Research into CD covers by Relevant Artists

Whilst not being strictly similar to our proposed artist, the Stone Roses have employed a similar album cover design to the one that I am proposing. They went along the lines of a non-descript approach in which the first thing you notice is the band's name, followed by the lemons, which stand out against the 'paint splatters'. This cover works because it is bold and memorable.

The artwork of Jon Hopkin's Opalescent is quite similar to the concept that I came up with, very loose brightly coloured shapes that can be interpreted as whatever you want them to be. This reflects 'Lanmou's proposed attitude, carefree and hippy-ish. 

Sonic Youth are more similar to 'Lanmou' in terms of musical style and this is reflected in the album cover, the country scene conveying a sense of freedom and innocence of days gone by. Also I liked the style of writing on this album cover, the messy white scrawl giving off a pretence of not caring about their image. On the contrary, it defines their image, because a lot of though obviously went into this album cover, even though it may not look like it. 

Concept for Artist CD cover

Feedback

Excellent detailed and through blogging of concept which is clear and logically organised.  Really good presentation, embedded video works well and does teh use of links.  Clear understaning of what is needed for the concpet of the Music Video and reseraches exiting artists well.

Development of the narrative against the lyrics

Today we printed out the lyrics to Electric Feel, and then went through each line getting some shot ideas. Below is our ideas sheet at the moment.

We liked the after effects of this video. :)

Eco-Island Promo from Evo Films on Vimeo.

Effects we particularly liked, were the bouncing text, the flashing colours, and the lights on the edges, giving it a kind of retro feel.

Music Video - Task 2

Narrowing the ideas.

We have now decided that to avoid making our video seem really cliche, we should change to a more alternative act as bands like Blink have been done to death in the past. This led us to our current idea, MGMT. 

MGMT are a relatively recent group formed in 2005, and their debut album Oracular Spectacular was voted best album of 2008. (follow link for more info)

The song we had in mind is Electric Feel and we have chosen this because of its combination of a simple consistent bass line and we think it could have real potential for a unique video. 

Our narrative concept at the moment includes reference to cult films, namely Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’. We decided that we liked the opening credits, where the 5 main characters are strolling down the road in slow motion, suited up, and thought we could adapt that idea.

Music Video - The Concept

Task 1

Today we began working on our music videos. In my group are Ian, Will, and Nico, and our initially we were considering metal as a genre, but this was soon ruled out as metal videos are notoriously difficult to combine with good narrative. Next was to do a rock/alternative genre, maybe along the lines of Sum 41, Blink 182, or Enter Shikari. Ian suggested we also have a look at the work of lesser known Trip Hop acts such as Wax Tailor, and we now feel that this genre can lend itself to some really artistic narrative ideas. 

The songs I proposed to the group were 

‘Juggernauts’ - Enter Shikari, 

‘Walk This Way’ - Aerosmith feat. Run DMC. 

I thought of these two songs, as I wanted a fairly upbeat song, and something that a lot of people would recognise. 

At the moment our ideas for narrative are still quite open, but after looking at a couple of videos, we have a bit of inspiration. From ‘Dilly’ - Band Of Horses, we decided we liked the idea of sepia filming, to give it an old school feel. In turn this led to Will’s idea of referencing cult films, namely Tarantino’s 'Reservoir Dogs'. 

What we would do here is subtly recreate a version of the slow-mo strolling scene, so than fans of Tarantino  would recognise and pick up on this.  

I would guess that our target audience will probably be that of people in their late teens to late 20’s, as they would have to be aware of present trends, but at the same time have a sizable knowledge of past ones, to fully ‘get’ the video, as we are thinking of doing a lot of reference.