Mock-up design of cover

I saw this image on google and thought about the idea of having this as our main cover, even though it's really simple I have found that most of the folk albums we have looked at are similar in simple form. All the names also appear on the right or left corner of the album which is why I have positioned this hear. I have noticed that it is difficult to make the writing stand out in front of this image so therefore I will have to take this into consideration when I do my real album cover. The image is always the main focal point of the album covers within indie folk genres and not the writing itself, the fact that the background represents the band is also good as it is creating an image which we can use throughout or digipack and also on our music video we want to start it with someone clicking the cassette player to play the song. However, it may be hard to find a cassette player but we will do some looking in charity shops and ask people if they have some. This could even be put on our album design as it is relevant with a light or something shining upon it.

Flat plan of album

This is a rough design we had for our albumidea, we feel that by incorporating the cassette type design upon different parts of our cover we will be able to create an identity for our band and even use these ideas on our band website aswell. We liked the compass idea as when we did our research we found it appeared in many of the images we had found on pinterest and in our genre research. Also the final shot of the mumford and sons hopeless wanderer video we thought would look good on our back cover or even on the inside because we liked how it made them seem together as a group and it shows the colours as being dull in which we want to make sure that in contrasts with the front cover. By doing our research we found that the front covers usually consist of cartoon drawings and never of the artists themselves which is why we went with the idea we have. In our production we might change the front cover to something less bright but when we come to do the location test shots we will figure it out as we are unsure what parts of our location will look the best in a shot of the trees or river or just the barn etc. We will need to experiment more once we have all got together and looked at the location as a whole but because of certain things we haven't been able to do this yet.

Digipak design further ideas

As a group we all think these two album covers could go well with our digipak but instead of the brick wall use our props of the fairy lights we're using and also the hay bails we have got from the barn. We need to do test shots and also the light bulb will be drawn into our front cover using Photshop as when we did our pitch we mentioned how most folk/indie albums draw their covers with a cartoon and don't contain themselves. So by using the idea I had with the Mumford and Sons final music video shot as our back cover it will cover the conventions better of our genre.

I have also just done more research in which I found this conceptual design of a lumineers album. We felt as though this is a good idea to use and we want to incorporate the background with another image cut on the front. Instead of the light bulb design we have decided to put a cassette of the front. We have also found that all band have particular fonts to show their genre too and sometimes they can change this however we haven't yet decided on a particular font so I will do that in my next post.

Props

The props we will probably be using are:

• Hay bails
• Fairy lights
• Light bulbs
• Tambourine
• Guitar

We are going to get the hay bails from the farm in which Lily lives next too as there is a considerable amount in the barn next to her house. We want to buy some cheap fairy lights from a charity shop or website to use to decorate our set with also some light bulbs to mix it up and make it more decorative.  As Vicky (our girl character) does performing arts we have been able to acquire a tambourine from her and she will be able to get it on the day, Liam (the boy character) plays the guitar therefore we have easy access to this prop.

Location

 This is the barn we are using for our main setting even though it is filled with hay bails now we will be able to move them in order to film inside. We want to set out the location so that it looks like the mumford and sons hopeless wanderer video because it suits our genre and it is also placed in a barn. We like the field setting because of the taylor swift video we looked at where they were holding hands this is because it gives a romantic feel as this is where you usually go for picnics etc. We want the video to have a narrative but we need to plan it carefully so we don't end up having a cheesy/cliche love story.

Location + Digipak

 

This is our location we intend to use for our full video with the narrative, however as we haven't all visited the location yet we feel as though for our digipak we want to make ideas but then once we have all been to it we will decide as a group what shots we can use by doing tests and seeing what looks the best. We feel as though we have a rough idea of what we want to do but we want to make sure we analyse all the possiblities first before we make a final decision. The ideas I've had so far are to make a shot where a tamborine is resting against the hay with fairy lights scattered around it, the shoes shot in which I posted in my last blog post or this shot in which we saw in the mumford and sons video however only using our two characters and them holding hands or the girl resting on the boys shoulder whilst walking.

Change of name

We have decided to change our name from The Beach Cassettes to just The Cassettes because we feel that we won't be using a beach in our video and by just using a barn/field the use of a beach in our name doesn't seem appropriate. Therefore our digipak ideas have changed since our pitch and we will be using the sets e.g. either a shot of a part of the location or of the barn as our front cover or taking inspiration from this album cover we could do this with a tamborine in the shot as this is what instrument the girl will be playing in the song helping to create an identity.

Costumes

Follow Amber's board Male Costume on Pinterest.

On this pinterest boad I added images of the male artists from bands such as Of Monsters of Men, Mumford and Sons, Noah and The Whale and Bombay Bicycle Club. I found that the conventions of folk musicians were waitcoats with shirts, skinny trousers or black trousers and messy hair. I will have to try and incorporate this into my work by buying or borrowing an outfit of this kind from someone. It may be difficult to find a suitable actor that has the correct hairstyle so I will focus solely upon the costume first and then try and find someone to fit the criteria. If I can't however I will need to make the costume stand out so the audience can understand what kind of music genre I am aiming for.

Lily did the girl's costume and this is the board she made.

Follow lily's board Costumes & Props on Pinterest. 

In this pinterest we can see that the girl needs to have messy hair, for example with plaits twisted into her normal hair. Also we could go for the festival look with the hairband with flowers or feathers tied into it or some kind of head wear. For her clothing we could use a flowery dress or shorts as this is what is common in the genre. For shoes we could use something like doc martens (boot kind shoes) or brogues etc as this is what we have looked at in our fashion of folk/indie.They usually wear a lot of bracelets and necklaces so during the week we will look for clothing that both of our characters can use so we are organised when it comes to the filming and so our audience can tell the genre when the video starts. 

Follow Dom's board Costume and prop ideas on Pinterest.

Using these pinterest boards and comparing them to professional media I can see that there is a clear genre convention in both gender costumes to make sure that the audience can distinguish the genre within all our products for example a running theme throughout the digipak to ensure that our music genre is clear. An example is in Mumford and Sons costume they wear near enough the same type of clothes throughout all their videos, which is where we've taken the inspiration from for our boy's costume because they're thought of as being 'farmer-like' dressers and therefore we want to show this because our genre of music is very similar to a girls. As you can see from the picture of them below in comparison to our boy character we have dressed them the same as want to incorporate it into our work. For the girl we have dressed her in the jumper because when we did the genre research for the girl's clothes we found that they dress quite festival-like with big jumpers, unstyled hair and simple make-up, we wanted to complement the girl and boy costume because it needs to follow the same theme. Birdy, a singer, we have taken inspiration from her because she follows these conventions with her being a folk genre singer I have added a picture below to show her style in comparison to our character who has dressed similar with the same hairstyle and make-up.

Jobs within our group

• My role within the group is to make the website and also film/direct the music video and I will also develop the music video footage as we will all contribute to the making of the video once Dom has got a solid idea. 
• Lily is responsible for making the album cover and filming the music video also contributing to the making of the music video. 
• Dom will be making the music video and using mine and Lily's idea within it. 

Test Shot of Front Cover

This was a mock-up we did of our idea on the front cover, we feel that we won't be able to make this suit our genre because of the beach idea we don't want to use this anymore as our location because of the weather risk, lighting and travel. The picture itself was only from google therefore doesn't give us a clear picture however, the beaches roundabout where we live won't give us a good image to use for a front cover as there won't be many nice location settings. Compared to a professional album cover this isn't of very good quality because it was a quick mock-up and we couldn't take a professional image to go in the centre, we can also see that the green card is visible but this is only because we wanted to take a quick test shot to see what it would look like. As we won't be using the beach location anymore we feel as though this isn't suitable and therefore we want to use something that represents our video to show the audience that there is a running theme throughout. We have decided upon our location as being a field/barn so therefore a beach totally contrasts the two feels as a beach is happy and sunny whereas the barn and field feel is more of different atmospheres that you can create.

Here is the image we tried to recreate however this is taken from a moving image which is why th image in the centre is so small as the video zooms into the image to switch between scenes. This could therefore be another limitation to using this because in the video it's used to show the transitions and they gradually get bigger however as ours is a still image it doesn't create the same concept and it is difficult to show to the audience what we're trying to show in the middle image if it is so small. It almost creates the effect that the image in the middle of the hands isn't needed this album cover also doesn't contain any cartoon feature which is what we found was a big convention of indie folk music and they tend to draw things onto the front cover rather than use an image of someone.

Location Recce

Location Recce

Risk Assessments

Research into locations and set design

Pitch Feedback + Reflection

Feedback
Our feedback was that we had really good ideas but there was no main concept, this is because we have so many different ideas for example using the beach, a field, cassettes and vinyls and also a studio setting. This means that our digipak won't have an image which correlates with our video and there will be no main identity for our band, even though our band is called Beach Cassettes and using a beach scene with the cassettes on the sand as our front image we don't know if using a beach scene will be good enough to use as our location because of whether and if it would be suitable to film on also the weather at this time of year is too unpredictable to be good enough to produce a good lighting shot. An idea for a location was an area filled with hay to correlate the genre being folk/country and also adapt the costumes to make sure that it's obvious what we're trying to create, for example using costumes from charity shops and going on pinterest/tumblr to see what people incorporate as folk fashion.

Reflection
What we plan to do now is take test shots of our front cover idea with the hand and green screen affect and see what it turns out like, if the image doesn't look professional then we will be able to change the idea to suit our genre the best. We need a specific concept therefore we need to plan as a group what ideas we will be using and what we won't be using, and also figure out the main storyline to our narrative. We have had an idea to use a barn as our main setting for our video instead of a studio as we can fill it with hay and fairy lights (getting inspiration from the video in the post above) as Lily has a barn at her house therefore using that as a resource we can use it as our main set.

Pitch

Synopsis Of Video

In the video, we are going to film 2 people as people in our The Cassettes band one will be female and the other male we are thinking of having narrative type scene away from the original set of the barn idea in order to mix up the locations and make it more appealing to the audience. We feel that we wanted to be unique with our setting and also the fact that our research showed that people of this genre use different locations to specificy their genre we want to incorporate that in our work. The barn will be decorated with fairy lights and hay bails to connote the folk theme as in research I have looked at other videos which use these props. We feel like we want the narrative to have a story behind it about the girl and boy being together but I feel that this could be too cliche and we may need to just use the narrative for another location in our video.

Front cover ideas

In my previous research I said that I wanted to use The Ting Tings effect in which they transition through shots by doing this. If I use this in my video I want to recreate this image as there is a boy and girl in my song therefore this could easily be done. I have found that Indie and Folk genre albums have cartoon images built onto them and they're usually very funky images on the front therefore taking inspiration from the Of Monsters and Men or Disclosure album covers (below) I want to make sure that the two people in the video have their faces distorted in a way where the audience don't know who they are. I think this is a good way to make the identity of the band be well-known. As in my genre research I found that the album covers aren't very colourful therefore I may use a black and white image with colour being in between the hands to give some of it a colourful nature or if I draw the faces on but only a small part will be colour.

 I thought it would be a good idea to do a rough version of the Disclosure face to see what it would look like, the photoshopping isn't good quality as I didn't have a lot of time to do it but this is what the image ended with and I like the feature it gives for the album cover.

Another idea we've had is due to our name being the Beach Cassettes we could buy a few cassettes and lay them out on a beach with the sand and take a picture of them. We would need to place the cassettes in the correct place for framing to make it more effective and attractive to the audience. Due to the location being a beach we will preferably need to go on a day whereby it's nice weather which could affect how long this could take us to do.

Ideas for my digipak

I thought this image of the vinyls could look good on the back cover of the album because it's vintage and people associate folk music with old-fashioned music. However, I think we have decided that our name is Beach Cassettes and therefore it will probably be better to have a cassette on the back of the album cover or on the cd itself. I have found other images of this in which I think would look good on the back cover or on the cd but I won't have one on both of them.

Band Name Ideas

We have been using a band name generator and trying to find a suitable name for our band in that it's catchy and is relevant to the genre.

I think we have initally come up with the name Beach Cassettes as it has a folk feel to it because cassettes are old-fashioned, the beach is a happy place for people and that is what the music or indie folk compliments and also as I've been doing research I have found that Ben Howard and Of Monsters and Men both use the sea or the beach in their videos or album cover images therefore using genre research I figure this is the most suitable name.

Digipak Genre Research

For this research I have noticed that most of the albums have plain coloured backgrounds which an image in the front, they don't usually have people on them but when they do their faces aren't clear or they've been drawn on in a cartoon way. The colours are very dark in these albums therefore I am thinking that I may use a black and white picture with some colour on the front in a small part. The font of the album covers is bold and quite old-fashioned looking therefore I will need to incorporate this into my work.

Rough Timeline

In today's lesson I had the idea of using a A3 sheet with four boxes (using both sides) each box being a 30 second section I firstly made a timeline of when each singer either male or female or both together sang or when the "Hey!" were played. Then in the middle of the box I made a timeline recalling what the music was doing, whether it be instrumental, fast paced music, drum solos etc. and on the right a timeline for any ideas I had for the timings which replicated the song lyrics or the music tone at that point, to help me piece together how my video would look and to gather ideas for the pitch on Friday.

Production Ideas

After listening to the song thoroughly and writing down the times of the verses/choruses starting and where in the song the girl and boy sings I have had a few ideas in which I may want to try out that refer to my previous research. At 2:29-2:38 the song completely slows down (as seen from the video on the right the visuals in the orignial show this too) this is where I think would be good to have an out of focus shot like on Ben Howard's videos or a slow motion shot in which replicates the mood of the song. Here are still images of what I want to try and replicate these are just ideas however I am not fully sure whether I will use this in my work.

This is a screen recording of slow motion used in a video of my genre Jake Bugg / Seen It All in which helps the build-up to an event at the end and draws the audience to a big reveal. I want to use slow motion shots in my video to either use as a reveal at the end or when the music slows down as seen in the shots above. 

This is a screeenshot of the start to the Ben Howard / Keep Your Head up video in which the background is out of focus to focus upon the foreground image of the bubbles. I think this is a good thing to use in my video and makes it look professional with the complexity of the shot.

Influences from Music Videos

I recently saw this video and thought that in my production I could use something similar to the close up of just their hands in the field of long grass which is out of focus and how the sunlight reflects upon them at the end. As I did the research of the Andrew Goodwin theory when he said there is usually 'music lyrics and visual relationships' I figure that when my song lyrics said 'so hold my hand I'll walk with you my dear' I could have something like that within my video for the audience engaging in the narration. Also when my song says 'you're gone gone gone away I watched you disappear' I could use the shot from this video when they let go of each others hand and put in into slow motion to show the fact that it's a sad tone on the music and that needs to be created in the visuals for the audience in incorporate. I have found some images below which shows the still shot of what I would want to create, the only downside to this is that I need to find a field to shoot the shot in in which would give the same affect as this video or images.

Letter to label

Dear whoever this concerns,
I am writing this letter to ask for your permission to use the audio from Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks for my A2 Media Coursework. This music video is solely for educational purposes and is non-profitable it will be uploaded to a public forum such as YouTube simply for marking and feedback purposes from my teachers and the examiner.

Chosen Track

Hey! Hey! Hey!
I don't like walking around this old and empty house
So hold my hand, I'll walk with you, my dear
The stairs creak as you sleep, it's keeping me awake

 It's the house telling you to close your eyes

And some days I can't even dress myself
It's killing me to see you this way

'Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey! Hey! Hey!

There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back
Well tell her that I miss our little talks
Soon it will be over and buried with our past
We used to play outside when we were young
And full of life and full of love.

Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right
Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear

'Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!
Hey!

You're gone, gone, gone away
I watched you disappear
All that's left is the ghost of you.
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,
There's nothing we can do
Just let me go we'll meet again soon
Now wait, wait, wait for me
Please hang around
I'll see you when I fall asleep

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same
Hey!
Though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Possible Tracks

Pro's:

• Animation, therefore we can interpret the video based on our own ideas and not be influenced by the original video itself as it's too complex. 
• The lyrics are easy to learn and they are quite repetitive. 
• The genre meets the mixed indie/folk genre that we have been researching. 
• The music has different speeds therefore we can alternate the shots more frequently.

Con's:

• We won't have any influence from the video so we will need to recreate the whole look and this could take a while. 
• We need a male and female singers we could be hard for us to find.  
• The video is already very complex making it hard for us to compete with the video already

Pro's:

• Realistic camera shots
• will fit our target audience as it's a happy tone
• the lyrics are relatable to a lot of people

Con's:

• It will be difficult for us to make the video look as though we haven't copied because of the already standing basic camera shots
• The genre it's particularly clear in this video

Inspirational Music Videos

The Lumineers / Hey Ho video starts off very dark in the beginning of the film as the atmosphere of the music is quite slow paced and then as it kicks in and the other members join in the colour appears in the visuals. The forms and conventions I seem to see from the video is there is a lot of slow motion shots in the video to replicate the type of tone they want to create in that it's soft and they want the audience to feel this when they watch the video, as there is a lot of people on the screen they don't want it to appear crowded and busy in which we would expect from an alternative rock video as there tone of songs are pretty upbeat and want it to appear "violent" in a way. I could incorporate the slow motion type of effect in my video as the song I have picked starts off slowly and builds-up as it goes on. I like the start of this video with the low-key lighting and it leaves the end of the video to contrast how it began. The way in which the artists act in the video e.g walking slowly and smiling create the conventions of this genre too as the music usually has a happy feeling to it and that's how they want to audience to feel.



Again at the beginning of this video it starts off as dull and low-key lighting which I think is a good way to start my video off as it gives it something to build-up from. The video presents a very happy atmosphere because the artist is smiling and happy and this is the conventions in which this genre follows the majority of the time as the songs are very upbeat. I like the effect in which the background is out of focus with the front object in focus with the sunlight behind the object in the opening shots, I think it helps to create a good image within that shot and I would like to try and recreate it. I like the fact that there is a range between long duration shots and fast paced editing because it emphasises the beat and also makes the video more interesting to the eye building-up the narrative story.

Chosen Genre

For our chosen genre we have picked Indie Folk Music, the forms and conventions of this genre are that their music is upbeat and therefore the shots correlate to this sometimes it changes throughout the song so by us using a song like this we can show the examiner that we are capable of doing the editing in time with the song and changing the visuals to match the atmosphere. The mood board below shows the types of costume and make-up I will need to use to match the genre and also if any what instruments feature within the song. I will make another post above to show the inspirational videos I have chosen in which I think will help with my video production and match the genre I have now chosen to do.

In my mood board I used images of bands from the folk and indie folk genre as they're both different in how they present their identity, for example a band like Mumford and Sons some people associate them with the "farmer" look yet a band like Bombay Bicycle Club are more indie folk and take their clothing from the indie genre but their music and the interments they use correlate with the folk genre in some areas. I also got images of album covers to see if there was a distinct similarity in how they set out their albums. This means for my video that I will need a simple image on the front, I'm thinking of using one like a location setting as I like the Of Monsters and Men album design. For my costume ideas I'm thinking a more indie costume as my song is relatively new and more of the indie beat and therefore won't require the costume to be "farmer-like" as though Mumford and Sons dress and more Jake Bugg/Amy Macdonald outfits. There will still be elements of folk within my video production as then it will just become an indie video and this isn't what I want it to be as I've took my inspiration from the indie folk genre.

Primary Audience Research

I have found 6 videos in that I think could be good to use as my final chosen track, these are all in the same genre and I will do another blog post after about which one I have chosen.

Audience Research

This is my character I made to represent my audience member, I thought as it's indie folk they need to have a indie clothing costume, little make-up and "messy" hair. They will like going to festivals, gigs and social networking as that's how they keep up with new indie bands that have come about. The career of my member will probably be a student as the type of album cover etc will cartoon-like or unique and I think that the indie folk genre like focusing on the album art as well as the music as they feel it's just as important. The locations of this genre and that audience like to visit are beaches, parks, gig atmospheres and places that are considered quiet as they like to read. The props considered will be instruments based around the indie folk genre such as guitars, drums and tamborines.

Researching Genre

I found this data on a website in which people have voted for their favourite genre type, mine would come under alternative, however I could see that Alternative has sub-genres such as alternative rock etc therefore this would be a wider range than Dance therefore I would expect it to be the most popular. I would expect Indie Pop to be higher than what it is as people have grown to be more popular than other genres. 22,000 people have voted all over the world and it should give us a good indiction of who likes what music.