Making a band

One of the big problems I am facing is getting a band together, I am using my friends none of which are actually in a band (but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.) There are various commitments that my friends already have with sports and work, not to add my already busy weekly schedule of sport and work of my own, so trying to rally everyone together on one day is proving a real challenge.

Happy about my feedback.

Overall I am very happy with my feedback, after all it was only feedback from my first draft, so really i was looking for criticism just as much as praise. With this I can now begin to start making changes.

Digipak feedback

digipak feedback set, a set on Flickr.

Here is the feedback I recieved from my class regarding my first draft of my digipak and poster.

Feedback from friends on digipak and poster

Today I gave some friends a copy of my digipak and poster to have a quick look at. They aren't media students but listen to music and will have seen a band poster and a digipak before. The feedback was positive, this was reassuring as its only my first draft and they liked it, hopefully I wont have to change too much.

Getting digipak feed back.

Today I have given everyone in my class a copy of my digipak and poster and also sent them an email containing them so that they can all give me feedback on what they liked, didn't like and what worked well and didn't work so well.

draft digipak and poster teacher feedback

I have now recieved some feedback about my digipak and poster, using WWW (What worked well) and EBI (Even better if) comments I will be able to make necccessary changes  to both digipak and poster. Below I have copied and pasted what was in the email i recieved with my first feedback:

Digipak

 WWW

Colour good, nice use of images on the front and back (not entirely convinced by brown beer bottles).

 EBI

What is image of on Young Natives page? It doesn’t matter if unclear but justify on blog if this is the effect you want.

 Images of band need to be own in final version

 Low level 3 7/10

  Poster

 WWW

Colour and layout good. Font looks good where it is messed up.

EBI

Make reviews smaller font – Q and NME

Consider positioning to ensure key info hits an intersect

Font at bottom of page too large, needs to be much smaller

Level 3 7/10

The Strokes Last Nite original video.

 Whilst I have been going a bit over the top on watching other A2 Level performance videos, I thought I would post this one, This is the performance video of the actual song that I am doing by the band who performed it originally, The Strokes. I find this video a bit boring, I understand the idea of star image and would be contradicting myself massively if i said it was a bad idea, if not criticizing the whole music video industry, but i just feel the camera is to static and fixed on Julian Casablancas (the lead singer). In my video, I will focus on the front man more, but will use much more movement and show a lot of the instruments as well.

Other A2 videos.

This is another performance video made last year, I was looking at this whilst waiting for my feedback on my digipak and poster. It is different to the previous performance video I looked at. This one, obviously, is outside which does add a slightly edgy advantage to it, but essentially is what I will be truing to make indoors.

Draft Digipak and Poster initial thoughts.

After handing in my first draft digipak and poster yesterday, today I have had a quick look at things I could change, there are certainly tweaks I could make. one thing that I think doesn't look quite right is the track listings on the back cover of the digipak, this is definitely something that I will change, but for now I am going to wait until I get some feedback.

Digipak and poster template draft

This is my poster to advertise the release of my bands album ans also the CD digipak, I have not had much feedback about my poster, but I have had some on my CD digipak and with this in mind there are some changes that I may look into. The font has proved to be slightly out of touch with the genre characteristics and fits in better with rock or western music, the bottles are also in need of attention. I personally like the idea and think they fit in well with the look of the band I am trying to portray. I have not Yet taken pictures of my band and plan to do so when I film my music video, but whilst this is only my first draft I have used pictures of indie rock band Kasabian until I have my pictures.

Other A2 videos

Today I have taken a break from my digipak and poster and have been looking at other videos, I came across this video (below) which was made by A2 students last year. The interesting thing about this video is however, they are in the same room at the same studio i plan to use, so it has given me a real insight into how I would like my video to look. I do not know what grade they got but as a performance video I like it and it uses all the conventions of a performance video a long with capturing all the necessary shots to make it. Effectively all I need to do when I film is do the same, if not better, as what these lads did.

Track Listing

The reason I have chosen the names of my songs are because they all represent a similar aspect of the rock and roll lifestyle. Half of them are already existing songs and EP's by other bands but even these were chosen carefully because of their names and relation to the idea of drinking, partying, touring, performing etc.

Track Listings

On my digpak has the tracks that are on my album, my tracks are:
Shoot Up
Forgotten Memories
Last Nite
Smashed Glass
Ex Drugs And Rock And Roll
The Time
Ashtray Full Of Dreams
Fire
Cigarettes and alcohol
The Masterplan
Cut Off
Saturday

The tracks that are on my album are a mix between songs that I have made up and songs that i have used that already exist, six are created and six are pre existing (including the song for my video) the songs I have used that are pre existing are all from the same genre of music that I am using. I have put 12 tracks on my album because after looking at some albums of a similar genre, Streets in the sky (the enemy) employment (kaiser chiefs) and west rider pauper lunatic asylum (kasabian) they have around 12 tracks on their albums, kasabian and kaiser chiefs have 12 exactly and the enemy have 13 but also an acoustic track. I have copied the amount of tracks to follow the genre conventions as much as possible.

Album cover practices

These are a few ideas I have been working on for my album cover of my digipak. I have tried to encorporate my idea of the 'sex drugs and rock and roll' lifestyle with the stylemodels I have looked at already to try and create something that fits all of the backets.

Album cover ideas

On my album, there is not lots I can put on it to keep with my simplistic idea, but I am trying to encorporate the idea of showing the band as a band that goes out and parties, living the 'sex, drugs and rock and roll' lifestyle. to do this on the front I am going to try and to put a small image on based around drugs, or drinking that does not make the band come off as drug addicts or alcoholics but as a band who parties hard in amongst touring and recording.

Ideas for fonts on my album

Font Ideas

Album name

I have decided on the name of my album, after looking at a few other artists and seeing that they have called there album the same name as one of the songs in i am going to do the same. Kasabian recently released 'Velociraptor' the song which was in the album 'Velociraptor' and Arctic Monkeys released the album Suck it and see with the song 'suck it and see' making it into the album. As the song I am doing is called 'Last Nite' my album will be called 'Last Nite'

Cover Font

The chosen font of writing on the cover of an album is important. I want mine to be a simple font that is also quite sophisticated and will be effective if it stands alone on a simplistic cover which i am trying to create.

Conventions of poster

Looking at band posters I have picked up a few things, the key conventions I will follow are where I must show the ratings from music magazines, In my genre of music I will use NME or a similar magazine. Most posters also have a picture of the band, but I plan to challenge this convention by not putting on an image and keeping the simple colour scheme from my digipak.

Conventions for digipak

I have been looking at a variety of digipaks and album covers and picked up little bits from all of the, one of the convetions of have come across in my genre, and across a lot in general which I like is the simplicity of the cover and colour scheme. I plan to use a simple colour scheme, similar to suck it and see, I like the off white colour used.

analyses of album covers

Album Cover Analyses

Digipak research

From only looking at a few digipaks and album covers I have already decided that i want the cover to be incredibly simplistic, not to much detail and not to much colour, possibly even a monochrome album, however inside the digipak I want to have pictures of my band together and a few details about the band including further pictures, inteviews and small biography's of the band members.

Beggining of my digipak

I have now started looking into several digipaks from different bands and am gathering ideas and opinions on what I like and what I dont like about album covers and digipaks as a whole.

Location

I have chosen my location for my video, as I am doing simply a performance video I am going to be filming in a studio. I have got a studio that a friend of mine uses to practice in with his own band. this will add to simplicity of my video

Letter requesting permission to use my song choice

Dear Copyright Holder,

I am an A-Level student and I am writing to request your permission to use one of your songs for my A2 media music video. The song I would like the use is 'Last nite' by the strokes.

With your permission, the song will be utilised in my current A-Level Media Studies project, which involves creating a music video to a popular music track, as well as producing an album cover and a magazine advert for the artist, which i have created and profiled myself as a band consisting of four people with the band called 'Young Natives'

If I received your permission, this track would be used in an educational context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. 

The artist and your company would of course be fully recognised throughout pre-production and the final video itself.  A copyright notice with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project.  If this is required, please send full details.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Regards

George Hill, 

Lutterworth College media student.