Brand Development

I have created a post on Glogster to explain how we developed a brand using our products.
Brand Development

Account of meetings

During the course of the project, our group have made it clear we need to meet consistently to produce the video and ancillaries. We organised this by using a spread sheet that all of us had access to during the task to decide when to meet up and the tasks we would set out to at the meeting. The spread sheet mentioned is shown below.

Amy Winehouse Case Study

In order to learn about the life of a star in the music industry, we conducted a case study on the singer Amy Winehouse. We produced a slideshow on the singer.

Amy winehouse case study from Wellsy0130

Creation of the CD Booklet and cover.

Our group has begun to design our booklet and cover for the CD. Max has done a lot, but all of our group has contributed to the creation of the CD cover and booklet.

We used Photoshop for the most part to get the detail of the CD cover correct, such as the squares and colours correctly shaped and match the photo that we originally took.

We began using various effects which Photoshop offers such as gradient changing, brightness altering, photo filtering, changing the colour curves of the image and many more. We did this to make sure that all the images had an effect on them to give them the slight sunset tint to each image in order to make the image look effective to the audience.

The content in the booklet was relatively similar to the artwork in the use of effects to make the image have a warm effect. In addition, the CD booklet content had to contain small text in order to fill all the vocals from one song on the page. We used a black stroke over the white text to make the white text readable.

We used Adobe Illustrator to size the booklet correctly on a template.

Copyright Request

We decided to email the management for Madeon in a hope that we are granted the rights to use the song in our music video. We are using the song for educational purposes and for non-profit purposes so we hope that they respond giving us the legal rights to use the song in this way.

Textual Analysis 11 - Varien 'The Ancient and Arcane' CD Cover

Consuming Habits of the Dance Music Industry

The consuming habits of the dance music scene are different to that of the mainstream scene. The dance scene is often seen as the most digitalised scene with artists releasing singles of extended plays (EP) through digital marketplaces only. Some artists will release long plays (LP), these albums are normally sold physically on the record labels website as well as through the digital marketplaces.

 

The dance music scene is record label orientated and releases are hyped up before the release of the song in order to gain a wider audience. They often do this by posting previews on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In addition, the song will be previewed on Soundcloud; a website designed for music sharing and is most prominent for the dance music scene.

 

Most people consume dance music through the releases and purchasing on digital marketplaces. Beatport is the most prominent marketplace where record labels such as Spinnin’ Records and Bourne Recordings will release on Beatport exclusively before a release on another digital marketplace like iTunes and Amazon. In addition to this, the consuming habits of some dance music audiences has shifted to music piracy as people now begin to download the music illegally.

 

From this research we gathered, we have discovered that in order to reach a wider audience, it will be useful to sign the song onto a record label. In addition to this, we would release previews and hype the release up on our social media pages, website and on our Soundcloud page. In addition, we should offer a physical copy for purchase on our website.

Goodwin's and Halls theory

Goodwin's theory is about genre conventions and their stereotypical characteristics. It looks at 7 different principles:

• Links between lyrics and visuals
• Genre characteristics
• Intertextual references
• Notions of looking; similar to the Male Gaze theory
• Voyeurism; the enjoyment of watching/ looking at the artist
• Demands of the record label
• Performance, narrative or concept based music videos.

When looking at the house genre of music videos and the music video for our song, Madeon 'Finale', there of differing styles that the music video takes. In 'Finale', there a focus on the artist and a narrative of him performing at a live show. While there of shots of the artist, very few are clear; ruling out the belief that the audience watches the music video to look at the artist. The lyrics and visuals don't often match, but the use of 'go out young' with the audience appearing to be of that age group shows that is it not out of the question.

Other music videos of the genre also tend to use a performance/narrative with some intertexual references for their niche audience. There may be some links with visuals but will often depend on the lyrics and if it possible to make any graphic matches.


Hall's reception theory is how the audience view the music video and it's messages. There are three readings that the audience may have to a music video:

• Dominant - the viewer accepts the points made in the video.
• Negociated - the viewer partly accepts the points but may question elements of the video.
• Oppositional - the viewer totally rejects the points made in the video.

The music video for Madeon's 'Finale' has very few controversial points, and is mainly about how the artist feels during a performance. Therefore, it is most likely people will have the dominant view of the video.


Few music videos of this genre raise controversial points due to already appealing to a niche audience. If so, they would be points the fan-base of the artist would also agree with.

Storyboard for Main Task

Updated pitch

We have updated our one page pitch to make it look more professional. We have also included our company logo to help show this.

Contributor Release Forms

In order to film our music video, we had to sign the release form in order to ensure all the credit for creating the music video. My form, Matt's form and Max's form are all available on Google Drive. The terms of our release forms are:

Texual Analysis 10 - Mashd N Kutcher Website

Textual Analysis: Mashd N Kutcher Website from Max Biddlecombe

Artwork Album Practice - The Prodigy

As a way to learn how to create a successful CD cover, we practiced by recreating a cover for the Prodigy's 'The Day is my Enemy'. The original cover, below, is a simple design of a fox with a bright background.

 

We used Photoshop to blur the image of the new animal and different colours with glossing and background removing to restyle the image. These techniques will be useful with our own ancillary tasks as we plan to use bright colours and adapted images in our own CD cover. We also learned that most digital covers are 1200x1200 to support digital retailers such as Amazon and iTunes.

Location Scouting

Today we began scouting for potential areas to film. In doing so, we found a quarry area surrounded by a forest path. We think this would be a good setting for the depressed character in out narrative, as well as having lots of opportunity for different shot types.

Textual Analysis 9 - Madeon 'Finale' CD Cover

CD Booklet Research

As part of our music package we are creating, we are to create a CD cover and booklet for inside the case. In order to understand the uses and styles of CD booklets, our group looked at a wide variety of inserts for albums.

 

 

Textual Analysis 8 - Madeon 'Finale' Music Video

We decided to analyse the song we are creating a music video for; Madeon's 'Finale'.



We have presented this using the easel below.

Hebdige's Subcultures Theory

Hebdige's theory about cultures was written in 1979 and looked into how cultures, subcultures and counter cultures have evolved over time. He mainly looked at the sub and counter cultures after World War 2, such as Punk and Skinheads, and the common background elements. These include socio-economic, background, ethnicity, regional identity and class. He said that these counter cultures can be seen as a symbolic form of resistance against the mainstream culture and are looked down upon. One example that was seen was the 1990's rave, where many young people or students would gather in a field to play loud music and take drugs. It was frowned upon by mainstream media, and laws were implemented to clamp down on the problem.


This can be related to our audience as our song is likely to appeal to a subculture of fans of electro-house, rather than fans of mainstream pop and hip-hop. However, it may be seen as a counter culture by an older audience as it can be related to the free-willed young who party during the night and cause trouble.

Covergence

Hepworth (2011) wrote an article about the surge of vinyl record playing in recent years, despite it being likely the form of music consumption would die off. He says that people are after a mix of life rather than just the new, fast and portable forms of music like downloads. The public also wants the slow and cherished design of the vinyl record. People are after a mix of large screens on TV and small screens on mobile devices.
According to Hepworth, the 'slow and quick, portable and tangible' duality of the vinyl record is what keeps it as popular as it is. Many may not even play the vinyl's, but like them as an almost collector's item. Many may keep music in the cloud storage for quick access but also want to cherish the vinyl.
This can be applied to our task with the prospect of creating a CD art and the advantages of buying the physical form than just downloading it. It is often seen now that CD's offer more than just the download, such as lyrics of the songs or extra tracks. It is something we have to consider if we aim to sell the CD in physical copy and how to provide a competitor to the downloadable version.

Company Logo

As part of our task to create a music video, we have needed to create a company logo for our production company. We used Photoshop to create the logo.
The logo is simplistic, like many of the company logos we have looked at. It also uses a contrast of bright and dark colours to show that we specialise in house music videos.