Even though Hannah did the digipak I uploaded some of punk style pictures of the band that could be used. I went away to do more research on digipak so that I know how acillary texts helped other bands to promote themselves in more detail. I found some pictures of the punk, gothic style of digipak.
This first one is just a simple two sided digipak, it doesn't have extra pictures that other digipak has but I think the colours of the Cd is punk style. Eyecatching style will catch the consumer's eye and they will be interested what kind of song it will contain.
This one is more complexed and professional digipak which has 4 sides with the artist pictures and the list of songs included in the Cd. I though this is gothic style and punk at the same time because of the colour that is used as well ast the style of the font. Having range of different photos and limited colours makes it more good.
Straight away you can say that people who listen to rock will demand this. There isn't a picture of an artist but the blood and the colour red absolutely catches the eyes of the consumers. It has more sides than the previous one. One thing that i don't like about this one is use of red and white, I rather use red and something dark and dull rather that white. But use of red and white makes the pictures more stand out.
During the process of editing the music video we came across some really good shots but like great music videos before also some really bad problems. The first problem that we came across was when we tried to make the narrative we had filmed the first sections but once we unloaded the shots we needed some more. One of our actors wasn't able to meet up with us on many occasions, so we had a choice either get rid of the narrative like we planned from the start or focus on the rest of the song first. We decided to focus on the rest of the song where we had the band and the singer on their own. Problems with the whole band was getting people to be in the band but eventually we used people from our own media group and had 3 girls, to make a rock girl band. But when it came to editing the video it all went together well, and from doing the She and Him video for the class i was used to syncing the music to the singer so through out the editing it became easier and easier for me to sync the music. Once all the first shots were uploaded we needed some more static shots and more of the whole band. So one idea that Sung-min came up with was filming in the back of her dad's car. This came in handy because we used most of the shots from the car. Another idea was for the narrative were the singer drinks and holds a knife we was in Sung-min's house sop we decided to do the shots up stairs at that moment. Different types of editing that we used was edits like, peephole and edges. Using a wide range of edits helped me most i believe because i learned how to put different edits together for example i used the n square and the peephole together in the chorus. I think this was a very good edit because it symbolises that the artists are trapped but once the peephole finishes and the edit is just n-square the artists are set free. This is sort of what the music video is about.
Even though we made digipak I though to research on album cover and how it attracts the viewers or the fans. I found lots of different style of album covers and I looked at not only rock but classics to soft musi album covers.
These are the examples of rock album covers:
Most of the album covers don't have people or the artist as their front album picture but they have abstract immaginations shown. This one shows trees growing out of the heart which could mean that the blood is the water which could also mean they play and sing from their heart and fruits are made.
For this one there are limited colours used and the ma inside the picture is wearing a gas mask which could represent that thier music is like toxic and you cannot run away from it. Also letterboxing is used to give feel of old film style.
This one is from Paramore, one of the bands that we researched because it had similar aspects with our one. For this one it looks very punky which is good also the red stands out making the audience wonder. Also it used limited colours but it has their bad name included at the backround.
I think the design and the front cover of a Cd is very important because it represents the theme ofthe music they are doing and if the song gets famouse and the Cd album is attractive than sutomers are likely to buy it. In Korea there was this singer who got famouse with his song called 'Heartbreaker' and because his album was very good people bought it even though they could download the music from the internet.
Further on, I looked at the other side of rock 'classics'.
Most of the classic album covers had the artist at the front wth plain or landscape backround. Its different from rock album as people who are aged will prefer listening from the Cd. Therefore having the artist at the front will make sure that the consumer buys what it wants. Also limited colours are used to give classic feel and it represents the artist's past or characteristics.
For this album the artist is shown in a mediaum shot, ususally classic albums are made to seel the artist whereas with rock albums is there to sell the theme and the music but of course the artist as well. Limited colours are used and the name of the artist is in big font so that audiences will know who he is.
Researching two different types of album covers made me think about how we as a group should represent our band as well as our music in a similar way that it has been developed.
Once decided that the band would be based around a Gothic Rock band the costumes were based around that. We looked at other band costumes which helped to make the costumes for our band, plus once we made our band name (CherryDeadPsycho) we based the costumes round each person for example Cherry wears a red scarf around her neck, this is to symbolise her name and position in the band.
Luna BlackHeart:
Black Over bust Corset
Leggings
Black Skirt
Black Arm warmers
Black Boots
Dark eye liner and bright red lipstick
Black and red necklace
green and black earrings
Misty Clouds:
Skull t shirts
blue denim jeans
Boots
Jynx Willams:
Red scarf
Black Jeans
Boots
Black Top Long sleeve with gold stripes
Out of all the costumes my costume for the lead singer was most elaborate i think this is because the lead singer is mainly in the centre of shot and the narrative is about her.
The way that the band dressed in this when performing has meaning:
Luna BlackHeart
Black over bust corset to match with the music of our song, the audience expects a girl singer to wear something like this because of the way other media products has established relationship with the audience. Also the fact that she is wearing a corset matches to our lyrics,; she stands for her self and the costume makes her look more confident in her self.
Wearing leggings was to match with the other members of the band because the guitarists are all wearing long jeans.
Black skirt, black arm warmers and black boots because we didn't want lots of colours and because it is an emo style music.
Wearing dark eye liner and bright red lipstick was to make the artist more stand out and red lipstick was used to represent anger as she is singing.
Black and red necklace/green and black earrings to represent feminism
Misty Clouds
Skull t-shirt, a direct way for the audience to know that she is the 'dead' in the band name. Also to represent her character as an indivdual who is quite and shy.
Long denim jeans to match with other member of the band.
Boots which most of punk style people wear.
Jynx Willams
Red scarf to symbolise that she is the 'cherry' in our band name.
Long black jeans and boots to match with other members of the band.
Black top long sleeve with gold stripes which again symbolises her character, she is the one who is always cheerful and bubbly but when playing the guitar she brings the other side of her.
Some effects we wanted to use included filters, our idea was to get some acrylic from the Design Technology rooms and place them in front of the Camera to create the colour effect. But because of some colours we weren't able to get the best effects we wanted plus when we filmed in a very dark room the colours didn't work at all.
But once we finished filming and went into editing i found out that there was an effect on the imovie that changes the colour of the shot and makes it look like the filter effect. This worked well and we used it in many of our shots.
Ok our first website was going ok but we didn't feel it was professional enough, but we had all our information on the site which includes:
Name of the band
Names of people in the band
Description of the band (how they met)
Tour Dates
Contact List (Band)
Photos
Music (there songs)
Music Video
Blogs on the Band
Comments for the band
But all this has now been placed on our new site. From the two sites the 2nd one looks a lot better thanks to Hannah for starting this one up, Myself and Sung-min started the other one and now everyone is posting there own ideas on the sites.
I have designed a website for our band using "Yola" a site where you have the option to design a website for free. It can be found here: http://cherrydeadpsycho.yolasite.com/
When designing the website I had the album design which I also did in the back of my mind, so all the backgrounds and colours are based around what I designed for the digipak. I think this is quite effective gives the band some sort of brand to associate with the band.
Theses are examples of fonts that I tried in Microsoftword. The first oneis called impact and I hose this because it is simple and clear for the audience to see the name of our band. The second one is called MT extra, I selected this because it is like a code that only fans know that they are CherryDeadPsycho. The coloured ones are there to give effect of our band genre.
A digipak is a relatively new type of packaging for CD's which folds out (sort of like a book) instead of a conventional CD case. Digipak is a trademark of AGI Media who developed this design. They are usually made out of some strong cardboard as opposed to normal CD cases which are made out of plastic. This is a more effective method of packaging as there is no risk of cardboard cracking in someones bag or being stepped on and ruining the CD inside. Is is also cheaper and easier to make than a regular CD case.
Here's an example of a digipak:
This is My Chemical Romance's "Life on the Murder Scene" digipak, this is a two part DVD about them on tour but it's still exactly the same as a CD digipak would be, except it might only have one CD.
The design of the digipak mainly comes from their CD previous to this one, "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge" except it uses real people, indicating that this is a more realistic representation of the band in everyday life. Inside the same theme is followed, it's like their previous albums are all coming to life. This is exciting for the fans (and target audience) who have followed them for a while as they get an "access all areas" peek into the bands lives.
The colour scheme used throughout consists of red, black and white, which relates to their most memorable outfits from the "Three Cheers era". This is a very strong aesthetic which is immediately recognisable to their fans.
The designs are quite minimal but effective and the physical digipak is suprisingly sturdy consideing it is only made from cardboard and UV coating.
This is a basic design for our bands digipak that I designed.
the album cover
the back cover
the first inside cover you see!
behind the CD
left-hand inside cover
It isn't quite finished yet though because I still need to add in some photos of the band and maybe some lyrics or a short biography seeing as it is our 'debut album', it could be assumed that people may want want to know about how the band formed etc..
I decided to analyse this video of "When I'm Gone"by the Vivian Girls mainly because they are an 3 piece all-girl band, v. similar to our band.
There is a lot of fading in and out of different shots in this video. I think it could represent the singers dreamy, melodic vocals. I think we could use this sort of effect in the part of the song that keeps repeating "is it, is it, is it?" as that part is quite atmospheric and "drawn out" so it would suit this type of transition. Also the pace at which the different fades happen matches the changes in the music so, Goodwin's Theory is being used here!
I think an intertexual reference is used in this video, when they sing the harmony "When I'm Gooooone" it reminds me of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". We were thinking of referencing to bands music videos such as Paramore's "Misery Buisness" or the "Ignorance" video (but this was in the planning stages when we weren't sure what we were going to do.)
Looking at this video has also helped me in regard to performing in the band as the lead guitarist.
I also looked at this video for "Typical Girls" by The Slits
Another girl band, but this time from the 70's!
I decided to use this as it actually reminds me of something which we did in our music video - use a bandstand.
The whole music video is a performance, based around the bandstand. The camera pans around stand quite a lot and the band is literally "put on a pedestal".
I also noticed the clothes that the band are wearing. The singer, lead guitarist and bass player are all in red, which makes them cohesive and look like a band.
They all seem to dress to suit their personality - this is what we wanted to do in our band, as we each have names "Cherry", "Dead" and "Psycho", (sort of like the Spice Girls!) which which make up the band name. So, "Cherry" (me) will wear something red and be all peppy and cheery, "Dead" mopes around looking dead and wearing tops with skulls on them, and "Psycho" acts a bit crazy and wears crazy, intense outfits!
This video was really helpful as their performance as a band is really energetic, and they all seem to be really enjoying being caught up in the moment, I hope that our band can portray the same vibe!
By Hannah Buckman
Sunday 28 November 2010
We filmed in various locations over a couple of weeks. The area's we ended up filming were:
- in school (on stairs/ in corridor)
- bandstand in Kingston
- the red phoneboxes (also in kingston)
- in front of some graffiti in a park
- at Sung-mins house
We wanted to film in lots of different locations so we could pick and choose the best parts of each and leave the audience wanting to see more.
We were a little underprepared to start with which meant we met up many times and tried things out, but didn't really film anything. So then we decided to re-evaluate and ended up completely changing our idea (originally we weren't going to do a narrative, just performance.)
The first day we filmed the narrative section, which was done in school. It went quite well, we did a large number of different takes so we would have enough to work with when it became time to edit. We set up lighting in the corridor (as it was too dark on the camera.)
The next time met up, was during the half term. We met up at 8 am in Kingston and filmed outside the telephone boxes. We thought that this would be a suitable location because it gives off a rather "punk vibe" (it looked like someone kicked the phoneboxes over when they were raging - ooh, how punk!) We didn't have any problems when filming outside, (except the fact that it was freezing! and quite embarassing) at one point we managed to attract a little audience and someone took photos!
We then went to the bandstand. We chose this location for obvious reasons, to give off the vibe of us being a local student band , just starting out, playing our first few gigs. We filmed the whole song all the way through about 4 times.
We then filmed in front of the graffiti (which was also in the park.) This location was decided on because we also through it fitted with the punk rock aesthetic that we were going for.
The next time we filmed more for the performance in/around Sung-min's house. We filmed in the car, in the garage (full of pianos!) and we filmed the narrative in a spare room in her house.
Finally, we reshot some of the shots in front of the graffiti at the park and filmed some spinning sequences as well. We also did some mini interviews of the band.
One of the hardest problems we had when planning our video was deciding the band and who we could get to be in the band. This was such a problem that when we came to film someone dropped out of being in the band so Sung-min took her spot and back up guitarist. Eventually the band was Me, Hannah and Sung-min. This worked out well but it took long time to get to this point. We wanted a drummer in the band but because none of us had a drum and we couldn't take the drums out of school the idea was dropped. We wanted to film in the drama hut and use different filters but after testing in the drama hut we realised that the filters didn't worked in a dark room with a black background. But the worst part was deciding between having a narrative or just a full performance pop promo. In the end we decided that ahving a narrative will help to fill in some parts of the song, and one main reason for having the narrative was that only one person in the band could play the instrument properly and i believe that to have a great performance pop promo the band must be able to play their instruments well, because the whole idea of a performance based video is to show off the skills of the band.
As for the research for our music video, we looked at bands which are almost quite similar to our themes. When we came up with our first idea's for our music video, we were intially thinking of darker themes. We thought about the location in this music video and thought about having the band performance taking place in a very dark and gothic location. So in influence to this music video we thought about filming in a graveyard and we did try to this. However, we really found it difficult to do this, as we need to respect the actual location as it was a graveyard and the visitors who come there as well. We tried thinking of other suitable location and thought about our school drama room and a gothic cloths shop basement in London, which Louise suggested. She said parties took place there however she said she had heard there have been complaints in past regarding the noise. So due to the uncertainty of them letting us film there, we dropped it .As, for the school drama hut, we had big problems with lighting and a suitable background, so we dropped the idea as well.
Even though we had problems with Location hunting for our video, We still used the gothic theme for our music video. This was mainly influenced by the female lead singer in this video as in some shots with the band, she wears a black skinny jeans and boots. We were certainly influenced by this style and went for similar type of look for the two female guitarists in our band. At the beginning of this music video, we see the lead singer lying down in hay shaped like a nest, in a white dress. We used a conflicting look for our lead singer who wore a black corset top and a skirt for our video. When it came to camera angles for our music videos we used extreme close-ups of the lead singers and the guitars. The use of extreme-close up,was influenced in this music video as well as other ones we saw while doing our research. Unusally, we have also found out one of the guitars in the music video is also very similar to the one in our video.This video also made us think about using male band members rather than female. However, we had problems with casting our band members. In the end, we decided on having a all female band and dropped the idea of having a drummer. Having our drummer in our band was something we would have liked to have had, but due to casting and due to the location we had planned, we felt it would have been difficulty.
We had problems with dates when we could film, so we decided to film in half term. We could do this because we had our own camera to use. On 25/10/10 and 26/10/10, we went to kingston to film where the phone boxes were; because we met early and started early there were less people therefore we could film smoothly. But when people started to come and see us doing the project the band felt uncomfortable but we got more in to it and the singer got better as we did it. Also on the same day we went to the band stand, one thing that we missed was to do a static shot of the band in the band stand so that we have more shots. After this location we went to where graffity backround was. We thought we needed more locations when we up loaded the shots and started editing. So we decided to film on 2/11/10 in the playground, train station, my house and in the car. The locations were quite close together so it did not take a lot of time to move around. But because we went there after school it gor dark quite quickly so we could not film in the playground or the station. Before we did all of these locations we did narrative but because the actor could not make it each time when we could, we had to re-shoot everything before school started. So on 19/11/10 we shot narrative in school with different backround location. I thought it turned out good better than the last one we did.
From choosing location to re-shooting, I have learnt that if you want to do a production of something the best thign to do is research and look at rpoducts which were successful and learn and get ideas from it. Also when filming, don't think about how it is going to turn out but experiement and do normal to strange shots because you don't know unless you try it. Adding on, when you are re-shooting we have to think about the time of the day, wether etc things which will not disturb continuity.
In the project that we were given, we had to make a digi-pack for the band. So we decided to create a website for our band. I typed in 'create your website' on Google and moonfruit web came on, so we started designing it. Our web-site address is http://cherrydeadpsycho.yolasite.com We are going to include the hisory of the band, how we met and how we came up with our names, personal details like our birthdays, maybe pictures etc. One wesite that I researched to see how other bands do it, I liked RUSH-official website. The opening page had their logo and it had lists of menus that you can go and look in to. I found out that most of band web sites have black as their backround which we thought we matched with our band as well.
I had a chance to volunteer for Oxfam when they did a music concert called 'Oxjam'. First I handed out the leaflets to people and went to different places around kingston where the bands performed and helped them as s staff. It was a chance for me to see different types of band there were rock bands, people who played the wood instruments and sang etc. I looked carefully at the rock band ad punk style bands. I noticed that the singer and the band were enjoying what they were singing and playing. It was great opportunity to see what kind of movements that I have to show as a back up guitarist.
The reason for me choosing this specific songs and band was because i thought the band genre matched ours and that the narrative behind this song was bullying which we decided our song was like. Some parts of the song that we could use would be the shots of the instruments. But the parts i will look at closely is how the lead singer is acting because i am the lead singer of the band. Another part i took in to count was how quick the editing is on this song. It matches the beat to the drum in some places and is very quick, the reason for this is because it is rock song so when editing our coursework i will have to take into count how quick the editing should be. Another reason i choice this song is because of how much attitude it has to the audience. When the bad girl cuts the good girl's hair off it will make the audience gasp, this makes the video very in your face which is what a rock/punk music video should be like so i would like to use this idea in our music video. I also looked at how the girl is bullying others, one it where she pushes someone into a wall and another example is where she starts kissing a girls boyfriend. These are all good ideas but our group will have to decide what kind of bullying will take place. I think the pushing idea will be good for out group. The otherpart about this video i like is how at the end the singer of the band takes control and bullies the bully. This is to some extent like our song at the beginning of our song she is scared and bullied but at the end she stands up for herself. In my opion i think the best way to get back at the bully would be to do what they did for example if they push you push back, i think that would look good in a music video.
One place that we didn't mention in the location section is filming in bentalls. When Louise and I went to Kingston to shoot singer part we went inside Betalls and asked thereceptionist if we could film. However, she said we have to call the head manager and ask and even though if we do it will take long to get permission and actually film. From this I realised the reality of business and media industry, if you don't do things in advance you will lose good opportunity. Also because we wanted to film in London, Ithought of filming in the Underground station I went the website and found out that a lot of films include shots from London underground. This means it is a good location to bring up atmosphere however this one also you had to book it in advance. It was an experience for me to learn new skills and put my thoughts into practice whether it works out or not.
One thing that I regret not doing is filming inside a coffin for more abstract but affective shots. The reason why we wanted to make one and film inside is that it show the relationship between lyrics ad visuals. As the singer sings '...you move closer and I'm closed in...' we could have used the coffin to show that she is close in and its better for her to be dead rather than alive. There could have been other shots that we could put the coffin shot in. Because we waned to make one I got the materials ready but we did not have enough time to make one, if we had this idea when we were planning we could have done it. But as we did more research and thought about it more in depth we came up with this. I though it has the same effect that Ignorance by Paramore has. When the band performs n that small room they look crouched up and this is the feel that we want to have in ours. But we did not have time to but next time we should research more and come up with ideas which are unique.
As sung-min has already mentioned we planned to make a coffin that we could take pictures of and film with. Sung-min had planned to bring in some chip board to make the coffin out of. Me and Sung-min brought the chip board into the design technology rooms and began talking on how to make the coffin. Sadly what we planned we didn't have enough wood for and we didn't have the time to make the coffin as perfect as we wanted. so we decided not to make or use the coffin, i believe if we had had more time then we would of made the coffin and used it for filming and pictures.
One reason why we wanted to use the coffin was when looking at CD covers we came across a 'Metallica' album. This album has a coffin on the front and this is where our inspiration came from.
Our original plan was to film the performance with our band and narrative in school. We also had four ideas of filming the band performance:
* In a class room
* The drama room.
* The main school Hall * London (Trafalgar square and Piccadilly Circus) * Kingston (Bandstand, Telephone Boxes, Graffiti Wall and Park)
The main school Hall idea was dropped after realising we didn't particular like the layout of the Hall. We also thought of having school children in the crowd, like a typical band concert. This particular idea didn't work either due to lack of time and we had the issue of getting permission from teachers at a short notice as it was couple of days before half-term. We also thought about, if we were also going to get school children in our performance and filming was at the end of school, we would have to get parents permission as well. So due to the short notice and many other problems we had with the idea, we decided to drop it. We also decided to change our performance base. Sung-Min felt we needed to experiment a bit more in location by going into a town rather than just a simple location in school because she thought this would be more exciting and interesting for the audience. We then started exploring places to film in London. The choices was Trafalgar square and Piccadilly Circus. However, As we further investigated Louise told us the problem with Trafalgar Square was that we may have restrictions filming there. So with risk of that we dropped it. We then initially decided on filming in Piccadilly Circus and a Gothic Shop basement in Piccadilly Circus which Louise suggested which also on doubt because of filming restriction. We then had problems with taking equipment all the way to London and the bad weather which followed. So we dropped the whole idea of filming in London was dropped and we went for something local to us and we thought about filming in Kingston, as we had a much more variety of things to do as we knew the area well, it worked really well for all of us it gaves us so many ideas of locations to film. We also filmed at Sung-Min's house and used her dad's car to film some of the performance. We thought it was a good idea to explore a bit more as we thought about this close space environement to film.So the narrative for our music video was in school and the performance was done in Kingston.
These are the some of the ideas that we had for our CD cover:
One idea that we had was to take a picture of the band in a coffin however we didn't have enough time to make it therefore we coudn't. From this I have learnt that we must always brainstorm ideas and if we need to do something than act fast to achieve it.
Also because we had to make an actual CD cover, we had to come up with other song titles that matches out band: -Is it me
To give theses exposure coloured effects I used simple photo editing program in a website called 'cyworld' which is a social net working site. I used exposed colour effects because our theme of the song is punk and the lyrics made me think of complementary colours put together rather than just the normal picture.
