Digipak Analysis

 

As my genre is pop ballads, I need to look at digipak features of a pop artist, to see if the artwork of the artists also reflects the mood of their music and whether it holds key features of cd covers. I have looked at the digipak work of Take That's - Beautiful World. Through looking at the front cover, a very common factor as with all other digipak's shows the artist on the front cover, also the band's name and the title of the album. In my opinion, I think the posture of the band seen in a walking like motion can arguably reflect the sound of the band. The music is uptempo but mellow in the same sense, arguing it is like the pace of walking. However the band break the convention of a regular pop band cover, in that it hasn't been taken in a studio and isnt of the band huddled together and posing. The text for the album title "Beautiful World" has been created in a different font from the band name, arguing the band are trying to portray the sense of "beautifulness" and the whole content of the album it's based on. 

Through looking at the back of the digipak, we can see a running colour pattern, the use of sandy, yellow colours again common for pop covers, an album will have an occuring theme that will be seen on all sides of the digipak. The left hand side picture is of skies and a sign post, again possibly relating back to the theme of a Beautiful World. The titles of the album tracks are features another common convention of digipaks, the audience needs indication of what the album contains obviously, if not the band may lose sales from lack of interested. Underneath the texts reads "contains videos such as Patience, Shine and Rule The World" some of Take That's biggest hits. It is solely there for audience purpose, for people who may of only particularly heard these hits and the cover is helping draw their attention. The band's record label symbol and details of writers and producers is also mentioned, as it must do by law and again is a must have convention of digipaks. 

The inside of the digipak, again has the occuring theme of sandy colours, with the cd's themselves running along with the theme. This digipak however contains two cd's, more commonly we would see a single cd in the middle of the digipak, however this digipak also had video content on a second cd. Again a picture of the band is contained for more public interest possibly and more imagery for fans to look at. Overall we can see digipak's just like CD singles and album, contains a running theme either connecting to album name or a general theme selected by managment or the band themeselves for that album in particular. I will need to keep this in mind for my digipak and make sure I portray a clear meaning that my artist is of pop genre.

Initial Ideas

After undergoing research into what common conventions music videos have, i have now decided to solely focus on making a pop ballad video. The main convention I noticed was the use of a narrative running through the video, most regularly of a break-up, a rendevous or some twist or turn in a relationship. Not only is the narrative there for pure entertainment purposes, but it also helps the audience gain knowledge and true meaning to behind the lyrics and possible why the song was wrote in the first place. It is also a initial reaction from the audience also that they expect ballad videos to contain all sorts of content associated to love, hate and reconciliation. The narrative commonly always contains a state of equiliberium, a time of happiness for the couple or who the singer is singing about, before a disequiliberium occurs and disrupts the relationship. Ballad videos can vary in whether the narrative will end with a positive or negative ending, again relating back to lyrical content.

The song I focused on for my coursework is Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust, orginally a dance records in the late 1990's. However through looking at youtube I discovered a slow acoustic version, which suites well for my genre I have researched. Although the song does not contain many lyrics and may seem like a difficulty for me to make a storyline to, I have found it relatively easy to create a plot through the basic lyrics "I feel like music sounds better with you, love might bring us both together" . 

From this I have created a narrative, very typically expected in ballad videos. My idea is to start with long shots, possibly of landscapes, close up shots, the use slow motion of the singer walking. To create the feel of the song and create the sense of lonliness that has brought the singer to this point. I will then use flashbacks of the disequilberium, which I initially will use as an affair to how the pair departed. Throughout the video whilst cutting back to shots of the singer, just like ballad videos will keep a running narrative to how the stroy resolves itself and how I plan at the end of the video, relating back to the lyrics will bring the couple back together. I think it will portray the genre correctly and in the right sense and will furfill the purpose of creating knowledge for the audience to understand the narrative fully.

Conventions Of Music Videos

Genre is represented in the video for If Your Not the One - Daniel Beddingfield by the use of many close up shots throughout the video, it portrays the artists emotion and is a common factor of many ballad videos.

 Slow motion is also heavely used throughout, this is used to make the video look in sync with the tempo of the song which is a main convention of romantic videos. Most shots throughout the video also purely focus on Daniel behind a black screen or some thunder and lightning, this is again to convey his emotion and relate to the sad lyrics. Daniel's gestures such as arm grabbing and thist clenching are also a convention of ballad videos in which Daniel Beddingfield does frequently throughout.

Audience - In JLS - Love You More video despite being a ballad video and containing many conventions of the genre, I would argue the video focuses more solely on audience. JLS are a highly popular band with many female fans, through using many close up shots of the band conveying their romantic side, it gives the audience watching a chance to possibly imagine themselves with the band.

On a more general scale, the audience through ballads need to understand and relate to the singers emotion of talking about personal issues. Through long shots of JLS on the beach using common gestures such as thist clenching, eyes shut and singing directly at the camera, the audience gain knowledge that they are passionate about what they are singing.

Unlike most common love songs, this video does not contain a partner as such that relates to the lyrics this again could relate back to the fact JLS are a highly popular band and showing female companions in the video could make their fan base jealous.



Narrative - The narrative commonly in romantic videos focuses on the basis of the lyrics. The mis-en-scene frequently relates to a running story that contains flashbacks of postitive times and negative to relate back to the content of the lyrics being described, the narrative frequently uses shots of the artist alone to relate to their emotion at the present time also.

 In Neyo's So Sick video he sings about his disgust of still missing a girl, through using close up shots and mid shots of the couple smiling and having fun it relates back to the lyrics of being "sick". Also to convey the RnB genre Ne-Yo looks sophisticated wearing classy clothes and jewlellery.