Digipak promotional adverts research

Below I've embedded a FlipSnack online flip book ,that I have created, in the style of a magazine to present the three digipak promotional adverts that will be analysed to help me get ideas for my groups digipak. Presenting the images in a flip book allows you to see the advertisements how they would be denoted on a magazine page. I've chosen to look at the similarities and differences between Rihanna, Jessie J and Ellie Goulding's promotional adverts as all three women are leading pop artists who follow the conventions of the genre.

From looking at all three adverts there are some key features:

• they include an image of the album cover or digipak, that takes up most of the magazine page - making it clear to readers who's music is being advertised and which album they need to buy to listen to it all
• most of the time close ups of the artist are used - again reinforcing who's music is being sold
• artists names and album names are written on a magazine promotional advert - making it easy for target audiences to easily find and buy music 
• tag lines related to singles from the album are commonly used and mentioned - target audience may be attracted to the advert due to the singles listed and readers in general may consider buying the album because they like one of the singles
• website links or links to where you can buy or pre-order the album are also sometimes included - letting customers know where they can buy the album
• a release date is included most of the time - telling buyers when they can buy the digipak
• ratings of the album from newspapers and critics are also included - letting possible buyers know how the album is perceived by the public 

Looking at all these example digipak magazine promotions are important because they are examples of what my group should be aiming to create in our final digipak and magazine advert. More so, researching digipak promotional adverts allows my group to become inspired when creating out promotional advert, helping us come up with ideas for our own designs. It also shows us what conventional digipak promotional adverts look like, somewhat providing us with guidelines on how to create our own.
So,all in all a variety of the features listed above should be used in my groups final digipak promotional advert. My group should aim to use the majority of the features to make sure that our design looks realistic and conventional to the genre, making our advertisement look realistic and effectively promoting our digipak and music video.

Analysis of digipaks created by other pop artists

During lesson time today my class focused on digipaks within the music industry; why they are used, what their purpose is and how they are presented. I learnt that a digipak is the packaging included with an album, consisting of usually 4 or 6 panels. Digipaks feature an album cover, a track list, close ups of artists and usually have one overall theme, relating to the musician's album and body of work on their CD.

 Below I've chosen to analyse specific digipaks of pop artists relevant to my groups chosen pop song 'Domino' by Jessie J. Looking at different pop digipaks can help my group gain ideas for our digipak design and also help us understand what is conventional of pop digipaks. So, this research plays an important role in creating our final digipak.

Below I've embedded a Photoshop image I've created, where I've analysed the pop-indie artist Marina and The Diamonds digipak. I chose to look at her digipak because she is a young pop-indie artist whose target audience is ,the same as my groups, teenagers.

I also chose to analyse one of Britney Spears digipaks, as she is another successful pop artist. Additionally, I chose to look at one of her digipaks because she is a young woman, and so her digipak could be conventional of women in the pop genre. Below, I've embedded a Photoshop document where I've analysed and compared her digipak to the digipak above.

I also came across Rihanna's digipak for her album 'Loud'. What I liked about this digipak is how the three inner panels have been used to create one overall image. From looking at the embedded image below Rihanna is denoted lying in a bed of roses with her fiery red hair. I think using the three inner panels to create one composition is interesting and something different. My group could try to experiment with using photography in the inner panels of the digipak to create a composition.

Pop genre research

The final piece of additional research was looking into the pop genre and it's history, my group member Beth looked into this topic. Below is her findings on the genre of music and she's chosen to present her findings in a time line created on Dipity.

For the last part of additional research, I carried out some investigation into the coming of pop music through the decades. All the way form the 1950's to modern day pop music, I decided to use Dipity to make a timeline that portrays the highs and memorable moments in the rise of pop music.

The coming of Pop Music on Dipity.

This activity was particularly useful, because it has given my group and I a greater understanding of why conventions are important to use, what kind of fans we are aiming our music video at, and how to create a music video relevant to the time period in which the song was made. This will impact our final music video, as it has allowed us to understand the importance of creating a music video that has all aspects of a pop music video that will please our target audience.

References
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pop_music
en.wikipedia.org.wiki/1970s_in_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/billboard_hot_100
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_in_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_in_music
officialcharts.com/music_charts/

Jessie J Artist Biography

Jessie J Biography

Below is an artist biography on pop artist Jessie J created by my group member Amy.

Jessie J, real name Jessica Cornish, is originally from Seven Kings, Essex. Her first musical performance was at the age of 3 in a holiday camp where she forgot her words to 'Twinkle Twinkle'. She attended dance classes at the Wenn Stage school at the same age, where she started singing (the video below is of her playing Blousey Brown in Bugsy Malone) At age 11, she was cast in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End musical of 'Whistle Down the Wind' where she played the part of Brat for two years.

After going through high school, and keeping her talent quite secretive, she attended the BRIT school at age 16. She studied musical theatre, exceeding in music, dance and drama, as well as doing the subject Art. While at BRIT school she joined a girl group as a campaign 'Mothers against guns.' They released a single called 'Why' which is about mothers speaking out for their children that have been shot. The video below is of the group, Soul Deep, singing their campaign song. 

After being in the girl group for two years, and recovering from a stroke when she was 18, Jessie was back singing again, and managed to get signed by Gut records, an independent record label. While she was with them she did support tours with stars such as Cyndi Lauper, Chris Brown and Girls Aloud. She was ready to release her first single 'Sexy Silk' and had an album ready. Unfortunately, the  record label went bankrupt before she managed to release anything. During the time she was there, she put up youtube videos of her singing to build her fan base. 

After Gut went bankrupt, Jessie had to run around and try and get herself signed before she lost all her music. After not being able to get signed in the UK, she went to the US and managed to get signed to Sony ATV as a songwriter. After writing hits such as 'Party in USA' for Miley Cyrus and 'I need this' for Chris Brown, she got signed to Island Records. Following the release of her first single, 'Do it like a dude' in 2010, she topped the BBC Sound of 2011 list and won the BRIT Critics' Choice award.

Her first number 1 was 'Price Tag' which was released in February 2011. Her debut album 'Who you are' was released shortly after Price tag and sold 105,000 copies in the first week, reaching number 2 on the iTunes album charts. Below is the album 'Who You Are'. 

Jessie's career has blown up following the release of another 5 singles: "Nobody's perfect, Who's laughing now, Who you are, Domino and Laserlight, all of which reached the top 10. This made Jessie the first British female solo artist to get 6 or more singles from one album in the top ten on the charts. 

Jessie became an ambassador for Comic Relief and shaved her hair off for charity on Red Nose Day. She helped raised 100,331,808.

In 2013, Jessie released her second studio album, called 'Alive.' Her first single, 'WILD' debuted at number 5 on the iTunes single chart. Jessie is currently working on a new version of the album Alive, which is the American version.

References: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_You_Are_(Jessie_J_album)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_J

http://www.rednoseday.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive_(Jessie_J_album)

http://youtube.com 

Links to viewing theory

The Male Gaze

Below I've embedded a prezi presentation that I've created on the male gaze and it's relevance to the pop genre. I decided to look at the male gaze viewing theory because it's quite conventional of music videos in the pop genre. Also my group is creating a pop video with a female lead and so the male gaze theory could be applied to our music video.



From completing this activity I've concluded that it could be a good idea to include the male gaze within my groups music video, as it's conventional to the pop genre.

Music Video Preperations - Costume list

Below are some outfits my group member Beth has chosen to wear in our music video. As a group we discussed that it's very conventional for music videos to have costume changes in them and stars are usually denoted wearing a few outfits in one video. My groups target audience feedback suggested that bright colours and patterns would be good to incorporate into our music video to make it fun and appealing to watch; and so the costumes chosen reflect this feedback.

 

 

Costume choice is key in creating my groups video because it will impact how our star in the video will appear onscreen. My group wanted the star in our video to appeal to our target audience and so we based our costume choice on some of our audience feedback. Planning what costumes will be worn in a video prior to filming is also important because it makes the filming process more organised, and avoids my group wasting filming time.

Music Video Preperations - Filming Schedule

In today's lesson my group decided to create a filming schedule, to make sure that all the group members would be available for filming. We decided that the best times to film would be on weekends and during our free periods during and after school. After discussing when the best time to film the video would be we decided as a group that we could split filming up into five parts. Five filming sessions guarantees that my group will have enough footage to create a full video with and allows us to have extra footage in case of any filmed mistakes. We decided it would be a good idea to film the star in our video wearing a different costume in each film session. The four outfits chosen will be used in the first four filming days. The fifth filming day will consist of my group trying to film the bridge of the son, as its conventional in the pop genre for the bridge of the song to have a different mood and setting. 
Below is the filming schedule with the days that we plan to film on

Monday 3rd March 2014 - 12.25 - 13.10

• Filming in costume one 

Thursday 6th March 2014 - 10.00 - 11.05

• Filming in costume 2

Sunday 9th March 2014 - 12.00 - 13.00

• Filming in costume 3

Wednesday 12th March 2014 - 14.25 - 15.00

• Filming in costume 4

Thursday 13th March 2014 - 09.00 - 10.00

• Filming the bridge part of the song

This activity has been very useful and has highlighted the importance of filming time and planning before we film our project. The schedule help stay organised and is a guideline to make sure we will have all the footage needed for the editing stage of the video. We don't want to have to keep on re-filming footage when in the middle of editing the video as that will put us behind our deadlines and can cause us to become very disorganized and confused of what footage we have to work from. Having a film schedule will have a large impact on the final music video as it will ensure my group has enough time to edit the video to allow us to create the best music video possible in the time frame we are given.

Music Video Preperations - Health and Safety Risk Assessment

Above, I've embedded a risk assessment, that my group has created before filming our music video. We know that our music video will be filmed in a filming studio setting so we've made a note of risks that could happen in a studio such as, tripping over equipment.
From completing this activity I learnt that it's important to be aware of the risks at filming locations before shooting to avoid injury. This is key because some locations can be very risky to film without you realising they are, and so creating a risk assessment helps you consider if a location is realistic to film in.

Completing this assessment is a key part of my groups planning before filming our final project. This assessment helps prevent injuries and hazards happening when we film our final project, hence keeping everyone safe whilst filming and making filming a smoother process.