Digipak & Magazine Advert

As well as making the music video, we also need to create a digipak with a link to the music video and the artist that is providing the music. In our digipak we must include 6 panels and design the spine.

What is a digipak?

As well as making the music video, another part of our coursework is to make our own digipak to go with our chosen song. A digipak usually contains 6 panels and usually has the best design on the spine of the panel. On the 6 panels, there should be a front, a back, a spine, possibly a membership postcard or spine, a lyric section and a disk impression. Although, not consciously realising it you have already seen several digipak's in your life as they are included in the majority of all CD's.

How to expand and broaden audience & sales

The Music industry uses many techniques in order to expand audience and increase sales. After releasing their original song, it is often the case that the song on it's own will not bring in enough revenue to release another song. This is where the art of the music video comes into it as a video then makes the song more well recognised and increases sales to bring in more revenue. There is also the role of advertisement which enviably in music record companies biggest chance to bring in more money. There are many techniques of advertisement including making their own website with fan pages for the band which allows fans to sign up for memberships where they can sell them merchandise. There is also posters and digipaks which is another part of our coursework which can broaden sales. There are a number of different advertisement schemes that companies use to enhance their artist and their song.

Focus Group- Summary

Following on from our previous post, I will now put into words what feedback we got from the focus group;

The first person we asked was Naima who said she found the song 'chirpy, fun and energetic'. She also went on to reveal that she watched music videos all the time and said the song made her think of 'skateboarding and partying'. She also said the artist the song reminded her of the band The Kooks.

We then asked big Chipmunk and Chris Brown fan Myles Wilson what he thought of the video. He said the song made him feel 'happy and like he wanted to run around' again outlining the energetic vibe the song gives. Myles also said he watched music videos at least 4 times a day and saw the video being energetic and hectic. Myles also said the artists of our chosen song reminded him of the Kooks and The Smiths.

We then spoke to YouTube fanatic Riiwan who said the song made him feel 'bubbly and excited' and recommended the video being filmed 'outside on a sunny day'. Riiwan revealed he is a big fan of Wiz Gang but liked this Indie song despite his big admiration of the rap genre. Riiwan said the artists reminded him of the Smith's.

Survey Monkey

As part of our research, we had to create a survey on www.surveymonkey.com to ask our target audience what they thought should be included in our music video in order to make sure all of our target audience watched the video;
Below is some screenshots of the survey;

Focus Group - Video

Below is the video focus group where we asked our peers what they thought of our song for our music video to get an idea of whether the video would appeal to our target audience;

A2 Preliminary Task -

As our preliminary task we had to lip sing the Elton John hit 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart'. Since our group was all male, one of us had to play the female part of the song which I volunteered to do with Myles another member of our group playing Elton's John part. We had to do several takes in order to provide different shots to vary the music video. Me and Myles both had to single close ups singing the song individually to being edited into the video while we also had to do a take together in order to have shots where we was singing together. Below is how the video planned out after my edited by another member of our group Mohammed Kibriya.



I think the video went well for a first attempt as the lip syncing was fine as me and Myles seemed to sing in time and Mohammed edited it fine. It was a lot of fun to be in the video and there was no shyness in the video which made it look more humerous and therefore didn't make the video look awkward. This also left us in good stead for the proper music video as it shows we have confident characters in the group.

Research into Artists

After giving you a brief introduction to the band The Silent Film Project who are kindly letting us use their music, I started to look to artists that they can be compared to. After asking a few people to listen to the song, we came up with the famous band The Kooks who we believe they boast similarities too.

Here is a link to our song if you wish to listen;


Now here is a video of the Kooks song 'Naive', to see if you can see the comparison;

Singer Songwriter - The Silent Film Project

Below is a clip of The Silent Film Project playing live the Singer Songwriter;


Also is the lyrics to the song below;

I'm offered forty six of the communicators gifts
I've wasted every drop of ink and every borrowed pencil lead
pretending i have seen something that's not been seen before
in the dusty carpet dirty cups and boot prints on my door
forgive me but i don't know what i'm for or against
I've not read what i'm sending to you all but it's yours

Name me after a Van Gogh spillage
I know where to go in the city
to the places that make heroes of the fools
singing stories of their wasted chances broken rules

I've settled every one of my re-occuring arguments
with a fiction that i lifted from the news and the news you brought
of the punches and the salmon that you caught
whilst living in the real world without me
forgive me but i don't know what i've brought to this party
and i'm drunk on things i wouldn't normally drink and broken hearted
I'm a lucky one it's how Willie Nelson started and perhaps
Paul Simon's gonna harmonise with me someday

Finding Our Music - The Silent Film Project

After searching through www.unsigned.com we eventually found the music we wanted to use for our music video which was a song called Singer Songwriter by The Silent Film Project. The SFM are an indie band who are based in Scunthorpe. As a big fan of Indie I was really happy to contact them with a instant reply from the band.

Just for a bit of background information on the band, I researched them to see what sort of image they gave to the public and how we were going to show that in the music video. The Silent Film Project are a band with 5 members, 4 boys and 1 girl. They have two vocalists being the boy and the girl which meant we were in search for a girl to be in the video. They also have a guitarist and a base player as well as a drummer. They are also based in the North Midlands of England.

Copyright Information

Copyright is an aspect we had to be aware of when choosing our music as we are required to ask the artists permission if we wish to use their song. Copyright is a serious crime and you can be prosecuted for it. Although hugely popular we could not ask a well known artist to use their music due to the fact that they are signed by record labels who simply won't allow the music to be used.

Below is a definition of copyright;
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other, related rights.

Case Study - Jamie Thraves

Jamie Thraves is a British film writer and director who has directed a host of music videos. Thraves studied at Hull University and started by making short films at University which went on to win numerous awards at short film festivals showing his talent from a young age. He then began to make to shoot low budget music videos costing about £5,000 each compared to the average music video cost which is £20,000.

After these videos being successful, Jamie Thraves went on to making many more music videos with his two most successful videos being shown below;

Just by Radiohead:


This video is very clever as it shows a story of a man randomly laying on the pavement as many pedestrians try to work out and help the man clearly distressed laying on the pavement. The man refuses to tell them and pleads with them to leave him alone. Eventually, a police officer appears trying to help the man but still has little success, the man tells them he can't tell them until he eventually cracks with the next cut showing the crowd around him all laying on the floor either unconscious or potentially dead leaving a mystery into what was wrong with the man and why he caused this effect.

The Scientist by Coldplay


This video is very clever as Thraves takes a lyric from the song 'back to the start' and bases the whole video on this one line as he shows a story where Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin walks back and sings backwards showing a story of where his on screen girlfriend is killed in a car crash. This is clever on a number of levels with it showing a story from back to front which intrigues the viewer while also very clever on the talented Chris Martin's part who had to learn his own song backwards in order to lip sync into the video.