strong and well edited

CD Covers: Personal Analysis

Question 10 of my questionnaire I sent round to gather audience research, related to the design of 3 CD album covers and which design those questioned preferred. To guide them, I instructed them to focus on aspects such as color, layout and use of props. The 3 covers were chosen very carefully, as I wanted 3 very different designs that people could choose from, so I could have a clear idea of which design style most people prefer.

Cover A comes from Muse album "Black Holes and Revelations." My audience research showed this as the 2nd most popular CD cover. The main feature of this cover relates to the use of props, colour and where it looks like it is located. The idea of 4 men sitting round a table playing cards (?) in a location very similar to the Grand Canyon is very "out there" and random - thus leading us to the "concept" based design element.

A comment I had from 1 of the people I questioned called Pippa was that the use of the images were "unusual but relevant" and that it "thinks outside the box" which is an element of design I hope to deal with in my design. The contrasting colours of the blue sky against the orange canyon also suit well, as well as the simplistic and sleek black Muse logo and album name in capitals. I personally would rate this as my 2nd favorite out of the 3 covers, mainly due to colour contrasts, and the random concept portrayed in the design.

Ideas for My Video!

To get the ball rolling, I came up with 3 different ideas for what I could do in my music video. I included some basic shot composition techniques and plot line information to give a clearer vision of what my ideas were like.

I will jointly decide alongside input from my team of 4 Further Research participants which idea will be the most effective to do - and then a detailed plan will be developed. Click to enlarge my ideas for my info (shot types/locations/timings etc.)

Idea 1: Girl is lonely after being alienated by her friends. A guy friend then invites her up town to join with a group of friends. They have a great time, but the girl starts to worry about how late it is… the guy convinces her in the end that things will be fine.

Audience Research: The Findings...

In order to understand what teenagers want from a music video, I asked 20 teenagers (10 males and 10 females between 16-18 years old) a series of 10 questions on various aspects of music and music video production.

Question 2: How many different music videos do you conventionally watch per week?

I asked this question to gauge an understanding of how knowledgeable my audience would typically be about music videos. I thought that if people watched more videos, they would have stronger opinions and expectations of the content. Also, typically the females questioned watch more music videos than males. There are several males that watch fewer than 1 a week!

My Track...

After much deliberation I have chosen the track I will be doing my music video too...

*epic drum roll*

My music track will be Pendulum - Watercolour. To watch the official music video - press play below :)



Now. Time to get STUCK IN! xD

Music Video Planning: Questionnaire

Here is my finished questionnaire, which I'll be handing out to 20 people over the next few days.

The results will help me determine what my audience expects from a decent music video - and I hope to take the findings onboard in the production of my own music video.

To enlarge press the images!