Constructing the Digipak

Here is Sean's blog on constructing the digipak

These are ideas I had which never made it to the final product. 

I cropped using preview and layered cropped photos (pngs) together using pixlr. I also used heavy colour manipulation to create the dreamy colorscheme (purple haze) I was going for.

Constructing the Website

Here is a video of the website being constructed by Harry. Within the video, links for social media are added, as is the merchandise store. Harry created the website using Wix, making a custom website format and customising the text to fit the genre. The photos used were taken previously on a photo shoot with our artist Fares.

Making of the Video

Here is the first draft of our video. I hope to cut down the introduction element if I can as it feels too drawn out. This would also allow me to add more of the studio content that we filmed.

To start the video I synced up all the footage with the music. Harry helped me with this long process and named each one so that it would be easier to source footage later on.

Responding to Focus Group Feedback

Having asked various questions, Harry and I turned any data I could on the whole campaign into various charts. The data is very helpful, and shows us that the background of our website clearly needs changing. The video could be changed to fit one of the 4 concepts that the audience picked up on, however they are all very similar, and in my opinion should all be prominent in the video. Only 2 out of the 7 people we showed the music video to said they lost interest at some point, however one said afterwards that she has ADHD and it wasn't because of the video! Unfortunately we didn't ask many quantitative questions and so we couldn't graph more. The other points that were prominent was to change the website fonts, and colours to make everything less of an eyesore. 

Focus Group and Results

The Results

Below is the video of our focus group. We first showed the group our website, followed by the music video thus far.

We were lucky to have such a responsive focus group, who were very willing to share their thoughts freely. The overall response was that they liked the campaign, and that the music video really captured the 'trippy' psychedelic genre. The changes that they would have liked to see are as follows:

• Reduce the amount going on on the website - too many conflicting visuals make the website hard to look at
• Change the font and font colour on the website to something more visible
• Add more to the about page - this is incredibly important as we are aiming to sell the artist
• Advertise the video more!

The group were particularly impressed by the social media accounts, as well as the merchandise store. Overall it was a very successful focus group

Preparation for the Focus Group

Focus in...

The first thing we have to do is finalise our three products. This means having a final cut of the video completed, and ready on a hard-drive, the digipak printed off and the website live.

Unfortunately our digipak is not ready as Sean has fallen ill, and so we will only be able to present the first final draft of the website and video. On the day we will show the video last, so not to give the genre away through the song, as well as to stop the group from comparing our product to the original song.

The website (linked) is very fleshed out, as Harry did a great job creating social media as well as a merchandise shop for Frank Ray.

I personally think the video is practically complete also, although we will see how the audience receives it.

We also prepared a set of questions each that we will ask the viewers, and as they add suggestions we aim to continue conversation with them, to make sure the target audience gets their say.

The questions we asked were purposely open, and we made sure none of them lead any of the group into answering against their own personal opinion. We wanted to know if everything we presented came across as one campaign, and so we made sure the two products shown didn't clash. We also asked questions to help us get a second opinion in order to improve the products in the interest of the target audience.

What is a Focus Group

The point of a focus group is to get a real, outsider perspective on a product. As the producer, it is easy to become attached to the product. This makes it difficult to improve your work in many ways; for me it was deleting clips which I really put effort into achieving, even if it made the video worse.
By conducting a focus group, you are also directly asking the target audience for their opinions on the products and ways that they could be improved for their consumption. This point in the process is perfect timing for a focus group. Our products are nearly fully complete, but we still have time to improve them. These opinions aren't self-gratifying and have the genuine purpose of improving what we have created even more. Therefore the questions asked should be open, and shouldn't lead the audience into answering what you want to hear (E.G "What did you like")

However there are a few things to watch out for when conducting a focus group. For the group to be productive and helpful, you have to let them feel comfortable. For starters this means making sure the meeting is professional and slick, so that no arguments between the group occur in front of the viewers. This also means not defending the product if someone makes a critique as others will see this and be uncomfortable to share their own opinions. Filming the audience should also be discrete as people may be nervous on camera - However they should know also as it is illegal to film someone without their knowledge.

What Should Be On a Website

There are a few common factors that the majority of websites have. The most obvious is the homepage. The homepage usually contains some kind of eye-catching visuals, such as a photo of the artist, a new album cover or a new music video.

The tabs within the website are very much the same on all. The tabs can include:

• About/ Info - A page that shows and talks about the artist. Gives the audience basic information and potentially includes social media accounts
• Tour/ Live  - Dates of upcoming live shows, and links to the ticket seller.
• Store/ Merchandise - The artist's shop, selling either clothes and accessories or CD's, vinyls etc.

What are Websites used For?

A Site for Sore Eyes...

 

A website is a perfect means of selling and distributing an artists work directly to their audience. This is because usually anyone interested enough to find the website is into the music or the artist(s) themselves.




There are a many reasons a record company would enforce using a website. One of the reasons is to inform their audience, not only about concerts and new music but about the artists themselves. The more an audience feels they personally know the artist the more likely they are to remain a loyal follower.

Naturally making money is another huge reason for creating a site. Its a one stop shop, only visited by the target audience, in which new songs and albums, concert tickets and merchandise are all sold on, and its free! Theres no way to reach an audience wider than online.

It's also just a good way to showcase new music videos, which could be missed by the audience on YouTube if the band is small.

Overall websites are an incredibly essential platform for a band's promotion. There is no better way to directly inform and sell to the target audience directly. They can be constantly updated and changed to match new album or video releases, and become a hub for selling concert tickets, merchandise and new music. Not only is this one of the greatest promotional/ distribution tools available, Its also free!

Analysing a Website Homepage

Pond's Homepage

When you open Pond's website, you're instantly directed to a pop-up for their new album, and all the different packages you can buy it in. Instantly the colours pop out, and the pastille blue and pink looks very 80s with the digital background.

The actual homepage has a really nice vintage 60s font, featuring lots of information about the band on the top tab, as well as tabs for concert tickets and merchandise. The tabs are laid out incredibly simply and bold. They didn't miss out any tabs however the site isn't cluttered, as the white background keeps the site very clean.

The header of the page also features all of Pond's social media accounts

The rest of the homepage features different tour dates, and with each tour they have a separate tour artwork.

Group Feedback on Digipak Designs, Album and Artist Name, and Final Designs

The Name Game

My group and I sat together to discuss two things. The first of these were our separate ideas for the digipak, in which we all got feedback.

My feedback was as follows

1. Like the colour stripes, take out the white backdrop for another colour like a pale blue
2. CD is cool, but make it a kaleidoscope to add to the trippy style
3. Dripping looks nice
4. Overall themes create a childish, psychedelic star image, however would come across better if the artist featured

The other two had different styles and ideas and eventually we came to a final design which was a mix of mine and Sean's. Both Harry and Sean liked the striped colour effect from my idea, but felt our artist needed to feature, and so we used Sean's idea of the singer lying on a lilo in a swimming pool. Here was one of the designs we designed together, however we see our final design being very different.

The genre would be clear from the bright coloured design similar to the two below, and the relaxed star image will be created by the photo of our artist relaxing in the pool. The whole campaign throughout will link the childish aspect, with vibrant colours too.

We also decided on our Artist and Album name. The decision was fairly simple as we all agreed on my name and title, as it matched the childish vibe we are going for. Frank Ray was a simple name, that we wanted to sound relaxed and informal. We found it sat well with artists like Kurt Vile and Mac De Marco. Imaginary Friends also ticks the boxes in terms of being drug related whilst also referencing a childish theme.

As I'm editing the video still, the production of this digipak will be up to Sean, with Harry creating a Website

Reasons Behind My Digipak Idea

Reasons Behind My Idea

I ran with three themes for this idea. I wanted psychedelic colours, child-like themes and a subtle connection to the music video. I feel the album name, Imaginary Friends, ticks all these boxes

Having looked at various other albums, I designed 3 very rough front covers, from which I chose my favourite. The flowing colours flowing from the melting ice lolly are very vibrant, but not intense like an EDM or electric album. Instead I think the simple rainbow looks child-like and it creates a real 80s vibe which I hope to drive through all parts of our campaign. 

For font, I simply chose for it to be handwritten, matching the style of many other albums by conforming to a care-free style. Although there are 7 songs listed, I aim to write around 9 for the real thing, as is the usual size of albums within the genre. I named these very randomly, some with comical names and others with deeper undertones. This is very similar to other albums. The dripping of the melted ice lolly adds a nice change to solid bars of colour throughout the whole digipak.

I think the target audience would pick the album up as it is instantly recognisable as psychedelic or 'trippy'. Star theory is expressed on every side. The intense colour, with the relaxed summery design gives our artist a care free, child-like vision, which appeals hugely to our young audience.

For the CD, I wanted to create a hypnotic effect using the same colours, so that when spinning the disk creates a kaleidoscope of sorts. 

The inside left is another link the video, showing the artists round sunglasses, but with a psychedelic backdrop to fit the rest of the digipak. I included these not only because of the 80s style, but also because of the idea of these type of psychedelic glasses being associated with 'acid culture'. They also simply serve as a nice visual.

My First Album Cover Sketches

Art Attack 

For the rest of our campaign we need an Album case, also known as a 'Digipak'. This involves 5 sides, all used to express Dyer's Star theory, sell the album and showcase the artist's music. To start the process of designing this, I drew some front covers and chose my favourite

Here is my first rough sketch. From here I will collect with my group and show them my ideas. Hopefully then as a group we can work out a design that we can all agree on. This is going to be a challenge as none of us are very artistic nor can we use photoshop!

Behind the Scenes Video

Here is a short video showing the process of creating our music video. - Edited by Sean

Evaluation of the Shoot Day

 The Shoot Day!

The day before our shoot day Harry and I met with the set and lighting designers to build our backdrop for the next day. Our white void was unfortunately not possible but instead we got white backboards from which we shone blue and white lighting through. The toughest part however was building our glossy plinths for the girls to stand on. To create the look, we had a roll of shiny sticky-back acrylic which we sliced up and stuck to the sides of some old boxes. This proved more challenging than expected however, as the corners looked poorly made and the acrylic kept folding. It also didn't help that it was only the two of us, with only an hour to do it. We pulled through nonetheless and our boxes looked ok. 

When I woke up the next day I felt like nothing was going to work. Our set didn't seem finished, none of our pool floats had arrived through delivery, and Harry had forgotten some of his props and costumes.

 When we got there the first thing I had to do was find a freezer! The ice lollies melted much faster than we predicted and so the school kitchen had to get involved. After half an hour since arriving on set everything seemed ready minus a couple of our props. However the girls hair, makeup and costume took a long time and it wasn't another 20 minutes until we actually started.

Having finally briefed the team, we set off in our first set. I was very pleased by how the set turned out, and the blue lighting with the smoke really made it look cold on set, even though it was boiling. I was surprised by how great the girls bodysuits looked within the environment too.




On set, we stuck to the roles that we had set before, with Sean directing, Harry on camera and me producing. However Harry and I took turns using the camera, and other jobs needed doing too such as pushing the dolly and doing the playback.
Personally I think I framed my shots well, and did a good job telling the actresses where to move to make each shot perfect. As a producer I was relatively successful, as all my actors were there on time and ready to film, although not all the props planned made it to the shoot.

 There were, as expected, a few problems that arose throughout the day. The first issue we came to was of height. We couldn't put our dancers on their plinths without their heads going above the top of the backdrop, and so we had to seat them instead. The ice lollies caused issues too as they melted insanely fast. Lastly we had less time than we expected when shooting with the van as the sun set incredibly early in the afternoon. We only had just over an hour so we had to cut down our shoot plan a fair amount.

Out of everything I think the freezer setup was our greatest success of the day. Not only did the set and costumes look great, we got some fantastic looking shots which were created on the day. A personal favourite is when we used the crane to get an amazing birds eye view shot of the four dancers surrounding the artist. The lighting from the ceiling bounced off the silver costumes beautifully and the slow pull away add a really nice psychedelic feature to the film.

 The shot of the cool-box opening also came out beautifully. I'm happy how successful we were at making the ice glow purple with the smoke disappearing. The lollies look stunning! I can't wait to see this in the edit. As a team I think we all worked very well considering the time pressure. We were able to think on the spot as a group and no arguments were had all day.

This was definitely the most enjoyable part of the day, everyone from the actors to the lighting directors cooperated without hesitation and made our lives a lot easier. I only wish the ice cream van setup had gone slightly better. We didn't have enough time to get all the shots I wanted and I feel with more time and preparation I could have done a better job

The day has taught me a lot about organising a large scale video. The most important is make a proper schedule and stick to it! We went off track in our excitement eventually and this brought unnecessary stress upon us due to not knowing what to film next. Thinking about the little things in advance is also key. We had to sort out small details for much longer than we thought, for example where cables could be hidden etc. More rehearsals could have been done in hindsight as our performers seemed a little uncomfortable for the first couple takes.

Overall the video fits what I pictured very well. If this had any impact on the website and artwork, it would be that a cleaner style could be used to match the ice white video.

Overall a wonderful day!