Critical Reflection.

We have created an indie-rock music campaign, that included social media, music video, and album artwork. The main social issues that were raised throughout our campaign were status and gender. The music video was used as the main tool to identify who is the main in the band and who is the lead singer.
We did so through the use of space by placing a lead slightly in front of the rest band members and by making lighting brighter just on him. Throughout the music video, the lead singer takes most of the frame time, by doing that we are highlighting the fact of his high status in a band.

In social media, the lead is also appearing to be the most important as he is in most of the most either by himself or with the band but takes more space. This way the representation of the lead singer is adhering with what audience members have used to -- the lead singer has the highest status in the band.
To highlight that the lead singer is the most important we have put
the picture where you can see only him on the back cover of the album.

Moving on to the other social group -- gender we made it clear that it is an all-boy band. We made it clear through the use of costumes, to show that boys from the band are rebellious. This way were are adhering stereotype that boys are always wearing jeans and don't care about anything. We have also used dark colors throughout the campaign in order to show the fact that they are dark and mysterious, not just rebellious guys. As well as adhering stereotype of boys being boys, we have also shown the other side of rebellious boys, we have shown them with flowers, that way we subverted the stereotype of boys usually not being romantic and serious. As well as the main social issues we have raised the age issue, such as the fact that we have tried to make a clear representation of the age between 18 to 20 years old, as that is how stereotypical man looks like in such age. We tried to show that through the use of mise-en-scene, such as clothing style, hairstyle -- more inaccurate than most boys/men have.

Before creating our final products my group and I have done a lot of research into the genre our future brand was going to be and about what the target audience of the band is going to be. The main target audience for the band and for the music video will be an 18 to the 21-year old audience. The people who are old enough to think about what they are listening to and also about the fact what is the main aim of the song(s) of the artist/band. The most prominent psychographic thing that we have done is that we spoke to our audience through the use of different fonds on the front of the digipack

 

such a type of fond was used to show rebelliousness and to keep the star image. In order to create a feel of the brand and the connection between all the 3 products we have made a logo, that was on both social media accounts and the digipack. The logo was both dangerous and romantic. In order to connect digipack, social media with the music video we have used the concept of 'street boys'. We have also included logos on all of the social media posts, merch

 digipak, this shows that all the products are part of a big campaign. On all four sides of the digipack, there is a connection to either music video or just streets. We did not include the image of any band members on the front cover in order to show that the band is not selling 'them' their main target is to sell the music that they are making. As well as applying research to our products we have also used Richard's Dyer theory of creating a Star image. we have applied the theory that the star (brand) must have its unique selling point, which in our case was the fact that it is a four guy band that is selling its music, not its faces, as most boy bands do.  





A theory of Blumler of Uses and Gratifications states that people engage with certain media texts because of different forms of escapism for the audience. The forms that we have used to engage with the audience were a diversion and personal identity. As both of these were represented in our campaign. 

Talking about diversion, our music video can be seen through the fact that band members are boys that are having fun, nothing more, and that they only have this on their mind, no school, no work. In our social media, however, we have shown that the boys can not only be 'the boys' they can also be romantic, which can also be escapism from the mundane, as it is unusual nowadays to see a guy being romantic but in the same time all over the place. 

On our digipack we have tried to use less accurate font to show that the band is not obeying the rules, and that they have its own rules. Which in a way also engages audience to escape from the reality by being like the band members -- rebellious. 

Moving on to personal relationship it is fair to say that the most of the engagement with the audience was done by us via social media. 

In order to appear more personal and 'like a friend' to a member of audience we have used informal language to write posts, in order to show that the band is as friendly as they look on pictures. There are also many 'live' pictures were used in our social media. To show that the band is posting pictures by themselves. In Digipack we have mostly used the landscapes of the cities to engage with those members of audience that live in urban areas. I believe that we were successful in engaging our products with the audience.

The genre of the band that we have created is indie-rock. In order to understand what are conventions of this genre we have made a research on different bands with this genre, that are now famous. We have researched into first music videos of: The Strokes; Arctic Monkeys; Cage the Elephant and Two Door Cinema Club. We have followed the same color scheme of music video primarily from The Strokes, as their video was dark, but we have also combined it with Arctic Monkeys' first music video were they all were in basement, playing the song.  Digipack we have kept as minimalistic as possible in order to sell music, not the band. As it is a first music video and everything else of our band we have decided not to subvert any of conventions.  In our whole campaign we have used both, symbolic and technical conventions. Such as, for technical we have used stroking lights

for some hectic parts of the song, in order to show the 'craziness' of the moment in the song. This convention has reflected the fact that the genre is rock, alongside being indie.  Talking about symbolic conventions we have filmed the music video partly on the street, to show that these guys do not care about where to film, they cared about how the song will sound. What we have learned from the research, is that most of the indie-rock bands are selling the music, not themselves, as was mentioned earlier.  The theme of being 'urban' was carried throughout the whole campaign, especially in social media. in order to highlight the urban theme, we have decided to edit the footage from the streets at a fast speed, so it would look urban and rebellious -- reflecting the genre and style of the band. 

As it is a newly created band we have followed Andrew Goodwin's theory of the fact that almost all genres follow the same conventions. Such as we have created a narrative to our music video, in order to make this video more interesting. We have also filmed many close-ups of a lead singer to show the importance of that character. 

My final music campaign.

In order to be able to 'sell' our band, we have created the whole music artist campaign. In this post, I am sharing the final version of the campaign that has been developed by my production group and myself for four months. 

To be able to sell better the first album/single of a newly created band, we have made a music video, that was then edited by Florence from my group.

To be able to sell not only band members and band but also to be able to sell the first album/single I have created a digipak that would reflect the genre of the band, atmosphere/mood of the music video, and just simply look aesthetic enough.

One of the most important parts of creating a campaign is to create a social media accounts that would show the star image of the artist/band and that would keep followers and audience up to date on what is going on with an artist/band. 

My group and I have agreed to create Instagram and Twitter accounts, as they are able to show a star image of the band of our genre (indie-rock).

Here is our Instagram page that Fred from my group has created: 

 https://instagram.com/thesleevesofficial?utm_medium=copy_link

Here is our Twitter page that Neave from my group has created:

https://mobile.twitter.com/SleevesOfficial

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.