Digipack Cover - Audience Research Results

From my survey monkey I gathered results about our first digipack cover we designed from 8 people. The ages included: one 15-18, five 18-24, one 25-34 and one 55-64, this gave me a good range of ages including our target audience. There was also 7 girls and 1 boy, this was good because our target audience is girls, however it would have been better to get more boys so there was a range of gender as well as age.

Question 3

All of the people who answered the questionnaire said that they liked the fact the font for the artist name and the album name were different, as a result we will keep these current fonts.

Question 4

Half of the answers said yes, the cover does look like a pop album. However half said they were unsure or no. We may change the overall look to this cover slightly to make it look more poppy. Perhaps by using different colours.

Question 5

5 people said it was important for the artist to be photographed on he from of a pop album and 4 people said no. We will keep her photographed as it is the majority and we have found from our other research of digipacks that most pop albums have the artist on the front.

Question 6

Only 3 out of the 8 people said that the digipack would grab their attention in a shop. To change this we may change the text to stand out a bit more, or perhaps changing the colouring of the image so it is a bold album cover.

Question 7

6 people thought that the colours of the text and the image went together. We will keep the colour of the text the same due to this feedback, however we may need to brighten it up.

Question 8

These we're results I got when I asked what we could do to improve the digipack cover.

From this feedback we will be changing the text so that it stands out more, possibly making it bold or a different colour, perhaps changing the layout of it as well. We will also change the image colouring so that the font stands out a bit more.

1st Digipack Cover

This is our 1st draft of  a digipack cover, we have chosen the colour and fonts for the texts and believe that they are effective, however I believe that the colours may need to stand out a bit more, possibly be brighter. They are easy to read and stand out. The image we have used is from one of the scenes used in the music video so it may be familiar to the audience. 

I have created a online survey using SurveyMonkey in order to get some feedback on this album cover. After finding out age and gender questions include:

• Do you like the fact the artist and album name are different fonts?
• Does this album cover look like a pop album?
• Do you think it is important to have the artist photographed in on the front of a pop album?
• Would this album grab your attention in a shop?
• Do the colours for the image and text go together?
• What changes would you make to improve this album cover?

The answers to these could either be Yes or No, or in some cases Unsure, this would give me quick feedback letting me know I need to change something. The last question, however, is an open question. People will be able to tell me what to improve on specifically to help get the perfect digipack cover.

Beyonce-Album Advert

This advert is a bit different to the others I have looked at. It still has the front digipack cover on there, but very small and it doesn't grab your attention straight away. This advert uses two of the inlay images, both of which the artist is in very similar poses. one with, and one without makeup. This is showing the transition between the two different looks of one person, bringing out the famous alter-ego.

The colours throughout the advert are constant, with a sepia filter. Although Beyonce isn't fully in the pop genre, it is unusual for pop adverts to have one tone. They are normally more colourful to grab the audiences attention. However this could draw the viewer in as it is different to others and does actually stand out.

The font throughout the large type is the same, with the Sasha Fierce logo which is very well known. Again, drawing in the audience. On the side we see a smaller group of very simple, plain text, this is mentioning the famous songs on the album, also drawing in the audience and advertises the album successfully.

Jessie J-Album Advert

This is Jessie J's advert for her album 'Who you Are'. Is has the same image and logo as the album itself, which is a typical convention for pop adverts. Especially as their album covers get very well known. 

It has an extension on the bottom, however, different to Lana Del Rey it is not an extension of the image. It is plain black, tying in with the colour theme on the artists hair, nails, make up and clothing. This works well as the block colour stands out and the text is therefore enhanced and the audience is drawn into it to read. 

The text is a simple font, easy to read and is using the same colours as the text in the album cover, this creates a sense of consistency and continuity, and advertises her album and songs well.
Once again, the 'legal jargon' is placed at the bottom of the advert, with the logos of the record label.

Lana Del Rey-Album Advert

Although Lana Del Rey is not our exact chosen genre I decided to look at the advert for her album as it is the same as her album cover, but just extended. This is effective because the target audience are most likely to know what the album cover looks like, especially with this one as it is so simple.
There is the same font used for the artist name and the album name, this is going against our conventions for pop digi packs. However the font for the information about the release date and the songs is different and stands out for this reason.

At the bottom of the advert we see the logos of where the album is sold, the artist website and the music label.

The colour of the font and background have swapped for each part of the types-white on blue and blue on white. I like this idea, it makes each stand out separately without changing fonts.

Decisions-Fonts

Following our audience research we decided to go for the  first font for the artist name as most of the girls who were in our target audience liked it and though it would be the best choice. As the 15 year old's said to use pink we have used this font and test out different colours, including baby and hot pinks, as also seen in a previous post.

And for the album title we have decided to also use the first font as we believe it was the most appropriate as it looked classy an good for a pop digipack cover - according to our research. We have not yet decided on colours for this text but I think it needs to be different to the colour of the artist text. As the boy in our audience research said it would look good with a constant font because it would look neater, we have decided that it is a possibility to use the same font for the album title and the song titles on the back cover, so there is a consistent theme throughout the digipack but with the artist name standing out.

Fonts-Audience Feedback

I showed this image to and audience including two 18 year old girls, one 17 year old boy, three 15 year old girls and a woman in her 40's.

The 18 year old girls said that it was a good idea to have the different fonts for the artist name and the album name. They liked the 1st and the 3rd font for Rosie Pink as they were 'edgy' and 'classy', respectively. For the album name they liked the fact that it was 'movie/hollywood themed' as it fits with the song. They like the 2nd font as it was different to others they have seen on album covers. The girls disliked the last font for Out All Night as it looked 'like highschool sport' writing and 'unprofessional'

The boy thought the 2nd font was best for the artist name as it was 'girly and perfect for a pop album' he said it was also easy to read which is important for a digipack cover. He also said that having a handwritten font was a good idea, and it was as if she ha signed it herself. This boy said that it would be better to have the same font for both of the artist and album name as it would look neater, however if he had to choose one he would choose the first one as it is 'easy to read' and reminds him of the 'entertainment industry'.

The three girls all agreed that the 1st font was best for the artist name as it 'looks like a signature', is 'unique' and it is 'perfect for a pop CD'. They gave me some ideas on colours as well. They all said that the artist name should be pink as it is a 'girly and poppy colour', but two of them said to use a baby pink and one said to use a hot, bright pink. Two of the girls really like the first font of Out All Night as it looked 'classy' and 'like a proper album title'. The third girl liked the second font as it looked more like the theme and genre we were going for. None of the girls liked the third font as it reminded them of high school musical and looked 'childish'. But they all thought that is was good to have different fonts for the two texts as I differentiates the two products - the artist and her ego and the album.

Finally the woman said that she liked the 3rd font for Rosie Pink as it was 'feminine and classy' and 'still in keeping with the pop genre'. For the album title the font she liked the most was the first as it was 'easy to read', 'stands out' and 'looks like a professional title'.

Filming Prep-Male Gaze

To challenge the convention of the male gaze, as our target audience is predominantly younger females, we plan to film the woman in the view of other women.

Laura Mulvey came up with the idea of the 'Male Gaze' in 1975. It's the idea about how the audience views the characters from the male heterosexual perspective. And this convention will be challenged by us in our pop music video. We will do this by focusing on her voice rather that her image and body features.

Camera Angles and Shots

I looked as Psycho's famous shower scene for the camera work as it is filmed in a very unique way.

This scene is filmed with one continuous shot, but to get the continuity perfect there is approximately 6 cameras used. As we will be having many different camera angles in such a short time it may be hard to get the continuity correct, we may need to use more than one camera to film the different angles of the music video.

After the superimpose form the plughole to the eye, we see the camera move in an unexpected way. As the camera tracks out we expect it to come upwards to the left side of the bathroom but it actually tracks out towards the door way and into the bedroom. We may use a technique like this when the man in a suit is in the shot, this will vary the number and type of shots we use in the music video. We took a test shot on our actor with the suit on to see how it looked and whether it will work.

Taylor Swift-Love Story

I am choosing to look at this music video as it has a range of narrative story lines-3; the college, the ball and in the castle. These are three very distinct narratives with the performance being in the castle where we see her in her fantasy, singing about the fantasy. This works well with the lyrics of the song as it is a very fantastical song. She dreams about being with a 'Romeo' who is just a made up character. It could be said that this convention is broken at the end with the suggestion that they are together in the end in real life, in the college narrative story.

Our production will be very similar with the form of the video. We plan to have a 'real life' performance/narrative with her singing about him (in the diner location) and wanting to be with the 'future husband', a narrative story where she's trying to be with him and also another 'dream' narrative were she actually is with him and they are together.

Carly Rae Jepson-Call Me Maybe

I decided to look at this music video as it has very similar themes that we want to create in our music video. It's about a girl crushing on a guy and imagines herself with him. She has a dream in the middle of the song of them two together, we want to portray that story as well. 

Firths music theory can be applied to this as there is performance an narrative to this video. We see the artist singing the song to the audience (and the male character) but we also see a narrative where she is imagining herself with him, and also a story throughout, living everyday life ending up with the male character handing his number to part of the band. The narrative and performance also overlap a lot in the video as we see her singing as we see the story progressing.

We want to apply this to our video, a mixture of performance and narrative, with overlaps, as this is very typical of a pop music video.

The Killers-Mr. Brightside

This video is good to look at for camera use and lyrics & narrative, as it is an indie video but with elements of rock and pop genre. There are a lot of close ups and tracking in to the lead singers face, whilst lip syncing the lyrics that are being described in the narrative. The narrative is lead by the lyrics of the song and is literal to what is happening in the video. 

There is a lot of performance with the characters, this makes the video seem very more general. When the audience in the video integrates with the band, the video becomes more real and suggests he is actually singing to people and not being ignored.

There is a lot of cross cutting from the narrative (dancers) to performance (band) this emphasises the fact the whole scene is in one room and they are all together in the video.

Music Copyright News

This morning on the news it was mentions that changes have been made to the copyright licensing laws about music videos.

This is important to bare in mind in case we break any licensing laws whilst creating our music video.

News Update

Whilst looking at the entertainment & arts news site I came across some news about our artist. It was the first article on the page. Meghan Trainer has become the first artist that had entered the charts purely through the number of streams to her song. The rule on this changed three months ago on how the chart is updated included streams as well as downloads. Meghan Trainor's first single is not even out yet, it was only released this morning and was in the charts at number 33 yesterday.

Since choosing our song and artist Meghan Trainor has become much more famous and well known, with her song 'All about that bass'. We now know that her style of music and persona is loved and is very popular with the mass audience, so we can be confident now when creating our music video.

Initial Primary Target Audience Research

I created a Survey Monkey survey to get some initial research on music video genre and focusing into pop genre. I posted the link to my survey on Facebook so I could get a range of age and genders to answer it due to the fact I have friends aged 13 to 66 on Facebook. This was very effective as I got 20 answers straight away, which was a big enough sample for the initial research.

First of all I asked age and gender as I would be able to get a rough idea of who are answering the questions and our potential target audience. 

I have a varied age range, this would be could as the taste in music changes a lot with age and would be interesting to see what they though about pop videos and music videos in general.

This question, asking about the genre choices is again to get a rough idea of who this research group is and whether the answers to the other questions would be viable.

This is quite lucky that the majority of my research sample like listening to pop and R&B music as these are the genres we considered an pop is our chosen genre for our music video.

I gave my audience many feature of a typical pop video to choose and see how important they are to the music video. This would give me an indication as to what the audience like to see in music videos on a whole and what we could include in ours.

It seems that the artists performance and singing is a very important factor and also a connection with between the artist and audience. We will be sure to get a good performance from the artist, I believe this is vital for a pop music video.

In my research I also found that the camera and editing is also important to the audience so we need to ensure we take extra care when filming and editing our music video.

I worded question 5 as 'out of choice' to be more accurate with my results as most people probably listen to pop music every day, either on the radio or TV. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the audience enjoys or chooses to listen to pop music.

This audience do often listen to pop music and enjoy it so will make this research more accurate and give us a realistic idea about pop videos. However some of the audience never listen to pop music so some answers could be going in the completely wrong direction.

I asked this question in my survey so I could get a better idea of what our music videos going to look like and start planning colour schemes etc.

The majority answer to this is multi colours so our music video will be quite bright and colourful with the audience research in mind.

I the asked about the favourite excising videos to see what stood out. However, there weren't a lot of responses to this. This could be because that there are so many to choose from or that pop videos aren't the type you would search and look up, but perhaps just watch on the TV or if shared on Facebook.

In order to understand why we are making this music video and the aim of it I asked what the audience feel the purpose of a music video is. 

It seems that there are many main purposes but mainly for entertainment so we will aim to make our music video entertaining to the viewers as well as promoting the artist and connecting the audience with them.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

This is Goodwin's theory of music genre, we learnt it in todays lesson.

• The visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
• Genres often have their own music style/iconography.
• Close-ups should always be included.
• The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image.
• Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos.
• Intertextual references are also popular.
• Goodwin also argues that female performers are often objectified for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.

Genre Types

As we have been learning about Genre, I have learnt that there are three types of genre categories.

Cross-genre

A cross-genre is where there are two or more genres crossing and overlapping with each other to create a new sound or genre. An example of a cross-genre is Pop Rock.

Hybrid Genre

This is where there is one genre and can clearly only be identified as one genre and has clear conventions. 

Sub-Genre

A Sub-genre is where there is a different type of one particular genre. These are very popular and most genres have sub-genres. An example would be stadium rock.

Conventions of Pop Music Videos

Pop music videos are created mainly to advertise the song and the artist tot the audience. The videos are usually quite lively, with bright colours, props, dancing etc. Many aspects on the videos can be analysed, such as:

Camera

There is usually a lot of different scenes, including many close up's of the artists face, often showing the emotion of the song and connecting the audience with the artist. 

There are often long shots or establishing shots, usually including dance choreography or telling a story.

Mise En Scene

There are often many colours in pop videos, these colours are also enhanced to make it look happier and brighter. 

Pop videos also tend to have a lot of dancers in the video along with the artist being centre of attention, the people in the video are often dressed in similar clothes with a similar colour pattern to make them all look the same.

Genre Conventions

In class we discussed how many different genres of music there is. This is a list of the different genres I wrote down:
Pop
R&B
Rock
Indie
Soul
Hip Hop
Dubstep
Drum and Bass
Rap
Punk
Electronic
House
Jazz
Pop Rock
Metal
Classical
Dance
Boy Band
Pop Princess
Reggae

Within all of these genres there are many sub-genres, for example for rock there's; pop rock, punk rock, stadium rock, psychedelic rock and many more.

These are the conventions of the music videos of my three favourite music genres. I have used a few brief words just to get a basic idea of the conventions.

Pop-Dance choreography, many enhanced colours, girls, fast cutting rate, close-ups, artist centre of attention.
R&B-Storyline, dancing, blue or golden colour filter, emphasis on clothes, street, house or party scene, close-ups.
Indie-Guitar, instruments, acoustic, not always showing the artist

First Song Choices

These are some first song ideas we have before we have done any in-depth research. We have decided to go for Pop/R&B genre as we both enjoy listening to it and we know the conventions of the music videos for both of these genres.

Without you-Mattias Andreasson

Future Husband-Meghan Trainor

Close Your Eyes-Meghan Trainor