Digipak examples- The Maccabees

I looked at lots of covers for albums and singles by The Kooks. I decided to look at some other bands to find out if the trends apply to other bands or if they build their brand image differently. Here I have looked at artwork used by The Maccabees.

This single cover uses an artistic photograph that is used as the whole backdrop for the cover. The band name and single title are written in black text in the top left as this is the first place the viewer looks at an image as people's eye will be naturally drawn there first as this is where we start reading/ writing in the English language. The band name is written on three separate lines even though it is one word. This is in a quite plain, square, block font. The EP title below is written in a different, serif type font.

 This cover is a cartoon/ CGI graphic artwork. it uses a plain black cover with an stylised tree. The Album title is written in an artistic font that looks like its pieced together out of planks of wood, written on a white circle that looks like a whole in the tree. The band name 'The Maccabees' is written in a handwritten style font which is different to the band name font on the other cover.

Again this cover is a cartoon design. The image is of a smart costume. This cover uses still a different font for 'The Maccabees', but uses the same font for the song/album title as the band name. This uses bright colours and draws attention to the image.

This album cover is a stylised photo and is very creative and uses a cartoon/ modelling clay effect on the members of the band. The bright colours draw attention to the album. The background is quite a light background which gives a heavenly sense and opposes many of the dark, indie covers and the black, gritty branding used by many bands in this genre. This goes hand in hand with the melodious nature of the music they create. With this digipak they gave away a free fold out poster of the same image as the cover.

This album colour is black in the background and has a cartoon drawing of a crowd of stylised people. The people are coloured in block colours of brown, purple and bluey-grey. This creates a link between visuals and the album title 'Colour It In'. The 'Colour It In' is coloured in the same colour scheme as the people alternating the colour every letter like a spectrum. 'The Maccabees' is in the same font as the handwritten font that I used earlier. This cover has a few different versions that are the same but have different colour scheme other than the purple and brown:

This is the cover for the Maccabees thrid album, it is very similar to the single cover 'Feel to Follow' however it is a lot brighter, the intensity and contrast has been increased. There are flames sweeping across the picture from the bottom left, this links to the idea of being 'Given to the Wild' as it is a natural, forest fire. Again the artist name and album is written in the top left in white and the band name is split into three separate lines.

Digipak Examples- Guillemots

The front cover insert shown below is for the Guillemots début album 'Through the Windowpane'. It uses a photo of a small square window, the picture has a dull, noisy quality to it and a picture of a garden with thorns tangled up across it is superimposed where the glass of the window would be. The 'Guillemots' is written across the top of the cover and is in a jagged script in white on the darker grey/brown wall surrounding the window. The album title 'Through the Windowpane' is written in the bottom right hand corner and utilises a handwritten, curvy, joined up font.

The Guillemots- Made Up Love Song #43 This cover is also photographic and the shot is taken with bright red flowers in the background these are in the foreground and are out of focus and frame an image of cars on a road with trees and a block of flats in the background. The red flowers connote love, linking to the song title and the bright colours used connote summer and happiness.

'Falling Out Of Reach' This is quite a stern cover and features a photograph of a man holing his glasses in a dull, cold room. The 'Guillemots' is written in their usual font in white, the title is again on the right hand side of the cover and in a type written, almost typewriter like font.

 The Guillemots 'We're Here' uses a simple, plain cover art of a vintage bike leaning against a telephone pole. The background is a sky colour, so the font is black so it shows up well and the 'Guillemots' brand image font is again used. The title of the song is written in a serif, newsprint style font smaller and written underneath the artist name.

'Trains to Brazil' has a picture of a schoolboy running across a school playground mid-stride. It is quite plain so makes the user think about what it symbolises. The fonts are very similar to the ones that the Guillemots always use and the artist name font is identical to the other covers.

  

Digipaks by Similar Artists

Similar artist digipak analysis

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Other Kooks album covers are like this. They all use The Kooks own font and none of them include the band in a direct mode of address.

Album Konk- Photographic cover, font white in top left- dark vignette around edge- gritty wall background, club entrance neon sign writing album name above doorway band gathered leaning in doorway and wall. Cold blue glow from sign lights photograph.

The Kooks third album, Junk of the Heart. Photographic/ artist texture editing. White font saying 'The Kooks' again in the top left corner.

Singles:

White band name font top left. single name top right. Photographic cover- using many slightly different thumbnail images of the singer in a tiled format. Black background, black and white photos.

Shine on single cover uses small black and white photographs to make up the shape of the singers face, part of which is still visible. White background black text band name still top left.

Black 'The Kooks' font, Red 'Naive' font directly under it in same font. Photograph of two pairs of legs, one male, one female entwined and sticking off the end of a sofa. 

Single cover for Ooh La similar see male and female legs and feet but no face. Anonymous. White band text, orange single name.

Again an anonymous picture of a body part- legs and feet in greyscale, indie style clothes, skinny jeans and boots. Text- 'The Kooks' again in white with single name directly below in a bright colour- this time yellow.

Again this cover follows the trend of a grey-scale photo of a person- cannot see their face again, indie clothes-leather jacket. 'The Kooks' in white, song title below in a bright colour- blue. Single covers all very similar, different background photo and different font colour for song name.

Some single covers are just plain black with the recognisable White band name in their own font with the song title below it in a different colour- Sofa song is green.

Plain black background again- white band name- blue single tile below.

Editing Techniques

Whilst editing my video in iMovie I have used many different editing techniques to create different effects.


One such technique is applying filters. To do this I navigated to the clip adjustments menu for the clip I wanted to apply a filter to and used the preset 'Black and white' video effect. I applied this effect to all shots up to where the rest of the band appear in the video.

The screenshot above shows the clip adjustment menu and the screenshot below show the video effect sub-menu from which I have selected the Black & White effect.

To create the time-lapse of the clock I created a new project so I could edit the clip without messing up the alignment of shots and music in that I have edited already. To create the effect I wanted of time passing very quickly I used the speed adjustment tool on iMovie, but since the clip was over half an hour long and iMovie only allows you to speed up the footage by 200% I had to speed up the clip, export the speeded up clip as a movie and then re-imported it and speeded it up again as once exported the effects applied to the video become part of the video and can be reapplied. I reimported the video and sped up the footage and exported the footage again a few times until it was sped up enough and the clip was short enough to replace the shot that I temporarily used in place of this one in the rough cut.

The screenshot to the left shows how my shots looked in iMovie when editing the instrumental stop motion in a separate project for ease and simplicity. Below shows the instrumental stop motion of stills photos imported with the music added to it.

To add the sound of the alarm clock to the video I initially used the sound from the video if the alarm clock ringing. To do this I right clicked the clip of the alarm clock and clicked detach audio to create the sound as a separate entity. This means I could highlight all the clips and mute them all and the alarm sound would be unaffected.

Below show the audio track of the song and the alarm bell in iMovie

For the final cut I decided to do a separate audio recording using a microphone as the clip sound was too short to overlay over the other shots until he switches the alarm off and also to improve sound quality.

Final Cut

After editing my rough cut and receiving feedback on the video I looked at the comments people made that were common between more than one person. Some of the feedback I agreed with, and re-filmed/ re-edited my music video to improve these aspects, however, I have not acted on every piece of feedback.

Self feedback

After finishing my rough cut there were immediately some things I wanted to change.


Between 0:08 and 0:10 the shot of the singer sprawled over the edge of the bed didn't last long enough before he rolled back onto his back which i wanted to keep in that position so he rolled onto his back in synchronization with the bass run that acts as a transition between the introduction and the verse. I resolved this by adding a freeze frame of him before he rolled onto his back.


On reflection, it solves the issue but makes the video jumpy and interrupts the flow of the scene. I initially thought I would re-film this shot but it was very sunny on the day I filmed which caused bright highlights and harsh shadows on the walls of the bedroom etc. I think if I re-filmed this shot I would be unable to create good continuity without re-filming the whole of the bedroom scene which I don't want to do as i am pleased with all the other shots.


I think I will film a completely different shot and cut that into that place, as there aren't many shots setting the scene at the start of the video and there are lots of consecutive shots of him in bed, which could get tedious to some viewers. Since the lyrics make repeated reference to the "town" they live in and the "same grey northern skies" I deicided upon taking a shot of the skyline of the houses in the area looking out of window of the singer's house.


The handheld, point of view shot of the singer looking out of the window, turning round and walking out of the bedroom was used to fill a gap that I was going to fill with another camera transition of time lapse photography of the clock going round.


I will film the clock in a close up shot for a long period of time on a plain background since I want it to be noticably separated from the other shot and I don't want a location or other items seen in the background. I will then speed up the footage and put this in place of the handheld shot for my final cut.


I need to record the sound of the alarm clock ringing and dub that in as the current sound is taken from the video so won't be as good quality and isn't long enough to be dubbed over the other shots until the singer turns of the alarm.


I agreed that having watched the finished rough cut, it needed a new location in somewhere in the video. Since the last chorus is longer than the others and I had used only performance by the band in this element I decided that this would be a good place to add a new location as it would relieve some tediousness that builds up in the previously repeitive sector. To add in a new location I decided to film in a pub garden as I thought this suited the brand image of my band that they would enjoy going to the pub writing bits of songs, and having a laugh and joke with each other as mates do. Unfortunately when I came to film these shots the weather was quite poor and didn't entirely match what I hoped it would be like, but this was beyond my control.


In the middle section when the singer is performing on his own (still in black and white), before the 'Groundhog Day' section, in which the footage repeats at high speed, there is a long shot of him singing and playing guitar to himself which lasts for near enough 20 seconds. On reflection I thought that the duration of this shot was too long. I dec ided to recreate this shot, but film from some different camera angles and shot types. In doing this I had to ensure the positioning of the chair in the room was the same, the costume of the singer was the same and that there was nothing in the shot that wasn't there previously. The lighting on the two days was rather different but the noticeability of this was minimal since I applied a black and white filter to all of these shots.


Feedback from my peers told me that the last shot was not very strong and should be changed. Since filming the shots at the pub I decided to use a shot of them leaving the pub and walking round the corner as the last shot before the transitional fade to black as this would create a more natural ending, which I also thought was a good point to work on.

Rough cut- feedback

Here's the feedback I received from the people who had watched my film:


Viewer 1:

• Add some different angles- maybe side shot of the singer when sitting up in bed singing to break up the front facing mid shot
• Add in a shot of the skyline- to visualise the lyrical references to the 'town' they live in
• The transition between monochrome and full colour could perhaps be in a better defined place such as when the door opens to the front room
• Add a new location into the last chorus as this is a long section of the band playing and could be split up a bit as it gets a bit tedious and the new changed singer could be emphasised in other ways. Such as messing about, having a laugh with his mates in a pub garden for example
• End on a happier shot

Viewer 2:

• Excellent variety of shots
• More close-ups of playing/ vary the ones used as they are repeated
• Focus more on the other band members
• Some shots are too slow
• The change from monochrome to colour works well
• Good camera angles
• Lip syncing is good
• The drummer "wooo" (flipping and catching the drumsticks) may be slightly out of time

Viewer 3:

• Good close-up of alarm clock and sound to start
• lip syncing is good
• like the fast pan around the bedroom
• The lip syncing at 1:13 could be better
• I like the shots of the band walking across the shot during the instrumental
• The stop motion of the band members changing positions is good and quirky
• Perhaps have all band members singing during chorus
• Different close-ups of drums, guitar and bass needed as the same ones are used more than once
• Maybe include shots of a girl to link to the lyrics
• The closing shot needs to be more powerful

Viewer 4:

• Like the opening shots
• Really good use of unique transitions (camera pan)
• Everything is shot on shot to action, walks out of one frame and into another, well edited and it's in time with the music
• 1:00-1:20 this shot lasts too long and the actor isn't singing with 'passion' it would be good if there were different angles to break it up more
• 2:09 is very well edited
• Lip syncing is good
• Overall, the start of the video is chronological and the ending doesn't really follow the story on and the shots of the band are rather repetitive.

Viewer 5:

• Like the use of black and white filter, it matches the lyrics and storyline well
• Interesting transitions are nice
• 0:08-0:10 doesn't match to the tempo, and seems like the video is frozen

Viewer 6:

• Funny comedy element- shutting the bathroom door
• Like the black and white- makes it match the slightly sombre lyrics
• Close up shots on lead singer are good, shows the lyrics are from his perspective and he really means them
• Having the whole band together from the chorus is good- shows they are there for each other to pull through the bad times
• Cutting between shots is good and to the beat
• Like the zooms of the instruments, draws your attention to the other elements of the song like drums and bass line
• Not a good transition in the bed scene
• Don't like the zoom in on body- it doesn't fit

Viewer 7:

• Lip syncing is good
• 0:33-0:35 transition is a little jarring
• 1:26 the other band members lack emotion
• Colour footage looks more grainy
• Big solo, but a little strum
• Overall, quite professional

Rough Cut

Here is my first attempt at editing my music video. I am pleased with it, but have still highlighted some problems/ areas that I would like to improve. There are a few problems I had whilst exporting the video from iMovie. The alarm clock ringing for the second time (before the flashback) and the drums still audible in the background where the drums aren't even in shot- these cannot be heard when the video is watched in iMovie but reappeared on the exported mp4 file. I will try to resolve these issues as I realise these need resolving and don't want this to effect the feedback I get about the rough cut.

I will now ask my classmates to watch and review my video giving any positive appraisals or constructive negative criticisms.