ANCILLARY PLANNING: COSTUME, PROPS, ACTORS & LOCATION (PLANNING)

Like video planning, It is vital we have a clear idea as to what we're trying to achieve before shooting the image for our ancillaries.

Costume:
The clothing worn by the person in our Digi pack will be relatable to Flume's target audience. We also don't want to over complicate the colour scheme in our images because it will make it harder to add effects when we come to putting the images on Photoshop. Therefore, it's most likely the T-shirt he wears will be a clear white colour.

A T-shirt is the only item of clothing that will be shown because the images on album cover and magazine advert are relatively short. If we want to shift the focus on the persons face then a smaller framing will be used, such as a close up.













Props:

Props will be quite minimal when it comes to shooting our ancillary. The only form of props that we will use is accessories to add to the actors clothing. For example, shades, watches etc. Obviously attention to detail will be massively important when it comes to the ancillary, but we don't want to over complicate the final piece.







 

Actors:
We have managed to obtain the same actor we used in our music video for our ancillary task, creating a clear link between the two. Here is a picture of the actor we're using.

Location:
Ideally we would like a definitive background because it will make it easier when it comes to crafting the ancillary in photoshop. We shot the majority of our video At our group member Danny's house, because the white walls in his living space created a good effect on shots. Another location we could use is the drama studio.



Alternative Plan:

In our research, We've discovered a lot of artists haven't used their faces, or anyone's faces for that matter, in their album covers. This suggests they're trying to promote the content in the album rather than the person. We might take the same route when it comes to our Digi Pack and just use the actors on the inside pages. An example is Gorgon City's 'sirens'  EP.

ANCILLARY PLANNING: TEXT CHOICE (PLANNING)

 It is evident here from the various promotional activities shown on the right that Flume endorses consistency in the way that his name is written. In posters advertising his tour dates, his album cover and also his CD cover he uses the same font and also has the dots both before and after his name. Flume is a stage name and not the artists real name, so therefore the consistency in the way "Flume" is advertised is key to gaining publicity and attention for the persona that is Flume. In his first album cover he chose not to feature himself on it at all, instead having the name the main object in the picture, thus promoting Flume and gaining a reputation for the artists stage name.

The main colours he uses in his promotional pieces are black, pink and white, with the text always being one of these colours.


So we plan to use the same text as Flume does in all of his promotional activities, with the dots either side of his name. We will make his name be seen in either white, black or pink - sticking with his theme. It will also look good if we were to contrast the colour of the text with the images or background.

ANCILLARY PLANNING: MOOD BOARD (RESEARCH)

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•  All the images show share common interests with the demographic of Flume's target audience, for example programs like Geordie shore, festivals and different artists within the same genre. 

        
          

RESEARCH INTO DIGIPAKS (RESEARCH)

Shown above are three debut albums, from artists Ed Sheeran, George Ezra and Ella Henderson. Although they are all of the pop genre, they all feature the artists in the middle of the album cover. This is a very common convention of artists releasing their debut albums, as they want their faces and themselves to be promoted and remembered, therefore they use their album cover as a tool to do so. This is something we have considered doing ourselves as the song we have chosen to use in our music video is featured on Flume's debut album, titled 'Flume'. However the use of the artist on the album cover of a dance/ electronic album is unconventional so it would have to be done in an unusual way to purposely challenge the convention or to make it fit the genre somehow. 

The three DIGIPAKS above show the front cover of Dance albums. These are examples of albums that have used a form of the artists as the main image in the front cover. Silhouette form, pop art form and the chalk type edit are ways of uniquely using art to manipulate the pictures of the artists without steering away from the conventions of dance albums too much. This is something that we will try to emulate in our digipak, as we aim to promote the artist in a way that still meets the conventions of the genre, thus appropriately targeting the chosen audience. 

POST BY: Danny O'Brien

DIGIPACK ANALYSIS - DISCLOSURE SETTLE (RESEARCH)

The digipak i have chosen to analyse for this task is Disclosure’s debut album ‘Settle’. The reason for choosing this album cover over any others ones out there is because it fits our music genre and we feel we could potentially use features of the album cover as inspiration for our album cover.

Starting off with the text used on the front of the cover they've used very perpetual colour’s which makes it very simplistic and stands out well. It covers the top of the cover so that it allows the image on it to fit all the way in without anything blocking it. These colour’s that they use also appear in some of the songs videos for the lyrics in those videos. By doing this they are following a constant theme with all their songs and album covers etc.

In terms of the image they have used its very clear what their aim is from their first album and that is to brand themselves and show what they’re all about. The image is of  two very similar looking boys which portrays Disclosure’s members (two brothers). With the detail on the boy’s faces it is showing what Disclosure unique image is as its shown in several videos and also use it as a backdrop in gigs and festivals they play at. This is to ensure they have something to be remembered about and can be easily recognised if that image of the drawn faces was to be seen.

This is the back cover of the album. It is very simple and plain having little meaning. This is because its their debut album so they wouldn't want to make it too complicated so they can get their songs across before the album design. The colour’s used here follow the current theme of the rest of the album cover. They have the barcode, producers and distributors on the back for obvious reasons and the track list to show what the CD contains and in what order. They used white on a brown background so it stands out and is very clear. The one thing Disclosure have done to not make it completely boring is having a CD ring imprinted onto into to try and make the album slightly more vintage which fits the genre.

The CD itself isn't too dissimilar to the back of the album cover in terms of colour’s and any thing going on in it. They’ve used the same colour’s for the groups name and album name as the front cover, both of these colour’s stand out and make it clear to what you are listening to. The orange colour of the CD follows a theme and links to the rest of the group in what they do.

Why this digipak has inspired ourselves
This digipak analysis is simliar to ours and we will use it as inspiration because it fits the genre of the music video.

This digipak has given ourselves a lot of inspiration in a number of different ways. One of these is the simplicity of the front cover this has proved that album covers don't need to be so complex by having so much going on. Having little experience of photoshop within our group we were anxious going into the ancillary task of making our digipak thinking it needs a lot of work, but due to the success of disclosures album you have to agree that the use of little work/photoshop isn't actually as important as you might believe, especially with this type of genre. So once researching this digipak we could make our own digipak without much hassle and keeping it simple and it still being very effective. 

Another idea from this digipak which we will use as inspiration is the colour choices the types of colours we will be aiming to use, bright and eye-catching because of the upbeat track and video so if we did use darker colours it wouldn't match what the video and song is all about.

DIGIPACK ANALYSIS - KANYE WEST (RESEARCH)

Digi-Pack analysis on Kanye West’s ‘College Dropout’ and ‘Graduation’.

Digi-pack’s, also known as album covers are massively important in promoting musicians material. In recent times they’ve slightly lost their influence due to the growing popularity of online streaming sites; However the releasing of an album cover and layout brings excitement to the artists fans and reveals a lot about their direction. 

Kanye West is an important figure within in the industry, most notably for the diversity of each of his albums, which is why I’ve decided to pick two of his Covers to analyse.

‘College Dropout’, 2004, Roc-A-Fella Records.

College dropout was the debut album of the Chicago born artist. The album name is dedicated to himself, a young man who dropped out of college to focus on something that he wanted to do.

 It was seen as a very bold marketing strategy from himself to not include his own face, or album name on the front cover of his album. Considering this is his debut album and other than production credits, he wasn’t a household name in the industry yet. However the risk duly paid off, the bear shown on the cover to the left came to be known as the ‘College dropout bear’ and featured in the next 2 albums released by West.  The name paved the way for a trilogy relating to school, i.e. ‘Late Registration’ and ‘Graduation.’ West, dressed as the bear/mascot is posing a very glum stance, which is ironic considering the look of the costume. On the outside we see a glum brown colour with a sort of golden frame putting more focus on the bear in the middle. The colour Gold is associated with wealth and power, two things associated with the rap/Hip Hop genre, however the glum posture in the middle, not displaying West’s face is breaking the usual conventions of album covers in this genre, where artists are seen showing their wealth in some way or another. This tells a lot about the artist and creates the connotation that he’s not doing this for money. This is also displayed through the musical content in the album, based on racial inequality in America. 

To the left we see the back page of the album cover. You can tell by the style of writing and the font that he is a creative person, and has put some thought into the Digi-Pack rather than just detailing the tracks on the back. Although he recruited Eric Duvauchelle, who at the time was design director at Nike, Kanye is known as an artist who has a very hands on approach to his projects. Again the colours aren’t the most appealing, but the wooden sort of colour gives it a natural fill. The brown circle in the middle is supposed to represent a tree, connoting that the records placed in them are natural and long lasting. This sort of imagery is counter typical to what we usually see from artists, especially in the early 2000’s where Hip Hop had moved slightly away from a reliance on meaningful lyrics.

 Inside the album, we actually do see an image of Kanye, holding the bear’s head mask. This is again notifying the audience that he really is a college dropout, yet he’s achieving his dreams. This is actually quite a negative representation of West, as his fans still in school may be wrongly influenced. The angels to the side of him relates to his religious values, as he see’s God as the reason he survived his near fatal car crash in 2003, which actually increased the level of publicity he received and inspired him to move from just being a producer and actually release his own material. Obviously his religious values give him a more positive image. The San-serif font gives the artwork a more classical look, which is counter-typical of the Hip Hop genre.

One thing that our group have taken from this digi-pack is the importance of creating an attractive way of presenting the track list, rather than just listing tracks. Despite our song and album being in a different genre, there is still a lot of ideas we can fit into our Digi-pack due to the counter typical nature of it. For example we also want to represent the artist we’ve chosen as creative.

Graduation, 2006, Roc Nation.

Graduation is the Third studio album of Kanye West, completing the trilogy of his albums, named College Dropout and Late Registration. You will see a huge binary opposite between his first release which has already been talked about, and this one. It was designed with famous Japanese anime designer Takashi Murakami.

 Straight away we see a stark contrast to the College dropout layout. We see the bear, featured in all three of the trilogy’s albums, however this time we see it’s been animated, suggesting West has adapted to the changing times not only in graphics but music too. The drum work in this album has been done electronically due the enhanced technology, however his two previous had more natural sounding beats. The colour pallet on show is very appealing to the eye due to its brightness. West, not for the first time, decides not to place the album name, nor his own name on the front cover, which is a unique trait that sets apart all 7 of his albums from others. In recent years, major artists such as Drake have decided to copy that style. 

Surprisingly, Kanye west decides not to even place a track list on the back of this album, creating an enigma. In this image we just see the front cover image reversed. You can see graduation hats dotted around, which creates the link between the image and the album title. The image is trying to connote Kanye breaking off from the pack and graduating into the Hip Hop genres hall of fame. The colour’s give it a positive feel, which also reflects the musical content of this album. The yellow and pink colours being displayed are counter typical of the Hip Hop genre in the way that they’re quite feminine, which again gives West a unique image, something he likes.

Inside the album, you see fold out panels containing these images. This is something we’ll consider when making our Digi-packs, as we also want to images that are easy to look at and interests the artist’s fans. On the image to the right, we see what looks like a sort of university, again keeping the artwork relevant to the message behind the album. The animations are again connoting the audience how much the world has evolved. The switch to this cartoon theme also suggests that Kanye has developed a new style as an artist, which is a positive representation of the artists is it shows he isn’t someone bound within the conventions of his genre.

EDITING: USING MARKERS (CONSTRUCTION)

I have used an editing technique that I have recently learned in the editing process of making our music video. Using the m key I went through the song and placed a red marker every time there was a beat in the song that I wanted to change the visuals on. By placing markers I now constantly have exact points in which I need to have a shot transition in the video, which will make editing the song in time with the visuals a great deal easier.