A Digipak is a patented style of compact disc or DVD packaging. Digipaks typically consist of a 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. They can come in a variety of styles, the most popular being 4 or 6 panel designs. The one below is 6 panel (6 sides) which is what I want mine to be like.
When the panels are opened the disc is revealed. On this particular Digipak the disc rests on the right hand side, whereasI want my disc to sit in the centre.
Below are a couple more examples of Digipaks...
Looking in more detail into Digipaks, I focused on the album "Recovery" by Eminem, which interestingly features one of the songs I analysed earlier. The images below show the Digipak front and back cover for "Recovery"...
The front cover is very simplistic, the only text included is the one word "Recovery", which is the name of the album. The artist's name is not even mentioned, I think this is a way of showing how successful he is. His name does not even have to be mentioned because apparently everyone will already know that it is Eminem's album.
The image has had no over the top editing, and appears very real and simple.
In addition to my point about Eminem's name not being on the front cover, a picture is not shown of him either. (except for one of him shot from behind walking into the distance).
This is the back of the album, it shows the list of tracks, aswell as a barcode, a website address, an anti-piracy logo and some other logos from producers etc.
The portrait image below is the poster which advertises the album previously mentioned. As you can see it uses the same imagery which was incorporated onto the album itself. I want to incorporate similar imagery and effects from my Digipak to my poster, yet I do not want to directly use the same images on both. I think if I use the same images on both my advert and Digipak, it will look repetitive and lazy, even though I can understand why it has been done here.
Andrew Goodwin was a theorist that identified some key features within music videos, they are...
A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. (The visuals will either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics)
A relationship between the music and the visuals. (The visuals will either illustrate, amplify or contradict the music.)
Genre-related style and iconography present.
Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
Voyeurism - Camera close-ups to particular body parts on women is often used. (The male gaze)
And finally, Inter textual references to other media texts may be present.
Within my video analysis, I have picked up on a few of Goodwin's points, and agree with alot of the things he said.
Music Video Narrative:
Narrative describes the way in which a story is told, it is the way the story's elements are structured and organised in a way that is understandable to the audience. (How events are unified in time and space)
Todorov's narrative theory...
The story is structured into 5 stages - Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, Recognition, Reparation and New Equilibrium.
Basically, Todorov's theory says that all stories start with everything in order, then something disrupts that original order. Character's realise the order has been disrupted and attempt to fix the damage of the disequilibrium. Finally, the narrative ends with a repaired or NEW equilibrium.
Vladimir Propp's narrative theory...
The story is influenced by a variety of character roles. Primarily there is a hero who is sent on a quest by the sender. The hero has to overcome the villain, usually with the aid of a helper. In completing the quest and/or removing the villain, the hero gains a reward - often a princess.
Claude Levi-Strauss' narrative theory...
The story is motivated by a struggle between Binary Opposites. One side will be represented as the "Right" side, the audience should identify with and support this "Right" side.
Finally...
There are two key types of narration...
Restricted Narration - The audience is "tied" to one character, and only sees or knows what this character knows, building up suspense in most cases.
Omniscient Narration - The story is not tied to one single character, and the camera reveals things which allows the audience to know more than the character in the situation.
This also builds up suspense because the audience is waiting for the event to happen to the character.
The Auteur theory has influenced film criticism since the 1950's, Auteur is the french word for "Author"...
The Auteur theory is the way in which a Director's film reflects the Director's personal creative vision - As if he or she were the primary "Auteur". The Author's creative voice is distinct enough to be visible through studio interference, which create films in an industrial process. Auteur theory focuses on individual stylistic features, how texts are determined by artist's creativity and how texts emerge as part of an artist's body of work.
An example of a director with a visible auteurist style is Spike Jonze...
Film director, Spike Jonze, has created full length movies, as well as music videos and television commercials. His interesting style consists of a lot of hand-held camera effects and a documentary feel. As an auteur he also adds alot of twists to the tone of the video, such as a dark, uneasy tone suddenly flipping to a more optimistic, and sometimes even comical tone. As a genre his work is usually fairly entropic, and he also uses alot of CGI within his work.
He is responsible for film productions such as "JACKASS" and "Where The Wild Things Are". At 32 he directed the highly successful music video for "Weapon Of Choice " by Fatboy Slim; In this particular piece of work he only used 32 camera cuts all together - as he prefers to use long take editing.
Here are 6 videos by Jonze that I think represent his auteurist style very successfully...
The video above has initially a negative genre, almost all of the video is set in poor lighting (night time) and the rain is constantly falling giving the video a miserable tone. Non-diagetic, dreary music plays throughout the video which has a negative rhythm and sound, amplifying the sadness of whats happening on screen. The whole video appears dark and damp and the audience is made to feel sympathy for the lamp that has been put in the cold all alone. Then, typically of Jonze, he contrasts the initial tone of the video and catches the audience off-guard. He brings a character into frame with a humorous accent. The character brings the audience back to reality in telling them that the new lamp is much better and the one being thrown away has no feelings! This light hearted twist gives the video a comical feel and removes the negativity established at the beginning of the video.
Just like the previously mentioned video, this video uses similar techniques which build up Jonze's auteur style. Interestingly this video also uses contrasts in tone and genre, giving the video a twist in style and re-catching the audiences attention. This video begins negatively, using similar mise en scene to the IKEA advert above... The video opens with a dark, negative establishing shot of one of the locations - (the main character's home). The lighting is limited and once again non-diagetic, slow, negative music plays while the action takes place. The genre changes from a slow-paced, dark setting into a fast-paced action drama. The wide camera shots show society breaking down within the streets as car's crash, explosions occur and people run wild. The non-diagetic music picks up in tempo and mixes with the diagetic sounds of the mayhem. The combination of noises create the intended out of control atmosphere. Suspense is built up as the main character avoids the chaos around him. As you'd expect from Jonze, the tone unexpectedly changes once again. - a more optimistic scene blends into place and concludes the video, with an underlying sense of confusion and irony. The main character cheerfully passes another jogger, says hello and carries on running without a care in the world. The video is summed up by a giraffe walking past out of nowhere. Obviously this video is entropic, like alot of Spike Jonze's work, and I believe it works very well. It puts the advertised brand across with a humorous and memorable kick.
Unlike the previous two videos, this video has a positive tone almost all the way through. Whereas in the other videos, the last shot is the only optimistic moment. This video doesn't begin with a dark opening, it begins with an establishing shot of a police station, and some diagetic voices are heard. The setting then changes to a fast-paced conversation between two characters, this video has alot more cuts adding to the dramatic genre. The location changes a few more times, and interesting editing techniques are used such as titles shooting across screen and spilt screen etc. Something stereotypical of music video is "the male gaze" where women are shown as sexually available, although this is a television advertisement, it still incorporates the use of women as sex objects. The fun, and amusing feel to the video throughout makes it enjoyable to watch, and the audience find themselves immersed within the story and fully interested. The product being advertised is introduced right at the end, which is done alot in television advertisements. A male character looks at the main character from a distance, who is with a good looking woman. This gives the impression that the brand and the video is aimed generally at straight men.
Out of the six videos by Jonze I've studied, this particular one is probably the most relevant to my research, as it is actually a music video. The extraordinary use of editing and production of this video gives excellent visual effects.
Jonze got the rap group to literally lip sync and perform backwards. Everything else was recorded as usual, such as pedestrians walking past etc. Then when the video came to be edited it was reversed so that the music was the normal way round and the lyrics were in sync with the rappers mouths, yet the body movements and physics within the video were simply unrealistic.
Puddles would splash inwards back to place instead of up the rapper's legs, items would fly into their hands instead of being thrown away into the distance, and smashed glass would join back together all in rhythm with the song.
Another interesting aspect of this video, is that is uses very long shots throughout. The video only has 5 cuts within it making it very smooth and continuous.
This video emphasises Spike Jonze's entropic style and the technique works very effectively.
This video follows Jonze's entropic auteur, yet this video is alot more dramatic. The use of fast paced editing emphasises the story's drama. The interesting thing about this video is that it uses a cut once every one to two seconds, this keeps the audience interested the whole way through. The costumes and setting of the shopping centre are realistically portrayed. The combination of diagetic sound effects and the slightly humorous non-diagetic soundtrack make an effective partner to the mayhem happening on screen.
Like alot of Jonze's work, this video begins quite relaxed, and then the tone suddenly changes catching the audience's attention. This is an advertisement for "GAP" and like most advertisements, not just by Jonze, this one incorporates the advertised product at the conclusion of the video.
Finally, I believe this video concludes my idea that in alot of Spike Jonze's work, he uses two or more contrasting tones which switch unexpectedly.
This Adidas trainer advert begins with a calm nighttime scene, the lighting is very low and alot of shadow's are included to emphasise the darkness. The setting is a simplistic bedroom, and the single main character is dressed in pyjamas. The character moves to another setting where the whole atmosphere completely changes, and the change in the soundtrack makes the audience jump. The setting of the video switches from what was initially calm into something dramatic and exciting, amplified by the fast paced editing and increased volume and tempo of the music.
This video begins calm and suddenly changes into a dramatic atmosphere which is typical of Jonze, but interestingly, this video also changes tone again towards the end and returns to the initial tone of the video - calm, dark and simplistic.
In conclusion, I would say there is such thing as a an auteur theory. Through the six videos just shown, a strong correlation of creative style is portrayed and the same editing techniques and ideas are included. Spike Jonze has an obvious and successful auteurist style.
I have done some research into a handful of interesting music videos... Eminem ft. Rihanna - Love The Way You Lie
I think that this video could be classed as Illustrating , because most of the time, the video is quite redundant, and the images on screen are very much portraying the lyrics of the song. The video shows confrontation between a couple, and alot of burning and fire is incorporated into the music video. The fact that people are shown burning alive, and there is alot of fire used within this video might seem very entropic at first, but when attention is paid to the lyrics, the use of fire is very redundant. Something more entropic would be if the video was shot in Antarctica and not a spark of heat was shown!
There is romance between two people, a male and a female - this is very redundant and expected of most music videos. I think one of the most redundant features of the video is the consistent close ups of the artists singing the song. This happens a lot in music videos, and adds to the redundancy of the video.
This video uses a variety of camera shots and angles. One typical camera shot is a mid-close up shot of the artist singing some vocals. The camera focuses alot of the time on the face of Rihanna showing her neck upwards, sometimes shift in focus is briefly used, the depth of field varies but mostly the artist's eyes are directly staring at the audience throughout.
The narrative behind the video appears to be a male and female's relationship collapsing as they argue and fight, the video is concluded by them making up and rebuilding there love. Therefore, I would say the genre of the video is a dramatic romance.
I don't feel the video falls under a certain Auteur, I don't think the video shows any connection to a particular director or style that I know of, yet the style of the video is very mainstream and in the modern genre.
The editing is fairly fast paced, and a variety of settings are contrasted with eachother, the main location being the characters home where the fighting occurs. Rhianna's location isn't shown due to the extreme close up of the camera shot, whereas Eminem's is shot in enough space to be a two shot. Eminem's location is entropically in a corn field where the lighting is displayed as very bright, maybe representing Eminem as pure and good.
Some dominant ideology is present, for example, this video portrays the male as stereotypically more important, and the female as stereotypically a sex object, not only in the narrative, but also when the artists are shown singing.
The male character is shown as more powerful and his actions are what influence the story within the video.
The female is shown in not many clothes, and she has less "power" within the video. The video connotes alot of topics, such as love, sex, power, hate, anger and guilt. Overall, this video is fairly redundant, with glimpses of entropy. It follows a mainstream genre, and typically advertises the artists that are singing the song.
Eiffel 65 - Blue
"I'm Blue" could probably be classified as amplifying, as the video represents the original song's meaning, yet the video adds another layer of meaning. The song revolves around "Being Blue" and redundantly - the whole video is showing the colour blue, even the characters are blue! But, on the other hand, the video is quite entropic, because nowhere in the song's lyrics does it mention going outer space and fighting aliens, which this video's storyline is based around. Another entropic aspect of the video, is that the artist is very rarely shown within the video, unlike "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" where Kylie Minogue is constantly on the screen. The video portrays correct denotations, yet it also shows incorrect connotations which do not completely match the song's lyrics. Furthermore, aliens are usually stereotyped as being green, so I suppose it is quite entropic that they are shown as blue in this video, yet the entropy is contradicted by the fact that the video revolves around everything being blue.
Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head
I would say that this video is fairly redundant, it is amplifying, as it connotes lyrics of the song, but it also has entropic scenes, which add another layer of meaning, that does not really relate to the video. 2 examples of redundant features within the video are the synchronized dance scenes, and the one shots of the artist singing (Kylie Minogue). Another example of redundancy is that Kylie sings the lyrics of the song whilst driving a car; this isn't unexpected or extraordinary.
Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg - California Girls
This interesting video could obviously be classified as disjunctive, due to it ignoring the song's original meaning, and portraying abstract imagery. There are many redundant aspects within this music video, for example - There are ALOT of girls being shown as sexually available, through them not wearing much clothing etc. Another redundant feature within "California Girls" is that the many girls within the video are continuously flirty and cheeky, and the single male character (Snoopdog) is shown as dominant and in charge of the situation.
On the other hand, there is a fair amount of entropy within the video... Firstly, the video is not set in California, and doesn't connote California in any way. The whole video is set in a fantasy location, through the use of CGI where gummy bears come to life and swear, the characters have multicoloured hair and events take place such as characters being trapped inside a giant plate of jelly. One of the least obvious entropic aspects of the video, is that at the end of the video, stereotypical gender roles switch over... At the end of the video, the women become the dominant figure over the single man. This is interesting and unexpected because previously the male was shown as superior to the girls.
This is an animated fantasy, yet the artists that are singing are regularly advertised, emphasising the redundancy of the video.
During this course, I have not been interested in doing research towards my work. I have done it, but have found it boring, and have approached half-heartedly.
I prefer not to do extensive research, yet I do a lot of planning still. I prefer to just stick with the chain of ideas in my head, and get on with the task at hand.
I understand that research is a vital part of pre-production, and therefore I plan to develop my research skills.
In order to improve my research skills, I am going to set myself targets, for example, to study twice as many texts/examples as I did last time.
Storyboarding
In my last project, where me and a team re-made a music video by the band Busted, our storyboard was fairly easy to create. We had something to copy, so we could grab images from the original music video itself and drag them into our storyboard.
Whereas on the other hand, when I make my own music video, I will have nothing to work from/copy, as it will be a completely original idea.
Therefore, I will have to either draw or photograph the images myself to go in my storyboard, making this a skill I will need to develop.
Reconnaissance (Recce)
I have never even heard of "recce reports" before today. Therefore, I plan to ask my teacher about them, and to eventually develop my skills in creating Reconnaissance reports; and to become confident in using them within my work.
Sound
I need to improve on my knowledge of sound within filming, I need to learn about the "source of the sound", I also need to research into how to "eliminate noise". Furthermore, I need to look into how to make the character's dialogue loud enough.
Titling
Using titles has never crossed my mind within my work, yet now I realise it would be useful and interesting to incorporate.
In order to develop my knowledge of using titles, I will watch work where titles are used successfully in order to gain some inspiration etc. in how to put titles within my video, effectively and informatively.
For our second A2 task, we had two weeks to re-create 30 seconds of a popular music video...
My team re-created "What I go to school for" by the boy band - Busted.
My knowledge of production technology has developed in more than one way, for example, I now feel much more confident in using the video camera, and I understand alot more of its functions. Aswell as actually capturing the footage, I now feel more confident in working with it once we have it - Editing it for example, using the adobe editing suite. I have now realised that Premiere Pro 2.0 actually appears more complicated than it really is!
Unfortunately we couldn't upload our music video on to YouTube because of copyright laws, but we managed to upload it onto another site called "vimeo" like I did on the first task mentioned previously.
Overall, on the subject of Digital Technology, I believe I have improved in all aspects of it. Although I would like to further my understanding of the editing suite, so that when I make my own music video, I am able to use the computer software to its full potential.
Within our research and planning, we had to do many tasks, such as deciding the cast, costumes, set and so on.
Furthermore, we also had to note down every single shot of the actual video, that we wished to re-create.
By doing this, I created the storyboard (below) which illustrates every single shot in the first 30 seconds of the music video: This storyboard proved to be very useful, as it was basically a script for us to follow, and we constantly referred to it, in order to capture the correct camera angles etc.
Therefore I think creating the storyboard was one of the most useful parts of our research and planning, and I definately intend to create one within the next music video I have to create.
I think we could have improved our time management a bit better, because I believe that we spent too much time recording our footage, which meant we had to rush our editing in order to meet the deadline. When I make my music video, I will create a timetable, so that I spend the right amount of time on planning, production and post-production.
During Post-Production, we used Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0.
We used this software to cut up our footage, take bits we needed, and remove bits we didn't. The software allowed us to drag around our footage, and place it in time with a separate audio, it even allowed us to make certain parts of the video in fast, or slow motion, such as the pencil dropping on the floor.
The most useful tool I think, was the razor tool, which let us slice the footage up into separate clips, allowing us to extract parts of the video that we needed and remove footage that was useless.
To begin the A2 course, we created a quick lip syncing music video; Our group chose to do it for the song- "total eclipse of the heart" by Bonnie Tyler.
Through doing this exercise, I learnt the difficulties of lip syncing, and now I can empathise for my actors when they have to lip sync within my music video later on in the course.
When me, Dan and Mike created this quick video, we had to use digital cameras to capture our footage. Once we had all of our footage recorded (after some rehearsal!) we used Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 in order to put the video together, and delete unwanted footage.
We also used the editing programme to apply the audio into the video in time with our acting.
Overall I am proud of what me, Mike and Dan achieved, I think it was a beneficial exercise, as I now feel more confident in both capturing footage, and using it to make a final product.
