Ideas on Front Cover

If I have the artist on the front cover then she will be looking at the camera. I want to stay away from this idea of voyerism and subjecting the artist.
I will use the original artist's stage name. I want to keep her appearing "normal" but Josephine Vander Gucht does not fit the image we have created for her, and it sounds too foriegn to use as we have a British themed preffered reading. 'Jose' is a common nickname for Josephine, girly and bubbely.
I like the doodle and so might include that.
I want to incorporate the dreamy, childish niavety from the music video into the digi pack. As it is an English theme I could have the artist having a picnic.
I need to include instruments (guitar/piano) somewhere in the digi pack to show that she is a performance artist and loves to play. I could maybe look back at the idea of having a picnic on the piano.

research for digi pack

In research for my digi pack I have been looking at the two atrists that inspired our artist's image; Kate Nash and Lily Allen.

In Kate Nash's CD cover 'Made Of Bricks' she has the same physical image as was shown in our research - one bold colour allthe way down with a belt to define her body, hair down but styled. The dress is, again, not too revealing (from what we can see) but is still only knee length with heels to emphasise her legs.

The CD cover links to the title of the CD by including a house (Brick). The house is yellow to portray the artists' quirkness and bright personality with oversized dasies to complement this preffered reading. The horse shaped hedges, big bright coloured house and over sized dasies gives the CD cover a dream like feel which links in with our own theme and the font makes it look as if a child wrote it. This makes it appear innocent and niave - just like our own Artist image.

This CD cover for Kate Nash's 'My Best Friend Is You' again empahsises the childlike dream like image that Kate presents and that we have incorporated. The beige background of the CD cover makes it appear simple and the colage like picture makes it look as if she has made it herself and it could be made by anyone. The picture on the cover links with the title as it includes multiple hearts which is a representations for her lover for this friend. It also links as female friends often make colages together of all their photos together and this is a colage of possibly things iconic to their friendship.

Lily Allen's 'It's Not Me. It's You' CD cover is also a simple cover. It portrays her girly personality with the use of pink and her confidence in her body posture and facial expression (strong, chin up and smiling). The picture on kthe front cover did not appear to have a link to the title of the CD at first, but I realised that Lily Allen appears very happy and content. This could possibly have a reading that she is happy thinking that if someone has a problem with her or she breaks up with someone it is because of their problems - not hers. The cover catches my eye because Lily Allen is not the type of person to wear posh dresses, she is making a statment (but this is not something I want to incorporate into my digi pack as it is meant to be introducing the artist so her image needs to be made clear)

Lily Allen's 'Alright, Still' presents her to be from London but I very "common" kind of person. Her gold, big jewllery makes her appear more of a CHAV than a singer and the extra jewlery gives off the impresion that it is actually "bling". I like the doodle effect used on the cover as it potray a quirky, "normal" image which is what I want for my artist. It is very English as well, using an English cab, English police hat and the Lion wearing a crown. The speakers and records on the cover emphasises her love for music. However, it empahsises her ability to be a recording artist so I want to challenge this by using my front digi pack to protray my artist as a performance artist.



Audience Feedback

We were asking audience for their feedback on the video consistantly through out the editting process of our music video. We did this via facebook, youtube and face-to-face questionaires.
We got audience feedback through out the editing process to be sure that we were meeting the majority needs of the audience, changing a couple of the things that they had problems with.
for example:

• Where there are cross shots between the atrtist playing the piano and clapping. We had originally used quick takes switching between the same two angles but some audince said that this felt like it went on too long, it became reptative. So we changed it by adding in a mid shot from the other side of the artist (but still keeping to the 180 rule). This also had the advantage of establishing where our artst was (empty performing hall) and the instrument she was playing (a black grand piano).
• There was a scene we had near the beginning, just before the lyrics, which was of the train driving along the track but the audience said it was a bit boring. We realised from this that it was the wrong image for our artist, it made her too serious too soon, we needed something more upbeat and child-like. We changed it to the young boy waiting at the station and jumping for joy.
• Throughout the video there was different lighting (this was not on purpose, we were relying on natural lighting which of course changed through the day) and some audience said it looked wierd so I changed the saturation level on the duller scenes to make them as bright as the brighter scenes. This also helped us to further protray the artist's personality.
• However, there were some audience feedback we deliberatly did not take into account. Some thought the heart was too cheasy. This is because the majority liked it and the video was meant to be cheasy and cliche.

The fact that we have changed our music video due to audience feedback supports D. Gauntlett's theory that the audience have become a "making-and-doing culture", blurring the line between audience and producers and who has more power over the overall production - audience of producer.
Changing the music video suggests that in our production the audience have more power - this is because we want our product to appeal to their needs, otherwise it would not sell. However, I did not change the heart when given some bad feedback as it was a part of my artist's star image. On the other hand, I also did not change it because the majority gave possetive feedback on the paper heart.