Ancillary Task 2: Digipak Research

This week we have started looking at digipaks with an aim to create our own to promote Adash, our artist. I analysed the digipaks of two albums, Nirvana's Nevermind and an album by a relatively unknown Norwegian band called Royksopp. When comparing the differences between the albums, I noticed that as Nirvana were already an established band at the time of Nevermind's release, the booklet inside the digipak contained more photos of the band than Rokysopp's album, but the photos were more artistic and less clear, and the band were not as visible as the photographs of Rokysopp. Another significant difference between the digipaks was that the outer sleeve of Roksopp's album had reviews and quotes from critics on, which suggests that this album was created to promote the band.

An example of a plain digipak

 Nevermind - Nirvana (front, back, inside booklet)

Melody A.M. - Royksopp (front)

Side-by-side analysis in notes of both digipaks - Roksopp in first column, Nirvana in second and third.

Ancillary Task 1: Website Research

We have been looking at famous musicians' websites who we think are similar in style to the way we are aiming to promote Adash. I looked at Patti Smith and Nirvana's websites; I thought this was a good selection of artists as they are both in different stages of their careers: Nirvana are no longer active following the death of their frontman, but still have a huge cult following, and Patti Smith is still alive but has mostly retired as a musician and now writes books and promotes performances as 'words and music'.

Patti Smith's website is very minimal but has many links to different pages. Her website does not follow typical conventions of an artists' website as it is not entirely self-promotional; one link takes the user to a page she has written about her dogs, and another takes you to a tribute she has written to artist Lou Reed. Her website is overall very minimalistic and focuses entirely on the content of the page instead of unnecessary decoration.

As Nirvana are completely inactive as a band, but the two living members are independently active as musicians,

Audience Focus Group

We gave a questionnaire to a group of 10 seventeen year olds. None of them knew anything about the artist and hadn't heard the song before, so their answers were uninfluenced by prejudgements. After playing them the song, we gave them these question sheets. Their answers varied slightly but the general consensus was that the artist was around 20 years old, and a white, 'alternative'-looking male with long hair. The majority of people guessed that the song was about love, and aimed towards 'hipsters', a sub-culture of people who thrive on rejecting mainstream culture.

Initial Editing

This week we focused on getting the shots in time with the song, using the storyboards as a guideline. Judging by the work we have done so far, I think that the final video will resemble the storyboards but not mirror them exactly, as we have taken more shots than we planned to and we hope to use as many of them as possible. Another difference between the storyboards and the video will be the lipsyncing; because we only planned to have one performer to act & lipsync together, we didn't draw in any seperate performance shots. However because we used Calvin to act and Adam to sing, we have to find space for extra singing shots. Overall, I think the shots we have resemble the storyboards well, so aside from the obvious differences, the video will be similar to what we planned.

Essay - Kurt Cobain Profile

"I'm going to be a superstar musician, kill myself, and go out in a flame of glory." - Kurt Cobain, aged 14.

Kurt Donald Cobain was born in a small logging town in Aberdeen, Washington on the 20th of February, 1967 to Donald and Wendy Cobain, a young married couple just out of high school. Kurt showed an interest in music and art from a young age; his skill at drawing was obvious even from kindergarten, and he learned to play piano by ear as a toddler. Cobain had a happy childhood until he was nine years old: his parents went through a bitter divorce and Kurt and his sister Kim were heavily affected. After this time, Kurt became heavily withdrawn and went to live with his father and new stepmother, who he resented. At ten years old, Kurt recieved a beaten up wooden guitar from his uncle Chuck. It inspired Kurt, who began to play as a form of catharsis and to find respite from the problems he had at home. He began experimenting with drugs during his mid-teens, and pushed himself further away from his father.

In 1982, aged 15, Kurt left his fathers house and bounced between relatives' homes for a few months before returning home to live with his mother and her new boyfriend, abusive alcoholic Pat O' Connor, who she went on to marry.
Kurt's life changed when he discovered local punk band Melvins, and although he was still in high school, Kurt spent all of his free time drinking and taking drugs with bandmembers Dale Crover & Buzz Osborne. In 1986, Kurt met first long-term girlfriend Tracy Marander, and started what would become Nirvana with Krist Novoselic, who Kurt knew from high school, and drummer Aaron Buckhard. Their first gig was at a house party in 1987: they played mostly covers, one being a badly executed Heartbreaker, originally by Led Zeppelin.

Cobain struggled with his rapid rise to fame during 1989, and his depression and drug use escalated. He gained a reputation as a talented but deeply troubled musician, and rumours of his private life were heavily misreported in the media. The most disturbing example of this is after the birth of Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of Kurt and Courtney Love, headlines read that the baby was born addicted to heroin and warped from birth defects. This alledgedly sparked inspiration in Kurt, who claims that the line in Heart Shaped Box, 'hey/wait/I got a new complaint' documents his relationship with the media.

Kurt Cobain identified as a feminist ally, and was heavily intertwined with the 'riot grrrl' scene, a punk sub-genre in the 1980s and '90s, which revolved around the promotion of agressive females, and birthed bands such as Hole, Bikini Kill, L7 and Pussy Riot.

Though Kurt Cobain's career was only 8 years from starting in a house in Washington to playing Reading in '92, his influence on the music industry is irreversable. Smells Like Teen Spirit was released in 1991, was certified platinum (one million copies of the single sold) and has been named as 'the best rock song of all time' by numerous critics. This song broke the alternative rock scene through to the mainstream music scene, and brought with it the success of other alternative bands such as Sonic Youth, who Nirvana toured with, Mudhoney, and Tool.

   

Artist Profile

We are portraying our artist as an androgynous male performer, and so to gain inspiration for the way we are going to photograph him for the digipack, I have researched singers who are known for being slightly androgynous. Taking into account the way we want the artist to look, as well as the content of the song, I looked at Kurt Cobain, frontman of 80s-90s Seattle rock band Nirvana.

Post-filming evaluation

Over the last two days we have filmed almost all of our music video, with the exception of a performance shot that we will take at school. Almost everything went exactly as we planned, apart from a few people being unable to show up for the group shot on the first day. However this was quickly resolved as the other two members of our media class stepped in for a few shots.