Digipak Research - Slipknot (Self Titled)

Front Cover

The front cover is of the band in their stage costumes. They wear masks and red, 'prison' style jumpsuits. Connotations of this are that they want to appear scary and violently criminal possibly mentally ill with such masks as clowns and pigs the jumpsuits are typical of those seen in maximum security prisons. These outfits have become trademarks of the band and have followed them throughout their career, changing slightly with the release of each new album, this album been their first studio album. The band states that the masks are not to remain hidden but to ensure the audience concentrates on the music not on the personallity of the band members. The photo in the cover is also slightly distorted around the edges and the background is out of focus this gives it more of a mysterious, warped effect. It also supprts Dyer's theory of stardom by putting all focus on thee band so this is what the audience is drawn to.

Back cover

The back cover depicts one of the masks lying next to a broken ouija board.

Digipak Research - Nivana - Nervermind

The front cover for Nirvana's Nevermind album is of a baby swimming towards a dollar bill on a fishing hook. This is a metaphor for people's greed for money and that it is human nature to chase money and the image of a baby trying to catch the money implies that it is instinct. The original idea for the cover came from lead singer Kurt Cobain after watching a television program on water birth. The record label were worried that about the picture of a nude baby and wanted to change the image. Defending the picture Cobain replied with a statement that the only compromise he would take for the photo would be a sticker covering the baby's penis saying, "If you are offended by this, you must be a closet paedophile." The water theme is continued throughout the whole cover using blue and white throughout. This also supports Richard Dyers theory of stardom as by the artist being adamant on their ideas about how their image should be presented.






















The back cover stays in theme with the rest of the digipak with the water theme.

First Draft

First draft of music video for 'Blindfire - Make your own way'.

Storyboard

Video Performers

Blindfire 

                                                         

Sam Widdowson - Guitarist



















Warren Hassall - Vocalist

Shane Hassall - Drummer












The band is used for the performance as it is there own track so it is not necessary to get an actor in as the majority of the video will be a live performance.

Brainstorm

Digipack - First Design

Cover

Inside Sleeve

CD Sleeve

Back Cover

Blindfire - Make Your Own Way

Treatment

The band I have chosen to make a video for is ‘Blindfire’ a local Nottingham band who I am close friends with.  Their genre of music is very heavy rock which I hope to portray within my project. I would also like to incorporate live footage within the video as this would be easy to achieve as they band have already agreed to this and as I know them personally. I would also use ‘Strange’ or ‘Creepy’ images to shock the audience and stay in tone with the music’s dark tone. Similarly to artists like ‘Slipknot’, ‘Marilyn Manson’ and ‘Suicide Silence’ where controversial images are used in their videos to shock audiences. 

Blindfire

Blindfire is a Nottingham based band made up of Guitarist/Lead singer Warren Hassall, his brother and drummer Shane Hassall, Lead guitarist Sam Widdowson and Bassist Paul Flowers.

The music industry

Record Labels

Record labels are responsible for managing artists, promoting their new albums or tours and basically making sure the band or artist keep working and make music on time to keep making the label money.

At the moment there are four major record companies:

Sony

Sony is a huge label started in 1929, it is currently the second largest of the "big four" record companies. Under Sony there are other labels as the company was formed by a merger of several smaller companies.

EMI Group

Founded in 1931

Warner Music Group

 

 

 

 

 

Universal Music Group

Directors

Wayne Isham


Wayne Isham is a reputable music video director, who over his 27 year career, has spanned many music genres with his work, from metal videos, working in many motley crue videos including: smokin' in the boys room, home sweet home and girls, girls, girls. Metallica videos like Enter Sandman. To pop videos including: Janet Jackson's 'Black Cat' and N'sync's 'Bye, Bye, Bye'.












Hype Williams

Hype Williams is a New York born video director who has directed videos for artists such as 2PAc, Notorious BIG and Kanye West. He has a very colourful style in his videos which is noticable in Kanye West's - 'Gold Digger' video and more recently Kanye West's - 'All of the Lights' which takes inspiration from the movie 'Enter The Void' (Dir. Gaspar Noe).

Genres - Rap/Hip-Hop

Rap and Hip-Hop

Rap and hip-hop involves rhyming over a pre-recorded track usually at a fast pace. The genre became started in the 1970's however reached great success in the late 80's and early 90's with artists such as:

• NWA
• Public Enemy
• Wu-tang Clan
• Run DMC

Rap is mainly a genre from the USA however in recent years a market in the UK has opened up with artists such as:

• Dizzee Rascal
• N-dubs
• Lethal Bizzle

Genres - Pop

Pop

Pop music an abbreviation of popular music, is a genre of music that is usually short, simple songs, that have a catchy tune to attract a large audience. As Keith Negus describes, pop is generally a very 'synthetic' type of music produced for a younger, less sophisticated, mass audience.

Pop artists who have achieved large success include:

• Michael Jackson; who was named the king of pop.
• Maddona
• Prince

and in more recent years:

• N-sync
• Spice girls

Genres - Rock

Rock

Rock music is a genre of music that was developed in the 1960's, but also includes roots from blues and jazz. Many contemporary rock songs contain blues scales to make up guitar riffs and solos.
Rock is a very wide spread genre and has many sub-genres which include:

• Alternative rock - The Cure, The Smiths, Radiohead
• Britpop - Oasis, Pulp
• Emo - Jimmy Eat World, Panic! At The Disco
• Glam rock - David Bowie, New York Dolls
• Grindcore - As I Lay Dying, Carcuss
• Grunge - Nirvana, Puddle of Mud
• Hard rock - Aerosmith, Guns 'N' Roses, AC/DC
• Heavy metal - Black Sabbath, Metallica, Motorhead
• Indie rock - The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks
• Psychedlia rock - Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton
• Punk rock - The Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedy's, The Ramones, The Clash
• Southern rock - Kings of Leon, Nickelback
• Surf - The Beach Boys

Although there are many different subcultures of rock most bands are a combination of more then one subculture such as Red Hot Chili Peppers have hard rock and funk influences similarly Motley Crue have heavy metal, punk and glam rock influences.

Preliminary Task

Britney Spears - Hit me baby

Research into Real Videos

Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus

In this video there are a lot of close ups and mid shots of the band and their instruments, especially of Marilyn Manson, the lead singer. This may be because of Richard Dyer's theory of star image and iconology where the focus is mainly on the star in this case the star of the eponymous band is Marilyn. Similarly there a shots that show the band in the background and the singer in the foreground, implying that the singer is more important than the band members are expendable but the singer is not.

Staying true to Andrew Goodwin's music video analysis the video contains a live performance from the band. As he states "Particular music genres may have may have their own music video style and iconography." Although there is also other narrative going alongside the live performance. Showing religious imagery as a visual relationship between imagery and lyrics. With provocatively dressed 'Nuns', a baby possibly representing Jesus and a confession booth.

In the backdrop of the video there are subtle images of historical figures such as Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Gandhi and JFK some of which are quite controversial which builds on Marilyn Manson's star image of causing controversy and rebellion.

Editing is used in this video to give it a creepy appearance to enhance Marilyn Manson's star image. Audience's react to the band's extraordinary image supporting Richard Dyer's theory of the star image, but at the same time lyrically audiences can relate to the band completing the paradox in which Dyer states is one of the fundamentals of creating the star image. Slow motion in throughout the video giving the impression that the singer is not fully human as he is moving in an odd fashion and the slow motion accentuates the movements.

Blurring the edges of the shot gives a psycodelic look to the shots. This implies some sort of drug-taking activities which builds upon the bands star image which involves the consumption of drugs.

Research into Real Videos

Slipknot - Psychosocial

This video has a lot of close ups on each of the band members supporting Richard Dyer's theory of stars and stardom created by the use of the masks in slipknot. This makes them iconic which grips their target audience because the masks can be quite scary and different from other acts. The editing creates a visual relationship between the music and video with extremly fast pased cuts through a lot of shots. As the song is heavy with a hard drum beat matching of the shot pace. A "juddering" effect is used in the editing to give the apperance that the screen is shaking. This is effective as it matches the sound of the song as there is a slight build up until the song starts. The effect is also used later in the video to create a chaotic effect as the camera is not focused on one band member but pans through 3 at a time then pans back to focus on one member. Change in pace (slow/fast motion) is used for example the guitar solo which slows down the pace and allows the audience to see the group amongst all the chaotic, fast paced shots.