Music Digipaks

Music 

Digipaks

A Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, it is a registered trademark.

  A couple of examples of music CD digipaks would be the above images of Bastille and The Script albums.

 A digipak can be used by artists to represent an album they have created or a music single they have made.

Bastille's Digipak at the top right of the age represents their music well as it shows a sort of eery picture and its dark with a tinted yellow/orange blur shading part of the picture as if the lead singer is being chased. their style of music is quite upbeat in some cases scary and presents a more scary theme and in some cases some happier music.

Overall their digipak attracts the interest of Bastille fans as it represents them very well.

The Scripts digipak in the top left shows each member of the band with serious faces and attempting to look generically cool which suits them and their genre well, which is pop/rock.
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Beyonce's Digipak.

Beyonce's digipak presents a lot about her as an artist and as a business woman as they she likes to flaunt her body well which she knows the male audience will really like and probably be attracted to and this potentially could sell her records which is why she would 1. make a cd cover on its own and 2. put a nude picture hiding her private parts from the public as it strongly attracts sales.
 This type of digipak use would not be successful for some artists and it only comes across as acceptable due to her genre and her appearance and what she is known for within her music videos and her music as a whole. if it was an artist like Susan Boyle for example then her audience see her as classy and not the type of woman to flaunt her womanly features.

Bastille 2013 'Laura Palmer' Music Video Analysis

The example I'm using for the unconventional style of music video is 'Laura Palmer' by 'Bastille'. The reason this music video is unconventrional is because the genre Bastille perform in is Pop/AlternativeRock, and if you watched the music video without sound you'd be quite suprised due to the fact its unlike most music videos. They relate strongly to the style of Michael Jackson and his version of Thriller as its hugely based on weird happenings in the world. however whereas Michael Jackson was strong for zombies and creepy people, Bastille have used people in masks to try and kidnap Dan who is the lead singer of Bastille in the music video. This is strange as the music video created is to the topic of them actually in the process of making the video and also when they are preparing before and joking about. they are just casually around in the camp where they are preparing to film when the lead singer is taken by these people dressed as monsters and the music producers are made to act worried and in a panic to find him which isnt what you'd expect from this Genre of music. Whilst the music still has pop features it does relate to the video as its made to sound fast upbeat and slightly scary aswell.

 Half way through the video it cuts away just to a homemade video which you can tell from the screen shots, of a dog barking and howling which is extremely uncommon and out of context with the rest of the video as the song just stops and its a clip of a dog to frighten the viewer.

One Direction's Mix between the Unconventional & Conventional Pop Music Video Analysis

The next music video i have watched and analysed is One Direction's 'Kiss You'. This music video and song is the genre of Pop, but is different to pop styled music of the 1970's/80's and 90's. In the 1980's and for example Michael Jackson, who is renound for being the King of Pop, his music and his videos would be different to One Directions as in that era people and the public had different views and Michael Jackson almost created the genre due to the style he presented in. Also the pop music was probably of a different context because of the unawareness of the Pop genre in those days. 

In this screenshot it resembles Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley and this shows how the conventions in this genre can spread backwards as in the saying 'what goes around comes around'. One Direction have used this shot as it shows the band as a whole item which is popular in band videos in this genre, for example, other pop bands like JLS who have recently split up would have shown themselves more as an item when shooting a music video as its more popular when creating the short movie to credit the song and thats what the audience know them as. 

The bands music video shows them all wearing the same clothes and the colour is black which is unconventional in this genre as when the public eye would think of pop they'd consider bright colours. also when you see dark colours it would show a more rock/india type of theme not something associated with One Direction.  

 In the third screenshot it shows the camera man within the shot which is an interesting idea when considering views for my own music video as it shows how a music video can be professional whilst in the older days of the 60's/70's pop titles it would be seen as a mistake. One Direction in the whole 'Kiss You' video use unconventional features as in most pop songs like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift they wouldnt consider using an old styled music video. 1D have used in every clip old fashioned style filming which would be an interesting feature to use when i create my music video as the type of style they have put in every shot is to try and relate to former pop videos which are no longer common in the world of pop music genre. I am quite attracted to the ideas One Direction use and the songs they create and this is a strong view i have and they are a possibility to follow in my actual product.

 

The Link for the One Direction's 'Kiss You' Music Video----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4cdfRohhcg

Early 90s Rock Music Video Analysis

 The second music video I have looked at is Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit video. This genre of music is rock music which was Nirvana's main choice of genre when writing and performing their music. This music video contains the conventional things you'd see in a rock music video including the band actually playing their instruments. A dim orange light with smoke and people jumping around going mental.




These 3 screen shots i have acquired from the Nirvana music video all show the conventional style of a rock music video as they all show the band literally rocking out with their instruments and singing loud with smoke and dim lighting.
 You catch in the third screenshot the typical choice in most popular music videos a mainstream sexy girl wearing clothes inspired to make the girl look attractive.



 You can see that in this choice of music video that it is similar to such other rock videos written and performed by Dave Grohl & Foo Fighters. for example if we look at Walk by Foo Fighters we see in this music video as opposed to this one that they show a story line in Walk but similar to this video its very band related as they continue to show the band throughout the music video.

UK, Current & Conventional Music Video Analysis

The first video i'm looking through at is R U MINE by Arctic Monkeys, this is the first video that represents the Indie Rock genre which is what i'm concentrating on for my media project. This first video is a clear representation of the conventional Indie rock music video as it includes main features of that genres topics. These topics range from the same as many mainstream chart toppers which is on the verge of cars, girls and men however differs completely in the style of how these are portrayed.

The first screen shot i have captured from the bands music video would be the style of typical music videos of my genre as it shows the band in black and white tint playing their instruments with the singer at the front which is how the bands are commonly portrayed of this genre.
Smoke is coming out beside the set up to sort of make the band look even more relatable to the genre in hand as it makes them look chilled with a calm atmosphere while playing their upbeat music.
This genre usually includes some sort of fashion statement away from mainstream styles which in this case would be the band in all black with leather jackets and a prop in this clip which is completely unrelated as there is a TV sitting in the bottom right of the screenshot and this is put here to continue with their idea of a cool music video which is how it comes across to the viewer.

This is the second screenshot i acquired from this music video and it shows the fashion sense shown in most indie rock videos which is usually cool and chilled out and relatable to the style of music the sing about. so here we can see the type of clothes they're wearing goes with the look they pull off. so from this we can see that tinted aviator glasses fit well with the style of their dress. in the background of this shot it presents the driver of a car/minivan with drumsticks in his hand portraying a full on music lifestyle of the Arctic Monkeys. they're using this well to try and show the fact that music is life in this genre. the fact they're serious and not smiling shows that the music style of choice is a simply more chilled and relaxed style of music as they aren't trying to get the viewer smiling like a band of One Directions features which is very upbeat and happy compared to Arctic Monkeys relaxed serious video style as they're trying to look cool and very attractive to the viewer.
This final shot from the R U MINE music video shows a man in the back of the van with a couple of attractive girls which relates well to other styles of music where they have plenty of good looking girls however this genre portrays girls much differently. The band here have designed a style for these girls including black masks covering their faces and cowboy hats. they could have decided to use this as it shows that girls are devious and not as open as people think and that they're actually not nice people and are very secretive. this description of the girls relates to the song name and as its a question like are you mine? it could portray how women are very two faced and that they try to keep everything very clear from people. The fact they're a van twist the car theme in most music videos as a van is very different and is being made look cooler than a ferrari or porsche in some ways as the band are trying to attempt to create the illusion of a popular car when it arguably isn't and in the style of hipster choices. This music video overall creates the impression of this genre being very surrounded by the idea of being cool and in some ways attractive due to the women included.

Music Video Research.

Why are music videos made?

Music videos to help promote the band and the song they have created. the song itself cant always count on itself exceeding in popularity on its own merit so it is good for a band to create a suitable video to match the song in order to help boost the songs sales and overall popularity with people as it is stated that a song cant always count on it exceeding on its own merit.

Where can music videos be accessed?

Music videos can be accessed on lots of websites which will have links to the videos. you can also watch music videos via the music channels on a TV which will offer lots of different genres of music and the music videos associated with them. There is also ways of watching all music videos on YouTube via all music channels and official VEVO accounts of the bands. you can also sometimes catch the videos on the band or single artists website. music videos are now streamed over website such as Twitter and Facebook which are social networking sites and so people can see videos that have been posted through YouTube and watch them like that and then the person watching it can share the video which is a free promotion to the artist making the possibility of a band making a music video more attractive as it can be promoted freely and quickly potentially making the song more popular.

Media conventions for my genre of music video.

My genre is of an Indie Rock style and would involve me getting ideas from bands like Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks, The Killers or bands like The Strokes. So at the beginning of this research i have seen that i could use story lines such as a band playing their instruments in parts and cutting away to a storyline of what would relate to the music or the song i decide to use nearer the time. it will be hard initially to think of a storyline as i will be using the song of the unknown band WordsWeLiveBy and this will enable us to think together of what the song is about and the context of the music.

Music Video Genre.

Indie Rock - will be watching music videos from bands such as Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks, The Strokes etc. I have chosen this genre for my product as the genre fits the style of the musicians i have retrieved for my music video & i will be making a music project for the pre decided song written and performed by WordsWeLiveBy for my media project music video.

AS Media

Since now we have finished our AS media studies course and are now moving into the second year and into the A2 standard we can now look back at our year and see improvements we could have made to the coursework we completed whether it was our prelim or our final piece.

Our Preliminary task we completed at the start of the year for AS was a short film dealing with a scene from a detective or sort of agent genre of film and we portrayed a man working for the government and him having to fulfil tasks set by his boss and superior. He was set a task to complete by bringing someone in to justice however the agent argued the fact that the suspect was a changed person and had fallen for the man.

There were plenty of improvements we could have made to this task and if we were to do a preliminary task again i feel we would probably set a different idea all together due to the poor story line, effort, and acting which made up the short movie. we chose to insert music to the very first shot which was a poor decision which we improved from in our final AS coursework. we have learned during the process of making our project that the need to go over the top when creating a project and that if you can put a piece together and edit it to look professional without the need of unrelated music choices which is where we went poorly wrong in our Prelim.

Our final piece acquired a grade of an A, which i feel was a very respectable grade for our piece. I feel this because i notice quite a few improvements around the piece that should have been made at times and i notice a few continuity errors and sometimes there were moments within the products that looked poor because of small details.

Overall i feel that last year in AS Media was a good year with plenty of improvements made to the skills i had and the new skills i learned throughout the year.