My Digipak design

Below are images of my unfinished digipak design for my music video Living in a box this has been designed by myself. these are some first designs for the album cover so some areas might be changed fro the final product. The whole idea behind the design of this the song itself, we have decided to follow the narrative of the song Living in a box.

 

Front cover for the album

with the design in mind I went for the cardboard box design as I felt that we could relate this back to the song we are covering and also have that selling point for the album with the design being a big selling point.

Digipak full design  design

 

Music institutions

Music institutions

 

 

 

Sony Music group analysis

Live Nation table

Universal Music Group analysis

Warner Music Group Analysis

Below is some research for my music video by looking at some of the worlds largest music groups and their affect on music videos produced today. here I look at some of the music groups and how they work and impact the music industry.


Music Institutions



Treatment

Media Studies – Treatments

 

Narrative Development and Storyline

For our media studies music video, we are taking our own approach on Living in a Box, by Living in a Box. We have done our research upon the lyrics of the music, and the song is mainly about someone being under pressure about things going on in his life. What we plan on doing, however, is taking a literal twist on the words of the song, and turning the song into more about homelessness and poverty in general. We plan on using both a regular and contrived performance; our actor that we are going to get, is going to both be performing in front of the camera, and will be doing lip syncs, to show a relationship between the narratives we have created and twisted from the original music video. This will also help develop a storyline and will be a lot easier with one person doing both, as opposed to having one performer to do the lip sync and have another person performing out the acts.

The storyline simply is about a man (Steven Ansell) who’s literally ‘Living in a Box’ and is out on the streets, is a Journey from the South-East of London, and wants to get across to the central part of London to get away and break free from his daily routine of ‘living in a box’. On his journey there, he meets a few fellow other homeless people or ‘trapped’ people (to be edgy and emotional) too, such as Reece Taylor and Jacob Tarn. Our story follows one man’s story and one day he decided to break the normal code of his living style, and express his living style on the streets of London. Along his way throughout the video our main character meets some people along the way. These are all part of his mind which becomes later seen at the end of the video. The two characters he meets are also in the video, they follow him along his path to their destination which is one famous London landmark. The narrative of the story livin in a box is a key feature within the video. Throughout the video we will include small references to the song title, with the use of a box which one character carries around with them. But I feel that the video itself and where it takes place can be linked to the song title. Big cities can be seen as places where people go to succeed, but sometimes they get lost and find it hard to find a place within today’s society. So that follows the main story of the video where our main character makes his “journey” to a place that he has dreamed about but never had the courage to go there. And he wants to break the normal narrative of him sitting around doing nothing.

Target for our video.

This looks to be a lot of work with lots of shots being needed and a big setting as your backdrop with London being the back drop for our music video. But I feel that we can do this with the right planning and setting out what needs to be done and where we need to be.

The target audience for this video is to be 20-50. This is because of the song being slightly older than today’s youth and the older generation will know the song more than today’s youth who will not know the song. However the sing will be targeted towards the older generation but still have the younger generation at minimum . as the video itself features the young generation working within the video, so we can’t disuse the fact that this has a wide target market, however we feel to push it more towards the slightly older generation as they will know the song.

So looking over this I think we will be able to create music video to the standard that we want and to the expectations of our storyboard and design.       

Risk Assessment

 

Risk Assessment

Hazard	How the hazard could be harmful	Location	How to prevent ay hazard taking place.	Extra notes
General safety issues with filming on a large scale	Getting injured on set, risk of health	On set in London and on set in Stevens’s house.	Take assessment of the location before we shoot to get an idea of the location and the risk it holds. Also remove any dangerous items.	N/A
Getting lost within the city of London	Getting lost and not knowing where you are.	On set in filming location in London/Travel towards our destination	Staying as a group knowing all the locations of where we are filming , and have a plan and location to meet if one of us gets lost	Keep phones charged, all day and keep them on.
SD card  lost	Losing all shots from your last shoot if the SD card is lost or corrupt	Computer	Save all files on a backup hard drive after shooting on to a computer file.	N/A

 

Media Studies – Music and moving pictures notes

 

 

A piece of moving images that promotes one song and or record

First music video using still picture with music in the background was released in 1927.it was part of the musical Al Johnson – he was the “Michael Jackson” of his time. This was seen as a massive breakthrough within the industry. This is an example of a contrived music performance – as he is playing a role whilst sitting in a room and not peformaning in front of an audience and not on a stage.

Moving on to a film called Show boats, in 1936 which was a musical performance made into a film that included characters, and montage editing. ”Old man river” is the song included with the film. The film also includes camera movement with the camera panning to the singers face. The lyrics also link to what we are seeing in the montage shot. One of the first examples of this. The singer is a actor, singer. These are conventions that help create a music video.

Films built around songs – this could be linked to Michael Jackson’s video on the song “Thriller”. This changes the song into a short story that links in with the song as the song will last around 3-4 minutes and the video would last around 10-15 minutes.

Dance – along with the main two acting and singing. we see this in more and more videos over the years . In the early years it would have been seen in videos and film now today we see it a lot more as it is seen as a main component like the other two.

Cartoon- even Disney used music within his cartoon one to pick is the sorceres apprentice, where mickey uses magic powers to make the mop do the work. music is used alongside the cartoon to create the scene.

By the 1950’s Television had made big changes as anyone could view video /music from their home and the video could be shown straight to the audience. This gave people the choice to watch what they wanted. One who stared this was Elvis Presley. Who was very popular with teenagers as the could watch him at home on the tele. The live tele performance in 1956 was one of his last until 1968 as he went into the army, he made lots of cheap films for his fans to watch in the cinema. This started the Who pop, rock music that would later take the world by storm. This is all down to Elvis and his wide fan base during the time of his performances

 In the 1960’s the Beatles released the video for cant by me love, this video was very popular within the industry and the world. The video include lots of camera movement and lots of fast cut editing more than we had seen in pervious videos. The director of the video let the boys go around a do what they wanted to do and changed the camera movement and angles. Later in the 60’s American band the Monkeys released a similar video to the hugely successful Beatles. Who took American by storm The video looks very similar with 4 guys messing around and lots of montage, editing camera movement.

 In the 70’s comes Top of the Pops a music TV show that was very popular from the late 60’s to the late 80’s. this is where the top bands would perform in front of the crowd and in front of the cameras. Were people at home could watch this while sitting in their living room. It is also seen where the music video was created as bands would send in their videos  of new music and have that shown rather than having a group dancing over there new music. Later MTV came around who were fully focused on music videos.

 

 



Media a2 Song cover ANALYSIS

 

Media a2 Song cover ANALYSIS
digipak analysis

 

 

 Below is my analysis of album cover's from different artist here I have analysed there work with the intention to show how each one sells its self and what messages the album cover art is showing in result to helping promote the artist and their work. Below is a analysis of their work with a idea for my own work.   

 



Album cover for Pink Floyds dark side of the moon

Album cover for students work for their Digipak  

Conclusion and a design idea for my Album cover



Album cover For our song Living in a box




 

Student Vidoe Music Video Analysis

 

Student music video

 

"Stuck"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkJXibuJYF0

In this film, I believe that the students attempted their music video in the following genre, which looks to electronic indie as the song used within the video fits into that genre. Due to its electronic bass that plays throughout the video. This is shown and portrayed in the characters change of movement as the song reaches its highest tempo. The video focuses on a group of teens two of who violently attack the other. I think the song “stuck” is portrayed in the video as it looks like the characters are stuck in this situation that they can’t get out of.

The video follows the emphasis of the song and the collaboration between song and video works well to build up the tension between the group of these teens . it also follows the conventions of a underdog story , were one of the boys gets beaten up by the other two , then we see his side of the story as he trains at the gym, with flashbacks of his attack. Later towards the end of the video he meets one of his attackers but does not take his revenge, but shows his strength.

Another convention of this video, would be that there are three members in the video all appear on screen, but only one is seen singing, why is that?. Perhaps it is because the video is taken from his perspective, as he is the first character we see and we see him for most of the video. More than any other character. This was a good call by the group as, it gives us a perspective from one of the group members, who is able to show great emotion as the video plays on , and it’s clear to see that this group really tried. This is one area that this video was successful.

Although not every video is perfect. For example sometimes I feel that the videos narrative of the story can be hard to pick up on, and as the video goes on I feel it was made into two parts. The first part has lots of shots, fast cut editing and the shots only last a few seconds. Then you have the second part of the story which I feel they used to , fill time and space on the video. As most of the shot tend to be longer than before and there is a less focus on editing and more on saving time within the video. But over all I feel that this was a good music video to analysis as the video apparently got full marks and to be honest I can see why as the music video is a good example of a successful video. I like how the video relates to the music that it is being played and overall a goods video.

.................................

 

 

"Can't hold us"- Macklemore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpBNqqPGsmc

In this student’s film, I believe that the students attempted their music video in the following genre. This sounds and looks to be Rap. The song used in the video which is can’t hold us by Macklemore fits in well with the video. The video follows the path of a group of teens as one of them picks up the wrong bag and walks away; the video consists of the other two who are dressed as bandits chasing after the other guy across London. The video is vary humours throughout as it plays on the fact that, the two bandits are a bit dumb, this makes the video more enjoyable to watch and ads a bit of comedy to a music video which is not usually seen. The comedy throughout the video allows the group to play on this and ad more comedy to the video.

What I like about this video is the way the video was shot, lots of establishing shots across London, from areas such as Southbank to the London eye, Westminster and Buckingham Palace. These establishing shots give the view a great idea of where this video is taking place, and the level of effort the group put in. More further development comes from the walk to camera shot. This shot is used a lot by this group, this is a convention of a lot of music video’s mostly associated with rap music, which the group is trying to copy. The story continues with one guy being chased across London for picking up the wrong back, at this point tension does start to rise as you want to know what is in the bag, but we won’t know until the end of the video.

Also I like how each member of the group is not camera shy. All members of the group appear on camera at some point within the video each member has their own close up shot within the video, also all members of the group lip sing at some point , usually this is left down to one person, but this group all take turn to appear in front of the camera. This is a great convention of a music video  compared to the other music video I analysed all members have a role to play where as in the video before I sometimes found it hard to find their role in the video.

Again not every video is perfect and it would appear neither is this one. The only problem tha I found with this video was that the story and narrative can be hard to relate back to the song, I just fell that they went a bit too far over the edge at some points with trying to get to much in this video , I feel that some of the shots don’t relate to the narrative.

...........................

 

 

Cast and Props List

 

Cast and Props list

 

Media Studies – Cast & Props List

Director and Producer:                                                                                   Charlie Garvey

                   Jordan Hamilton

The Cast:                                                                                                            Steven Ansell

                                                                                                                             Jordan Hamilton

                                 

                                                                                                                            Reece Taylor

Props List:                                                                                                        Clothing; scruffy wear

                                                                                                                          Costume; mutton chops

                                                                                                                          Trolley; find one in Kidwells Park

                                                                                                                         Harmonica

                                                                                                                        Cane

             Beer

                                                                                                                      Cardboard boxes

Costume:                                                                                                    thick black coat

                                                                                                                     Greasy hair and mutton

                                                                                                                    Ripped jeans

                                                                                                                    Bin bag

Settings:                                                                                                   Ally-ways near shopping centres

                                                                                                                   High streets

                                                                                                                   Steven’s house

                                                                                                                   Regular streets

                                                                                                                   Police station

                                                                                                                   Bolters Lock; by the river

                                                                                                                   London – south east

                                                                                                                   London eye



Media Studies Questionnaire

Name ....................................

How many music videos have you watched this month?

 

What type of music genre are you interested in?

  

Who are you favourite artists?

 

Do you watch music video as soon as they are released?

 

Band or Solo Artist?

 

Do you tend to by CD’s or download online?

 

Thank You For Taking Part In This Questionnaire

Music Video Analysis

 

Music Video Analysis

 

Toto -Africa

Drake -Forever

Starship -We built this city

 

Toto –Africa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY

Camera angles

Pan shots – These are used throughout the video to show and set the scene for the video which is meant to take place on top of a book called Africa. These Pan shots are mostly a mix of pan and zoom as the camera moves into the face of each group member when they are singing. This is effective as it help show the emotion on each members face while they sing.

 

Close ups – close ups are used to show the emotion and the passion each person has while they sing the camera zooms on each members face after a few lines , to show each character as they play their own instrument. This is effective as we get to see each character from the group multiple times within the whole video. The camera also focuses on the women at the table who is going through lots of information and is very important to the video as she watches the main singer of the group as he goes through all the books looking for where the bit of paper is from.

Close up Shot

She is shown as a background character but very important to the video as it tells a story through music which was the director's idea when creating this video.

 

Establishing shots - the video itself has main establishing shots as the video is shot in main different areas that are all mixed into one to look like a library sort of room.  At the start of the video we see a globe being spun and the camera moves to a pan shot in a library as we see lots of books on stands giving the impression but not setting the scene. Then as the video goes on we see the globe make another show as it stops spinning it ends with Africa. This helps us understand why the song is called Africa, this is done many times throughout the video with masks being shown and books and other items that you can link back to the song. These shots help us have an understanding and way so we know what the music video is about. Also we see the group on top of the book called Africa.

 

 

Editing Fast Cutting – this is used throughout the video and is used to show emotion and the change within in each scene to again show the facial expressions of each character and what is going on as the story of the video is focused on. though the editing is fast cut it does look quite slow in some scenes holding some scenes to be shorter than the group may of wanted , but the way it has been edited is great as the shots of them on top of the book is a really key shot to the whole video.

Mise en Scene

 

Mise en Scene - Setting - the setting for this music video plays one of the most important roles in establishing the whole reason for video and why it is set in this way. There are a number of different shots that we see throughout; however there are a few that we see more than others. One takes place on top of a book, the book the Character is looking for in the music video. This is key as I help sets the scene and also it’s a cool shot with the 1980’s CGI. Another shot that we see a lot, is the main singer of the, group in a library sort of setting who is out looking for the book Africa. 

Lighting – throughout this video the effect that lighting has on the scene tends to change depending on the shot and tempo of the song. At the start the lighting is quite low as the songs tempo is still building but I find these early shots very dark and the lighting increases as the song continues until the end of the song where there is plenty of light within each shot allowing for more to be seen, also lens glare is also seen in this video.

................

 

Drake- Forever

 

Forever – Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOEvBlNI-wc

Camera angles

Close up shots  - At the start of the video as the music builds up the camera moves between all the characters that are in the song and all play a role in the song each have a verse and the camera pans between their faces in the order that they sing. With all that is going on at the start of this song this change in fade in and out of each character not only shows us who else takes part in the production of this video but who shows each one in a different location that is suited to them. There are lots of lights and special effects taking place at the start and throughout the video this includes lights flashing and sirens, and flames that go off in time with the music. This is effective as this all tends to lead to a target audience of young men and teens most likely due to the fact all the characters that perform in this video are Rap artist that all have a big following over the world so it’s clear this music video has a target audience. Sticking with close up shots we see the story behind the video it follows the story of American basketball player Lebron James. Within the opening we see him a number of times in fact he is the first person we see adding to the effect that he will be important to the story of this video. He is shown as the video protagonist as he appears a number of times and picture of his past/story appear all throughout the video showing his progression as a child to the person he is today.

Close Up Shot

Medium low shot - Continuing with the video the next shot that caught my eye was a medium low shot looking up towards Kanye West. The shot take place after some fast cut editing, after Drake has finished his verse. The shot has Kanye placed in the middle of the screen not on the horizon or on any pint for the rule of thirds effect. This would show his importance as being less than other and because within the shot your eyes are drawn away from him and more to what is going on around him. The shot includes lots of special effects from flashing beams of light, to massive flames of fire taking placed around him. This shot is effective as it is a looking up shot with would mostly show him as being this all important character to him just being the centre piece of this shot. But having a low shot looking up at someone usually states the fact that they are of great importance. However this is not the case and there are 3 other characters within the video and all are equal are they, as all there verses last around the same time.

Medium low Shot

Editing - Editing throughout the video is balanced well between the video and the picture that are put in every now and then. The video is very fast paced with lots going on all the time. From each character to another and all the special effect taking place within the video. Fast cut editing is used heavily in this video  as the shot transissons from one to another we see the fast cut editing taking place to keep up with the music and all that is going the editing also plays a part of how effective it is on the music. As the editing is very fast due to the general pace of the song and its switch between each character within the video.

Editing

Mise en Scene - Setting the setting for this video plays heavily on the genre of the video all four characters are found in four different locations that focus on their personality and clothing of the time of the video. The setting helps establish the video but as there are, lots of different locations within the video each setting is established at the start of each verse before the music kicks in. the setting for the video could be seen as a stereotype of a rap song as the video take place in dark places with little real light and people and more darker areas that use special effect light to create a great shot within the video.  One shot to pick out for setting would be this one with Eminem, who is crowded by a group of youths dressed in another stereotype of rap music culture. They are seen wearing hoodies tracksuits and chains. This is a common stereotype of young youths today and the video plays on this as if it wants to show us this common stereotype.  Above is shot that caught my eye for a great way of setting the scene for this clip and for the rest of the video. The video relies on its , setting and clothing to help emphasise the meaning and reason for this video however the characters with in the video , do more of that themselves, as they all have great following within the music world and each have their own back story , which have huge following.

Mise en Scene

............................

 

Starship- We built this city

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1b8AhIsSYQ

Camera Shots -  The video takes place mostly on a green screen that displays images behind that have reference to the video .one shot that I can see within the video is of the group heading towards a statue that later stands up. This shot shows great importance to the statue as the camera is taking a POV shot of the statue guy looking down on the group ads they move toward him as they sing. It shows how much more important this guy is compared to the group as the camera looks down on them as if they are tiny people coming towards him looking for guidance I like this shot as it brings the bazaar into the video , on how could a statue stand up and start singing. However the shot still shows us that the guy in the middle is the most important person in that group as he is placed in the centre and your eyes are attracted  to him, showing us that he is the lead singer of the group and important to the video. Also we can see the others all looking at him showing him as the leader of the group.

Camera Shot 1

Next shot -  That caught my eye was as establishing shot that take place towards the start of the video. The shot take place as the music starts up again at the start and we see all the members of the group start to appear. Each member is faded in through the green screen and appears in order of appearance.  so the guy is white appears first telling me that he himself plays a big part in this video and is most likely the main singer of the group, the after he fades out and is followed by the rest of the group the shot is a establishing shot as it shows each group member and there role in the group. This is effective as helps us see who the group is and how many member of the group there are. They play In front of a pretty bad green screen but for the time it wasn’t that bad, but when I look at it today it looks quiet bad. Notice how the screen changes with the tempo of the music, the colour and picture/video on the green screen changes as the music tempo pickups and the song starts.

Camera Shot 2

 

Editing – this video relies heavily on its Green screen background to help give the video standing and not just some people standing around a green screen. The video is mostly fast cut editing with some slow cut editing, that tie’s in towards the end of the video. One clip that grasp my eye is, the scene were a face of another member of the group is edited into the clip. This breaks what I thought was possible with technology at this time, but at the time it looked amazing  .Now it looks out dated and cheap, with music videos now trying to out play each other, with more going on in the video then there needs to be. But not bad for a video from the 1980’s.

 

Mise en scene – for this video setting was not a problem, as the whole video was shot in front of a green screen, producers were able to programme a picture of the location they wanted behind the group. Apart from some scenes where location, setting uses props such as when the group gather around President Lincoln other than that most of the location, shots are done in front of a green screen. The setting of this video changes throughout, from the hills at the start to the downtown scene that follows later in the video. Still with mise en scene we have clothing.  Now clothing all depends on ideas from the producer and wardrobe.  The clothing for this video has the group dress primary colours, such as red, orange, blue, yellow and white. These clothes have an 80’s feel and look to them giving the impression that the video is sticking, with the time period that the video was made in.

......................

Conclusion for my video  

So looking over the three music video, that I have reviewed we can see three different types of music from the rap of drake and Eminem, to the wonderful song by Toto Africa. And the reason why was, because I wanted a lot of variety within the analysis. This leads to the song of my choice, which is livin’in a box.  Our song is a classic song that is from boy band Livin’in a box the song that has a good beat to it plays good, with no remix and the song can be lip sung easy as the lyrics are not too complicated as the verse are short with some words/ Lines being used again. But it’s a catchy song that follows the narrative of the band and our video follows the story of Steven who decides to break free from his normal way of living and wants to travel to a place of harmony for him.