Animatic Analysis

One of the first issues I had with my animatic is the outlining of the drawings. Not all of the pictures I drew on the storyboard are clear. A way of preventing this would of been to go over the drawings in a medium/fine pen. Another way to make the pictures clearer would of been to have coloured or sketched  in the background. During the process of creating my storyboards i hadn't been accurate enough with my timing, this resulted in having to re-use several scenes, and elongate and cut certain scenes to help get as near perfect synchronization. 

Animatic

Storyboards

Risk assessment

Magazine research for appropriate digipak advert

In this section i will be researching magazines based on the genre of my music video. The magazines i have looked at are urban based magazines and also pop magazines. The magazines I have selected to be the most appropriate are RWD (www.rwdmag.com), XXL (www.xxlmag.com) and Q (www.qthemusic.com)

Q magazine seems to cover the majority of music genre's vaguely but specialises in pop music.

Digipak adverts can be found in all 3 of these magazines, and my digipak would be of a suitable genre to be published in either of them. 

After more thorough research I discovered that there are several key things that are included on a advert for a digipak. Several things that are re-occurring are:

• A retailer or a list of retailers that the digipak is sold in
• The artists website
• The record labels website
• The Song title, or a list of singles found on the album
• Album name
• Copyright logo
• Available to download on iTunes
• Album cover artwork as background picture

 These are all things i am going to have to consider when designing my advert for my digipak.

Digipak Research

Digipaks 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. digipaks can also be made from eight parts. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.

Digipaks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipak" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.

Digipaks pro's and con's:

• They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipak sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.

• Digipaks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.

• The trays in digipaks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.

• When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipak, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipak, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.

• Digipaks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.

  Digipaks look great, but if you're just starting out and money is tight, looking for ways to cut your manufacturing costs is important.
  

  Digipak dimensions:

  4 panel 1 CD Digipak. Tray on right. 5.531" X .25" X 4.9375"

  
  

6 panel 1 CD Digipak . Tray originally meant for right side but can be placed on center panel as well. 5.594" X .3125" X 4.9375"

After researching many digipaks first hand, I have decided that there are a list of things that it must contain on the covers. These things are:

• Bar Code
• Copyright logo
• song/album name or artists name
• Music label's name/logo

There are also many desirable features such as:

• Painted artwork
• Cartoon imagery
• photographic artwork
• Images of artists
• Song related artwork
• Songlist
• Magazine reviews
• Website URL

Permission letter

Video analysis'

Dizzee Rascal Ft Calvin Harris - Dance With Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GibLtndLiJA


I chose this video as it is in the same genre as my music video. It also features an artist who features In my song that i intend to do.

The video is set in a club which is a typical location for a rap/pop video. It follows many conventions such as the pretty girls at the bar/dance floor. Another convention it follows is that the narrative is frequently cut between the performance. The video is set at a fast pace with each shot lasting no longer than 3 seconds, which goes well with the mise en scene of the club. The lighting is constantly moving to help create the illusion of a club scene. The majority of the performance are close up shots of the artist (Dizzee Rascal) lip syncing to the song. Mid Shots were used to show how busy the club was, and give a sense of realism. This video has many conventions in which i intend to follow but it also has a few in which i will take in a different direction.



The Mitchell Brothers - Soulmate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LF2K8u4xZg


I chose this video because it was done by the same artists as "Michael Jackson" as well as it being in the same genre as my song.

One of the first thing that strikes you about this music video is the humour. At the start of the video the establishing shot shows you the location (London) of where the video is set. The shot is of a bridge and no distingusihable characters are visible until the camera zooms in. When the characters become more visible in the next shot, you see them riding round in over-sized "Reebok classic" trainers with wheels. This would be the basis of the humour behind the video and they featured throughout. The shot where they are riding round the roundabout reminds me of a classic Benny Hill chase scene. A lot of the problems the performers come across are things that everyday people may come across when purchasing new trainers, but on larger scale-literally; stepping in chewing gum, accidentally tripping people up and keeping your trainers clean.
The music video follows many conventions found in the pop and rap genre such as; there is a performance and a narrative, this is found in the majority of music videos, non-more so than pop videos. I would say the majority of the lighting during the narrative is natural as the shots are outside in the daylight plus there are a lot of long shots so you can see a large background. During the verse/performance, extra lighting would probably have been used as its looks as if it was done on a green screen, and then the background added in later on. The editing is quite quick and sharp which is found in both pop and rap videos, this is probably a convention i would adopt when editing my video.


Conclusion to analysis


The videos i have analysed have been extremely useful to me, they have helped me identify different conventions and possible techniques I'm considering in using for my music video. One of the main reasons I chose the second video was because of the video in relation to the lyrics. The video often shows a clip that represents the lyrics, this is something I want to try and achieve when creating my video. The videos I analysed reflect the pace of the song very well. On the faster pace songs, the links between each seen are sharper and quicker, and visa-verse on the slower songs, this will be something i will definitely have to take into account when filming and editing my video.

Genre research

The majority of music produced by the mitchell brothers would fall under the hiphop genre, however a lot of their songs also cross many genre's such as r'n'b, pop, garage, grime and rap. This particular Song could be put under the Pop Genre as it also has many traits that a pop song has. The Mitchell brothers try and make there songs and their music videos funny, I will try and emulate this with my take on one of their more successfull songs. The music The Mitchell Brothers produced are aimed at people ages 16-30 as they often try and relate to this age group in their lyrics and videos.

Introduction

The song i have chosen is a song produced by calvin harris and sung by artists Tony Nyanin and Teddy Hanson also know as the mitchell brothers. The reason i have chosen this song is because i have decided to work alone on this project and I decided that this song will allow me to express my ideas and still be achievable. Also by choosing a song that doesnt have a band, i am more self reliant.

I will update the blog on all the processes of making a music video plus a digipak. My next step in the production process is to research similiar music videos in the same genre.