Audience Research- definition of genre

PUNK:

Punk is notoriously known for its anti-capitalist and anti-establishment movement, aimed at raising awareness of those typically with less money and the ultimate punk goal is to smash the oppressive money oriented state.
This message is explicitly argued within the songs themselves.

 Clothing and accessories typically worn by fans of the genre includes ripped jeans and shirts, braces, wristbands, spiky dog collar, safety pins and perhaps a loose tie worn around the neck.
Also the main colours for these clothes are black, complimented often with red, purple or tartan pattern.

Some famous punk bands include The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash.

SKA-PUNK:

The music genre Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the upbeat.
Ska connotes an alternative to chart music and is usually very optimistic.

The characteristics of ska punk vary, due to the fusion of contrasting genres. The more punk-influenced style often features faster tempos, guitar distortion, on beat punk rock-style interludes (usually the chorus), and punk-style vocals. The more ska-influenced style of ska punk features a more developed instrumentation and a cleaner vocal and musical sound. The common instrumentation includes electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, brass instruments (such as trombones or trumpets), saxophones, and sometimes an organ.

Some key Ska-punk bands include The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat, and Madness.

Audience Research

To gain useful information, we put a number of surveys on facebook and kerrang:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QF2CGXS


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VL6BM8X


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VL95536

the questions in these surveys have been designed to give us an array of views from an array of viewpoints,
the result will be a detailed profile of who we are producing our video, digipak and promotional material for.

Audience Research

We created 11 questions to gain an overall picture of the demographic we are aiming for...

1. Describe yourself in 4 words...
2. What do you like doing in your free time?
3. What kind of clothes do you wear?
4. What genre of music do you like?
5. What bands do you like?
6. Why do they appeal to you?
7. Do you like their music videos?
8. What is it about the video you like?
9. What's the album art work like?
10. Do you like that style?
11. What merchandise do you buy?

we will be asking these questions to people who like punk/ska and using their answers to guide our choices whilst creating our video.

we also carried out another interview, the results of which are in written form...

1. Describe yourself in 4 words...
Loud, outspoken, politically orientated, outgoing.

2. What do you like doing in your free time?
I love listening to music, socialising, drinking, going to gigs.

3. What kind of clothes do you wear?
I uasally wear dark clothing, jeans, denim jacket, doc martins.

4. What genre of music do you like?
Mostly ska punk, indie, rock.

5. What bands do you like?
My favourites are The King Blues, Frank Turner, Sonic Boom Six.

6. Why do they appeal to you?
I like their music and their attitude, they don't care and I like that attitude, I think that's the most appealing thing.

7. Do you like their music videos?
Yes.

8. What is it about the video you like?
I like that they are usually low budget which I like because then it's more about the performance of the song rather than having a fancy video.

9. What's the album art work like?
Mainly it's dark, grungey and urbany.

10. Do you like that style?
Yeas because it reflects the genre and attitude of the band.

11. What merchandise do you buy?
CDs, T shirts, Posters.

The results of this interview, added to the video interview and the survey results will help to give a clear overview of our targeted demographic.

Existing Material Research - Magazine Advertisment

Less Than Jake – GNV FLA

This small advert in Rocksound magazine is displaying a new album for the Ska band, Less Than Jake. The King Blues, the band we have chosen for our video have Ska influences and themes within their music so this advert is relevant to that choice.
The background imagery on the advert is of a non-descript building on a street corner in black and white, in an unspecified American city. I believe this imagery has been chosen to show a sense of normality and an absence of any eccentricity, contrasted with the distressed and multi-coloured font styling of the album cover. I think it is this contrast that conveys the band’s attitude, e.g. the mixing of different elements to create a worthwhile composition.
Other than the imagery, the font has connotations within it; the band name Less Than Jake is in a characteristic, informal handwriting style. This style is employed across many albums and would therefore appeal to fans of the band. This is similar to the body of text, also typed in a ‘scribbled’ fashion which supports the band’s mild anti establishment/anti convention style.
overall, the advert is aesthetically pleasing if not a little out of synch with other typical Ska stylings.

Machine Head – The Blackening

The magazine advert for Machine Head’s new album ‘The Blackening’ is from Rocksound magazine. People who buy Rocksound magazine are the ones who are most likely to like Machine Head that’s why it’s been advertised in this magazine. It’s being advertised to the target audience. The advert is overall very dark and dull and only uses two colours. The background is a faded black colour with a white image and white text. These colours reflect the band and the genre of their music, that’s why these colours have been chosen. The image is very gothic and morbid and it reflects the audience of the band. The font is block capitals which is plain and simple and nothing elaborate. This advert is a sharp contrast to the stylings of the king blues, as the king blues do not posess a morbid attitude. I have learnt that simple drawings against a solid black background connotates metal and will be therefore something we will avoid when designing our advertisment.   


 Magazine advert for Maximo Park -

Quicken the heart is simply the album cover with extra information on the bottom of it. They have used the album cover as the background for the whole advert so that people can quickly recognise it and will read it. The album name is bigger than the band name because they want to get across that it’s a new album, people will already know the band. The font used on the advert is all the same and it’s recognised for what the band use on their other albums. They have used a computer generated font which is clear and easy to read. There is no photo of the band members on the album cover, it is an orange/yellow background which is of the constellations in the southern sky. The layout of the advert is the big album name in the centre of the advert with a smaller font used for the band name and the font gets smaller towards the bottom of the page which is the information of the CD/DVD and their new single, everything is centred and looks very organised. The album name which is the biggest font on the page is the most important thing because that’s what’s being advertised. The colour scheme of the advert is very bright and is all orange and yellow which are bright colours and the font is in white. This reflects the bands genre of music which is alternative rock and the band personality. The brightness of the advert and the album cover is eye catching because of the colours and that's what the band want to be like.



Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History

Photography
There is a single photograph on this advert which takes up the whole of the page. However, the main focus of the photo is the cat's face which is placed centrally. The top half of the image seems to have been digitally burnt out in order to keep the face as the focal point.

Colour Scheme
The colour scheme of this advert is almost black and white, with only the slightest amount of saturation left in the photo and all the font in a cream colour. The only part of the image which still holds any significant colour is the cat's eyes, which again ensures this is the first thing the viewers eyes are drawn to.

Fonts
There is at most two fonts used so the majoritiy of the writing is in the same typeface. This font is also sans serif so this combination gives it a very clean look.

Layout
All the writing is centred which gives the advert a nice balance.

What we gathered...
This analysation has allowed us to gather that the majority of digipak adverts have very simple designs, almost minimal in some cases. we also found that there is usually synergy between the album art and the advert designed to promote it. this is probably so you can recognise the album from the advert and to promote a brand loyalty. We will carry this over and as a result our digipak will be closely linked to our advert. 

Existing Material Research - Digipak

Textual analysis of a Digipak-

As I found from my research, Digipaks are an alternative to the standard jewel case and usually have extra content such as a gallery, commentary or DVD material.
I chose to use The Clash’s London Calling 25^th anniversary Digipak as it has links with The King Blues genre, being anti-establishment in their attitudes. The style of the album art is interesting as it closely mimics an Elvis Presley CD, being a black and white image with the text ‘London Calling’ in the same font, colour and positioning as ‘Elvis Presley’ on his album. This link was created due to the controversy that Elvis caused in his early days by shaking his iconic pelvis, mirroring the controversy caused by being against the flow of the system, this is further supported by the imagery itself. The image of a guitar being smashed in performance. It is arguable that Elvis was ‘punk’ in his day. Similar to what the clash were aiming for during theirs.

The Clash have clearly gone for a very simple design, regardless of the link to Elvis. This simplicity is characteristic of the genre, similar to the king blues, in which less is more. The minimalism is equal to their view about possessions and money. With punk music videos and promotional material, imagery tends to focus on performance, which The King Blues, The Clash, Rise Against and many others tend to do.

Arctic Monkeys digipak

This album cover is a photo transferred onto the digipak, although it is simple, it is very effective. The album name isn’t shown on the album cover but usually digipaks are named the same as the band. It looks like the colours have been dulled down a bit which makes the ‘arctic monkeys label stand out. The album cover shows the whole band and the mirrored effect adds a bit more to the cover instead of it just being a normal photo. The album name is only shown on the back of the digipak and the side. The back of the digipak is very plain and it has no image on it, only the list of tracks and the band name. They band obviously want to keep it very simple and quite plain. There aren’t any bright colours used, it is a lot of the same colour which is the deep red and that’s what the text on the back is to keep with the theme. None of the band members are looking at the camera or showing their face much, they are looking at each other or downwards. It is a natural photo in a natural environment and not posed.

Existing Material Research - music videos

Textual analysis of music videos –

The king blues – Save the World Get the Girl

This video is ultimately a very simple video, which is definitely intentional, as it ties in with the philosophy of the band. The king blues are a punk band with a ska twist. The band have reached out to the appropriate demographic by not having special effects or any ostentatious camera movement.  It is evident that the production costs of making the video were low as it is mainly comprised of short clips of untouched performance by the band, split up by short stop motion sequences.
The video begins by spray painting the band’s name onto a surface, which has connotations of an anti-establishment ethos. From then on it appears to recount the early days of the band when money was short and the good times were sporadic. This is also strengthened by the costume worn by the band members, peaked caps and jeans and t-shirts convey a sense of a very down to earth and average dress sense. Perhaps the choice of costume is to radiate a sense that the band are not out of reach and are ultimately just the same as those who buy their music. The settings in which the videos are filmed are of dimly lit clubs and of broken urban areas, complete with torn billboards and protests. All of these aspects help to enforce a ‘power to the people attitude’, a mindset that is clearly consistent throughout the king blues’ lyrics, promotional material and other videos.

  

The Jam – Going Underground 

I am analysing the music video for the English punk rock/new wave band The Jam because they are the same genre of music as the song we are using for our music video, the king blues-I got love. The video for this song is a very low budget video. You can see this from there being no special effects, not much editing in it and the location. The video is set in a white room with just the band in it, most of the video is of the band just playing their instruments and performing normally and naturally. The camera zooms in and out a few times but not many other different camera shots are used. The music video is made up of simple camera shots and angles. The band are very ‘power for the people’  and not for the government so they just sing the song and perform how they usually would and you can tell that they are because of their songs. The band, for the majority of the video are looking directly in to the camera and singing to the audience. The video isn’t about anything else except them performing and that’s what is shown for nearly the whole of the video. They are wearing suits for the whole video and don’t change costumes at any point.

JAMIE T - STICKS 'N' STONES
Genre: indie rock

 

Location
This video is set in a number of urban and suburban locations, such as railway platforms, alleyways and a backgarden. The locations chosen are unusual as music videos set in built-up areas are normally filmed in inner-city areas, whereas this one is filmed in a more suburban environment. This may suggest that the artist and his music are not as 'grimy' as more urban artists but they still have that edge of urban life to them.

Costumes
The artist is wearing casual clothes that would typically be worn by someone in the target audience of this genre of music such as jeans, trainers and baseball caps. However, the other people who feature in the video, who seem to be his friends. are dressed in a number of different styles, from a full tracksuit to a more grungy style of clothing. This could be the artists way of reaching out to a larger audience by suggesting that people of all walks of life can listen to his music. Alternatively, he could be sending a political or social message unrelated to the story encouraging people to avoid judgement.

Storyline
There is no storyline as such through the video, but there is a clear theme of anarchy and destruction. There are a number of scenes including drinking, especially in public, as well as smashing bricks against the 'screen' etc. This ties in with the story of the song as it is about when they were younger and would drink on the streets etc. The fact that he is glamourizing these behaviours suggests that he isn't concerned with his public image and shuns the 'role model' role that many celebreties take on these days and is proud of his anarchic ways.
There is also a clown who features in a number of scenes throughout the video. The image of a clown generally suggests happiness, laughter and other good natured feelings, however to many can represent horroer. When this mixed image of a clown is juxtaposed with the fact he is drinking and smoking throughout the video, it brings up images of the stereotypical 'washed-up' clown, one who has lost business and has a number of issues, commonly depression and drinking problems. This could be representative again of the story within the song, where the artist feels his old self when he was young and carefree is still inside him but dampened by the reality of growing up.

Performance
There is no live performance in this video, but this may be because he is an individual artist as opposed to in a full band. However, the majority of the video is still him singing into the camera, as opposed to a storyline which shows footage symbolising the story which shows the video is quite down to earth still and he is trying to connect with the audience.

Style
It is a fairly low-budget looking video where the camera work is not smooth and some of it is done in a home-video style

Colour
Many of the scenes are in a low saturated, washed out style. This vintage look has become more and more popular over the years and is common among videos of this genre. It could also represent the theme of the song again, with him looking back to thepast, as film often fades as it ages.

Initial research

Initial Research: Digipak typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.  There is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies.
                                                                                                Above is an example of a 6 panel Digipak

Digipak were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, below, the difference between a jewel case and a digipak is demonstrated.

 

Other than the Digipak, I also researched adverts in magazines designed to sell Digipaks...

Statement of intent

My name is Sam Ewen, welcome to my blog...

This is my second year at York College and other than Media Studies I am studying Psychology, Philosophy and Sociology.

For my coursework, I intend to create a music video, with a corresponding Digipak and magazine advert. I will carry over skills I have learnt from my first year of media studies, in which I enjoyed creating a music magazine.

Throughout this project I will create professional looking work that overtly conforms to conventions commonly found in music videos, interdispersed with unconventional aspects to make the peice fresh.  I will be putting in a large amount of effort in order to acheive a video, digipak and magazine advert that is higher than the required standard.

More specifically, I have chosen to use The King Blues track; 'I Got Love' which is on the label Transmission Recordings. The band are very anti-establishment and it is this aspect that has driven my intial ideas.
At this early stage, my first thoughts were that during the video, a normal work day is abandoned by a miserable office worker to pursue a more fun and carefree day. This idea will need a lot more work...