Ancillary Text Analysis #1 (Digipak)

The album cover for 'New Found Glory's' self titled album features nine, single, different images, none of which are the band. This does not follow the conventions of CD covers as the artist is, stereotypically the main focal point of the cover. Each image relates to teenage 'rebellion' life and creates a strong image about the audience the band are aiming their music at. The target audience, from looking at this CD cover, are predominantly stereotypical teenagers that enjoy going out, drinking, having fun and having sex. This is made clear from the variety of images used such as condoms, food and gig tickets. However, because there is such a variety of images shown, it connotes that the band aim their music at a wide audience and this CD cover shows that many people can enjoy the album and music in general.

The colour scheme running throughout the cover is quite bright and includes a lot of reds and oranges. This contrasts with the ideas behind the imagery as it connotes a more bright side to the band, linking with the idea of pop punk music; guitar rifts with a more up beat and popular sound. The bright colours are therefore the 'pop' side of the music where as the rebellious imagery relates more to the 'punk' side of the music.
The images also have a '90's vibe to them (roller blades, joy sticks and old style phones) linking with when the band were the most famous and most well known. As this album was released just into the new millennium, it acts as a way to remember the decade that has just passed, showing some of the best things to come out of the 1990's.

The band name (also the title of the album) is placed across the middle of the cover, making sure it is one of the first thing noticed due to it being one of the main focal points. This is important as there is no main image of the band and therefore would not be instantly known to be a 'New Found Glory' album by most people. However, the font size is not very large, therefore a background on each individual word has been added to help it stand out more and become more recognisable to the audience. Each of the backgrounds on each word also links with the colour scheme's of the images placed on each row of the cover e.g. the orange background on the word 'new' links with the colour scheme of the roller blades, whereas the black background on the word 'glory' links with the colour scheme of the joy stick and food.

Storyboarding

Storyboard of shots 21-27 of my music video. These shots show each character looking happy with their life and smiling to the camera. In the two shots used the girls are portrayed laughing together and enjoying each other's company. There are also group shots used with all 5 girls showing that each one is willing to let people into their life again. The music video concludes with a shot of all five girls relaxed together and smiling, unaware that the camera is there. The shot then fades to black as the final notes of the song are played.

Storyboarding cont.

Storyboard of shots 1-20 of my music video. These shots show each of the girl characters looking sad and upset about the current situation. However, these storyboards also show the girls starting to look more optimistic about things (shot 14 onwards). Shots 18 through to 20 show the scenes of the part of the music video where all the girls are together and are shown looking happy and content with their life.

Cast List and Character Profiles

Girl #1 - Leonie Naylor
Girl #2 - Rebecca Cardell

Girl #3 - Danielle Cusworth

Girl #4 - Charlotte Allinson

Girl #5 - Becky Marsh

All five girls will tell the story of people suffering from heartbreak who don't believe they will ever be happy due to the fact that they have just broke up with their boyfriend. As the music video goes on they will begin to look more optimistic about the situation and will conclude with them all happily enjoying each other's company.

Shooting Script

Prop and Location List

Prop list -
Black t-shirts x5

Black trousers x5

Squares of cards x40

Location list -
Room with a blank wall to set the characters against

Modern house interior - bedroom (quite large)

- kitchen

- lounge

Initial Ideas

When first set the A2 coursework task I was set on the idea of making a music video and not a film trailer, website or any of the remaining brief ideas. Once decided that I wanted to produce a music video i had to decide on the genre of the song and come up with ideas of what to feature in my video. I had no certain thought about what I wanted to feature in my video and had many ideas before coming up with my final thought.

Initially I thought about doing a pop video with a performance element but soon decided against that when I couldn't find anyone to perform and also couldn't find an appropriate song choice. I then thought about filming footage abroad as I was going on holiday during October, however, decided that it would be too difficult to find the time and knew that if mistakes were made it would be impossible to re-shoot the footage.

I then thought about doing a dance track and filming a group of girls on a night out, but once again knew it would be hard to find the time and knew it would be difficult to find people to cooperate and agree with the ideas I had in mind (as they included being very loud and obnoxious) along with re-shooting the footage if mistakes were made.

Finally I decided on a pop punk track by Blink-182 as the track and band is one that I like and so know the audience well and therefore know what to include to ensure that it targets them right. I have decided to feature a mixture between a performance and narrative structure. The people who are performing within the music video will not be a band but characters singing. These will also be the people that are telling a story. This is not as conventional for pop punk videos as they usually have a band performance, however, i decided not to include this as i wanted to challenge the stereotype and thought that it would still be possible to make a successful and realistic pop punk video without featuring a band as the story it tells is one that is conventional of pop punk tracks.

I have decided to make the theme throughout my music video all about heartbreak and how the girl in the relationship is always the one to feel the most hurt and suffer the most during a break up. I plan to show this by having different female characters, portrayed in black and white and looking very plain, looking into the camera holding up cards with pivotal lyrics on them. However, as the music video progresses the colours will become more bright, the characters looking more alive and the all round mood lifted giving the impression and telling the story that life goes on after a break up and you don't have to suffer.