Research into Digipaks

Digipaks are a way of packaging a cd they have multiple cardboard sides with images and genre related items to do with the band or artist, including lyrics. They are generally used as special edition casing of albums such as greatest hits where they can be more than one disc.

Analysis of a music video

Lostprophets - Last Train Home.
The narrative of this video is centred around repetition. Except every time it repeats a certain amount of years has passed, starting in the present day but as the window cleaner cleans the window there is a cut in the film and it changes to him in 1974 doing the same job but younger. The editing at this moment is seamless the only reason you notice it to start with is because a sepia filter is used to film the 1974 era part of the video and the window cleaner has changed clothes and became younger.
The ideology we could relate to the narrative would be restricted narrative because the video revolves around the singer and we only see what he see's. As the singer drives around he starts to notice things that later in the video change and become dated to the new time frame, for instance the skateboarders, this brings a sense of it feeling more real. The song being called last summer shows how even though the years go by the things teenagers do don't change and that its just the clothing that changes and skateboards get updated. This structure helps the audience which would mainly be 14 - 17 year old boys relate with the video and as at the time of its release skateboarding was huge with this age group. In this video shop keepers are represented as being kill joys that are always after you even if your not causing trouble, but the youth are portrayed as young and in love, just trying to have a good time doing what they enjoy no matter what period of time they are in 74, 85, 04. They show teenagers don't change for instance when you see the leavers banner there is toilet roll thrown into the air, and a couple outside the school kissing. These connote that at least the basic things of life will always stay the same. At the end we see the window cleaning guy through out all 3 of the time periods, he changes as he throws newspaper into the bin, this I feel is an appropriate ending seen and summarises what the whole music video has been about, that things may change in appearance but will always carry on as they have.

Spike Jonze

Best known for producing, directing and writing films, short films, music videos, and work in the magazine industry. Directed Fat boy slim's weapons of choice and praise you, Beastie boys sabotage.
He was in talks to direct Star wars 2 Attack of the Clones but then George Lucas decided to make it himself.

He has also been a skateboarder, stunt man and had some minor roles in films, he helped launch Weezer into the mainstream for directing their music video for 'Buddy Holly'
He was the Creator, producer, and executive producer, of Jackass, and also produced Jackass the movie which he even acted in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM1fkHQP_Pw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPT7q825gwI

Auteur theory - Spike Jones clearly choose a style of Directing and producing that includes a vast amount of comedy, for instance the music video for WAX California can be seen as very Jackass like.In the sense that it is something you would see on Jackass as it is a man on fire running. This is of course also highly entropic as this man is running to catch the bus and it doesn't seem to bother him that he is on fire. So we can see that although t.v. and music are to different mediums Spike merges them together.
In the video for Weezer- Buddy Holly Spike has superimposed the band into the tv show Happy Days which is impressive from a technical aspect.
Weapon of choice by fat boy slim brings up Christopher Walken dancing in an empty hotel this is highly unexpected as at the start of the video he is sat down looking very serious and concentrated. These two things combined the beginning with him looking so serious and then the dancing bring a certain comedic element and also a sense of entropy as it is unexpected and something that Christopher Walken would never usually do, but you would expect comedy from Spike Jones as it is his auteur style.

Andrew Goodwin

Is a music video theorist his theory is that there are 5 elements to a music video, these include.
Thought beats - this means that you can see the song in your head, it is like a story and the band or the singer is the story teller. Goodwin says that a music video creates these two devices that compliment each other, but that it is two way as they both tell us the story and we have to listen.

Narrative and performance - Goodwin says that music videos should ignore the normal narratives and that performance and narrative go hand in hand, that it is easier for the viewer to have both.

The star image - Is important to making the video believable to the viewer.

Relation of visuals to song - Most commonly used are images that relate in some way to the lyrics of the song or the genre the band or artist belongs to. Another technique is called Disjuncture and is the complete opposite to illustrating the lyrics, the meaning of the song and the music video are complete opposites and the songs meaning is ignored by the video.

Technical aspects of the music video are also important as they keep the film together and running smoothly.

We will now analyse a music video using his theory to analyse the music video my hero by Foo Fighters

Black and White influence for my coursework

I have also been watching black and white or largely black and white music videos and they seem very effective, there is a certain element of mystery to them.

The First being The Police Every breath you take the use of black and white in this song fits it perfectly and intensifies the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs


The second being U2 with or without you is mainly black and white, but when they do use colour it is still very dark and only coloured slightly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmSdTa9kaiQ&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-2-HM

My Chemical Romance I don't love you also is in black and white and is very effective as the story within the film relies on it being black and white. It connotes the contrast of the characters and a simplicity that your either one or the other, in this case that being pure or dirty. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO9Lj0T93Xk

Andy Warhol and Pop art

Andy Warhol is famous is famous for his pop art masterpieces a well known piece is of Marilyn Monroe, I feel that the music video I create could be inspired by his art, just as The Who were inspired by pop art. Whether it is shooting in negative or other entropic ideas I think if I use the right artist the use of pop art could be very effective. Andy Warhols favourite method of print was silkscreen and creates a psychedelic effect a music video could be filmed entirely in this.

Research into adverts

Research into Digipaks

All American Rejects and Post secret link...inspiration

In this video they use images from post secret which are postcards which people have used to decorate and tell secrets these are then published in books. Through out the video we see images of people holding them. I think this is a really good concept, to mix art with music, and possibly something I could do

Link to post secret - http://www.postsecret.com/