Final Digipak and Advert Design:

Digipak Band Photo Rough Ideas:

On Thursday the 16th of December, I will be taking a collection of images featuring the band members, locations and mise en scene props. After gathering and researching a variety of different images and ideas to include on my cover, I feel as though the balance between unusual/entropic/abnormal and unique indie will be the main attraction. For example in my images i want to have the four band members, two of them dressed in either morph outfits/colourful clothing and two others wearing very indie clothing. By doing this process, I believe this will capture both mainstream and a niche sides from this music group. For example a variety of fans who enjoy listening to 'Mumford & Sons', 'Bombay Bicycle Club' and 'Vampire Weekend', and with other target members who enjoy more 'cultured' music, such as The fleet Foxes, The Babyshambles and Blur. The fact that I will be ranging my images from an ordinary photography studio, to a forest location also sets the tone to being quite cultured, arty and unique and hopefully this will be the main outlook upon my finished piece.

This is the template that I will be using to create my Digipak design:

Technology Divide- Photoshop Tutorial:

Over the weekend I have been practising a variety of different features on Adobe Photo shop. Before the weekend I had forgotten about many different aspects and services of this editing programme such as the magnetic lasso tool and the spot healing tool. After searching through a couple of tutorial videos, explaining how to contrast one image with another, I found this very interesting and simple to make my final edited image the best it could be. I believe that getting information and following these structured you-tube videos, I believe my final digipak design will have a lot more potential and from appearance look more acceptable.
1.

2.

These two videos clearly show how easy it is to edit a picture to show its appearance completely different. I believe that both video's will really help me in the structure of my final Digipak idea, this is because the general theme of the appearance and outlook of my music video is going to be Entropic, yet happy and colourful. This is why I believe counterweighting both of these video tutorial's will really help me in the final stage of creating my piece.

This is my final piece of work I have created. I believe that both tutorial videos have helped me very well and I now feel I can edit other images to a batter standard.

Music Video Storyboard:

After constructing a variety of rough drawings, me and my group have conducted a shot by shot analysis storyboard of our music video.



1. At the start of our music video, the scene is set and starts off with a short duration wide shot, focused on a row of trees. This is then followed with a morph-suit character stepping in with the start/stop motion process from either side of the camera. Again with this stop motion positioning, this continues until each character is face to face with one another, and slowly face the camera. This not only is quite entropic in the music video industry, I believe it is also quite comedic seeing as they are morph characters.

Tokyo Police Club CD covers:

After researching and discovering both formats of cd covers, it is clear to see that they are entopic, niche orienated and portray a range of colour to undermime its particular music genre.

As we can see this first Tokyo Police Club album cover is (although basic and not very interesting) has a varied amount of entropic features which suggest its 'indie' and unique genre style of music. For example the first point which I felt was very unusual and quite entropic, was the use of space figurines/ UFO's, Spaceships and Robots. As this is very uncommon in todays music publishing standards, due to its basic and not very interesting outlook, I believe it relates to the album name 'A Lesson In Crime' due to in the media and particularly films, many 'out of this world' and made up character's such as Robots and Spaceships are traditionally known to be scary, evil, threatening and on the other side of the law, and thus Need a 'Lesson in Crime'. I also believe that as they are surrounded by a deep red colour, suggesting a fire ball or any other dangerous device, this could also suggest the steriotypical view of these variety of characters. I also believe the white background of the album cover could have a sence of significance to its musical genre. When I first viewed the image, I immediately thought it was just a boring and not very productive cover. Eventually after long thought, I put myself into the shoes of a music fan who would be interested in this genre of music and the white and basic background could suggest an amplyfying yet clear, relaxed and the sence of 'nothingness' about life and the media. I also believe that Tokyo Police Club have this personalty about them, and this is shown throughout their music.


The seccond Tokyo Police Club Album cover is also very unusual, yet amplyfying and entropic. The spectacular use of a variety of strange and almost undecided different images such as a carving of wood could also suggest an 'indie' music fan's outlook upon life. The way everything is put together in a very odd, rushed and abnormal fashion could also represent how a teenager's mind works and what they believe is the most important factor in life. It also suggest that the way the cover is represented by glitter thrown all over the cover, apart from the title placed in the middle of the cover could represent the 'party' and niche orinated style of genre. Overall I believe this is quite a difficult album cover to explain and break down.

After comparing both Album Covers, I believe that these are not the kind of style we were hoping to look for. In our digipak design we are currently deciding on either an outdoor location which would most probably be most redundant from a traditional Indie video/Digipak design, or an indoor feature. At the start of this project I wanted to take a variety of pictures of an indoor setting, preferbly an old thatched room cottage or old castle. The main focus of our digipak final outcome would of course have to be very entropic, and I thought of the idea to keep it traditional and 'Vintage British' including retro Great British Drapers, the old 'RAF' symbol/Mod target, old photographs, strange yet entropic photographs, the focus of drugs and old whiskey bottles and also odd figurines such as a Deers Antlers or Animal Carcuses and bones. The idea also came to mind that as our music video is mainly taken place in a tradtional countyside location in England, I also wanted to include a very upper middle class/wealthy outlook upon our digipak cover, but also include some elements of a rebelious and indie feel to it, such as having our band cast wearing tweed jackets, chordes, battered and retro desert/loafers and holding a shotgun etc, but have the indie and fun side to it by wearing a morph suit underneeth. I believe this is a brillant idea and hopefully we will use this in tyhe final making of our digipak design and some elements in our music video.

Locations, Mise En Scene and Cast Photos:

Here I have gone out of my way to take a variety of different rough ideas, that I feel will be similar to our final location features in our music video piece. As you can see from this selection, I have intended to use natural lighting such as the sun to be the main feature in the picture as this will hopefully connote quite a unique and entropic outlook upon our indie music video. The use of quite a 'rough and ready' location such as the subway and the battered garages on a traditional British council estate should hopefully compare the mixture between the countryside and the inner city suburbs, which should also connote the balance between the two and different cycographics of people.

Developing Technical Skills:

1) I believe that the best way of developing a variety of technical skills, is to keep experimenting with a whole range of different ideas. I believe that using a high factor of random, general and detailed creativity in the process of our music video will enable our final piece of work to be as well thought out as possible. I also believe that because our genre of music (indie) is stereotypically known of being quite unique, entropic and creative, for example Pete Doherty from the Libertines & Babyshambles keeps a regular diary/logbook and writes strange novels and poems about daily events. As all of our group are using and experimenting with daily blog posts, notes and pictures, i believe this will give our finished piece of work a very unique and typical indie video.
2)I also felt that to develop technical skills, it was very useful to ask another student, and thus the pitch that we presented to our audience was very useful for feedback and advice for our final piece. I believe we need to have some negative/improving comments to make our music video stand out from the rest.
3)I also believe that technical skills on the internet and particularly youtube are very useful in the success of our final music video. For example we tried and tested a 'stop motion' music video and used a small example of a rotating pen. With the help of stop-start motion videos on youtube this will give us a lot of advice on achieving the best quality technique. I felt that this particular video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY gave us the best advice and style of stop motion, as it took this technique a different meaning. I believe that balancing creativity and techniques such as stop motion, we will be able to achieve a much improved and entropic piece.
. What motivates you to develop specific technical skills?
- I believe that teamwork and trust is the key to motivation and the development of technical skills, particularly with a huge task such as creating and putting ideas together to put forward a high standard music video. The fact that there are so many tasks involved, time management is the key to success and I believe that if everyone puts in a little bit at a time, regularly, this will hopefully enable us to get on and complete the task successfully.

Weekly Creative Task:

1. Write a short blog post explaining what creative task you undertook this week?

During the process of this week (22/11/10),we were asked to be as creative as possible in the success of our media product.

Monday: At the start of the week we were asked to watch a video, arguing if individual creativity was being damaged by education. I believe in some respects that it is, due to the fact that many people in this modern day society feel bad and treated as if they don't know the answer if they get it wrong, when it may just be slightly incorrect. I believe in education purposes creativity should be given plenty of time, thought and have the idea that it is okay to be wrong.


Tuesday: On the second day of the week, me and my group all sat down together and discussed various digipak ideas that we could create on Photo-shop. To help us with these ideas, we searched through a range of CD covers and digipak products, and mainly focused on our music genre. Once comparing all of the digipak images, font style and general outlook of the piece, we came to the conclusion that our final piece would be of a happy, comedic and have a unique/entropic perspective.

Thursday: Today we each created a 'drawn' perspective of how we wanted our digipak front cover to look like. The use of colour and entropic features such as our band members dressed thoroughly in morph suits is very much like our music video idea. I feel that breaking the boundaries of a 'steriotypical' digipak cover, this wouldnt attract our audience at all. In the next stage of our creative process, I believe we will compare all of our ideas with each other and conclude a high quality piece of work.


Creativity

Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, originality, progressiveness and imagination.

Sir Ken Robinson:
From looking at this relatively entertaining and comedic presentation, Sir Ken Robinson states for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it, this will enable children from an early age to be creative and not to fear if they are wrong. ~In other ways I believe that creativity evolves from what we get taught and not just a 'natural' process. for example if a child was not taught from the Cognitive Theory, or any other child development process and was just left in a white room without any communication with any other human being or interaction, surely all they would be familiar with would be the white room and nothing else. I believe that creativity is brought in by what we see, listen and what we are taught.

Detailed Time Management:

Time Management

Focus Group:


.Date/Time Location 31/11/10- 9/12/10
.Who is involved? Age? Me, Jake, Mossy. 17, 18, 17
. What needs to be completed? Shot by shot analysis of storyboard, ideas on costumes, mise en scene layout and location of filming and choreography of dance routines.
. What has been successful? All worked well as a group, put forward all of our ideas and didn't have many disagreements about choreography of dancing etc.
. Any problems/Disagreements? All agreed on the colours on the morph suits, we were all for the locations (Countryside and Town Centre). Some of the dance routines and actions such as marching and actions we had a small disagreement. We then decided to use bits of each idea from each person in the group and I believe this will work extremely well.






Print production:

.Date/Time Location: 15/12/10-16/12/10. Droitwich and Worcester
.Who is involved? Age? Matt, Dave, Franky, Nick and Mappy. 17
.What needs to be completed? Final Digipak idea, final locations, band photos, props and mise en scene.
.What has been successful?
.Any problems/Disagreements?





Performance and Casting:

.Date/Time Location
.Who is Involved? Age?
.what needs to be Completed?
.What has been successful?
.Any problems/Disagreements?







Possible Locations:

.Date/ Time Who is involved? Age?
.What needs to be completed?
.What has been successful?
.Any Problems/Disagreements?












Health & Safety:

.Date/Time
.Potential Outcomes
.Actions to avoid potential outcomes
.Further Comments?






Costumes/Props:

.Costume/Prop
.Item Source
.Potential Cost
.Person in charge

Digipak Ideas:

After searching through many digipak ideas (particularly from our music genre), I have tried to create various Digipak ideas on Photo-shop and individual drawings. After constructing these various album/Digipak covers, I believe the images used will give all of our group a range of entropic ideas, and after comparing each others ideas, we will hopefully gain a quality piece of work. I also believe that in the making of our Digipak design, it is important to relate colour and Font layout to fit our genre of music, and thus will be experimenting with a variety of vintage/retro font sizes and layouts, as well as distort and rough colour use.




1) As you can see from this 1St Digipak cover design, I decided to take on board and include a variety of Traditional British objects, such as a 1960's Lambretta, Victorian terraces and the use of black and white imagery. Although this may across as relatively quite amplifying and unique, I tried to maintain that modern and indie feel to it, for example included all the band members wearing daily 'indie' clothing, whilst one band member was slightly dressed in a morph outfit. Balancing both modern and historic/traditional ideas with one another, I believe this will enable us attract both target markets, young and old and from a wdie range of backgrounds on the Jicnar scale.

2) As you can see from the second Digipak cover I have created, I wanted to create a unique and amplifying Digipak cover, and thus the thought of a 'Where's Wally' idea, featuring small objects of morph characters would be very appealing to our target market. I believe it had a lot of advantages such as comedic, unusual and very original, but after a long conversation with my other group members, suggested it may be too hard to draw each and every small character to such fine detail. I believe that creating a much simpler design, even with a range of entropic features such as colour and strange clothing will hopefully attract and generate a much more 'indie' and small/niche target market.

Music Video Research Questionnaire:

Music Video Research Questionnaire
1. How old are you?
10-15 16-20 21-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 40+

2. What Gender are you?
Male Female

3. What music are you most interested in?
Rock Pop Hip-hop Folk Electro Indie/ Alternative Other

4. Where do you consider yourself to be on the Jicnar scale?
A B C1 C2 D E

5. What Psychographic groups from this list do you feel best suits you?
Hedonist Achiever Traditionalist Individualist Mainstreamer Carers Materialist Aspirer Underachiever Post modernist/materialist Radicals Succeeders

6. Do you live at home with a parent/guardian?
Yes No*
*If no, please state where...
7. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Sport Gym Shopping Clubbing Festivals Concerts/ Live matches Theatre Museums Computer games DIY Reading Socialising Other

8. Are you currently in full time education?
Yes No

9. What comes first, School/College work OR your hobbies?
School/College Work Hobbies

10. Do you have a part time job?
Yes No
11. How many concerts/venues and festivals have you been to?
A) Concerts/Venues: 0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 20+
B) Festivals: 0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 20+

12. What do you tend to spend your pocket money/ Wages/ Inheritance on?
Clothes Music Concerts/Festivals Holidays Alcohol Cigarettes Drugs Petrol Sports Related Food Toys Other Save it all

13. What is your main form of transport on a daily basis?
Car Bus Coach Train Taxi Aeroplane Motorcycle Scooter Other

Calender Time Management:

From looking at these collection of images, it shows the easy way of how I set up a calender style of time management. The reason for creating a calender expressing the range of tasks that needed to be completed within a time limit, was very useful as it meant me and my group were never tied up with too many things at once. We will be using the calender on WSFC outlook express all the way through our music video research and final production. I also managed to link this calender with my phone. I also felt this was a very useful and helpful technique as I can be connected with my music video research when and where possible.

Chosen Song:

This is our chosen song- Tokyo Police Club.



Connotations Include:
. Fun/Happy
. Festivals
. Sunshine
. Bright Colours
. Niche Audience
. Alcohol
. Ciggarettes
. Drugs
. English

Due to the 'young' target audience we are aiming for, for example 18-22 year olds, we will be focusing on maintaining a younger cast of band members. After long consideration we believe that wearing some sort of strange but entropic outfit such as a morph suit would be best suited our music video This is because it will give the impression of a fun, immature and rebellious type of attitude.

Music Video Pitch Feedback:

1. From reading our first peice of feedback from the audience we expressed our pitch too, this is one of the most positivie of them all. They believed that our idea was original, unique and most of all entropic and amplyfying, for example the use of morph suits in unusual, biritsh locations have not really been looked at and expessed thourgouly in the music industry. The general outlook of this anonymous feedback was that our whole video is going to be exciting and well worth watching. They expressed that the only improvement that could be made, is the clearaty of our target audience- for example we tried to balnce it between an rock song with quite an indie/pop strucutre of music video and features. I believe that if we try and focus more on the indie side rather than pop, this will give us greater feedback and hopefully more pleasure. The fact that our target audience were going to start ranging from 18+ suggests that featuring quite a 'poppy' side may be a bit unneccesaey seeing as most late teenagers are into their own style of music genre, and in this case Indie.

2. Our seccond peice of feeback was unfortunately not as succesful. Although they enjoyed and apriecated our idea and outlook, they suggested we needed to include a more 'idividulistic' idea, rather than copying most non mainstream indie videos, for example 4 boys walking round a public field dressed in abnormal clothing. Although most of their feedbcak was mostley negative, they enjoyed the idea of us not following Goodwin's theory of women represented as sexual objects. I believe that this feedback will help us in achieveing a better peice of work as we most definately need some bad feedback in order to make our final peice as succesful as possible.

Music Video Powerpoint:

This is our Music Video Pitch (uploaded onto www.slideshare.net). It took place on Friday 12th November and we had a range of positive and negative feedback.

Music Video Powerpoint

View more presentations from Matty Hackett.

Andrew Goodwin Research:

History of Andrew Goodwin:

Andrew John Goodwin was born in born in Hillingdon, Middlesex and was Director of Music and Organist at Bangor Cathedral for 37 years.
Whilst living in Oxford and then in the West Midlands, Goodwin studied at the University of Liverpool and was subsequently a positive student at the University of Bangor (Wales). He obtained degrees in Music at both Liverpool and Bangor, and is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.
He was Director of Music and Organist at Bangor Cathedral for 37 years,and he relinquished his position in the Cathedral on Saturday 31 October 2009. In 2001, he was presented with the Archbishop of Wales' Award for Church Music in recognition of his work. He has regularly been involved with television and radio broadcasts, not only with the Cathedral Choir, but also as a soloist and accompanist. In addition he has served as a member of the Broadcasting Council for Wales' Music Advisory Panel, and has travelled widely both as a recitalist and as a music examiner.

Identification of key features in music videos:
1. A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
2. A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
3. Genre-related style and iconography present.
4. Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
5. Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
6. Inter-textual references to other media texts may be present.- Further entertainment for its audience.

Goodwin states that various music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. The relationships is built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists may give them the representation and publicity they desire. Voyeurism is used to increase the video’s attractiveness, particularly to males, whilst intertextuality is often portrayed as comedic videos.

A variety of these features are present in almost every music video, depending on the genre of the song, mise en scene layout and the aim of the record company/artist.

My Genre Research:

After constructiing general research material, I have now decided to focus on my genre audience, Indie.
1.

From looking at this particular music video, it is clear to see that it took an extremely long amount of effort to time, plan and conduct. This unusual, yet entropic video takes place all within one take, which is slightly strange in today's music society, particularly the fact that it is an indie video. The steriotypical 'indie' music video i feel, expresses fast paced and almost amateur filming, for example: A handheld camera. If i was asked to describe the representation of the audience watching this music video about their social class, how they dress and what sort of activites they take part in, i would find it very difficult. This is due to the fact that the band give off no representation of how they dress, for example they are dressed fully in different coloured morph outfits, and this suggests that any genre based clothing or accessories cannot be revealed. The fact that all of the band members are following a symmetrical dance routine also suggests that social levels and behaviour of their fans cannot be made clear. As Goodwin's theory is subjective of a framework that "A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illlustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music. but also to be genre related." This is shown very clearly in the way that every band member is lip synching in tune and have entropic/ abnormal dance movements that go with the bright, fun and happy indie culture.I also believe that as each individual of the band are following a structured dance routine, Goodwin's idea of individualism is not represented in this scene, as each movement one member does, the next follows, and so forth. The idea of individualism is represented throughout the video as all four members are fully clothed in different morph outfits. Not only is this unique and entropic, it also gives off quite a quicky and comedic appeal to its non mainstream audience.
Concluding this video on the whole, I believe me and my group will take in various peices of information and include this into our own music video. When i first viewed this video i thought it would be extremely difficult to replicate this video, espeically the natural lighting as it is nice and sunny. Other factors about why it would be made difficult for us, would be the location and asking people's permission to film them as a background/ extra peice. With all this put aside, i feel we can achieve a simular video where we can use the same disjunctive, and unique outlook upon it but also with added on features such as fast paced entroipic camera movements. I believe that suprising the audience with a variety of actions shown in our music video is key to the success and hopefuly this will be achieved.

2.

As I am i great supporter in this up and coming indie band and enjoy most of their music, I believe this particular video covers many aspects of what we will be trying to achieve in our own music video peice. I believe that it first starts off in a very disjunctive manner, for example the range of close up shots of a person dressed as a giant panda on an ordinary council estate appears to be very odd and uncommon. I believe that if we use this same technique in our own music video but for example have all of our cast wearing morph outfits, this will also come across as unusual but at the same time entropic and hopefully slightly comedic. I believe that combinding this disjunctive and slightly strange idea into our own personal music video whilst keeping the narrative and hopefully a performance structured layout, I believe this should be straight forward and easily achieved. I believe that because the main character then steels a young childs pink bike, this also comes across as quite comedic and immature and this is exactly what we are trying to acheive in our own music video.

The use of unusual camera work (for the steriotypical indie music video) such as Wide and long shots to fit all of the band cast in, and fashion patterns are evident during this video once the panda man finally joins with the other band members. Andrew Goodwin's theory that 'genre related style & iconography is present' is also subjective when the camera work also regularly focuses onto each band member. This suggests to me that if these camera shots were not used throughout the making of the music video, all of the band members would have been forgotten about because the main focus would be on the central vocalist (Panda)

One of Goodwin's theories suggested that if a range of close up's occur around the main cast member/object, this is extremely important in the success of the video. This appears to be the case in the particular video as the main character (The panda & bike rider) is the main target throughout the first minute and a half of the video and is the protaginist being chased and hunted down.

General Music Video Research:

1. Babyshambles- F*ck Forever

After studying this certain type of music video, I feel that this nu-punk/indie genre of sound is aimed at a specific audience, and has quite an illistrative and traditional feel to it. As the video is largely focused on a 'classical' British element, such as a huge, hand sewn British draper/flag and the band's dress code, this connotes a redundant atmosphere to its audience. One of the ways how I feel it is redundant, is because in today's modern society, the people of Britain are now familiarised to other bands showing their pride for our country. I also feel that the importance of the flag being the main focus in almost every camera shot, could suggest the message that the band are giving is that after all of Britain's efforts- 2 World Wars, 1 World cup and many others, our country will not back down to anyone else and will (as the title says) F*ck Forever. This could also link in to the fact that in this current climate with immigrants arriving into our country every five minutes, the music video could connote a message telling them 'This is Britain and it will never be changed'
This is the case in many other British band videos (particularly indie/rock) in the modern world. Examples of other redundant British music videos are like 'Dirty Pretty Things-Wondering' where it shows a day in the life of a group of lads that have just woken up in London after a party the night before. It then goes on to show its audience what they get upto in the day's events e.g. getting on the tube. This is redundant to the British audience, as many indie music videos are filmed in a city or countryside location. It may also suggest to me that other audience's such as the USA may find these individualistic videos quite entropic. This is because in America, indie music hasn't really broke through to the mainstream sector, and many video's over there are filmed on a beach destination or an area that is 'well known' to its audience. The mise en scene layout of this video also comes to the conclusion of a very 'British' location. For example there are animals such as goats and chickens running around freely on set. This could connote quite an illustrative (Goodwin's Theory) motion, because I feel this process is unique and not very mainstream as far as video's are filmed. I feel the video is also quite amplifying. For example the dance movements that the lead singer is giving out is quite abnormal and strange, particularly as he isn't under any drink/drug influence. This may connote quite a home grown British attitude, as abnormal dance moves/actions are quite unique and uncommon in this day and age. I also feel that the lighting structure of the video affects the general view to its audience, for example- the lighting on the band members appear to be dark and gloomy when comparing the lighting to the British flag. I feel that this video's narrative structue, lighting effects and camera angles are all very useful in the guidence and help for our own music video. As we don't want to copy this video, we are going to use other various lighting effects such as natural, infa red and sepia imagery, along with various camera angles showing our character's facial expression's, body language, and nartratives they portray to the song choice and video structure.

The Libertines- Don't look back into the sun

I feel that this modern day music video has a variety of elements ranging from mainly a redundant peice, but with parts of high entropy levels. The setting/ mise en scene of the video is highly redundant, due to the fact that it is shot around the streets of London, But the garments of the band is entropic to its audience as each band member appear to be wearing brightly coloured 'vintage' military jackets in public. Although this may seem quite an entropic dress code for today's music video's, I feel that as other bands in the past such as The Beatles have been trademarked for their dresscode, I feel that fans of this type of illistrative form of music, may find elements of redundancy in their clothing. I also feel that the way the video is presented is quite entropic due to the camera appearing to be handheld and unsteady through most of the video. Music Video theorists such as Spike Jonez may have put his opinion and skill into this type of music video, due to the fact that it is quite unusual/unique but also as it is low budget


Oasis- Shakermaker

With Oasis's lashing British 1994 sound, Many people thought the new generation of britpop would rise once again. I feel that this particular video (Directed and filmed by Mark Szaszy) is very redundant due to the mise en scene setting and general outlook of the bands attitude and upbringing. From a working class background, raised on the deprived streets of Manchester, the four young men have crafted a piece of music which arrtacts a diverse mainstream of music connected to the britpop genre of the early 90's. The video is a redundant, traditional English video, for example the natural 'cloudy' and gloomy natural light that is exposed throughout the song also suggest quite an amateur and uncostly video. Mise en scene props include thrown out armchairs, overgrown grass and weeds in the garden, old, tatty terraced houses and graffiti ridden alleyways, which could also suggest that the video itself is based on previous memories from the band.

Oasis- Falling Down

In this recent music video, I feel that Levis-Strauss's binary opposed theory comes into action, due to the fact that the main characters (the royal family)are poccessed to be well behaved and loyal to their country. Here we see that the princess of the royal family is opposing this reputation and ends up waking up in a crack den. This is created through lighting effects, mise en scene props and atmosphere, and also a wide range of close up imagery, expressing the body language of the princesse's face as she realises that (Liam & Noel) know her secret and treat her as if she is just a regular 'drug addict'. This is also shown through their body language and entropic facial expressions.

I feel that this unique video shows the real inside of the royal family and how they are seen across the world as 'perfect'. The fact that this video is very entropic on some levels (the beautiful princess waking up in a crack den) but also very redundant- many of the British public see the royal family as not that special and have something to hide.I believe this video supports the dominant idea that if you do something extremely wrong or make mistakes in life, it will eventually return to haunt you. I also believe that the music video compared to its lyrics are very disjunctive in the way they do not relate under any circumstances.

Redundant & Entropic Music Video Research:

Music videos represent a crucial part of the music industry. Artists such as Oasis and the Libertines can show their true charisma and attitude towards their fans through music television. This means that artists are given more than one option to impress their fans, and not just with their voices. In the 60's and 70's music video's/MTV was usually quite uncommon and not overly important to music fans. This suggests to me that representation on e.g. genre and true narrative structure, was not that necessary 30 or so years ago.
In today's society, music videos are among the most important item in a musicians career they get to experience. Example's of this are that artists needs to learn different dance rhythms/ styles before the making of the video, suitable garments (for the type of sub culture your music is aimed at)and many others, depending on the ype of genre.

After rummaging through a variety of different music videos on the Internet, I feel i have found quite a large range of redundant and entropic video's which I would like to comment on.

Kanye West, Pharrell Williams & Lupe Fiasco- 'Us Placers'


In this global 'hip-hop' video, It shows three young males prentending to be Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and Lupe Fiasco. I feel that this video is mainly entropic but also illistrative due to the fact that it is uncommon to have such a comedic, but at the same time unique style of video, with such a mainstream sound. We appear to see the comedic side of the video when the first young male appears with a mid close up shot, whilst he is lip syncing the verse and dressed in an unusual manner, for a child his age. Carrying on with the garments that the boys are wearing, I feel because the fact that they are all of the 'exoctic' brand logo's - Billianaire Boys Club (Pharrell's brand)this makes it gives it a unique side.This suggest's to me that a lot of time, effort and money was put into this video as many things could go wrong, for example lip snyching.
The mise en scene of the video also expresses the importance of the boys, and how they are the main focus. The fact that there is just a bright white background, makes the clothing and overall attitude of the actors stand out even further. Sometimes the mise en scene and lighting changes for a seccond. this carries on throughout the video, where it is almost seen as a flashback. With heavy graffiti and dark lighting expressed with a low mid close up, this suggest's to me that if a neutralist's would have been watching at that particular point, they would suggest immediately that the classic 'gangs, guns and violence' hip-hop side of music would be still the main focus.

Katy Perry- I kissed a girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLt5n0auPwM&ob=av2e

In this mainstream 'pop' video, the entropy levels involved throughout the song, appear to be quite high, uncommon, illustrative and strange for such a mainstream artist. The video starts off with a variety of different 'sexually processed' women, lay about on the floor after a drink fuelled party, who are dressed in various sexual garments. This suggest's to me that the video is aimed at a male or lesbian perspective, due to the song name 'I kissed a girl and I liked it'. I feel that the director of this video is very clever, as he/she uses the unique process of portraying both male and female perspective's in order to sell the record. The camera then switches to a mid close up, whilst low rising up Katy Perry's body. This could also suggest the perspective view of a male or a lesbian when seeing a pretty girl. I feel that this is a common and redundant process in today's mainstream music, for example Ne-yo- 5.0 where this technique is similar. Both of these video's are produced by Dr. Luke which could suggest that this camera shot is used regularly by him in his videos.

Katy B- On a mission


After watching this particular tradtional semi grime/club genre style of music, I feel it is mainly a redundant format of video, although there are some stages where I feel it has high level of entropy. The video is first opened with a dark and almost frightening long shot of the millenium dome and then quickly approaches and glances over a dj set. After viewing many different 'British style' video's, it has come to my attention particulary around the grime scene genre, that it is common for using natural light sources and in this case, the video has been filmed at dusk. One of the ways how I feel that the video uses a high level of entropy, is the way that the woman (Katy B) is portrayed. For example when you think of images of street life, gangs, violence and grime you tend to think of a male generated/ perspective. I also feel it is slightly entropic because of the fact that it is uncommon for a woman to be so 'respected' in the grime scene and find it is quite unique that she has somewhat 'more power' than the rest of the male persona in the crammed nightclub. I also feel it is quite unique the way the camera is hand-held through the majority of the video. I believe it gives the video an overall feel of a busy and frantic atmosphere, particularly as the lighting inside the club portrays a exiting and adrenaline fuelled feel to it. In the video there are also many cases of hand-held over the shoulder shots, which suggest's to me that the director of the video wants to give the audience a point of view shot of the club and what it would feel like to be there at that specific time.

Digipak Research:

What is a digipak? Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums. A digital device package is a unique style of CD casing that is manufactured out of card stock and other heavier materials, that give digipaks there own artistic style. One of the things that I find most relevant and useful about a CD digipak, is that it can be flipped open like a book and it can also include unseen writings and imagery of the band. For example Oasis- Dig out your soul has an entropic outlook upon it, due to its unusual but 'creative' imagery. As Oasis are known for being quite a tough and hardcore British rock band, the colourful imagery shown would suggest to a neutralist that they are producing quite unique and binary opposed recordings.- The outlook of the album cover(s) look as if its a classical album rather than a lashing britpop sound.

1. 'Dig out your soul' album cover.

The history of a Digipak:

In many cases, a CD digipak does not only just consist of a single CD format, it can also include (and regularly does) a DVD of the bands tour or music video that has recently taken place.

Digipak is a patented, style of compact disc or DVD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI Media, a MeadWestvaco, Inc. resource, which acquired the original trademark holder, IMPAC Group, Inc., in 2000. MeadWestvaco licensed the name and designs to manufacturers around the world.

[edit]History
Digipaks 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. Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Pak is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub or "Soft Spot" rather than a full plastic tray.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak) is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets. Because such packaging is less resistant to abrasion than jewel cases, it tends to show signs of wear relatively quickly. Licensed digipak manufacturers such as domestic U.S. printer and disc replicator Oasis Disc Manufacturing recommend coating the raw printed paper with a protective UV coating, thus ensuring greater longevity.

Although less vulnerable to cracking than a jewel case, the disc tray inside the package (particularly the "teeth" of the hub which secure the disc in place) remains rather brittle and is prone to cracking if the package is crushed. Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s.

Manufacturers have sought to reduce environmental impact and improve functionality by introducing recycled components into its trays; one has announced a 100% post-consumer PET tray made from recycled bottles, which also eliminates the need for the brittle "teeth". Many printers use recycled or sustainable material for the board stock.

Historically, Digipak was only available in large quantities. However, AGI has recently introduced a new product called digipak i-create for the consumer market. Digipak i-create is a web-supported concept that is aimed at the download, music, photo and creative markets.

Music Video Auteurs.

Restricted narration: narrative is tied to one character and audience only sees or knows what they know. Creates a feeling of mystery as audience don't know what's going to happen.


Omniscient narration: narrative not tied to one character and camera reveals elements which characters may not have voluntarily wished to do so. Audience knows more than the character. Audience waits in suspense for something to happen

Michael Gondry:
Example: The White Stripes- Fell in love with a girl.

From looking at a number of Gondry's music videos, it is clear to say that they are unusual and use a high level of special effect camera work. The example I have chosen out of the many video's that Gondry has choreographed in recent years, is the white stripes video- 'Fell in love with a girl'. The use of Lego figurines is imminant right the way through the video and is shown in a repetitive manner. I feel this video swings from the entropic side of music videos, but also represents a redundant side. An example of this is that Lego character's can't physically show human emotion, but it is now in this day and age that animals and man made objects are shown with human feelings on music video's and films.

Vladimir propp:
Vladimir Propp 1895-1970, believed in a theory known as 'spheres of action' which in simular terms means things that occur to make things happen. This usually consists of a variety of different characters including a hero, a villian, a helper, a donor, a princess and the father's princess and also a false villian. This appears to be shown quite regularly throughout children's television shows and child orintated films, where a hero's quest is made more exiting and adventurous, due to the help of these characters. An example of this scenario in a music video:

Wheatus- Teenage Dirtbag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jJVRcCdvyY&ob=av2e

From viewing this particular video a number of times, it is clear to me that the main character (the nerdy male) is trying to get the girl of his dreams, but unfortunately her boyfriend at the moment is 'popular lad' or the villian.

Although this is only a vague example of Propp's theory, it still processes the importance of a hero's quest, destructing the villian with the help of the helper (the band on stage)and eventually capturing the princess which is the girl.

Claude Lévi-Strauss:
Narrative tension is based on opposition or conflict. This can be as simple as two characters fighting, but more often functions at an ideological level.
Lévi-Strauss's theory believed that narratives from all over the world,are only identified/struggled through binary oppositions. For example,good behaviour can only be identifed when bad behaviour occures. just like the basic linguistic units.


Todorov:
Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end.