Digipak Analysis: Owl City - Ocean Eyes

A very simplistic digipak with a strong sky coloured theme. A very calming image to go with Owl Citys calming music. The image is very vast and epic, making a massive building look small in comparison to the ocean and sky.

The text is also very simple, white and very bold. The whole digipak is in fact, very simplistic. And this has been pulled off very well. The image also goes well with the title "Ocean Eyes"

Digipak Analysis: MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

This cover is very simple, a shot of the band over a beach as the sky is tinted with a soft purple. And this goes well with MGMTs music, the purple tinted sky gives off a slightly trippy feel as if not of this world. And the band members are very shaded out, with afew bold colours standing out, such as the orange shorts and the glowsticks.

A simple outlined text says the band name and that is the only text on the cover, it is very much about imagery. It creates a strong theme the way the colours and position have been used, and is not like many other covers, much like MGMTs music not being like anyone elses.

Digipak

A Digipak is a style of CD or DVD packaging, it either folds open like a book, or has 3 sides, one opening to the left and the right. They are usually made of card and are more aesthetically pleasing than regular jewel cases and cannot be cracked, but digipaks often tear or peel away.

"Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging."
http://musicians.about.com/od/ah/g/digipacksleeve.htm

Promo Pack

"A "press kit" and a "promo-pack" are essentially the same thing. However, each serves its very own purpose. The press kit is most commonly used to inform the media about an artist. It consists of certain promotional materials that are used by the media to create interesting stories or "write-ups" about an act.

The "promo-pack" is simply a variation of a "press kit." It's used for booking shows, "shopping" for record deals and publishing deals, assembling a management and legal team, and for gaining radio and television airtime."

http://www.jmipub.com/press_kits.html

The Promo Pack is essentially what it says, a pack to promote the band. A typical Promo Pack will Include:

• Artist/Band Biography
• A Photo of the Artist/Band
• Fact Sheet
• A Demo Tape/CD
• Song List
• Lyric Sheet
• Copyright & Contact Info

All of these material can be handed out to a number of people for a number of reasons, such as trying to get record deals and radio or television airtime.

PowerPoint Presentation

Music Video Analysis

Mise-En-Scene

Location:
The primary 2 locations are on a beach, and around some old ruins. The beach captures a bunch of mates out for the night to capture a good time.

They end up at the ruins, which is a great setting to place abstract things for them to venture into as the structure ruins usually take is abstract in itself. Green Screen may also be used to place the band over bright colourful vortex patterns or something along those lines.


Props:
We will need afew props such as plants, glow in the dark paint and an old cmputer monitor. The majority of these are to go along with certain lyrics of the song, such as, "Where we can crush some plants to paint my walls" This is where we would get the actor to crush a plant, and then using editing to cut to a shot of the hand opening to reveal paint. Also using this paint to write on walls. We will also need props such as cigarettes and bottles for the beginning of the video where the actors are drinking and smoking to show they are having a good time.

Colour:
There will be a lot of colour. I think it will be a very important part of the video. Bright colours in particular will be used very often. This is to give the appearance of tripping out. It will make all the scenes abstract and fantasy like, which is what we're aiming for.

Costume & Make-Up:
Costumes won't be majorly important in the video, that being said, there is still a specific style. But the style is casual, everyday clothes that normal people wear. This is to show that the actors are regular guys and this whole weird experience could happen to anyone, which can potentially draw the viewer in as they relate to the character and believe this whole situation could happen to them. There will be no make-up needed for any of the actors in the video until possibly nearer the end when some could be applied to add to the weird factor to the video, in this case, the make-up would be very bold and strange.

Weekend Wars Video Brainstorm

Weekend Wars

MGMT are all about weird things, and theres no getting past that. So the video itself is going to have to be very weird and trippy. This gives us a lot of options, as there are many ways to create a weird and abstract video.

So we had to brainstorm ideas for a good video:

• Glowing Paint (Possibly used to write messages on walls)
• Actors use abstract movement
• Instruments replaced by other objects
• Lots of Vibrant Lights
• Vast Amount of Colours
• Set in the Dark
• Actors dressed in odd clothes
• Video Effects such as Slowing Down the video or possibly even Reversing it
• Strong Make-Up or Masks
• Time Lapse
  

MGMTs Target Audience

MGMT blend a mix of genres into one hybrid genre. Potentially reaching out to a bigger fan base. Though it is also risky incase the fans don't like this hybrid. But none-the-less, MGMT has built up quite a fan following.



Looking at the Official MGMT Myspace page. We can see that the band has 264379 Friends. Keeping in mind this is not 100% of their fans, more likely to only be a small fraction of their actual total fans, but this doesn't change the face that 264379 is a lot of people in itself.
Browsing through various pages of their friend list gives us a quick look of the kind of people who enjoy MGMTs music. The interesting thing about MGMTs fans is that a large percentage of them just look like normal average people, even though the music itself is very strange and abstract. There are little stereotypical fans such as "emo" or "chav"

Looking at Last.FM, Weekend Wars was the 4th most played song this week by MGMT, with a massive 12,300 plays this week alone. They also have 28,716,171 total plays from a combined 930,839 users.

Weekend Wars [Lyrics]

"Weekend Wars"
MGMT
Oracular Spectacular







Evil S I yes to find a shore,
A beach that doesn't quiver anymore,
Where we can crush some plants to paint my walls,
And I won't try to fight in the weekend wars
Was I? I was to lazy to bathe
Or paint or write or try to make a change.
Now I can shoot a gun to kill my lunch
And I don't have to love or think too much

Instant battle plans written on the sidewalk
Mental mystics in a twisted metal car
Tried to amplify the sound of light and love

Christ is cursed of faders and maders
Might even take a knife to split a hair
Or even scare the children off my lawn
Giving us time to make the makeshift bombs
Every mess invested was a score
We couldn't use computers anymore
It's difficult to win unless you're bored,
And you might have to plan for the weekend wars

Try to break my heart I'll drive to Arizona.
It might take 100 years to grow an arm
I'll sit and listen to the sound of sand and cold
Twisted diamond heart, I'm the weekend warrior
My predictions are the only things I have
I can amplify the sound and light and love

I'm a curse and i'm a sound,
When I open up my mouth,
There's a reason I don't win,
I don't know how to begin

Introduction

We will be designing a music video to accompany the song Weekend Wars by MGMT. This song was chosen due to the creative potential this song (and any MGMT song) posesses. The mood is Physcodelic and the lyrics are all weird and wonderful, which can be the making for a dazzingly bizarre video.

Formerly named "The Management" ("The Management" was occupied by another artist so the band shortened "The Management" to "MGMT"), is an American musical duo based in Brooklyn, New York, consisting of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden.
Wikipedia.org

Music Video, DVD/CD Digipack and Advert

For this project, I am required to produce a Music Video and along side this, make a cover for the CD or DVD and an advertisement for said CD or DVD.





The Music Video is a group task and should use a range of skills that we have learnt over the past year, taking many things into account such as mise-en-scene, timing, and how the video may or may not tell a story. It must be fully filmed and edited within the group.

The Cover and Advertisement are completely digital work done using computer software such as Photoshop. It is essential to have a consistent theme through all the 3 tasks to look professional. The cover must include a Front, Back and Spine, like a real DVD cover. The advert must be of set proportions and like the DVD, must be like an authentic advert.