Group feedback on a campaign part 2.

 Starting with the feedback I was told that the fond of the song list at the back cover has to be smaller alongside the bull(logo). I also still had to add signatures of the band members on the back cover, as it was our production group's initial idea. I was also told be make the CD part of the inside right part of the cover bigger. One of the hardest things that I have to do now is to make everything smaller, is it could perfectly fit into the template that I have been sent, and to make the spine of the album cover. 

Moving on to social media both of them was getting to a final point, although in both of them was some space for improvement. 

For example in an Instagram account, and the picture of the city has to be deleted in my opinion as it does not fit into the concept and the color scheme of the account and the band as a whole. 

Moving on to a Twitter account of the band it was clear that it has been improved from the last time and it looked now better. 

The only thing that we had to think about was the repost of one of the bands that was also created by one of our groups from our media class.

The music video was almost there, it looked fantastic and I did not have anything to add there or to even say. 

Final version of Album cover.

 Here is the full version of the album cover with all revisions made:

Making of album artwork part eight.

 Today I have finalized my decisions with both, my teacher and my production group, I have also created the spine of the album.

Here is the version of the album up to date:

Making of album part seven.

 Today Fred and I have come together to create the signatures on the back cover of the album cover.

Making of album part six.

 Today I was trying to put the digipak to the template that we were sent by our teacher.

 

Making of album artwork part five.

 

Today I have polished the inside left cover and a back cover.

Making of album artwork part four.

 Today I have changed the front cover. I have deleted the logo from it as the group told me to do on Friday, I have also changed the fond, top one that would better reflect the genre and the vibe of both song, and the music video.

Group feedback on a draft campaign part 1.

 Today all of the members of my group gave me feedback on the album artwork that I have done over the past week. It was done so that I will be able to understand what I have to focus on in order to finish the album artwork for the next week.  

First I showed the draft version of the digipack that I have created. 

I was told that the genre was shown as clear as possible, the Star image of the band being 'a street boys' was shown clearly and the usage of urban images has shown the connection between the album artwork, music video, and social media. My group liked the use of the urban pictures, but I was told to put the logo on the back cover rather than on the front cover. I was also told to change the back cover image to something darker, and maybe even something that we took on the shoot day. I will also need to cooperate with one of the group members so that I would be able to put the signatures of the band members on the back cover of the album. Lastly, I have to make the name of the songs more readable.

Continuing with the social media, my group is doing social media accounts for the band on Twitter and Instagram, as the indie-rock genre suits these two social media the most.

Talking about the Instagram page of the band, it is overall good, it has some connections with the music video and the album artwork. 

I liked the fact that Fred was writing the posts as if the band members are actually writing them. I have also liked the style of the images. They are simplistic and at the same time, they are fairly artistic and show the star image that we want to raise.

The only thing that I would change is to not add the posts where the band gets invited to a show. Because it would not happen in the real-life, as the band is new and this album is their first, debut album, so no one would know about them by the time album would just come out.

Moving on to the Twitter account of our band, I believe that it needs more pictures of the whole band rather than just one or two members of the band.

And the picture of the Arctic Monkeys can either stay there and our band has to have a similar picture or the picture with a similar vibe.

Talking about the editing part of the campaign I have mentioned the fact that in one of the parts of the video the singer is not getting the lipsync parts correct.

That was the only part that I said should be changed. Overall the editing was looking good. 

Making of album artwork part three.

 Today I have created the full first, draft version of the album artwork. 

Overall, I have created a full draft version of a full album. 

Front cover:

Inside left:

Inside right:

Back cover:

Making of album artwork part two.

 Today I was thinking about the logo of the band.

 I have started with just making shapes of instruments on the dark background then I have realized that the best idea would be to look at other indie-rock band logos. 

After the research, I came up with the idea of making a bull with flowers, as he will show aggressiveness and at the same time romantic vibes. 

Here is the final at this point version of the logo:

Making of album artwork part one.

 Today people from my group that are in charge of social media and I have come up with the album name and the band name. We have decided that the name of the band is going to be "The Sleeves" and the name of the album will be connected to the song "I know you know" and it will be called "We All Know". 

I have also drawn out the sketch of the album artwork, in order to be able to understand more clearly the concept and whether it will work, and how I will be able to create it.

Here are my ideas for the front and the back cover:

Inside left and inside right:

Behind the scenes.

 

Shoot day reflection.

 Before the shoot day, I met with my group in the studio, where we met with the set designer who told us what we have to do and set up before the shoot day. Due to having a simplistic set my group and I just had to put a black cloth on the wooden panels, so that on the shoot day we would be able to create a tunnel by using these panels. 

Overall my group and I covered about six wooden panels with a black cloth. We have also set up all of the instruments and set for the performance part of the music video, as that was filmed first. On the morning of the shoot day, I surprisingly was not stressed or worried about anything that is about to happen. It was mainly because I knew that our concept is not that complicated as other groups had and I was also sure in my production group that everything will go as smoothly as possible.  Before starting the actual shoot we had to be sure that all of the cast members were already in the costumes, we had to set up all the electronic things, such as cameras, an iPad that would make the playback play, monitor which displayed what was in the frame.

After doing that we had to figure out what lighting we want for what part of the song, while we were filming the performance part of the song.  I believe that we have managed to create the concept that we were talking about, that we were imagining.  I believe that even though we have not managed to do one of our sets on the shoot day and that we had to shoot it on the week following our shoot day we still managed to create a good teamwork atmosphere, and hopefully a good music promo. 

 Talking about different roles on set differed slightly from what we planned and divided before the shoot day. Initially, everyone was meant to be doing one specific role. But it turned out that we were pretty much doing little bits of different roles on set. The only thing that did stay as planned is the fact that throughout all the shoot days we had the same person who was a camera operator. I was and an art director and at times camera director and also in a way runner, who was doing a bit of that and a bit of that. I was one of a few people on set who were almost all the time busy either helping cast or helping to build/deconstruct something.  I was also constantly taking pictures, for both, my blog posts and also for behind scenes videos. 

I believe that personally, I have done well with trying to help everyone who was involved in the creation of our music video and also staying as energetic and positive as I could throughout the filming, even in the stressful moments of the shoot. One of the biggest examples of the stressful moment was when we could not start the filming until 10:30 am due to some issues related to lighting. Because we wanted di8fferent types of lighting on different phases of song and it was constantly having wrong timings of when the right light should come. This problem occurred due to the fact that we were programming these lights, and the programming did not end up successful enough, so we end up doing everything manually. So, in the end, Fred from my group was doing lighting for the rest of the shoot day. 

I believe that the most successful part of the shoot was when we all went to Guilford. All the cast members and the crew were very professional, and even though it was already pretty late in the evening and everyone was tired all the cast did what we wanted them to do and all of the crew members were also as energetic, as they were on the set at school. 

I believe that when we were filming the corridor part of the music video, we could have created a smoother corridor, and also maybe less wide, as it was on the shoot day. Due to the fact that the tunnel was not as narrow, as we wanted we could have an actual film that scenes without the building up the set, so it means that we could have spent more time on other things, such as filming the 'basement' part, which we had to film on Monday.

Talking about actors, I believe that they did an amazing job of staying as positive as they could, being as 'professional' as they could, meaning that there was not any part of the shoot where they would give up or something like that. I also liked the fact that they listened to and respected all of the members of the crew, not just one/two exact people but all of us. Some of the cast members were even, at some points helping me. 

The part of the shoot that I have enjoyed the most on the shoot day is setting up the set and equipment and also setting up the lights and how they will look at different parts of the song and 'beat'.

Talking about what I would like to see edited the most, it is probably the footage that we shot in Guilford. It will be interesting to see it due to many reasons, but mainly due to the fact that we took a lot of pictures rather than filmed footage, so it will be interesting to see how it will sink with the video and whether our idea will look how I imagined or no.

As a group, I believe we worked quite well, although at some parts I wish that we could work a little bit more as a group, rather than just as we are working on our own the whole time. In the future shoots, I would definitely like to bring any drinks in bottles so that I would be able to have drinks when I am needed to rather than only when I have the opportunity to do so; I would also improve the way I was incorporating with the cast because I believe I could have done it better than I did. 

Concept campaign group feedback.

 We have looked at each of the members of the group's album artwork. As well as giving some feedback to other members of group work I have also received feedback on my album artwork 

Album artwork feedback:

My album artwork appeared to be a little bit too dark for the genre and the music video. Although it at the same time had a good color scheme. It was also agreed on the fact that there has to be some more artwork done to it. The album artwork also appeared way too minimalistic and plain.  I have also got the spacing not quite right. My legal information and barcode had to be placed the other way around.  It also links to a music video. 

For the future creation of the album artwork, as a person who is in charge of the final album artwork, I have decided that I will take Fred's idea and include signatures of the band members on the back of the album. I would also take from Fred's idea of putting the sing list on the building, making it work together, rather than just simply inserting the name of the songs on the backside of the album.    

As well as looking at my digipack idea we had a look at other group members' digipack. I liked the idea that Fred has used pictures of cities and landscapes on his digipak.

Social media track feedback:

Killers (Twitter) -- pre-order links, band members birthdays,

 and Tame Iampla

Digipak idea for campaign

 I have designed my version of the digipak and how it should look like. I have done it in order to be able to show it to my group so that they would be able to say what is good about it and what is a band. And maybe we, as a group will decide on how our digipak should look like because I will not be the only one who is creating an idea for a digipak for our band's first, debut album.

Here are my ideas for:

Front cover:

Back cover:

Inside left:

Inside right:

Digipak research of my genre.

 Our band's artwork style is likely to include some images of the band or at least images of the lead singer, in order to establish who is in the band and who is the main one, or maybe in the band everyone is pretty much equal. That is one of the most important things to show on our genre's digipack (indie rock).  It is also important to show band members' faces on the first album because the audience might not know how they look like, and it is also one of the main selling points of the band and of the artwork (digipak). Looking at some popular indie rock bands' artwork it is clear that they are putting pictures of at least one of the members of the band. For example "Foo Fighters"

had pictures of all of the band members blended together, which shows that the band is pretty much equal, or in "Killers" album artwork there are all band members that you can clearly see. It is also noticeable that the Killers have the same fond throughout all of their album artwork, which essentially will make their listeners associate this fond with their band. 

Looking at most of the indie-rock bands' album artwork it is clear that the indie-rock bands follow the same pattern of creating the album artwork. Almost all of the bands include pictures of at least one band member, all of them also include the name of the band, album, and song list. 

The things that I would include in our band's album artwork are some of the continuities that will be in the video, some elements of social media, and the album artwork. That way it will be clear for the audience that this album is new or old, and that this album belongs to the exact band. I would also include if possible some pictures from the shoot day and maybe extra footage (e.g photoshoots of the band, 'live' pictures).

Conclusion of social media research.

 Concluding the research that I have done on two indie-rock bands -- 'The Strokes' and 'Pixies' I have reaslised and found out that both of the accounts have  and include announcements of their upcoming tours/concerts throughout the posts, they also include the same writing style. Both of the bands are using word of mouth, making the audience be excited about something by saying that there is a concert or a tour coming up but they do not say the dates until after a few weeks after making the news of the tour or concert.

Pixies' Instagram was more audience engaging in my opinion due to the fact that they have not only announcements of upcoming events/dates that are to do with the band but they are also interacting with the audience by showing some band members in their real life. For example, they have this thing where every Monday there is a 'Magic Monday' where one of the band members is showing some interesting magic tricks. Which as well as shows a band member in a real-life but also interacts with the audience and fans. 

after doing the research I have understood that the social media accounts need to include not only bands' real life or behind the scene, but there also has to be some announcments of upcoming albums, concerts and merches. I would also take the interaction with the audience through the videos that are filmed and fully done by the band members, like in 'Pixies' Instagram page. 

Research into social media.

I have done research on Arctic Monkey's Instagram page and Twitter page of The Stroke, these are both indie-rock bands (the same genre as our band). I have done this research in order to be able to see the way in which the band is talking and connecting to its audience for the last two months. 

For the last 2 months, The Strokes were promoting their upcoming tour in 2022 summer on Twitter.

 

For the last two months Pixes were showing their life and promoting upcoming concert in 2022, and also they are celebrating how long ago their song came out on their Instagram page.

Social media within a campaign.

Nowadays social media is one of the best ways to promote anything, especially music campaigns for bands/artists. The most popular social media platforms for promotion such content on tik tok; Instagram; Facebook; Twitter; YouTube. All of the social media above apart from YouTube are the active ones, so most of the musicians can show their life and what is going on after or before the music videos and their life as a whole.  Because the band that we are making a campaign for is doing music in the Indie-rock genre they are most likely to use Instagram and Twitter accounts. It is like that because this genre is more serious than, pop genre for example, so these types of artists cannot show themselves dancing under the young babies' song. Because it will damage their star image, and they potentially might lose some of the followers and listeners.  

Social media is now one of the most common ways of marketing it is mainly due to the fact that it has a series of advantages, such as it is cheap and most importantly international; it is interactive; it also creates a personal connection with the artist for listeners/followers, and it creates prosumerism. Marketing also very nicely targets audiences directly it also constructs a tunnel/follower star image for the band/artist. Due to the facts above we have decided to create a social media for the band, as a part of the campaign. 

In order to link the band's work in social media, we will incorporate all of the life, behind the scenes, making of music videos, and all the other things.  Looking at most of the indie-rock bands' social media it is clear that most artists are trying to incorporate with their lives and the behind-the-scenes, also merchandising, if the band(artist) is big enough. 

Planning our shoot day outside of school

 Due to the fact that the part of our music video will be filmed in Guilford in numerous locations, we had to plan out what we will visit first and what last. What our root is going to be. It is important to do it before the shoot in order to not waste time on it during the test shoot.  All of the decisions were made by the whole group, however, the main part of it was done by Fred and Neave in my group. 

Step by step outline.

 In order to be able to know more detailed plan of the shoot day we had to create the step by step outline which will help us on the shoot day when everyone is most likely to be stressed and might forget something that we wanted to do on the shot day. We have all contributed to it, but the main part was done by Fred from my group. 

Henry Jenkins: theory of spreadability.

 The theory is all about the circulation of the media on the internet. As Henry Jenkins said about this theory in his book "if it does not spread it is dead", meaning that if the media product does not circulate in a way it will die out very soon. One of the main things that the media product has to have in order to be able to spread is the fact that the media product has to be online. This creates a number of advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage of this is the following things: it is fast targeted; cheaper; can be spread both internationally and nationally and most importantly it is interactive with anyone.

Henry Jenkin, alongside his colleagues, also wrote a book about the theory of spreadability and spreadability itself. 

Although the theory of spreadability is all about spreading media globally, it does not mean that this will make media viral. So the media texts will not become viral only simply because your media texts spread fast enough. 

Talking about examples, one of the examples can be Russian singer Svetlana Loboda. She, as pretty much all of the singers nowadays has a YouTube channel, Instagram

 and Facebook

 through which she is communicating to the audience and spreading her media product, eg her songs. 

However recently there was a huge viral thing that happened with Loboda. She gave birth to Till Lindemann's(Solist of the metal band Rammstein) child. She named her child Tilda, which clearly showed to every Loboda's and Till's fans that it is his baby. 

This subject matter had spread fast enough, that both Till and Svetlana had an increase of followers, and also they had numerous articles spread worldwide

but of course mainly in Russia and Germany. 

However, this example can also be the backup example of the famous quote of Henry Jenkin "if it doesn't spread, it's dead". Because this news happened in 2018 and by 2019 no one had heard of it, due to the fact that the media was not as powerful to be spread as good, as Loboda's or Till Lindemann's creation of songs and the star image.

The spreadability theory will help with our music campaign in many ways, but mainly in marketing, especially marketing social media.