For our preliminary task, we chose the song Parklife by Blur. We wanted to take the song title literally and decided to film the typical "Parklife" in our local park
Storyboard for our Prelim task.
Parklife tells the story of a Park and the activities that happen in it's life within it on a day to day basis. This can be taken literally and metaphorically, and we decided to take a literal approach to the song.
An example of a digipak is Muse's greatest hits album. From the picture, the digipak includes highly stylised artwork which helps to illustrate some of the themes present in the songs created by the artist. The images are iconic and memorable and help to continue the established image of being a unique rock band, with the glamorous lady and location shown. The interior artwork seems to link with the exterior artwork, by using the same patterns and colours present on the front. The title of the digipak is small and in the corner, which helps to solidify the collection as being rather arty. The digipak has 3 panels and space to hold 2 discs, seemingly for a disc one and two, allowing for extra music and/or bonus content to be sold to consumers.
Another example would be the Mumford and Sons digipak. The pack is 3 panelled and contains a booklet with lyrics etc. contained in a sleeve, the disc in a plastic holder and lot's of interior artwork, which seems similar to their album artwork, showing that they have followed a similar house style throughout. The art work portrays the band which helps to reinstate their acoustic, folky genre which is the main thing they are known for. The use of white makes the pack seem clean cut and attractive and the black disc contrasts, making it stand out against the white.
This magazine advert by the Kings Of Leon for their album Only by the Night, uses their album cover artwork as the main focus, but helps to elaborate on it by using different coloured fonts and titles to draw the attention to other information after seeing the interesting image. The Image is a bizzare mixture of the band members' faces as well as a bird of preys face, drawn on their faces when the photo was taken. The information is simply displayed on the advert allowing for people to quickly absorb the knowledge of the artist, the album name and what it includes along with the release date and the website it can be bought from. The iconic image allows it to be instantly recognisable.
A Digipak is a patented style of packaging most commonly associated with CDs but has recently become a general term for a more expensive form of music packaging which includes more then just the CD and also has more then two panels and therefore, more folds. It can be used to contain mulitple discs, lyrics booklets or background information about the artist. Digipaks are usually sought after by collectors because of some of the extra items included in the pack and to cover the extra production costs, they tend to be more expensive.
Pros and Cons of the Digipak:
+ Cheap to produce in bulk.
+ Can include more artwork which means it's more appealing.
+ Has the potential to include many pockets/panels.
+ Can store the CDs and any bonus items
+ Appealing for collectors.
- Can look tatty quickly after some use.
- Sometimes CDs can fall out if the holder is foam.
- CDs can fall out if teeth brake also.
- If made of card, can take water damage and tear.
Music promo videos nearly always follow similar conventions. Most videos
utilise camera angles and shots that fit with the type of music the video is
being made for, along with the instruments and pacing featured in the song. For
example, slow acoustic music would typically feature lots of shots that lasts
for a long duration and the shots normally wouldn't be close ups, as having the
camera too close to a person creates an air of discomfort which is not
typically associated with slow acoustic music. The shots could also focus on
the instruments being played regardless of what genre. If there is a tune with
a prominent guitar section, the video might focus on the instrument whilst the
song is being performed.
Music videos were originally made to publicise the artist when the artist or
band where unavailable to do a live performance. They would be used in Top of
the Pops for example, if the singer could not make it to the show if they were
on tour, or for any number of reasons.
Music promos first appeared during the 60s. In the early 60s Bob Dylan made an
innovative black and white music video to Subterranean Homesick Blues in which he
used cue cards to highlight key lyrics as the song played. The video was simple
in the fact it is just one continuous shot and it looked very low tech.
However, because it was filmed in black and white and was so simple, it could
have been made on a budget of almost nothing and was playable on any TV set,
propelling the popularity of the artist to new heights. The fact that the video
was set in what looked like a New York street gave off the impression that the
artist wasn’t overly rich and glamorous which allowed consumers to identify
with him more.
In 1967, the Beatles released a music video for their song Strawberry Fields
Forever, which was a very significant leap forward from Bob Dylan’s video. It
includes elements that are very familiar with us from modern videos: there was
sophisticated effects such as reverse film and fade ins and outs, it included
lots of camera angles and the editing was in time with the music. The
performance was a large part of the video and the video itself took place over
day and night. The video itself was very abstract, and the inclusion of the
abstract themes made the video very popular because it was new, exciting and
different!
In the 1970s the editing and locations became much more sophisticated and and exotic. The Monkees TV show introduced crazy, off beat videos that tied in a lot of light hearted humour to help widen the audience of the song. "What would they do next?" was a question some of their more obscure videos would raise, helping to boost their popularity. The video incorporated jump cuts to help create a fast paced video that fit directly with the music. This video was part of their TV episode, so the promo does feature some form of narrative. The 70s also gave us Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, which featured a heavy amount of performance from all the members of the band. Because of the multiple band members, there were lots of cuts in time with the music and the instruments to allow the video and the music to really go together. To help link to the style of the music, lots of fade effects and back projections were used in time with the music. Queen's video was allowed to be distributed to the newly started up MTV channel for free, helping to propel them to new heights of fame, as the song and video were now being played everywhere, a significant amount of the time.
The 80s was the decade in which music videos became a massive part of the
business. Artists realised the success of previous promo videos, especially with MTV becoming so huge. Artists, bands and companies invested millions on creating bigger, better and wilder videos to help pitch their music at the youth audience they were aiming for. The music video for Rio by Duran Duran is a great example. It used an exotic location which made the band appear more glamorous, and included lots of filters to deliver a funky, stylised look. There are multipaneled frames with different shots in them. The cuts and shot changes are all in time with the music, and the use of special effects help to add a high budget feel, making the videos look cutting edge. Another massive music video hit, costing about a million dollars. The high budget costumes, the iconic dance moves and the longer then song story made the video an event to be seen! It was shown on TV and in the cinema, making it a real event to watch. It was a spectacle to be seen.
In the 80s/90s MTV had become huge. However, the songs they showed were mainly by white artists, and this was viewed as being unacceptable, with good reason. Aerosmith teamed up with some rapping dudes, and did Walk this Way. It was different, told a narrative and was pretty funky!
