#planningandresearch

Went to this talk!

Learnt lots of interesting facts about colour and careers that work with colour. It was great to get out and learn something new. None of my recent work has been particularly related to colour, but its something that is crucial in design so worth knowing about!

Notes:

Conventions of a digipak:

Eye-catching - displays colour scheme, artist and title

Visuals related to the song/s on the album

sometimes includes pics of artist - not a requirement

Tracklist

More album art - no repetition

Record label

Title/artist’s name

Trademarks and credits

Barcode

CD holder - sometimes this is transparent plastic and shows another piece of album art underneath. Others have card compartments and even sleeves for the CD/s

Additional information - including song lyrics, personal messages from artist/s, background info on songs/artists etc. 

Booklet - this includes this additional info, along with more artwork

R.E.M. Unplugged was an album released in 2014 and consisted of recordings from two live appearences of the band on the TV music channel, MTV Unplugged. Initially released for Record Store day, with copies signed by guitarist Mike Mills available as promotion, the album was later transferred onto compact disc and digital download. It received high critical praise, with Rolling Stone’s reviewer Will Hermes likening it to Nirvana’s MTV set in 1993, citing that "no band but Nirvana made more breathtakingly transformative use of MTV Unplugged."

The purpose of the design of the digipak is to hearken back to media of the early 90s and 2000s, with the aesthetic mimicking the visuals of video tape footage, appealing to long-term fans that were perhaps alive when the session(s) were aired. The text is distorted with pixelated lines, creating a bridge between the name and the visuals and setting an electronic, nostalgic tone. The title itself is appealing - the decade-gap between the two performances sets the album up for obvious growth in the sound of the band. The front cover subverts Goodwin’s theory of the star image, as the text and distortion allows the title to take centre-stage and the band themselves a backseat. This shows a departure from many of their actual music videos, in which Goodwin’s theories are followed as front man Michael Stipe takes the limelight in both performance and conceptual videos. 

While the visuals of the album are intended to induce nostalgia for the consumer, the colour scheme throughout helps to make it more stimulating and give it a hallucinogenic vibe. The blues, purples, blacks and reds that make up the majority of panels help to blur the identity of artists and create a spacey atmosphere that matches the music itself. It also contrasts with the sepia yellow of selected photographs, which are used to present the only clear headshots of the primary members of R.E.M., they being the aforementioned Mike Mills and Michael Stipe. Though the intention of these select photographs was to show the artists themselves, their faces are still interupted by the ‘video tape distortion’ seen throughout the digipak. This is possibly a design technique that many mainstream artists have fallen short on which suggests that it’s not the band that is the selling point, but the music itself.

The CDs themselves are kept in two separate card compartments, printed with a coordinating blue pixelated title and tracklist against a black background. The accompanying booklet, perhaps the least impressive part of the package, serves its purpose in giving us another tracklist on the back and all the necessary credits, including the involved members of R.E.M., including Bill Berry, who left the band in 1997 after suffering with a brain aneurysm which caused him to collapse onstage two years prior to his departure. Both the booklet and back panel of the digipak mark the performances that didn’t involve Berry with **. On the second album, the performance in 2001, there is a total of 7 out of 16 songs that are marked as separate from Berry.

    The few modern music videos used by The Beatles are frequently quite bizarre yet at the same time incredibly well-considered and unearthly because of the psychedelic, intense nature of the band’s music and their image. “A day in the life’s” music video is cross performance and narrative which is helpful to us in that respect because we also plan to use this model for our own music video. It is also worth mentioning the lack of protagonist in this video which would subvert Goodwin’s theory of music videos which further shows the unconventional nature of this music video. Ultimately however, the main difference and by extension potential-influence to us as a group here is the elaborateness of the video. The Beatles use fully restored, cleaned and digitally enhanced footage of  an orchestra preparing to perform during the early 1967 recording sessions for the track, which therefore appears more powerful an image to the viewer, which could influence their vision of the music (thus relating to the Marxist Hypodermic Needle Theory which describes how audiences are effected in their thinking by the media products that they bare witness to), because they may see the Beatles as more of a huge and dominating band rather than a smaller group. As well as in the performance, some of the shots are far more outlandish in the intensity of light and colour that is presented to an audience, which therefore presents a larger sense of experimentation within the band. The final thing that I will discuss within the video is the interesting use of intertextuality (essentially paying homage in one media product to another by referencing it in some form) as famous members of The Rolling Stones “Mick Jagger” and “Keith Richards” are seen, for reasons I will discuss.

     The clip originally opens in a very allusive manor in that a selection of faded colours seems to dance across a black screen. The audience is unaware of any distinguishable images until the camera cuts to a rapid tracking mid-shot of an orchestra, which as mentioned, appears in their 1967 recording sessions of the track. These transitions between the faded colours and the orchestra continue until at 0:15 a silhouetted Point Of View shot (as seen above) is used to emulate the view of a member of the orchestra looking at the conductor. It is hugely successful as a shot, largely because of the simple artistic beauty of transitioning from indistinguishable patterns to a clear performance-style image. It is framed such that the instruments from the orchestra are illuminated in the shot which juxtaposes the darkness of the music-video up until this point. The camera slightly zooms in on the shot then quickly transitions to an extreme high-angle on the orchestra from above at a bird’s-eye view down on the band. This suits the video largely because at this point there is a soft, melodic atmosphere so calm images like these amplify the nature of this music.

   Following this, the video takes on a far more rapid nature as the camera begins cutting between a variety of mid-shots and close ups on various famous individuals faces, including a mid-shot of Mick Jagger (front-man of The hugely famous Rolling Stones). This is therefore a use of intertextuality and this is used perhaps as a simple nod to Rolling Stones as a fellow respected band within pop-culture at the time. Normally intertextuality in media, a theory first noted by Julia Kristeva, is used to stop the isolation of one media product from others. In presenting Mick Jagger, an audience would perhaps take pleasure in their recognition of this artist as fans of rock as a genre at the time as prior knowledge is required of the audience to recognize the reference. The following high intensity transitions maintain the faded-nature of the video because the audience is unable to properly absorb each image before the next transition takes place. 

These shots also incredibly professionally present the emotive themes of the music itself; as Lennon sings “And though the news was rather sad, I just had to laugh.” The camera uses juxtaposition as it cuts between Lennon, in a blue (typically depressive themed) coat at a high-angle (whilst at very low lighting) which has connotations of depletion and defeat. Then it transitions to a smiling and young girl who is boldly illuminated by a bright yellow light in the background of the shot, which contrasts the previous image as this has a joyous, absorbing nature to it. Portraying emotions in media in this manner is a very effective technique at influencing a viewers own reaction to a video and we can learn from these techniques and perhaps develop them from typical happiness and sadness to other emotive gestures like empathy, sympathy and anxiety within our own project.

 Digipak adverts are primarily used to promote an artist and their upcoming release of new material such as an album or single. It is used across a range of multimedia and is not exclusive to the music industry. They are often eye-catching and bold, whilst also being representative of the genre and target audience to the music.

This risk assessment outlines the possible problems we could run into in each of our locations and precautions we will take to avoid them. The main problem at Stokes Croft is the traffic, which will be extremely busy on a Saturday afternoon. We will therefore film away from the the main road and exercise proper caution when near heavy traffic.

There is a small stream behind my house that is dangerously easy to slip in to, especially if you’re not paying attention. It also gets relatively full and fast-flowing after heavy rainfall. Therefore, I have put up a make-shift fence made of old discarded wooden panels to separate the decking from the slope leading to the river. I’ve also tied a rope to the ceiling by the door leading to the decking as a hold for people going on to the  slippery decking and we will lay a rug down for the band to give them a bit more grip.

Front Cover The Dry Spells are famous as a folk rock group and this digipak, typically, is used to present the image of both the band and music in a physical form. The image used on the front here is quite stark and unconventional of the rock/folk scene. The image presents enclosement as a flower is trapped amongst a rubber band presenting its inability to flourish. The font looks quite elegant or perhaps poncey  which would be perhaps more conventional of a classical or indie style band as opposed to rock and subverting the viewer's expectations of the band’s portrayal may make it more interesting to the viewer, in a way. 

Inside Sleeve Side #1 As seen here on the first side of the inside sleeve is the band’s complete line-up and role description as well as the featured musicians. This follows the conventions of digipaks because it is common to give credit to those who helped complete the process. In CD’s this is sometimes presented in the form of an included booklet. Also seen here,is an image of the band against a yellow background sat in unison which in also a common feature of Digipak’s as it presents the viewer with an image of the people they are listening to. The yellow background is quite effective here as it has obvious connotations of happiness and contentment which is typical of the theme of folk music being upbeat and positive, (thus contrasting the front cover to an extent).Also included here worthy of note is the Legal requirements at the bottom outlining the label and legal owner of the music which is an important requirement in Digipaks.

Inside sleeve side #2 On the second side of the digipak is the song lyrics in a white font against a black background. This is quite common in Digipaks and is used to provide the viewer with a visual piece of writing to gaze at perhaps whilst listening to the music. The black background looks impressive with the front cover as it continues the theme of blackness against yellow which generally looks quite atmospheric

Inside Sleeve Side #3 The second side simply continues providing the viewer with the written lyrics to the songs.

Inside Sleeve Side #4 On the fourth side of the digipaks is a simplistic yellow design giving thanks to any of the people involved in the digipak. This is not uncommon in digipaks albeit normally it would not take an entire sleeve. The words have been arranged in a pattern which looks quite interesting to a viewer and ends in yellow which further pushes the theme of happiness in the digipak. Thanking those involved in producing an album is a common feature for bands because there is always more people involved in the making than an audience might otherwise be aware of. 

Back Cover The back cover is very conventional of digipaks because it provides the tracklist and maintains the established font in the front cover. There is however no song duration included which is typical of digipaks. At the bottom of the back cover here is the record label and their logo which would be used for licensing rights and to promote the label to audiences who enjoyed this genre of music. Also seen is a bar-code which is a requirement of digipaks so that they can be commercially sold to the public in high-street stores.