Fan Base

BLOC PARTY'S DEMOGRAPHIC

After researching Bloc Party’s public image it was clear that there is a specific image associated with the band along with a specific group of followers that was vital to maintain in relation with our music video. It is important that our video portrays many of the images that are associated with past Bloc Party videos to show the coherence between our video and the band's videos; which will allow the band's fan base to relate to our video. To understand the look and image that the band have already obtained we looked at different media appearances that band made and how they were presented in each, this includes interviews, magazine features and public appearances.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF BLOC PARTY'S MAIN AUDIENCE.

Bloc party’s genre is typically focused on an Indie/ Rock or Alternative Dance / Rock. Since there breakthrough in 2003 they have appealed to a wide variety of people, however it would seem that their target audience is that of the ‘Indie’ genre producing music. The term "indie" is often used to describe a certain sound that a musician creates. "Indie" often refers to an artist or band that is not part of the mainstream culture and/or making music outside its influence. Though the sound of these bands may differ greatly, the "indie" definition comes from the do-it-yourself attitude and ability to work outside large corporations, and has become one of the largest and most appealing genres in the music industry. With NME stating "One of the most common and simplest definitions of "indie" is the definition of not being connected with a major recording label (currently one of the "Big Four" recording companies: Warner, Universal, Sony BMG and EMI)"-http://www.neardistance.co.uk/ . We looked into the ‘Indie’ stereotype to insure that the target audience for the group was the same as the audience we were trying to present to. This is vital as if we did not it would result in a lack of interest from existing fans, limiting our audience. It is therefore vital that research into popular music magazines that display "indie" bands was made. NME is the better known and established magazine that Bloc Party have featured in over the years. This obviously provides us with our first insight into Bloc Party's target audience. Seen here on the front page of NME as well as most of the surrounding articles being based on them it can be assumed that Bloc Party are considered as "headliners" in the indie rock genre and if our video is to match the cohesion of other Bloc Party videos then the audience watching them must be taken into consideration. With the indie stereotype originally standing for independent music labels it has since been defined by a type of music somewhere between rock and pop. Indie singers and bands have certain ethics like remaining faithful to their surroundings and where they started as well as ingonring the celebrity money-grabbing culture. An Indie band is said to 'sell out' if they let their music be used corporately on an advert or television programme. Indie bands commonly write their own songs. Yet our main concern with the indie genre is the audience. The questions that needed to be answered in relation to audience is what do they like to listen to? what do they wear? and how do they present themselves in terms of interests and hobbies? Whilst the answer to the first question is relatively self explanatory with Bloc Party and similar bands such as Artic Monkeys and Kasabian representing a diversified genre the other questions would require more information and insight into the indie genre.The NME reader profile allows insight into much needed information about the audience of the indie genre in general. It is here that it states that 69% of readers are male whilst 39% are female with the average age being 24. This gives us a generalised overview of the indie audience along with franchise information such as well known brands like Topman, Jack Daniels and the importance of living a good well informed life all represented. This therefore embeds them into the ABC1 category and provides a broad insight into their lives. Whilst this information is helpful it doesn't specifically relate to Bloc Party who, from listening to their music clearly diversify away from a typical indie rock band, so more detailed information and research on a Bloc Party fan base will have to be concocted.

Despite drawing influences from the likes of The Cure, Sonic Youth, Joy Division, The Smiths and Blur Bloc Parties sound has changed over previous albums from the deep bass and recognised guitar influence from their debut album Silent Alarm it was with their second album A Weekend In The City and in particular the song Flux that Bloc Party switched to a more electronic beat, an element that is clearly apparent in Ares) this has lead to a more defined audience compared with that of followers of the indie genre as a whole. This diversity is represented by vocalist Okereke who stated that their albums would display "some truly R'n'B styled beats, a song where [Tong] and [Moakes] play drums simultaneously [with] both eggshell-thin fragility and trouser-flapping hugeness", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloc_Party. So with this taken into consideration we can explore the fans of this "Trouser-flapping hugeness" and find out more about the target audience for our own music video.

BLOC PARTY PHYCOGRAPHICS

We looked onto the Bloc Party Facebook page to see how the band was presented in terms of fans and what sort of people were followers by analysing their interests, values , attitudes and lifestyles in an attempt to pick up on anything that can be used to strike a link to the audience in our music video. However due to the continued privacy over accounts on facebook only a broad summery can be made of the fan page which consists of 236,778 fans in total with their popularity continuing to rise. Despite only a brief analysis of fans due to security measures, we were able to access profiles in which most of the images were similar to each other with instruments, T-shirts consisting of logos and band appreciation were all common aspects. It is from this that we can assume that supporters of Bloc Party enjoy the instrumental aspects of the performance rather then just the appearance and attitudes of the band. This is also true of the stereotype of the ‘Indie’ culture which we previously made reference too.

DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

By looking at examples of media features we can analyse the demographic for Bloc Party. We have made reference to www.nrs.com to analyse the target audience and demographic of the band. Despite NME readers consisting of 69% male the band's demographics show 53% of the audience being male. This proves that whilst analysis of media coverage that they are featured in is helpful it doesn't provide complete insight into a bands followers. With this rise in percentage of female followers it may be wise to include less masculine themes in the music video, with the theme of war or violence perhaps less graphic and obvious. With 64% of the audience being aged between thirteen to-thirty four representations of both teenagers and young adults should be taken into consideration, this could occur in the form of the ages of the characters used in the music video. as far as disposable income goes it ranges from £0 to £60k suggesting that fans are either still in education (with ages ranging from 13 upwards it is likely) or earn a moderately high income, thus placing them into the ABC1 bracket as mentioned previously. 60% are also still in a form of education, and whilst this may be a stereotypical view on my behalf perhaps themes of derelict housing and abandonment in terms of settings should be avoided due to the audiences well educated manner of living. Yet with this all taken into consideration we can now establish a mental image of the indie audience with age providing a vital factor as to the themes that should be represented in our music video, with this information on board planning a video with the aim to relate it to Bloc Party and their audiences can now begin.

Promo Pack

Our first coursework task for this project we would have to create a Promo Pack. A Promo Pack "is used for booking shows, "shopping" for record deals and publishing deals, assembling a management and legal team, and for gaining radio and television airtime." The Promo Pack consists of The artist's biography, a photo of the artist/band, a fact sheet"Write-ups and/or press releases, a demo tape/CD (3-5 of your best songs!), a song listA lyric sheet "

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

It is important that these three elements have cohesion as it conveys the relevance and importance that each of them have in selling the song. The Digipack itself is basically a CD/DVD cover which features the song that we have chosen: "Ares" by Bloc Party. We will produce the cover in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign using my own original photographs and ideas. Digipak is a patented style of compact disc or DVD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI Media, a MeadWestvaco, Inc. resource, which acquired the original trademark holder, IMPAC Group, Inc., in 2000. MeadWestvaco licensed the name and designs to manufacturers around the world."Digipacks typically consist of a gate fold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside." As quoted by Wikipedia. This means that our Digipack will have to consist of four images for each panel: a front cover, back image and two inside panels. As you can see from the image below it is the bottom two panels that will be the most important as they are the two exterior panels that will first be on view to the audience and buyers; yet it is also important that the interior continues the cohesion of the genre and ideas of the design.

The digipack is just one element in an idea that will be use to promote our music video. A promo pack is used to relate the song to the rest of the promotional merchandise such as advertising posters and CD covers. Promotional packs should be coherent and make sure that all aspects of the pack are related by some sort of theme. Fall Out Boy's debut album "From Under The Cork Tree" shows an example of the cohesion of a promo pack.. The album cover in which the band a watching a stage is clearly mirrored in their album, in which a stage performance is used throughout. It is the mise-en-scene used here that creates this cohesion. This embeds a live performance theme into the viewers and listeners. This staged performance evidently continues in live performances, however Fall Out Boy could have continued this idea by the introduction of the red curtains that appear in both the Digipack and the music video. Here are two examples of one element of a promo pack, a digipack.

Both Blink 182's and Oasis' albums show ideal examples of what a digipack should look like. Both albums have a front and back cover that link together, with Blink 182's album consisting of the same black background colour and the same font used. Not only does this create cohesion through the covers but it also relates the album to the target audience, in terms of font and colour both relating to the rock genre. With both the font and colour of this album being the same it is clear that they are of the same promo pack, an element that is vital in making a successful digipack. However Blink 182 aren't really classed as heavy rock and don't cover much of the serious themes related to rock, it may be for this reason that they chose to add a rather child like image of a smiley face onto the front cover. The crosses of the smiley face may also connote mischief or other elements that transgress away from normal child like behaviour, yet in many animated images crosses for eyes usually represent the death of a character, suggesting that this album, which is their greatest hits will be the last as it is now the death of the band.

The use of unusual font type on both the front and back of the album cover not only creates cohesion but also adds to the rock genre theme of the digipack, as well as representing the bands unique look and sound. The colours of black and white, whilst not being very emotive show contrast and draw out the song titles, with more important/well known songs further identified with larger and brighter white font. The use of bordering the bands name on the back cover with a white box further highlights them as it is the first real block of colour that you see and draws attention to the band which automatically allows target audiences to identify with them. It is the only time that the font changes colour further embedding the ideology that they are unique from other rock bands, or maybe that they are singled out by fans or critics for some unknown reasons.

The idea of cohesion and relation for a target audience is also shown in Oasis' album "Definitely Maybe" also strengthens the element of cohesion on album covers. Both covers take place in the same room with each band member captured in the same action but in a different position. Yet unlike the Blink 182 album the two covers are separated by a side in blue which clearly stands out. This may be used to represent the bands change in style of music from previous albums hence the change of positioning in the band members. The back cover is also filled with text in black boxes and text different to that of the front cover, again strengthening the idea of an alternate style to the typical music that their target audience and the rock genre is used to. The band members in the photos also relate heavy to the rock/indie culture of the target audience, with many of the band wearing smart, stylish, but also comfy clothes much like the bands target audience would. The lack of action in the covers also connotes a very passive or cool theme to the band that further strengthens their popularity with their target audience, as Oasis' music always sounds slightly more acoustic than other rock bands, which creates this passive atmosphere. The cluttering of writing that appears on the back cover, also creates a sense of accomplishment and hectic lifestyle in which they live, this slightly relates to the bands songs as many of them are traditionally long, with many different themes and motifs explored. The deliberate lack of separation between text and image (unlike in Blink 182's album) also suggests that their music is part of their everyday life, and the fact that they have been positioned around it suggests that their music controls them. In relation to target audience this suggests that Oasis are in the music industry solely to please their fans and for a love of music compared to other artists who don't care about what they make as long as its money. This idea is also evident in the fact that they are actually in the images making it feel like you are almost in the room with them.

However my designs will be based on following the alternative rock genre, and based specifically on Bloc Party's song "Ares"and therefore there wont be major changes in styles between the four fronts that I produce. After looking at both digipack ideas, I have decided that all four panels for my digipack will have the same theme directly related to either the name, sound or lyrics of the song whilst drawing on previous Bloc Party album colours to make my idea specific to their target audience.

IDEA ONE

My first idea for my digipack was to relate the artwork to the name of the song "Ares." My idea was to have the front of the digipack consisting of a statue of the god of war Ares. I thought that this would relate specifically to the song, however in hindsight I've realised that it doesn't really relate to the rock genre. However I was planning to relate it to the sound of the song by adding the "Ares" to the statue in fluorescent graffiti writing to relate to the ideas of the music video in terms of the neon lighting. On the back cover I thought I would get the horizon in the same place to make it look like one picture, strengthening the cohesion between the two. However the main reason that I have decided against using this idea for my digipack, is that i would have no way of taking the photo myself unless I flew to Greece in order to take the picture. It is also the colour scheme that fails to relate my idea to the genre and ideas of our music video. With the setting and ideas of the contrast between bright lights and darkness already established my use of landscape doesn't really apply with this theme meaning that i doubt i will use this for my blog design. The inside sections of the digipack would consist of images of the Greek God of war Ares which relates to the name of the song. However I don't feel that this part of of the Digipack would be well constructed and would look rather bland, it also fails to relate to the images seen in our music video and by solely relating to the song title fails to match many of themes that are apparent across all Bloc Party songs, thus alienating it from the target audience in terms of its identity with the band.

Yet whilst this idea remains near impossible if i were to go ahead with it, i feel that i would change the weather of the images to a more stormy atmosphere as it creates more emotive imagery with war. The fonts used on both covers would also remain the same to create cohesion between the two and would hopefully be similar to actual Bloc Party album fonts, which remain the same over a variety of albums and singles. This font is a typical Serif font and has become iconic in relation to Bloc Party, however i feel that it doesn't really create to much in terms of effect on the audience and i may choose to experiment with the font to make it more related and interesting to my actual digipack. Yet if i want to have the name of the song Graffittied onto the statue in neon colours then it would probably be worthwhile to change the font to make it more realistic and graffiti like.

IDEA TWO

My second idea relates well to the neon lights idea, as well as the contrast between these lights and the darkness surrounding them. My draft for this idea of the digipack didn't plan out how i wanted it to, the idea was to have BLOC PARTY written in multicoloured bright neon lights with the name of the song ARES placed around the center with the brightness gradually fading towards the edges of the front cover. This would match the sound of the song as it has a very rave/party like feel to it. It would have also matched our original idea of the bright neon lights against the black backdrop and it also captures contrasting themes of loneliness and action which works well with the abstract feel of the song. However i feel that whilst this idea would take minimal work in terms of preparation for the shots it would take a lot of editing and experimentation in order to get the desired effect that i want. I don't believe that it is really that imaginative either as it is just bright colours against a black background which doesn't seem exciting or stir too many emotions. However if my desired idea for a digipack fails then this provides both an effective and simply constructed form for a digipack, yet since our idea has thus changed from the use of neon lights to a more simplistic and realistic video the only connotations this would have with the song would be to do with the general sound and feel of the song and much like in my previous design it would fail to relate to typical themes of Bloc Party songs, thus this idea would also alienate itself from the Bloc Party target audience who are used to simplistic designs which relate to deeper or hidden meanings across selected songs. However one reason as to why this idea would work well is that, InDesign and Photoshop allow for easy modification of certain aspects of your images such as colour and brightness, i have also included a typical Serif font which automatically relates to the target audience and their usual grasp of Bloc Party songs and albums.

IDEA THREE

Here is the third and final idea for my digi pack with its four panels. I have decided to base this one in the actual setting of the video and use the actual mask that we hope to use in the video. I already feel that this will be the design that i will use as it is directly specific to our music video, as well as being fairly simple to recreate. I hope to place a chair in the middle of a walkway in the forest as part of the shot. The reason for this is to create the abstract feel of the song. A chair will commonly be associated with household appliances so by placing it into the woods it creates a mysterious and abstract effect. This also allows me to create a supernatural or demonic element with the character in the mask, by placing the mask on back to front, this creates an image of it being all seeing even when it is not facing you, which is why the indie kid can never escape. The back panel further establishes this with the indie kid sitting on the chair staring at the mask indicating not only that he can never escape but also that they are the same person. By placing both these shots in a pathway will hopefully mean that nothing is behind them so attention is drawn to them. I may have to search for a bush or tree on each side that looks like it is almost circling the two to make all the surroundings draw into them. The font that i hope to use will be a Serif font to match traditional rock like albums and posters, yet i have altered it match the wood land, whilst this may have the downside that it will blend in and not be automatically recognisable, i hope that the colouring which may be a bright red to connote danger as well as striking up a comparison between the mask will draw attention to it from the background that it will be emerged in. On this design i have decided to include the lyrics of the song "Ares" the reason for this was that on my last to ideas the inside panels lacked any real imagery and were slightly bland so by adding lyrics it will make the panel look more eventful. I hoped to put the lyrics either side of the mask that has been trampled into the floor. This suggests that someone has carelessly trod on it whilst running away from something which conveys fear which is the focal point of our video. The final panel will consist of the mask hanging from the tree, this may take a few shots to capture right as it isn't easily see able and i may have to zoom in to capture the shot how i want it. This combined with the other shots basically suggests that the pursuer is everywhere in life and that you are always going to be faced with fear no matter what. This will be the only panel with no righting on it and will be the panel where the CD would go, as my back cover will have the track listings of the song as well as the bands name and "Ares" in the same font as the front cover, the lyrics will also be in this font to show continuity and cohesion much like on Blink 182's album.

THE FINISHED DIGIPACK

Here is the completed digipack as part of my Promo pack. The actual area where these photos were taken is in our music video so it automatically has cohesion between the two. I have decided to use the mask as a prominent theme of my Digipack as not only does it appear constantly in our music video but it also

makes links with the band itself and other Bloc Party videos. The theme of otherness and the unknown is explored by the band through unseen faces and masks so I feel that the use of the mask creates a more realistic likeness to the band themselves. Originally I wanted to create a distorted colour scheme to my Digipack to link it to our music video yet as there is no real sense of extravagant colours in our music video i have decided to ignore that for my Promo pack. I have illuminated the mask from the greyscale background to make it seem ghostly and death like, i feel that this fits in well with the lyrics of the song, the mood of our video and it also draws attention to the mask, which our music video constantly does. The two images in which only the mask appears were intentionally put into greyscale using InDesign. The main ideology behind this was that the images had come out too bright when i had taken them and when i made the image darker you couldn't really make sense of the background. However i feel that the grey background helps establish the gloomy sense of abandonment in the woods as well as capturing the sense of loneliness that appears in our music video. Yet i felt that if i just left all the images in grey scale then my digipack would look a bit dull and boring so by illuminating the mask in all four images i was able to make it appear more interesting. I managed to illuminate the mask on InDesign by clicking on the lasso option and changing it to the magnetic approach that allowed me to follow the outline of both the mask and the lips. From here i could then edit the colour of object highlighted by the lasso and edit the colour scheme of it. To do this all i had to do was to click on the levels icon and click on New Adjustment Layer anf by clicking on Hue/saturation i could create either a ghostly effect for the whole picture or change the colour of the highlighted area. After experimenting with this i decided to make the mask standout from the image by making it a ghostly blue with faded red lips. This creates an eerie effect that matches well with the mood and feeling of the song, the red lips also convey the femininity of the mask so some of the ambiguity becomes clearer. This use of Hue/Saturation really allows the mask, which is the focal point of the video and digipack standout and it would work well to recreate this in our music video, yet since we cannot change the colour of the mask techniques such as clos ups or depth of field would have to be used to draw the audiences attention to it. The greyscale that surrounds the mask also matches the desired mood of the video as it appears very desolate and abandoned with the use of leafless trees suggesting that winter had just passed which makes the area feel like a cold empty place which adds to the element of fear in our Promo Pack. As far as the font went i remembered in both my analysis of digipacks and adverts that many artists in the rock genre used basic Serif font, so i decided to use the same. However after experimentation i felt that it left my covers looking a bit bland so attempted a more unique Serif font much like what is evident on Blink 182's album. After searching on http://www.dafont.com/ i decided to use the font "Wilderness". The reason that i chose this particular font is that it was a Serif font which conveyed a forest like presentation that matched the bare trees in the background to my digipack but also looked slightly eerie so it was ideal for my Promo pack. I have also decided to keep this font white, as it stands out against the grey background whilst also demanding some attention. I also decided to include lyrics on one of the inner panels to make it more appealing but the panel that i wanted to put it on had too much white in the background so i had to move it to the other panel. My personal favourite shot is the one of me facing the mask on the chair. The main reason for the chair was to convey the abstract theme of the song by placing a household appliance into the forest, this also enables the characters to be right in the centre of the shots aswell.

Whilst attempting this digipack you really do get a bigger understanding of what skills are needed in order to complete the task effectively. It is important that patience, time and effort are all put into these images as it takes a while to get the shot exactly how you wanted it. I myself had to put the camera on a timer before running back to the seat which took multiple attempts to get right. You also get a better understanding for lighting compostion, with one of the main reasons for me changing it to greyscale being that the pictures came out too bright because of the sunlight. The weather itself can be extremely frustrating as certain days weren't appropriate for filming (this is evident in our muisc video when we had to go out one time when it was sunny which wasn't the right weather for our dreary video, yet it isn't too noticable). In terms of editing i felt that my editing skills have developed largely. It is quite easy to get frustrated with the technology that i used, in particularly photoshop and InDesign, yet i have learnt to bypass and find other techniques to create desired effects instead of getting annoyed with the lack of work that is being produced. Yet whilst i can easily comment on my own production the use of others to evaluate my work will provide an unbias evaluation on my product. In terms of other feedback i asked three people to look at all parts of my Promo Pack and tell me what they thought about it; the general feeling was that they like how the panels looked similar as it created a sort of cohesion much like on actual album covers. They felt that whilst the greyscale idea of the digipack worked well with the song and the abstract eerie feel, that they thought it was a bit bland. They liked the use of shots i chose to incorperate, with the positioning of these shots as one of the better elements of the panels. They liked how the text matched the setting and combined with the mask created an eerie effect. Yet most of them felt that it would work better with a bit more colour as it doesn't quite match the darkness that appears at times during the video. However overall i feel that my digipack fits in well in terms of media products for the rock genre, with the use of a Serif font as well as the simplicity of the panels. Yet it could also be argued that it challanges the media products of the rock genre as whilst the font is Serif it is also abstract and i fail to place the common use of a black background into my digipack. The reason for this is that it links back to the target audience and where they're most likely to listen to this song; at raes and parties which will consist of loud bright and abstract colours.

It is apparent that whilst my digipack does relate to my music video there are a few modifications that should be made if i were to attempt it again. I would probably try to take the photos at night with a flash, which would illuminate the center of the photo more. This would then allow me to put my images into colour. However i personally feel that the greyscale works well as it captures the idea of abandonement which works extremely well with the ideas of our music video.


THE ADVERT

Following my design for a digipack i also had to design and create an advert for my Promo pack. The aim of the advert is to advertise the song and album whilst presenting relevant information about the song such as release dates. Much like with the digipack i first chose to study other adverts of over singles/albums before drawing up my own ideas as to how i want my advert to look and why.

The first advert that i chose to study was the advert of Friendly Fires, for their debut album. I chose this as they fall under the same alternative rock genre as Bloc Party so the target audience would be similar meaning that many of the elements that appear in this advert would be beneficial to my advert as well. The main composition of the poster is that it consist of very few colours with black and white being the prominant colour. This not only draws the audience towards the information in the text but also to the image of the smashed mirror in the middle. This image conveys little colour yet due to the dark background of the image it still stands out. However the image itself gives away very little either metaphorically as well as in terms of the songs on the album suggesting that for my advert i should perhaps not try to relate to much to the themes of the song and instead just relate it to what will appear in our music video. The advert also has evidence of critical views of the album, as well as tour dates for the band. It may prove worthwhile to add both of these elements to my poster, as i plan to make it with simple effects as not to distract the audience from the information or from the cohesion between song, digipack and advert. The advert also provides websites about the songs and the artist themselves, which will again be something that i take into consideration when creating my own advert. The effect of a smashed mirror being the only image is both simplistic and effective as it doesn't demand too much attention whilst also creating an ambigious feeling about the song. If the advert explained everything about the song and band then no one would buy the album, and seeing as how the people who will be effected most be the persuasion of the advert will be the bands followers who presumable already know many of the themes and motifs of both the band and the song. I quite like the simplistic ideas of the advert as it doesn't patronise the target audience with too much hype or suggestiveness, something that i also hope to achieve when creating my advert. The font of the advert is a basic Serif font much like what is evident in both Bloc Party's and Oasis' albums, this general themes of using Serif in rock genre advertising is something that i should definately put into my advert design in order to establish it to rock and Bloc Party fans. However due to Bloc Party's alternate and ever changing sound it may be worthwhile to use a unique or distorted Serif font to emphasis the band's individualaity and uniqueness.

I decided to also study a second advert to give me a better idea of what common traits occur across a range of adverts. Kings Of Leon are another band that fall into the Rock genre so yet again in relation to target audience i can learn from what is evident in their posetr advertising their new album "Only By The Night". Much like with the Friendly Fires advert the poster contains very little contrast of colour with green being the primary stand out colour with the white title of Kings Of Leon being placed as the heading also demanding your attention. As with both adverts the band name has been placed at the top of the image as it is the first thing that the audience will read. Both images also have the band name in direct contrast with the background helping illuminate the band from the image. This poster also blends a humans face with that of an eagle. This creates a distorted image of a being that would work will for my idea in relation to the sense of unknown identity that appears in Bloc Party videos. The use of green may connote night vision, which links to technology, this is backed up by the use of "Only By The Night" appearing as if typed on a computer. Both the image and the font create a cohesion between the two, and bearing in mind that our music video is about war and fear it would be interesting to see if i could match the font with the image in terms of one of these themes. Whilst the remainder of this poster has been cut off for some reason, it is meant to consist of what features are in the album as well as a release date between for the album. This provides vital need to know information about the album which the target audience will appreciate, as it lets them know about what songs appear on the album aswell as when it is released, so i shall definately be adding these to my eventual poster. Yet again the font is typically Serif, yet with a futuristic edge to it, so it is basically set in stone that i will be using a Serif font in my poster as it has been used by many rock bands so far. The image itself seems to connote a lack of real identity as it is a merge of two creatures whilst it also reminds me of a reflection of some sort. Even the background is a merge of two different colours that combine allow over the page, this creates a troubled or unknown identity something that would relate to my advert and may be worth exploring.

With the analysis of two actual adverts now complete i could move onto creating flat plans portraying my own ideas about the song for an advert.

IDEA ONE

Here is my first idea for an advert. I'll admit that it is largely based on the Kings Of Leon poster above with the merging of two faces, however i feel that it works really well with the idea that in our music video the pursuer and the indie kid are alike. This should be reletively easy to produce with the Serif font at the top of the page being similar to that on traditional rock genre posters. There will also be large amounts of information at the bottom such as release dates magazine reviews and websites much like the Friendly Fires advert yet without the tour dates. The only thing that i am undecided on is the colour of the image, i may make it greyscale much like my digipack which will create cohesion, yet with my digipack you solely concentrated on the image so it didn't appear that dull but with a lot of information combined with the greyscale it may not appeal that much so the Serif font may be changed to red or a more attractive and appealing cover. It may also be worthwhile using the same font as the digipack as it can become iconised with Bloc Party which relates to the target audience in terms of when they see that font they will automatically realise that it is Bloc Party. As far as creating this design it will be the image that i will have the most trouble with i will have to set up a self timer on the camera and then crop and cut each quarter of the shot, which should hopefully be achievable. Yet i don't particularly like the idea of too much text on my poster as it wont appeal to the visuals of the target audience, so i may cut off some of the magazine reviews.

IDEA TWO

My second idea will be far more simplistic than the first which hopefully means that i wont spend too long editing as it should be able to be created in one shot. The image will mainly be a mixture of both my inner two digipack panels. I hope to mix the surrounding leaves of my first inner panel with that of the hanging trees in my second panel. This will hopefully be as simple as finding a tree with leaves and placing the mask on that tree, However since it is only just spring many of the leaves may not be back on the trees so i don't know if this can happen. As far as the font goes i wanted to border it with twigs and sticks to seperate it from a hectic and busy background, yet i feel i would have to achieve this through editing rather than an actual picture, and may have to make a border on InDesign. I have decided to keep the information minimal as i want the audience to concentrate on the mask and how it relates to the video, so i will only be putting the release date on this one so that it remains simplistic like Bloc Part's album covers. The big gap on the right hand side will hopefully be a tree and i hope to use the rule of three shot to bring the mask into the center of attention. the rule of three shot is typically used to place the item/object into the attention of the audience by illiminating parts of the shots with vertical or horizontal lines. So by using this i hope to draw attention to the mask rather than the background. Yet another way of achieving this would be to use the lasso technique to highlight the mask and make it brighter or illuminate it.

IDEA THREE

My final idea is actually very similar to the previous one in the sense that it will be the focusing on the mask hanging from the tree. Much like in the previous idea it will be in the centre of my page so it automatically draws attention to itself, yet instead of illuminating it i hope to illuminate the whole picture to further embed the idea that fear is everywhere by merging it in with the background. The only problem that i can foresee here is that it not stand out enough so i mah have to zoom in on the camera to enlarge the mask and make it stand out more. I have also decided to include an image of the CD itself onto the advert to promote what it is advertising. The Kings Of Leon advert is actually just an image of the album cover, with added information on the bottom, and whilst i don't want to do this as i feel it is repetitive i feel that by having the album somewhere on the page it would look more professional and direct comparisons between the two could be easily drawn up. With this in mind i wont have to comment on features such as what songs are on the CD and can solely concentrate on the release date whilst drawing attention to the images of the digipack and the advert and how they compare and contrast. It is for these reasons that i am going to base my advert around this flat plan.

THE FINISHED ADVERT

Here is the final completed advert for my Promo Pack as mentioned earlier it is based on idea three with the mask as the central figure and hanging from a tree. In order to capture this picture i had to get very close to the mask with the camera and zoom out slightly to make sure i captured it in a large form but not too blurry. As mentioned before i wanted to illuminate the whole picture to blend the mask into the background, i originally started by making the image darker but it failed to establish much of the background so i instead decided to make the image lighter. The result effect is that i have managed to create a ghostly or misty inversion of my origional file. I feel that it makes the image look like early morning in which the forest would be empty, so the feeling of isolation is established which fits in well with our music video. Unfortunately i couldn't match the background greyscale colour with that of the digipack so there is a distinct difference between the two. However i feel that it makes an easily established difference between the two whilst making the advert more interesting in terms of colours. With the illuminated greyscale another problem arose. The font, which subsequently is "Wilderness" which i used in my digipack, making it cohesive, wouldn't stand out very well if i left it white like on the digipack. At first i changed it to black lettering yet it didn't really fit in well with the rest of the advert due to it drew too much attention away from the rest of the poster. So i then decided to change it to red like i suggested in one of my original flat plans. At first i didn't really take too well to the colour bit it connotes danger and doesn't draw too much attention to itself and it is still readable it also matches the colour of lips which i tried to bring out with the magnetic lasso technique yet it only chnaged it from black to white, due to the fact that i had changed it to greyscale before adding the level to it. After Highlighting the magnetic lasso it was extremely hard to attempt to get a perfect outline of the lips which meant that if the hue/saturate did work then parts of the face would have been brightened to and it wouldn't have worked how i wanted it to. After this i also found out that the hue/saturate wouldn't really aid my design and my attempts to brighten the lips to red which would have made the advert look much better, wouldn't work so i had to keep my image basic. In terms of the actual photo itself i had already decided to convert it to greyscale to match the digipack to make it cohesive but other factors also effected my decision. The fact that it was a sunny day meant that it didn't match the mood of the video and the remainder of the promo pack. It also meant that there was a glare coming off of the mask and into the camera yet fortunately in greyscale it creates a sort of omnious glow that makes it quite eerie and almost a haunted effect for the woods. The image itself kind of contains a rule of three with the tree down the side and the horizon across the top which draws attention into the mask making it the focal point of the advert. Yet i don't feel that for an advert that it really conveys too much information and as such it isn't a typical advert as it has very little information regarding the song and band so that may be something that i would look to add if i were to complete it again.

Whilst i have given a detailed analysis of how i feel my final advert went, it would be wise to get a more collective feel as to the success of the advert through feedback from other people who had no involvement in the video or my Promo Pack. I chose the same three people who evaluated my digipack to again evaluate my advert as they have insight into what my actual Promo Pack should look like. They mainly commented as to how it looked very similar to some aspects of the digipack, yet the colouring was slightly lighter and that it had been edited more due to the abstract colouring. The main response to the red font was that they liked the font type as it matched the woods and was the same as the digipack but that they wouldn't have chosen red colouring as it stands out too much from the rest of the image. I explained how this would be good as it draws attention to the advert and the connotations that come with red and many thought that whilst this was a good and valid reason it still didn't quite fit in with the rest of the digipack. They said they enjoyed the simplicity of the advert and that it related to actual Bloc Party albums in terms of this. They mentioned that by putting the digipack onto the album it created more cohesion and got a real sense of trying to promote the songs. In terms of this album the skills i have learned are very similar to the skills developed in making the digipack however i would say that I have learnt more about the presentation of things and how certain aspects effect how much attention someone will pay to something.