Possible Filming Locations

Here are some of the locations I am looking at shooting some footage in. In turn this may mean that they feature in my digipak also.

 

 

Magazine advert research

Before blogging this post I attempted to use secondary research to find out whether Junior Senior had any memorable magazine adverts, but upon looking found that they didn't. So I have found some other memorable music magazine adverts that I am taking some inspiration from.

I like that these magazine adverts are relatively simple, with the audiences attention firmly fixed on the image. They contain all of the necessary info, clearly highlighted for the consumer. This is the type of design I will try to stick to when creating my own magazine cover, using my digipak front cover as the main image. I may also feature some shop logos and dates somewhere on my cover.

Music Video Directors

"Some believe an artist’s single isn’t official unless there’s a music video to go along with it. When you think about it, there may be some truth to that theory. Would “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” have been nearly as entertaining without Beyoncé clad in her now-infamous leotard in the video? Better yet, would the MTV Video Music Awards even exist?" (greenlabel sound)

Here are a couple of directors who directed iconic music videos, and are still directing them today.

Paul Hunter

Paul Hunter directed Christina Aguilera's award winning music video, Lady Marmalade, written for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. He has worked with other big names such as Eminem and Michael Jackson. 

Hunter uses a lot of still image shots in this video, and at low angles too. There are a lot of close ups and mid shots of the talent, who firmly takes place on center stage at all times. His take on music videos is that it is all about the artist, and that the audience should be focused on them at all times. The low angle shots of the talent help them to look powerful and authoritative. Staring at one artist for four minutes at a time can be tedious, but Hunter avoids this by changing shot around every 3 seconds, and switches from singer to singer regularly. In terms of mise en scence, this video is very visually stimulating, as it has been filled with colour props, lighting and sets that are designed to catch the eye and grab the audiences attention, keeping them fixed on the action throughout.

Hype Williams

This man is said to be one of the most sought after directors in hip hop. His most recently directed video is called Get Lucky by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams.

His style of direction runs very smoothly, to match with the song. He uses a lot of very slow panning shots, every 10 seconds or so. There are close ups of instruments and artist's faces in a running sequence, going from face to instrument, face to instrument again, then a wide shot of the band and finally a slow panning shot from right to left, left to right. This pattern is repeated throughout the song along with the interesting and creative silhouette scene in the middle of the video. This helps to break the song up somewhat, to avoid it becoming boring. These slow camera shots and angle changes fit perfectly with the songs beats, as it is not fast paced enough to need quick changes. These would likely make the video feel out of sync with the song.

Digipak cover draft

This is my first draft of my digipak cover. I like having feet in the image, as the song is entitled Move your feet, also, these shoes feature in my video.
However the blank space on the right hand side of the image, I would like to fill.
I was debating whether to have the name of the band on the cover art, and tried an image without it but I don't think it works. The band is not iconic enough to know who they are just by their cover art.
It is also too dark and grungy for my style of video, which I want to be bright, sunny and happy.

Digipak research

What is a digipak?

"Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that holds the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background."

 



 

 

I would like my digipak to have some element of continutiy, as I think it looks more appealing to an audience. my bottom three panels representing the back of my digipak will be one image stretched across the three. I would like my top three panels, representing the front of my digipak to have one big bold central image (front cover) with minimal detail on the neighbouring two panels, so as to not distract from the main image, which will the focus point of my whole digipak.

 

Uses & Gratifications

The uses and gratifications theory is an approach that aims to understand mass communication. This theory focuses its attention on the consumer instead of the message and asks the question, what do people do with media, rather than what media does to people. The theory says that audiences are responsible for choosing media that meets their needs (fulfills specific gratifications). This theory can be seen when people are choosing which music videos to watch. There are many different types and we choose a particular one to fill a certain need.

Music videos are primarily used for entertainment factors and this goes for my video as well. Following this basic model of entertainment laid out by U&G theory, my video will enable people to fill time, relax, divert from their problems (allowing some escapism), and hopefully have an emotional release.

I aim to produce a video that is going to allow my target audience to experience all of these things and fulfill their own specific gratifications.

Research methods

There are four main research methods which prove to be useful when finding out about music videos. These are:

• Quantitative
• Qualitative
• Primary
• Secondary

Quantitative

This type of research can be measured because it is numerical information. It usually will consist of a questionnaire that can be distributed to a large sample and in turn gain a lot of information.

Qualitative

This is the opposite to quantitative research. It is descriptive and can not be measured numerically. This type of research is usually conducted through in-depth interviews, focus groups and direct observations. This method is a way of collecting data concerned with meaning. What they lack in reliability they gain in validity as they provide a more informative, rich description. 

Primary

This is data you collect for a specific purpose. The questions are tailored in a way to gain specific information. This works best with small samples and all kinds of practical research methods can be used e.g. questionnaires, interviews, focus groups etc.

Secondary

This is data that already exists. There are a huge amount of ways to gain secondary research, for example, the internet, books, newspapers, libraries etc. This is said to be the easiest way of collecting data as someone has already done it for you. It is also more time/cost effective than primary data collection.

Because of the time limit I am under, I will mainly be gaining information through secondary research methods, and then towards the end of the coursework, quantitative, producing questionnaires for a sample of my target audience to gain feedback form. These are both time and cost effective methods of research and will benefit me greatly when collecting relevant information.