Ancillary Task Ideas and Intentions

Group Task - Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164
                     - Emma Hall 9162
                     - Alex Major 9190

After looking at examples of promotional material other than music videos, we have decided that a digipak and tour poster (for use in magazines, bus shelters, billboards etc.) are the most appropriate materials - with a digital download also available. Using images taken from our music video will also help provide synergy across the products, and we should use the genre conventions of natural imagery also; these should create striking images that set a gentle tone. We should aim to keep the font style the same across the different media to create a house style - our similar product research showed an abundance of thin, italic fonts that are delicate, and a prevalence of black and white - especally in the album cover for 'English Rain'. A vintage style also works well in products we have looked at, with darkened corners. Simplicity also seems to be a key convention, and we should definitely make use of this, and aim to keep our imagery subtle but meaningful.

Using greens and yellows would help us establish the genre of our Digipak, along with saturated colour that looks fresh and new, to match the cheerful tone of our artist's music. However it may also be worthwhile looking at designs that use silver as a key colour to link with the title of the album and create a more modern image. If we choose to mix these two, for example choosing one colour scheme for the poster and another for the Digipak, it will become more important to have a strong housestyle in the font used, to make sure our artist is recognisable.

We took the decision during the creation of our music video to rebrand our artist as 'Benjamin Rose', as to create a more memorable name. The first name is more old-fashioned and so suits the indie-genre of being unusual, while the 'Rose' hints at the sweet nature of the music, and will match any delicate, thin fonts we use.

These are some basic initial ideas for Digipak and posters:

This last design is for the back of a Digipak and features a space for text instructing the user on how to download their exclusive content off the artist's website. Two versions of this album could be created, one for a regular release and one as a special edition that includes a code that when typed in online, unlocks exclusive content like picture galleries, a first look at the music video and interviews with the singer - similar to things found on bonus disks of CDs we discovered during our similar product research. This content could also be available when the song is bought on iTunes, as when researching our ancillary tasks and new technologies, we found that internet promotion is becoming more and more popular recently. By including the band's website on all promotion, and a QR code to scan in to smartphones, our artist can stay current.

DHB - Ancillary Tasks - Similar Product Research 2

Solo Task - Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164

This promotional poster for Jake Bugg’s debut album is interesting as it has used a different picture to the album cover for the main background image. Although the photos are quite similar the difference between them makes both the poster and the smaller image of the album cover, in the bottom right corner, stand out much more. If we use photos for the album and poster then using this technique might be more successful at marketing our product.

The use of colour on the poster has been used to convey the artist’s style; on the album cover the colours have been changed to sepia, which has connotations of nostalgia and the past. The colours on the poster also seem somewhat washed out or faded, and there are a lot of more neutral colours. Theorist O’Sullivan can be associated with this use of colour as it is showing a ‘partially selected view of reality’; the washed out colours of the background and the plain, everyday street, according to Jake Bugg. This could have connotations of warmth or subtlety, which are often associated with the acoustic indie genre in music. Again, the use of colour in my ancillary products will be important and will need to be manipulated to reflect the genre or the artist. 

The house style of this artist is also very apparent. On both the album and the poster the typography is a simple, very straightforward sans serif font, with the artist’s name in black and the other details in white. This simple font is again being used to portray the style of the artist, while the contrast in the use of black and white writing is used to draw the eye of the consumer across the page. 

DHB - Ancillary Tasks - Similar Product Research 1

Solo Task - Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164

'Sigh No More' is the debut album of the English indie folk quartet Mumford & Sons, released in October 2009. Although this cover follows the convention of featuring the band on the cover, it is done in an unusual way. The band are shown in a shop window; although they are the focus of the cover they aren't showing themselves with voyeurism or overstating themselves in a vain way.

The image has multiple connotations; an obvious connotation is that they are trying to sell themselves and their music. The colours used also give different representations; the white shop front has connotations of purity and innocence, while the black interior of the shop contrasts against the exterior with connotations of shadows, evil and darkness. This contrast gives the impression that the band could be trying to emerge from the darkness of the past and into the light that their music brings. I like this use of using the colours as representations and I feel this would be a good idea to use in our ancillary products, especially as this is something we also used in our music video. The colours also link to the name of the album 'Sigh No More' as this suggests they aren't going to be as depressed or sorrowful any more.

The typography is interesting while also conforming to conventions; the name of the band is bigger than the name of the album and is in italics which draws the audience's eye. This is a good convention to follow as the name of the band is the one of the key selling points for the album. The font is also appealing as it helps to imply the indie genre with it being elegant and not overly ostentatious or bright. We need to use simple yet sophisticated typography on our album cover in order to help portray the genre further.

Breaking Popular Conventions

Group Task: Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164
                     Emma Hall 9162
                     Alex Major 9190

For our music video, it was very important to set the right tone, and distinguish ourselves from the more pop-style videos, in order to firmly place our artist in the acoustic, easy-listening genre. To do this, we made a number of decisions that defy conventions of the more popular videos, but are appropriate for an indie video. This includes our artist’s representation. According to our target audience feedback, there was a mixed feeling about how important attractiveness was, whilst our similar product research showed that there was a severe lack of voyeurism in this genre, as the focus in pushed more onto the music than the stars. We were therefore careful not to over-produce our artist, keeping his appearance quite natural, especially in the narrative elements on the farm, where his character was supposed to have loneliness about him. The ‘star image’ was enforced more in the performative shots instead, with a smart silver waistcoat and smooth hair, with low key lighting that reflected around our artist’s face.

Other unusual aspects include our slow, gentle opening comprising of abstract shots of rusty and natural objects. These we chose to use to help set the tone of the song, as well as inform about the state of our character in the narrative – surrounded by life that is tarnished by the memories of a girl he has lost. The slow opening shot is also something we used to relate to what one target audience member said about our song: that it reminded her of a winter’s morning or a dream. However, when looking at our opening out of context, we found that it was missing something else that our target audience were particularly keen on – the performative aspects, especially the use of guitar. This is a key iconography for any acoustic media, and adding more guitar shots, often super-imposed on top of other images, helped to enforce our genre even more.

The super-imposing and dissolve transitions used are also slightly unusual for music videos, which often cut quickly to the beat. However, the slowness of the song’s tempo and with the idea that the opening of the video is like early morning when you are just waking up, dissolves seemed more appropriate, and made the video seem smoother and more ‘dreamlike’.  They were also used often in some of the music videos we looked at for this genre, in particular Sea Wolf’s ‘Old Friend’.  Placing them at the start and end also helped to loop the video and make it feel complete.

EH - Ancillary Tasks - Similar Product Research 3

Solo Task: Emma Hall 9162

This is a good advertisement for the band Mumford and Son’s album ‘Sigh no more’. It uses the band’s house style font and a very simple but effective layout that hints at the band’s music genre with the field location that is repeated. Being an advert for the CD, it does not use an image of the Digipak cover or attempt to repeat it, but is confident in the band’s name and image enough that the user will know who it is and be able to find the album alright. The black and white is very classical and matches the italic title and vintage corners of the squares – the minimalism is modern and yet old at the same time, which I think reflects the cross-genre nature of indie-folk. It also means that the poster appeals to a wide audience of both young, modern teenagers and the slightly older generation. This is something my poster will need to do, in order to reach the broad audience easy-listening has.

The slightly angled photographs along with the way the band members are sat in a field gives them a slightly roguish representation, though a very gentle one. The shots are almost like old photo album shots in their not precise composition and lighting, whilst also giving a feeling of camera movement – they could very easily be imagined as shots taken from a music video, a link which I think could work well in our artists’ case. For an unknown artist, repeating motifs such as imagery used in the music video will help build a recognisable image. In Mumford and Sons’ case, they already have a strong costume code and font style. We will have to build one that is synergetic across all different promotional media. The use of a quote from a well-known media institution NME also works well to encourage people to buy the album – the magazine is dedicated to a wide range of genres and so would also be an appropriate place for a album advert or poster to situated, where it could reach a large audience of music fans.

Another example of promotional media we could potentially use to sell our new artist would be tour date posters – which conventionally are in the same vein as album advertisements, but more often use photographs or imagery of the band playing, crowds or instruments to give the feeling of a live performance. For the acoustic genre, simplicity seems to be the main code, with striking images being more important to grab attention than big names or bright colours – something that has bled over from the indie music scene: there is such a wealth of artists and media around in the 21^st Century, all artists have to create something as individual and unique as possible to grab any kind of attention. This extends to any feature in magazine double page spreads, performances on live TV, or even advertisements for their album on the television. These in particular tend to extend out of the album cover’s design, and focus on one or two well-known songs that will encourage people to buy the album to hear and then fall in love with the rest of the album. Unfortunately, with the rise of iTunes, this does not occur as often, with people merely buying the song they like off of an album and leaving the rest. Creating content for iTunes users is therefore a good idea – free digital booklets are becoming popular that can only be accessed if you buy the entire album. These commonly read like the inserts of an album with photographs, track listings, lyrics, musical credits and the occasional quote/anecdote on how the music came about. Being a relatively new technology, it is definitely something for new bands to consider.

2nd Rough Cut of Music Video

Group Task: Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164
                      Emma Hall 9162
                      Alex Major 9190

EH - Ancillary Tasks - Similar Product Research 2

Solo Task: Emma Hall 9162

This is a completely different album cover for the same genre of music, and uses a photograph of the artist and clever use of colour to create a distinct representation. As this is the debut album for this artist, it is important for it to establish the singer’s image, and so it is understandable that Gabrielle would be featured on the front, even in long shot.

The title ‘English Rain’ is cleverly combined with the photograph, as the girl holds an umbrella yet wears a short dress and is running across a beach – a humorous reference to the rainy summers often found in England. This implication would only be picked up by someone familiar with the country, however, and it is understandable that for a first album, the singer is targeting her own country, and not looking internationally to start with – though the quaint nature of the image would appeal to Anglophiles in America. The black and white background helps to enhance the image of England as gloomy, whilst also giving an old-fashioned look with its darkened corners, matching the ‘traditional’ theme many folk albums have. The singer however is in colour, with the umbrella in particular brightly multi-coloured. This infers that the singer is a ray of sunshine in a dark world, and suggests the music within is uplifting. The singer also wears a white, lacy dress that is a symbolic sign for innocence, and her stance with the umbrella is quite dainty and sweet, suggesting a traditional ‘pretty girl’ representation. In terms of Laura Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’, the shortness of the dress is directly aimed at a male audience. Rayner describes representation as "the process by which the media present the 'real world'", and here, the representation of Gabrielle is clearly not a direct translation from the 'real world', as the stylised decolouring of the background is clearly contrived - we are not supposed to believe that Gabrielle is the type of girl who would run along beaches in short skirts. Whilst there are plenty of signs to signify her as a fragile, innocent character, the fact she is the centre of her own solo album, holding her own suggests a level of independence that is probably a more accurate presentation of her 'real world' image than what is shown here.

The grey also suggests that the album has sadder, more ballad-like songs, as well as the uplifting ones. This supports Abercrombie's theory that "boundaries between genres are shifting", as this cover hints at several genres of music, from pop (with the voyeuristic short skirt) to indie (with the black and white background) to romantic ballads (the mournful seaside location). The dark lower third also pushes the user’s focus up into the lighter top 2/3s. With the singer centralised, despite being quite small, she is clearly focused on – although the emphasis seems to be on getting the singer’s name to be recognisable more than her face, which is difficult to see. The name however, is in bold, large serif font, whilst the album name is in a handwritten font. This fits with the old-fashioned look of the black and white, whilst the handwritten style fits the young, girly image. Whilst there is a vintage look to this album cover, its simplicity, thin font style and grey pallor is quite modern, appealing to a young target audience, and making her appear current. The focus on style and setting up of tone is especially important here as it is her debut album – this will similarly be important for our cover, in order to establish a star image. The use of black and white is also something we could maybe look at, after already considering it in our photograph props – whilst the subtly and minimalism is a very current trend in covers and will work with our more concept-based music video.

EH - Starting to Edit 2

Solo Task:Emma Hall 9162
             

Particular challenges found whilst cutting our music video together were thing like adding transitions, and more importantly, changing their length and how far into each clip the transition went. TO change this, we found we had to use the Precision Editor, which split the single timeline into three lines, one for the first clip, one for the transition, and one for the second clip. This, as the name suggests, allowed for more precision and control over our transitions, which was very important for our opening, which uses a lot of cross dissolves to set the calm tone of our video.

Another challenge was to cut the video in time to the beat, which as one of Carol Vernallis’ editing conventions, was very important to include. To aid us in this, we used the marker function, adding markers in whilst listening to the music that denoted the general beat of the music, so that all we had to do was line up the blade tool with one of the markers, and the cut would definitely be in time. We also found that you could add different coloured markers, and placed these in prominent places in the music that we knew we wanted to specifically relate to a moment in the video. For example, the first time vocals come in, or the prominent drum beat starts. This helped us keep track of how much time we had to fill before a moment arrived, and kept us in line with our storyboard.

Something we knew would be important before we started editing was changing the colour and brightness of the video, particularly for the barn shots, which we could not film in darkness for fear of losing picture quality, and so shot brighter in the hope it could be dimmed using Final Cut. There are a series of pre-set effects that are easy to find, and on in particular, luma keyer, seemed to create the moody, harsh look we wanted for the barn. After consulting an editor from the film company Blueprint Films, we discovered ways of fine tuning the pre-set effects, or creating your own grading manually. The inspector button brings up a menu from which we could adjust the grading of each clip individually, including adding or taking away a certain colour, changing saturation, exposure or the contrast. We found this not only useful for the barn shots, but also for nearly all of the other clips as well. As we filmed over several days outside, the weather and natural lighting changed drastically, from bright sunshine to quite a cold, grey atmosphere. Grading our music video meant we could adjust each shot to look the same, with the ‘match colour’ feature being especially useful. This feature allows you to select a frame from another clip, and match the colours exactly on the clip you have selected. As well as simply a continuity device, we used the grading as a means of creating better representations. For our natural settings to look more magical and beautiful, we added more greens and yellows, for added warmth, and raised the contrast and saturation to a level that was maybe not realistic but looked more stylised in a way that would complement our concept.

EH - Ancillary Tasks - Similar Product Research 1

Solo Task: Emma Hall 9162

Paper Kites "Woodland"

This album cover for the paper kites is very simple, and interestingly doesn’t feature a photograph of the band, as is a convention. Instead, as is a growing trend in recent, more indie publications, it uses a graphic-style piece of imagery in combination with the band’s name and album title. The band name is in a larger font, as this is what users would look for if searching for the Digipak in a shop, as opposed to the album title which is more forgettable.

The theme for this Digipak relates to my artist well, with a natural theme, including using a juxtaposition of bright and colourful on dark/moody. This prepares the user for a mixture of cheerful and more serious songs, with the album not leaning too much either way. Setting the tone for the album is a very important function for the album cover, and this cover gives of a distinctly sweet, almost magical tone with its illustrations and enchanted forest look. This is particularly indicative of O'Sullivan's theory that media shows a "partial selected review of reality" - with natural, recognisable elements over-enhanced and turned into something like literature. Framing the bright flowers in a circle makes the user feel as though they are looking in through a window at a secret garden of sorts, and draws the user in to the album, forcing their attention onto the name of the artist. In this way, the artist’s name is advertised, for example if the Digipak was featured in a HMV TV advert, as well as the actual CD, raising their public profile.

The colours are very natural, using greens and browns with touches of pink and red, which would appeal more towards a female audience. The natural theme is appropriate for the album’s title ‘Woodland’, and hints at the folk genre of music to be found inside.  This is quite a typical folk theme, and supports Kress' theory that genre "derives its form from repeated social occasion". Whilst not an original concept, it is effective. Flowers are signs that have connotations of delicacy and beauty, and so similarly are aimed towards women, though the style of the trees in the background are quite modern in their thin, tall style, keeping the cover from looking whimsical- this is not aimed at children. The font used for the title is also quite delicate and fragile, with thin sans-serif letters that look hand-drawn. This fragility fits with the name ‘Paper Kites’ and the font is part of the band’s house style that is used consistently to make a recognisable image. Despite being thin, the font still stand out due to the capital letters, white font against dark background and the framing of the border. The colour white also is a symbolic sign signifying innocence, and fits the childlike, sweet nature of the cover, whilst not being too bright as to detract from the decorative graphics- it feels like a natural extension of the images.

Storyboards

Group Task: Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164
                     Emma Hall 9162
                     Alex Major 9190


These are the storyboards we drew before filming commenced, based on our Production Breakdown. They are seperated into the farm location and studio location, and along with the breakdown, came with us whilst filming to help us make sure we got all the basic shots needed. This meant that when we were comfortable we had the basic structure, we could experiment a bit with different shots that weren't scripted, without worrying that we'd miss something. They also really helped speed up the filming, as we had a clear idea from the Storyboards what we needed to get done on that particluar day, what props we'd need in that particular shot, and where to place the camera etc. When doing the breakdown and storyboards, it was also the first time the narrative properly came together and our ideas solidifyed into something actually filmable, and that made sense. It was also helpful in giving us something we could show our actor, so he knew what the idea of the video was, and what we were aiming for it to look like.