Digipack Hand drawn Mock-Up

 

Marketing/Branding research

 

Dancing with the Devil, By Demi Lovato
	Social Media	DigiPack	Music Video
Where on this media form can you find a link/video promoting the other media forms?	Across many platforms, instagram, facebook, snapchat. Her facebook page contains a link to different streaming platforms e.g. spotify, youtube etc.	The digipak theme almost clashes with this song as it may not align with the mystical theme. In the music video it shows struggle whereas the album portrays mythical features.	A main platform to view music videos is youtube. In the description below you can see different links to some of her social media platforms. Promoting fans to subscribe or follow.
Are the links interactive in any way? (Do they have a QR code? Are they linked to music apps?)	On her facebook page instead of taking you to one website when clicking on the link it gives you options of multiple platforms where you can stream the song.	The digipak mainly displays star image features where the imagery and her are the main component.	On Youtube in the description below, the links to different streaming/audio platforms are provided as well as the link to her virtual shop for fans to buy merchandise.
What evidence is there of branding across all three products?  If yes, in what ways? (details)	Across her social media she has maintained fluidity with her branding and marketing techniques, upholding the saem themes and pictures associating to the release of dancing with the devil. She has used the same hashtag between all her posts allowing for continuity with her fans as well as the release of her new songs.	Hallucinogenic images have been used across the entire digipak, my problem was that i didn't know whether the digipak was related to the song we were supposed to research.	In the music video there wasn't much iconography that related back to the core theme of this digipak, but still certain elements, such as drifting in and out of consciousness could allude to the fact of her going between ‘realms’.
How is each media form effective in promoting the other products beyond containing a link to them? Interviews? Teasers? Competitions to win one of them?	She had released a tv film series that explained different elements of her music videos and some of the hardships she has been through. Teasers of the album were released with short lyrics used as captions for some of her posts.	The digipak does not contain much apart from the booklet inside the CD case which contains the link details to different websites and where to stream the video.	When the music video finished streaming there are different links that are related to the song such as different interviews she had done between different news feeds to convey her overall feel for the album.
What methods do you think are most effective in promoting and marketing a new album?	Depending on your target audience I feel as though social media is now one of the most effective ways to target the i-gen age range. For those such as millennials, facebook may be the more appropriate way of advertising. These are all free forms of advertising	Because digipaks are not going extinct, having interactive fan activities is a good way to interest people. First impressions can influence a lot and the star image portrayed must appeal to the right audience.	She used teasers of her music video and released them on social media platforms such as instagram and facebook. This created hype around the coming album, grabbing the attention of a larger audience.

Billie Eilish with her single Your Power	Social Media	DigiPack	Music Video
Where on this media form can you find a link/video promoting the other media forms?	Across social media she has changed her outer persona to match the entire album that has been released not just matching the theme of the song but creating continuity between facebook and instagram, the two widely most used forms of social media. On her facebook she has even used the new album cover as her profile picture so it is the first thing people see.	Her digipak was made into more than just a CD. She decided to do a whole branding campaign around her album and taking the 1900s vibe into the way she sells her music. A vinyl was created alongside the CD where you can choose to buy golden, silver or normal vinyl.	The music video for Your power  contains different links in the description below, including access to her social media, twitter, facebook etc. She has also maintained a continuous habit in putting the link or photos of her merchandise relating to this album on almost every streaming/social platform.
Are the links interactive in any way? (Do they have a QR code? Are they linked to music apps?)	Instagram mainly depicts the image she is trying to portray with the release of this song/album, rather than containing links or portals to the audio itself. Facebook and youtube both containing different forms of advertising for the song, when you click on the link she has not displayed some of the normal links such as youtube or amazon but instead has put the link to record stores to encourage people to buy te hard copy.	The digipak can be sold in packages where instead of just getting the CD you can ‘save’ money and get a package that may include a vinyl as well as a jumper and the digipak itself. It's a good way to entice the audience as well as gaining more profit.	On her music video on youtube it contains the typical links correlating to her social media pages as well as the name to her online shop.
What evidence is there of branding across all three products?  If yes, in what ways? (details)	She has used the same mainstream images across every platform where you can find this song. She has completely re-invented her kimage for this album where before she had dark and mysterious tones she is now using light colours that can often be referred to as quite “girly”.	Because her overall theme is set in the 1900s she has created a vibe of an olden day genre and has taken this into the way she sells her products as she has included vinyl into the options for when you go buy her digipak, correlating to the underlying message.	Although in her music video from Your power isn't set in the olden days she has still incorporated the lighter colours and stuck the eerie light vibe as we can see her outside in the natural daylight.
How is each media form effective in promoting the other products beyond containing a link to them? Interviews? Teasers? Competitions to win one of them?	On instagram and facebook she has released the song names that will be on her album but has only released a selected number of songs one of them being Your power. This can be an effective way of promoting as it creates a lot of hype.	Her digipak hasn't been released yet so there is no way of knowing if she has any interactive links or other ways of advertising in it.	The whole album has not been released yet and the song ‘Your Power’ has almost been used as a teaser for what is to come.
What methods do you think are most effective in promoting and marketing a new album?	Social media can be one of the cheapest and most effective forms of marketing. It is able to reach a large audience in a short space of time.	The way she has used a more unconventional form of selling stands out to different people and could almost entice a different audience range rather than the i-gens.	Trying to put up different advertisements on youtube or streaming platforms to the link to your music video. Putting your music video on different tv channels can help to differentiate your audience.

Taylor Swift with 'Reputation' album
	Social Media	DigiPack	Music Video
Where on this media form can you find a link/video promoting the other media forms?	She has different links on her facebook page but on her instagram there is no link taking you the music video it only advertises the album and some of the things you might see when it releases.	There are different names that relate to her social media such as instagram and displays the names of different people who spent time on the album.	There are always links containing the pages of her social media platforms to be able to promote not only the album she released but also helps to promote future songs and gains her a larger following.
Are the links interactive in any way? (Do they have a QR code? Are they linked to music apps?)	Different links are provided on her instagram and facebook pages. They take you to a range of different options of what music platform you may want to stream the audio.	No interactive links on her digipack.	She has a soundtrack on youtube with every song from her album. In the description it contains links to her other social media platforms.
What evidence is there of branding across all three products?  If yes, in what ways? (details)	She has used the same type of branding/ representation, using different portrait images of herself being the star image but with the same font used.	Her digipak was all over her social media and different audio files for the different songs in the album.	She kept the untidy (grunge) look and took it into some of the music videos on the album, correlating with the over theme and style that she wanted to portray.
How is each media form effective in promoting the other products beyond containing a link to them? Interviews? Teasers? Competitions to win one of them?	On instagram she did a lot of teaser type posts where she may have contained lyrics to some songs as well as different amounts of countdowns until the album was released creating a lot of hype and anticipation. She had offers/  opportunities for fans to win free merchandise from that album.	The digipack itself is the thing that is being promoted rather than it promoting itself.	When you search for the music video it often comes up with the prices for buying the CD as well, this is a good way of advertising as it relates to what people search and leaves a longer lasting image enticing people to buy it.
What methods do you think are most effective in promoting and marketing a new album?	As i have said before i feel as though social media can be one of the most effective forms of advertising but this is when you/ the artist has an already established following, if not then it may be harder to get the word out about the release.	The digipack has a more appealing and interesting album cover almost promoting a new image for Taylor Swift, possibly intriguing different age ranges or genders.	Putting your music video on things other than just youtube where people have to physically search for it is a good idea for example putting it on tv where it is available to almost everyone and easier to use for a lot of different ages. People canreach it easier and sometimes may be easier to find when you are flicking through channels.

No Tears Left to Cry, By Ariana Grande	Social Media	DigiPack	Music Video
Where on this media form can you find a link/video promoting the other media forms?	On her social media you can see a lot of promoting and different types of marketing building up to the release of this album. It was a bigger deal because it was the first song/ album she had released since the Manchester shooting. There are different links on her facebook page taking you to the audio but none to the music video itself.	It shows her instagram on it as well as some of the streaming platforms where you can find the music video.	In the music video it contains a number of links to her different social media platforms in the description below it also shows the CD link which can be available for purchase and an image of what it looks like.
Are the links interactive in any way? (Do they have a QR code? Are they linked to music apps?)	In order to create hype she dedicated the song/ album to the shooting giving a deeper meaning which people were obviously more drawn to.	No	In the description on youtube it contains a link where it shows the other platforms in which you can stream the song or music video. It helps to cater to all music listeners and customers.
What evidence is there of branding across all three products?  If yes, in what ways? (details)	She had recreated an image for herself for this song and album she wanted it to be more unexpected and gave a more hallucinogenic vibe differing from her previous song ‘Dangerous Woman’	She carried the theme throughout her CD and branding images where there were often rainbows made from light and different symbols containing the iconography now relating to her name.	In the music video she has different images of being mirrored or paralleled. This carried throughout the branding for not only her digipak but also on her social media pages where it all related. This all ended up creating a strong image to associate with her name.
How is each media form effective in promoting the other products beyond containing a link to them? Interviews? Teasers? Competitions to win one of them?	Many interviews were carried out for this single where she was able to describe the intent for this album/ song as well as the meanings behind it all, rather than having teasers or hyping everyone she just released the song and it did its own marketing.	The image seen on digipak was plastered all over her facebook page at one point as well as other social platforms.	The music video can mainly be seen on youtube where it has gained over five hundred thousand views, and won an award in 2018.
What methods do you think are most effective in promoting and marketing a new album?	Social media didn't really help to promote the final release of this album as it really did it itself.	The digipak was released in stores and people started to gain awareness of the album.	The music video and how different it was to some of her other songs created a lot of buzz in itself therefore not much advertising was needed as the audience did it for themselves.

Marketing/Branding Research

 6 Excellent Examples of interactive album art

- Using interactive art gallerey where people are able to by Kayla Lockington

Digipak Photo mock up feedback

Digipak photo mock up feedbak by Kayla Lockington

Digital Mock up

Blue and Yellow Greeting Eid al-Fitr / End of Ramadan Instagram Post by Kayla Lockington

Branding Research

 Branding research with Holly Robertson 

Holly Robertson: Web Designer 

She came in and helped us with the branding of our music video including commenting on ideas in how we could develop our digipak and different things we could add in order to maintain the continuity between all the elements. With this, we were able to show our music video to fresh eyes and get a different perspective. This helped to point out some of the areas that may be confusing to the public, we know some areas that may need improvements. 

• Carry out the colors throughout your entire branding and marketing design, it helps create a solid image for your song, so incorporating colors and possible iconography from your music video can help the audience identify your song/artist.
• To make sure that you know what everything symbolizes and that you have reasons for putting different images, colors, and fonts on/in your digipak. 
• Make it to your target audience e.g. not using slang if you are wanting to sell or appeal to people aged 50+

Digipak planning and research

Digipak planning and research by Kayla Lockington

Plan to implement feedback

OVERALL -

• The basic idea comes through in both videos, that life has not turned out the way this person planned when they were a little girl, and that they are disappointed in themselves as adults.
• From a narrative perspective, the title seems ironic. Where, in this video, are all the other people? :D (Seriously, though, there's not even a little boy even though there's a male lead in the vocals.)
• The cemetery shots make me confused.
• I think more risks could be taken with purposeful attention to colour, whether as a motif or a storytelling device for particular shots. Example: the memory shots could all have a sepia mask. This is a classic convention for memory sequences, so feel free to subvert.
• Think about what the song is trying to communicate, then watch your video with the sound off and ask yourself if the message still comes through.

KAYLA - 12/15

Opening shot is very cool. How did you get that?

Blending of memory, present-day, and performance sequences is handled well, from a narrative perspective. Nice transitions.

Re: the cemetery shots - did the male lead die in a car wreck? Is that the story we're going for here? (Sorry, I just don't get the grave shot.)

Song's climax has some cool cuts, but then the cut you end on doesn't visually match the lip movement of the acting talent. If it were me, I'd use a shot of the female lead's sustained note.

Opening shot is very cool BUT, the overarching 'road' sequence is lost because the opening shot is strong daylight, and then all the car shots and the ending shot shows a road at night. Needed to have shots that transition the lighting, or have the opening shot be a night-time shot

My Response: 

After having read this I will now take out my opening shot and try to replace it with a more relatable video that matches the rest of our video i.e. a video we shot ourselves. We may try and get extra 'cut-away' footage in order to replace the scenes that don't make sense.

 

This is an example of the type of shot we may want to get and redo because it relates to the scenes where our female and male characters are walking down the road together. Instead, this shot will be in the light so it correlates with the sunny images we see of our lead as a young girl. 

Our cemetery shots apparently don't make sense so for this we may have to redo those shots and have her sitting in black clothing in front of the grave then later on seen walking away from the grave in the daytime with a white dress. This is to represent the happiness or joy she now feels as she goes on/ moves past this hurdle. 

We will add a purple hue through colour grading in order to match the rest of our scenes and mimick the stage shots just to tie everything together.

In order to try and get everything to make a bit more sense, we might get a few more cut-away shots to fill in the missing pages/blank spaces. Right now our feedback is saying that it lacks clarity so hopefully by putting in a shot of for example a shot of our main female character holding a photo looking down at her mum to signify that she is looking back and that the um isn't here anymore. 

I was happy with my feedback, there were a few things that may need tweaking for example the opening shot has to be of our video which I will take out and replace. I think the main message I got from it was that we need to make our video clearer with how the mum is now dead and that she is reminiscing on the good times when her mum was around. Hopefully, this will come across to the audience and the grave shots will now make more sense. Depending on the rest of the group we will try and do our make-up shots next week possibly all during the same day so it doesn't drag out. 

Digipak Analysis

 Annotating Digipak 

Digipak Analysis - Conventions by Kayla Lockington

Filming Process

 Behind the scenes:

These were the first shots we got as we filmed it during a school day and it was easier to get access to the sanctuary. In my opinion, these were our most time-pressured shots as we had to try and get them done all at the same time, and because we wanted the lights to be on and we didn't know how to work them so we had to get Duthie to help us in order to get the perfect colours. We had to leave a little earlier because Pastor Peter needed the space to film but we managed to get everything done and I think the shots turned out really well. 

Filming wasn't too bad for the first couple of tries we only used the camera and microphone most of the time so it made setting up and packing down a lot easier and faster. We already knew how to use the camera from doing media in the previous year so having to do white balance and focusing the camera was simple. 

We did the majority of filming at Grace's house. This is where we got the shots of the mother and the daughter together. We were also able to film our car scenes since the road outside was the perfect backdrop and setting for what we needed. In the beginning we were supposed to be filming more scenes to establish the relationship between the mother and the duagther at the beach and othe rlocations but unfortunatlyey we didnt hvae enough time. Our male actor was suppsoed to be played by Ethan but he was unable to do it and because of this we didnt put a dance into a video which was supposed to be used as cutaway shots on the stage.