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Inspired partly by my recent reading of the Bloody Chamber in English Literature AS, I decided that a subtle theme of necromancy within the album imagery could reflect the dark themes of the album and not feel overtly twisted, if handled with a sense of subtelty. The following designs depict the rough designs for the three images needed for the digipack design.
The above image will be in the digipack sleeve, behind the album disc. It depicts two dead arms reaching for one another. I hope to achieve this look of deathliness and eeriness through adjusting the colours of a normal arm and simply replicating and reflecting the image so that it depicts two equally decrepit arms reaching out for one another, from either side of the album case.
The above image depicts my new idea for the album cover (without the artist or album name evident). The clothes depicted will see the model in a large fur coat and her underwear. The entire image will be black and white with the exception of the model's lips will be be bright red. Over each eye will be a large cross, which is the typical convention of death.
The above image is the mock-up for the back cover of the CD. It shows a pair of still lifeless legs coming from out of the top of the album cover with the album tracks (Still in the disjointed, unarranged manner of the previous design) seemingly coming from in between the legs.
After a "show and tell" with a number of classmates, who fit the demographic and have a similar understanding of codes and conventions, a number of possible changes were suggested to my original digipack design. The first suggestion was that the cover photo bore a strong resembelance to the old Roxy music covers, in which an anonymous female would lie seductively across the album cover. Although this was intended initially as an homage, it was cited that similarities were too strong with the below image and that as a result something would need to be changed in order to make the cover more original.
To solve this problem I decided that rather than have the model naked and ragmenting and distortion covering the explicit parts of her body, having a female in a similarly provocative pose but in clothes, could be equally in keeping with the album themes. It was noted, also, that the clothes worn on the cover should be reflective of the sexual content of the songs within the album and their titles.
The second change suggested was again fuelled by over bearing similarities. The image of the lips which would provide the backdrop for the CD's disk case was directly copied from the iconic Rocky Horror imagery and although I intended to take my own photos of this , it would be too similar for the image to reflect any sort of individualism or creativity. This left me with the prospect of an almost complete overhaul of my original digi-pack design
Although my previous research into negativizing effects in a Christina Aguilera video and a Beck video were useful in displaying the effect such edits can have in reflecting a song's tone and atmosphere, my audience feedback suggested that specific research into outdoor editing and the extremeties of such edits would be essential in comprehending my own limits with the process of applying colourisation and negativising (especially in relation to an outdoor scenario). It was suggested that 'Eurythmics' video for 'Sweet Dreams perfectly exemplified such edits.
As seen above, the editing is not overly distracting from Annie Lennox or the other figures within the outdoors shots (e.g. the cows) yet gives the video and implied sense of abnormality within the video, which whilst not patently obvious to the reader creates an undeniable sense of unease throughout. This is the sort of atmosphere I wish to create in my own music video.
As well as producing the music video, I am also in the process of creating my digipack design to accompany the video. The digipack design is in line with the earlier designs posted, with the image of a faceless woman upon a bed in a corrupted and somewhat sordid fashion, although I am in the process of taking my own photos in this vein, using the same person who was in the music video for 'Flesh'.
The reasoning behind this, within the scheme of a campaign, is that it seems to present the artist Simon Curtis (in terms of my own campaign) as a silent artist, similar to that of Gorrilaz frontman Damon Albarn's lack of appearance within his group and their use of the cartoon pseudonyms to present the band. The consistency of my model's use within the campaign is reflective of artist detatchment from their campaign's imagery. Whilst some may think this a contrived effort, I feel it an organic attatchment to the sort of dark aesthetic of my overall campaign and that having a female portray the content of an album titled "Unearthly desires" is a much more comfortable and conventional way of exploring darker, sexual themes.
Below is the original rough cut of my movie, which has been uploaded onto YouTube. The reason for this is so that the transition between the first draft and final product is evident.
Issues regarding sound on the clip meant that audio could not be heard from third party softwares such as YouTube etc. yet I felt the visuals were indicative enough to justify it's upload.
A number of changes were applied to my film after the class evaluation of the rough-cut. The first of these changes was the application of sparse negative effects within the gate and table scenes. As explained below, this was to combat the issue of the outdoor scenes looking less visually striking and bold as the indoor scene's red lighting. The effect of these changes are visible in the two stills below:
Another change applied to the video was that the original opening prelude to the video was cut. Depicting Jessie arriving at the gate and realising it was locked, my teacher advised me that the shot of the apartment lighting gradually coming into focus was a more effective opening for the video and that the shots of Jessie at the gate, within the context of a music video did not need explaining. The footage can be seen below:
One suggestion, in order to "make the outdoor scenes more inkeeping with the sultry and twisted style of the music"*, was to add negative effects or dramatic colourisation to the outdoor scenes so that the outdoor scenes, which are devoid of the dramatic lighting of the bedroom scenes. Before applying these changes, however, it was important that I researched worked examples of where this effect has been applied. The following are examples of this effect and for what effect this change was intended.
In the first clip, for Christina Aguilera's You Lose Me music video, the atmosphere is a dark and sombre one, set within isolated black locations, reflecting the song's lyrical content of mourning the loss of a relationship. Throughout the video, and particularly on certain lines of the song, a negative effect is used upon Christina Aguilera. One particular scene inwhich this is used accompanies the line "our world's been infected" with the use of the negative effect reflecting the idea of corruption and ruin. Here, much like my own music video, the use of negative effects make the song's lyrics more meaningful and reflective in the videos' imagery.
The Beck music video for Loser is similar to my own in that the shots in negative, whilst not specific to the lyrics they accompany as seen in the above promo, are used to create a more rounded sense of unease and darkness throughout. The song itself is unconventional and the negative shots reflect this quality, through the way inwhich they accompany a wider variety of effects throughout the promo, similar to the way inwhich my music video also has the "red scenes".
*A quoted suggestion.
An essential part of the editing process involved showcasing the initial rough cut of our work in front of the class in order to gain feeback and know how to improve our work for the final cut. Due to time restrictions and problems with the software the work which was presented to the class was only representative of the first 2 minutes and 8 seconds of the 4.5 minute work, yet the style and tone of the overall clip were prevalent enough in the first few minutes that the class audience were given a sufficient indicator of the overall clip.
The comments given by my class included the following:
"Add music to the piece"
This was a reference to the fact that technical difficulties meant that the official audio of the song was not present in the draft and that the only audio present was a low-quality audio in the background of the clips. To ensure the audience could gather a sense of tone however the song was played from an external software to ensure an all-round reflection of the song and video's synergy.
"Darken or add effects to the outdoor scenes"
I am glad that this was adressed, both by a student and a teacher, as one issue I myself had with the video was that I felt the daytime scenes did not have as much visual impact upon the audience as the nighttime scenes, due to the stark contrast in their lighting, as seen below:
