DVD Covers*

I have researched a variety of different DVD album covers (from a mixture of the music genres in society) to gain a concept of what conventions I would have to exceed whilst developing my own Muse album DVD front cover for my ancillary task.  Here are a few examples:

It is amazing how diferent each one is, in terms of style, layout and colour, which also conveys the similarities of the covers and their appliances of the typical conventions. 

My particular favourite of these covers is 'The Pretty Reckless' one:

The reasons why I favour this cover are:

• I love the simplistic format that this cover has developed; the main front image is simple, central and effective; the titles/headers are clearly found in the appropriate places and the distributor's information is clearly identified at the bottom on the back cover - in some DVD covers, these conventions are hard to find by the "chaotic" cram of information and distracting background design; covers that convey this are the 'Rihanna, Good Girl Gone Bad Live', 'Britney Spears, Femme Fatale' and the 'Evanescence' DVD album cover.  
• I also love the representation of Taylor Momsen's "rock-chic" image by the use of colour and the "teenage girl" qualities of the design (the heart sketches, the pink font etc)  This targets a younger audience in this rock genre, both female and male: female - by the typical "teenage girl" approach in deisgn, colour and whole concept of the cover, and male - the provocative use of "gaze theory" of Taylor Momsen's pose in her stylised and revealing trade-mark attire (the Doc Martins, the black laungerie with blonde extensions and heavy black eye make-up). 

This is the cover I will base my DVD cover on!

Here are a couple examples of Muse's previous album DVD covers:

The general similarities in the two covers are uses of dark colours; the "sci-fi" theme of the main images and the main appeal to adolescent boys in society by the design approach.  They also signify Muse's "electryfying" and "static" image as a band. 

Ancillary Task: DVD Cover*

The reason ......

Storyboards

On the 17th December, Nick and Tayo went to our band location to start filming.  I unfortunately could not attend - I was three hours away staying with family for Christmas - however I shared my ideas to the filming for that date and also received all the actions carried through.

These are the storyboards for the shots in the abandoned house that the filming shots were based upon:

They are rough sketches, but the shot descriptions on the right of each box describes what will be taking place in each shot.  Comparing this to our final product there will obviously be some alterations however we will follow this main plan.

Ancillary Task: Album Poster*

Style Sheet

Typography is very important, especially in advertising, for the style and design of any written format will be judged by the audience, so it would have to be striking to appeal.
In terms of music, the font style on any artist/band represents its genre; to clarify this, here are two examples:

The 'You Me At Six' logo is in block capitals with slight scratch marks in the letters; this suggests a rock song by the "rocky" texture of the title.  As opposed to this, the 'Britney Spears' logo is thin and straight, however curly - this represents this major pop icon's genre of music, being techno/pop, as well as portraying a female approach in the style.

I have researched the Muse logo, and I think it perfectly represents the indie/rock music genre by the typography (the capital letters in a thick bold font):

  Here are a few more examples of various bands and thier typography in the indie/rock genre:

They are all varied in style, font and design which I find really interesting!

As a group following this research, we have limited our font choices, chosen for our personal ancillary tasks' main headers, to these three:

We find these are the most appropriate in conveying our Muse music genre because they follow the similar "conventions", as the other real rock media motifes do, by:

• being in capitals
• being bold/thick
• following a sans-serif typeface
• and conveying a trendy genre by the font design - attracting the younger target audience

The preferred font style chosen by the target audience - by our media class peers and friends - was the 'PKco Font'.  So this will be the font that will appear in our group's ancillary tasks and research. 

Casting

This lesson, Dynamic Productions talked more on the narrative of our music video as well as considering our "actors".  We chose our cast accordingly, making sure they suited the intended image, (of our urban styled target audience) by their "look" - clothes, make-up, hairstyle etc.
Here is a cast list:

Main Character (the protagonist): Charlie Morgan
"The Girlfriend": Katharine MacDonald
 Rival (the antagonist): Tayo  

The same "choosing" process was taken for the cast of our Muse band members; we picked on the natural style of people and considering the obviosu option, the actors being male!

 

Lead Vocals: Charlie Morgan - protagonist of narrative

Lead Guitarist:  Luke Desborough

Drummer:  Nicholas Berreen

 

Throughout this process, we had to choose people who would jel well together to avoid any embarassement or conflict throughout the development process of filming.  So all in all we picked an effective and nice bunch!

We will start our next step in the development process: location scouting: on 14th November.  We have also settled another date, 21st November, where we shall begin shooting footage for our music video. 

 

Indie/Rock Genre

The indie/rock genre in music was generally not considered popular, as opposed to genres like: pop and hip-hop, but due to fashion changes and style in society, it is classed as the very "in" genre of music amongst teens nowadays. 
As highlighted in our pitch, similar bands in the genre are:

• Kings of Leon
• Arcade Fire
• My Chemical Romance
• Panic at the Disco
• Kaiser Chiefs
• The Kooks

... and many more! 
I find their music is emotionally stimulating, for the youth orientated target audience of (roughly, 15-25 years) because the use of the instruments and the, usually, sinister/dark heartfelt lyrics are what that this adolescent age group can particulary relate to. 

Here are a few music video examples of songs in this indie/rock genre of music:

Kings of Leon - 'Use Somebody'

My Chemical Romance - 'Helena'

Kaiser Chiefs - 'Everyday Day I Love You Less and Less'



The similar "themes" found in these music videos are the dark settings which allows to visually convey the sinister mood to the audience; this is due to the construction of lighting which identifies the contrast of dark and light more effectively.  Also, the uses of narratives conveying a story also could connect to the audience with similar subjects, such as a dying relationship or alcohol/drug abuse.  Each music video includes its own "motife" - which is a technique used to characterise the band individually - for example, in the Kaiser Chiefs music video, they use a blurred split screen of the band members' headhsots murged together creating a visual chaos.   
We will also have to consider using a motife in our own music video.