Digipack Analysis

Digipack Analysis

Development of ideas

Here I am including some scans of the sheets of development that we used to work out our ideas and map out our thought processes in order to develop an idea that we felt incorporated all of the best elements of a large variety. This would help us to create an overall idea that was most fitting and batter equipped to show exactly what we wanted our video to show/suggest. In the end we didn't really use a lot of what we had written down on these sheets however they were incredibly helpful to us in selecting the very best elements and picking out the ideas that would be more effective in the long run to use.

We felt that creating individual brainstorms for the narrative and the performance would be useful to us in that it makes it easier to separate ideas and therefore work out what would work together better and what would create a more effective final product. 

Here I am including the final brainstorm we had which was about the word that, based on the word summary I created previously, came up the most often in the song. This meant that we would be more able to relate the song to the lyrics as a result of deconstructing the song  and looking more closely at the lyrics themselves and the ideas relating to them. 

Space Elevator

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my bones
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head
Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my mind

Well space elevator won’t you take me so far

Sun navigator won’t you take me to the stars

Take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

 

Can’t hear what you say, You’re so far away

Say you’ll see me later, Wanna ride my elevator

If it’s possible, I feel insufferable

I feel the talk of the towns and never come back down

 

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul

Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head

Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my bones

Sun spinning inside my bones, Inside my mind

 

Science is trying just to figure out the facts

And I’ll be lying if you’re crying, Coz nothing’s making sense

Space is calling out to be a friend

All the stars are falling, But this is not the end

 

Space elevator won’t you take me to Mars

Sun navigator won’t you take me so far

Well take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

 

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space, Are we lost in space

 

Decisions and plans

What I have so far and what I intend to do on Prezi

Logo designs development

I have decided that the final logo design should and most likely will be a combination of the two ideas featured above. I think that this will help me to create a much more representative and interesting logo for our band. Combining the two ideas would be quite simple and will look very effective in the end I think. 

The image above includes 4 different ideas that I have developed from the 2 at the very bottom of the page doing this has meant that my ideas have been realised more and are expanding to cover more bases. This idea shows the main themes and ideals that our band will uphold and present (patriotism and the music being the most important factor). I feel that these designs are quite appropriate and accurate in their portrayal of the bands themes and ideals. In all of my ideas I am challenging the conventions that I found when looking at the logos of indie rock bands and as such am keeping the logos quite intricate and detailed so that they are more interesting and appealing to a wider audience. Doing so suggests a degree of adaptability from the band and makes it so that they will be more noticeable and recognisable because they are more unique and interesting overall.  

Music Video Analysis

Franz Ferdinand Music video analysis

Questionnaire Results

Last lesson my group compiled our questionnaire data and began looking at trends and various other pieces of useful information.We have combined aspects of our results in order to make them more useful and relevant to us in deciding on our target audience members and therefore more useful when developing our ideas. The data we have collected is a combination of Quantitative and Qualitative meaning that we have a broader selection of data results and are able to gain a better understanding of what our audience like and want to see. 
As a group we managed to collect a total of 18 responses on our questionnaires,  of these responses 16 were fans of indie music and therefore more useful to us. 
We found that 5/16 (31%) of our responses, from indie fans, were from males while 11/16 (69%) were from females this means that we should be attempting to direct our video towards females though not making it solely female directed. This is especially helpful to us since our focus group was mainly made up of females and therefore reflects our needs more, and helps us to work out how we should be making the video.
The ages of our responses were very similar fitting only within two of the categories, 15/16 (94%) of responses came from people aged 15-19 while 1/16 (6%) responses came from within the age range of, 25-29. This suggests that our video should be mainly aimed at teenagers but appeal to all those within the ages 15-30. Again our focus group reflects this as all of our participants were between the ages of 15-19.
The responses when asked whether they prefer narrative or performance in a music video, were quite evenly split. With female responses being at 50% for narrative and performance, while male responses were at 60% for narrative and 40% for performance, this shows that our video should be almost exactly half narrative and performance, so my group will need to ensure that our attention is properly divided between the two when developing ideas and when creating the video itself.

The results that we have gained from our questionnaires have been overall fairly diverse in the bands that they like as well as in gender and age. As such my group have decided that it might be better for us to present this diversity through clear presentation of the band members individual personalities using mise-en-scene. Therefore we intend to, through the band members costume in the performance, present a different character for each member and therefore subverting the typical characteristics of the indie genre in which bands are presented as a unit rather than individuals. We feel that presenting the individual personalities will appeal to fans as it will give a more personal effect and create a bigger sense of relation between audience and band, also presenting the diverse nature of the audience themselves symbolically.  

Flatplan iweb website

Today I went on from creating a sample webpage to create a flat plan on iweb that would show exactly where everything that I want to put onto the webpage would be situated. The flat plan created on this programme is actually different to the plan that I drew out and shows that I have taken on board some of the critique from my peer assessment. I have created not only a sample first page but also a sample splash page to show how the main site would look but also how people would enter the site and interact with the fans. I feel that this sample shows a much more effective website layout and design than my initial plan did as it will appeal to a wider variety of people and may therefore attract a wider audience.  

Website practice

Today I used the iweb programme on the mac and have created a sample webpage as a means of practising the process. I have found that the programme on the whole is very easy to navigate/use and looks quite effective. I feel that the end result is very professional in its appearance and looks very good as a website design. Today's practice has meant that I have implemented some of the skills necessary and as such am now aware of what I need to do to change colours, fonts, add in images, include YouTube clips etc. In doing so I have become more aware of the limitations of the programme and as a a result I not know what is practical about my design and what may need to change. As a result of this activity I know how to best implement the widgets at the side of the programmes page, I am also aware of the jobs that the icons at the bottom of the page do and as such know how to best create an effective webpage. 

Initial logo designs

Here I have included my initial design ideas for the logo of the band. Our band name is clearly the lost boys and when creating my logos I was attempting to reflect either the 'lost' aspect of the bands name or the patriotism of the band as a reflection of their ideals. I have also attempted to show that the music is at the core of their ideals in some of the logo designs also. 

The first idea makes use of a viola clef which is quite an unknown/unrecognised musical clef, I felt that using this would help to make the band appear more unique and interesting, it would also make the logo look more interesting and definitely show that the music is very important to the band. I feel that though effective this might be too complicated/difficult to read, as such I either need to adjust the idea or disregard it completely. 

The second logo on the page is in the shape of the yin-yang symbol for light/dark or good/evil and shows the bands peaceful ideals and their want for peace, To further enforce this I have included the peace symbol. I feel that this helps reflect the bands brand as we want to present them in mod styling and also present them as being very harmonious and at peace with their surroundings.  I have use a slightly scratchy font (in its appearance) and feel that thus might reflect the 'lost' part of their name. I feel that this idea is in fact quite effective at what it is doing yet it doesn't reflect the ideals that it should really and as such I am not going to use it in my final design.  

The third logo design I have included shows the union jack with music sheets and a heart formed from a treble clef and bass clef. I feel that doing this makes the band appear very patriotic and very much concerned with the music. Showing that the music is at the heart of their ideals and even at the centre of their logo. The font again is quite scratchy in its appearance as a reflection of being 'lost'. I personally feel very happy with this design and would very much like to use this idea, I may however make adjustments in terms of sizing and spacing.  

The next logo shows a much clearer and more simple font with the colours of the flag appearing like shards of wood behind the logo as a further suggestion of the band being 'lost'. It also serves to present and enforce the patriotism of the band. This design is only somewhat representative and I feel that it is much less effective on the whole than the other designs that I have created. 

The next logo design acts as a clear presentation of the being lost and I felt that a good way of showing this would be through forest/woods imagery, I feel that this has been quite effective in that it does appear to clearly show the idea of being lost. I feel however that the band ideals would be much better to present for the logo and as such I don't think that I will be using this particular design. 

My final idea reflects the patriotism more than anything and is much more personal in appearance as the font is intended to look much more like handwriting (and is in fact my own handwriting) and therefore appeal more to the fans as it creates more of a connection. I feel however that this doesn't fully present all that I would like it to nor does it look particularly effective.

Focus group and Questionnaires

We have, from our questionnaire responses, gathered together as many people who gave answers that were relevant and useful and used them to form our focus group. We showed these people three videos that we felt were very different yet still quite typical of the indie genre and would gain us the best responses.

Having conducted our focus group I've found that the most popular vide we showed to them was 'Take on me' by Franz Ferdinand, and the reason of this was generally because the video was different and interesting. -Because it made use of animation and did it in a way that was effective and exciting to see.
However the music video for 'I predict a riot' by The Kaiser Cheifs was also fairly popular, the reason for this was that while having little/no narrative the video was fun for the viewers to watch.
Our focus group also let us know that we should include some form of interesting narrative or story but the performance should be the main aspect and should be quite fun in it appearance.

Below I have images of a sample of our questionnaire questions, I am showing 4 of the 20 answers that we recieved.

Genre Research and synergy within bands

Genre Research

Webpage initial design ideas.

Here I have included a copy of my initial design idea for a webpage for my band, 

This is my initial design idea and as a result of Peer evaluation I am aware that it will need some slight adjustments and as such intend to change some aspects of the layouts in order to make it somewhat more appealing to the masses rather than just fans of indie music. Making it more widely appealing would mean that my design idea becomes more appealing for a larger audience therefore attracting a larger audience. 

I have attempted to, in my design, account for the typical conventions of indie websites and as such have made it very simple in appearance, as well as very personal and easy to navigate. I have tried to include everything that fans would like to see and what they would want to make use of. When making changes I think that I will put in more images and fill up some more of the space in order to attract a larger audience. I might also adjust some of the placement of text and dates and also include a tour countdown to keep fans even more involved and up-to-date. 

Audience research questionnaire

Below I have a copy of the questionnaire that my group intends to distribute and use in order to form our focus group and work out what it is audiences would like to see from our group for the music video. 

Questionnaire

Initial Group ideas

As a group we looked through everyone's ideas and decided which ones we thought would work the best and were the most interesting. We decided on the following as some preliminary ideas to adjust and work on;

• Show the band playing a gig, they have only one fan watching them at the moment (this would all be shown in black and white) the band wish that they have more fans. This wish is granted and they end up with a huge fan base who they then go to play for in a different venue (this part would be filmed in colour). The fans however all start to become nightmarish and turn into monsters and keep the band kidnapped, (the footage at this point goes back into black and white). The bands one fan from the beginning then comes into the venue and saves them and the footage goes back into being in colour, the band return to their original venue and play for their original fan.
• Colours- Great British flag
• Band are inside an elevator/lift- make it look like its lifting off- lots of colour.
• Similar to above with a narrative about escapism.
• Green screen- show images of space behind the band as they perform
• Band are performing in front of a small community- narrative shots- showing band and good community spirit, they re doing good deeds within the community picking up litter helping those in need etc.
• Intercut performance shots with shots showing the outside of a lift with muffled sounds of performance from the band.
• Show parts filmed at different speeds- band come together and start playing together at the same time/speed- this causes the surroundings to become sped up/showed down- they go unnoticed as this happens.
• Juxtapose- lead singer shown in the same way as a typical pop artist (beauty shots etc) while the rest of the bandare typically 'indie' in their interpretation. The rest of the band work together and take the lead aside and make him into an indie singer.
• Each member of the band is assigned a colour, as they travel through areas they bring that colour to life within the area, when they meet up and start playing to get her their colours are spread all over and everything is returned into being colourful rather than greyscale/black and white.
• The lead singer is seeing things and thinks that he is hallucinating everyone else believes so too however by the end of the video he finds them and realises that they are real.
• Colour focus.

Mood board for band identity and digipack

Some of the images used have been created by me using Photoshop, i.e. the background, and the flag.

Here I have created a mood board that encapsulates the main themes of our band and portrays their band identity most clearly. I have included an image of the British flag (union jack) in order to present the bands patriotism, and the suggestion of their united stance as we decided from the beginning that they would be presented as a whole unit. I've also included an image of a sign post and compass as I felt that they better relate to the groups name of "The Lost Boys" The use of this sign post and compass should suggest that they're finding their path or perhaps even paving their own. Also I've included images of space, this relates more to the name of the song that we are using for the music video, I felt that including this might help me to work out some of the imagery etc.  that we could use in the video itself. I've included the peace sign to relate back to the 60's mod era that we intend to portray and to promote their ideal of youthful innocence. This promotes the idea of youthful innocence as its bright and colourful, therefore suggesting the vibrancy of youth, the innocence is presented by the suggestion of peace reigning free. I have included the doves as a further suggestion of innocence and freedom, again as a means of reflecting the themes and ideals of the band themselves. Finally I have included the image of a rainbow with musical notes and the bass/treble clef forming a heart shape, this has been included as I felt that the images would best show that the music is at the heart of their band and they care most for the actual songs and music that they are producing.

I have also included some initial ideas as to the font in which the logo could be created, the fonts are all quite different however I feel that they are all relevant and representative in some way. 
Artist representation mood board

Initial ideas

Upon watching some music videos from well established 'indie' bands I have found that typically the videos focus on the performance of the song rather than any real narrative, they also tend to have some feature that will make them appear more quirky and interesting.

One initial idea that I have had for my groups music video is;
to set it in what appears to be a club/cafe with a small stage for the band, the camera would focus almost entirely on the band as they play the instruments but also pay attention to the audience as they mill around the room. I feel that in order for the video to appear more interesting it should have some colour focus, with the focus of the shot being particularly vibrant and visually striking. for example waitresses with really colourful aprons of holding vibrant trays/mugs/glasses.  The video would also make use of colour filters or some form of coloured spotlight to add to the visuals.

A second idea is for the video to focus on the idea of freedom and not quite fitting in with the crowd but enjoying that fact. Symbolic shots of birds (an animal that to me seems to be the most free) mixed with a lot of outdoor shots showing the band as they act in an unconventional manner but focusing on their expressions and showcasing the enjoyment and freedom that they feel. It will cut between these shots and shots of the band as they perform the song.

A third idea that I have had for this song, is to have a continuous shot of the band performing the song but also showing a few close ups and other angles of the band with the location remaining the same and the band being the only movement within the video at normal speed, all other shots showing the band with something else in shot would show the other object or creature moving in slow motion. This video would also make extensive use of colour.

A fourth idea would be for the camera to show a wide variety of shots of the band backstage/out and behind the scenes, and cutting between this and shots of the performance. The shots would use really saturated colours and make some use of black and white as a throwback to the mod era (most images of which are shown in black and white). The quirks of the band would be seen when showing backstage and behind the scenes behaviour as well as through the use of colour.

A fifth idea is to play on the 'space' lyrics and the idea of being 'lost' in space, showing the band as they are either literally lost or emotionally and figuratively lost, it would result in their eventual finding their way (they would do this in a way that is particularly colourful and vibrant in appearance). The images of being lost would be inter-cut with performance in the place where they feel at home or safe. This area would be vibrant and use especially vivid colours.  

Artist representation

Here I have shown a presentation of some of our artists values and what it is they will look like and stand for.

the people shown are all dressed fairly similarly and this shows that they are a group, a unit, they work together and are all equals, and consider every band member to be equally important.

There is also a splash of colour somewhere on each member showing that while appearing as a unit they are all still individual and unique, which also presents symbolically their music which while fitting the genre of 'indie' also stands out and sounds unique/interesting.

I have also given the band members a halo each as this presents a symbol of innocence, the innocence we intend to play on mostly is that of youth.

The image I have used is of 60's style mods, which is what we intend to dress our own band like and how we feel they should be presented.

in order to show that our band will be down to earth I have used an image of a crowd of people and whilst they stand out due to their splashes of colour they are still a part of the crowd and as such just like anyone else. Further to this I have included an image of a white rose suggesting the earth and connoting innocence.

I have show the bands musical focus by including the musical symbols in the shape of a heart, suggesting that at the centre of their core values is the music.

All of the mentioned values I have attempted to incorporate into the image below.

Both of the images included here I have created myself using Photoshop.