Digipac researching - Genre

After researching some digipaks that were produced by artists that fall in the indie/rock genre it became evident that they share many of the same conventions. Below are just a selection of album covers that I found inspiration from.

The most noticeable feature is the simplicity of the visuals and designs. They rarely include the feature of voyeurism that Andrew Goodwin spoke about but instead feature some sort of icon that links to the artists theme of music. For example Bon Iver's music is especially calming and pacifying, hence the mellow colour palette of oranges and browns. Additionally The Arctic monkeys design holds the trademark of cigarettes and smoking, which is closely linked to the nature of their music and music videos.

 I also particularly like AM's digipak as it includes two images that relate to each other. This is a convention I wish to include in my digipak design as I feel it includes the audience in their 'behind scene' banter.

Justin Bieber: using the internet.

So last night Justin Bieber took to social media website Instagram, and began posting photos of graffiti works revealing the track titles on his upcoming album, Purpose.

By taking advantage of this source in which he shares with 42 million users he was able to publish and advertise his upcoming album simply by posting photos.

From New York to London, Paris, Sydney and more, he tagged in to major cities worldwide to illustrate just how global he can be.

GBBO - Nadiya Hussein.

I’m never going to put boundaries on myself ever again.
I’m never going to say “I can’t do it”.
I’m never going to say “maybe”.
I’m never going to say “I don’t think I can”
I can and I will.

– Nadiya Hussein

Katy Perry : Part of me.

Katy Perry is one of few artists that feature a theme of military for a music video, it makes it even better that she stars a main female protagonist. The video follows the build up towards her journey through the U.S military, however it focuses on elements of direct combat and use of heavy weapons such as tanks and machine guns, which obviously we will not be able to do as A2 media students. Despite this the shots and framing compositions that are used act as a great inspiration to our group and gives us a good idea of the types of shots and angles we wish to include.  Below are my favourite two shots and the lyrical visuals I would hope to par them with.

"Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you" 

"I'm ready for it all..."
(Ending line)

LIKE A GIRL #always

Always started a social experiment back in 2014 by asking different groups of social groups what it meant to do something #LIKEAGIRL, what they found was that the little girls they interviewed ran, fought  and threw with force and confidence, however groups such as young boys and grown women took the question as an insult reproducing actions of weakness and fragility. They aim to 'epically battle' the common conventions of acting #likeagirl and change it from being an insult to being a compliment. 
Below is their original campaigning footage.



This (video below) is a more recent campaign they've started, in which they aim to empower girls and women of all ages to understand that they ARE unstoppable and they CAN be anything they want to be. I find this campaign links well with our music video as in 2014 it was recored that Female personnel currently make up only 9.4% - some 17,620 - of the British armed forces. The area of military is an obviously male dominated sector and our group aims to use this theme as a focal point in order to show that we ARE unstoppable, much like always' just #likeagirl campaign.

THIS GIRL CAN

This girl can is one of my favourite female positive campaigns. They describe themselves as 'a national campaign developed by Sport England' who advocate the activeness of women across the world by publishing videos which capture the essence of females and their sporting techniques. The theme of matriarchy and unity throughout their main campaign video (posted below) is truly influential and inspiring and I hope to be able to successfully reproduce the same sense of empowerment in our music video. They also feature individuals stories such as RUBY VS PRECONCEPTIONS, VICTORIA VS SWEAT AND GRACE VS PACE.

All of which you can find on the website listed below.

http://www.thisgirlcan.co.uk

Example Track lists

All of the examples below showcase the typical 'indie' track list. A mixture of single words and deep phrases. I would like to reproduce this theme in our own track list by including single worded songs such as 'Cara' as well as longer phrases such as 'Where we come home.' 

I particular like Kodaline's artwork as the songs are framed over a twilight landscape shot prepping a musky and very indie feel to it. I would defiently want to frame a landscape shot as a background to the track list just because it conforms perfectly to the conventions of an indie album.

Hozier - Hozier. 

Kodaline - coming up for air.

Mumford and sons - I will wait. 

Years and years - communion.

Band name and Album title. (& our inspiration)

After a quick wiz on Microsoft Word we created the aesthetics of our Band name and album title. 

We've taken direct inspiration from the Kodaline themselves, I love the memorial trademark they leave on all of their vevo published music videos. Within the the opening shots they include their trademark band name, and underneath the title of the single being played. As a group we issued to adopt this technique as it would provide our music video with a professional embellishment as well as just being an aesthetically pleasing way of promoting our bands name.

Name inspiration

Currently the group is continuing to brainstorm some names, we did a task of collecting similar bands to our genre and noting down their Band names and Album Titles. From doing this we noted how we found translated words worked well, e.g. Bon Iver and MØ. 

Band names:

The 1975
Bon Iver (French translation of 'good winter')
The Neighbourhood
Amber Run
MØ (Icelandic translation)

Album Titles:
That's The Spirit (Bring Me The Horizon)
+ (Ed Sheeran)
Chaos And the Calm (James Bay)
Songs About Jane (Maroon 5)
Wilder Mind (Mumford and Sons)

Private Benjamin

Private Benjamin is a 1980 American comedy film starring Goldie Hawn. The film was one of the biggest box office hits of 1980, and also spawned a short-lived television series.

Our girl.

"Our Girl is a BBC drama, and later television series, starring Lacey Turner as Molly Dawes, an underclass, poor young adult who joins the British Army after deciding her life is going nowhere."

'Our girl' is a classic inspiration for our desired narrative, brought to the table by Janadhi it depicts perfectly the struggles and dedication of joining the army, especially being whilst being female.

The locations shot during the beginning of the drama are exactly the kind of landscapes we want to capture in order to portray the dirty city the protagonist is attempting to escape.

Also the costumes and props used, such as the acceptance letter, climbing frames and combat uniforms mirror the exact look we want to accomplish. As Janadhi is an (ex) member of cadets access to these props won't be as much as a struggle, however access to specific army-themed grounds and landscapes will be will request a level of effort.

Mood Board

This collection of secondary images found predominately off browser site Google, portrays the characters, costumes, locations and the narrative we've brainstormed so far.

We want our main protagonist to be a young girl who's initial dream to become part of the British army, due to the songs upbeat tempo we thought it would be perfect to include some training shots, for example her running track as well as working out in a gym. Her passion for running and exercising will be shown during these shots, as well as her mental strength and determination.

Our opening shots will showcase the place she is attempting to escape. We will capture dirty streets, council houses and stereotypical hooded teens on bikes, through this we hope the audience will recognise the distance the protagonist feels for her home place, and her determination to join the army.

We have access to costume and army-related mise-en-scene (with many thanks to Janadhi who is an ex-cadet), which will obviously portray her ambitions clearly. We hope to be able to portray the contrast of locations throughout the song, beginning in the busy, crowded and hectic city, which then soon becomes peaceful and vast. This transition will be mirrored with our protagonists journey towards joining the British Army.