JP: Digipak Analysis

I have chosen to analyse the digipak for Coldplay’s fifth and most recent album – ‘Mylo Xyloto’. Below is the front album cover and the back of the album cover too.

Firstly, it is important to consider how the genre of the artist is evident through the codes and conventions used in the digipak. The album cover is fairly unconventional, in that it is more of a work of art as opposed to a cover that exposes the band’s genre through the use of costume, lighting and facial expression. This is primarily due to the fact that the band members are not present on the cover, and instead there is just a wall covered in different coloured graffiti.

However it is possible to look into iconography and how certain signs and symbols create meaning in the text (semiotics). We can use Roland Barthes’ framework to analyse the album cover for semiotics. On the back of the album there are 14 small symbols, each representing each individual track on the album. We can see that the symbols sum up the song into a small icon, hinting at the lyrics or the meaning of each track.

The colour on the digipak gives a deep insight into the genre of music inside the album, with bright neon/electric tones used in order to portray an upbeat, loud and electric genre of music.

Aside from the genre, it is vital to look at the media language used in the digipak and this includes the visual techniques that are used in the artwork. Seeing as the cover for ‘Mylo Xyloto’ is artistic and conceptual, camera techniques such as the rule of thirds, angle and framing are very hard to analyse, but it is possible to examine the texture, colour, tone and special effects used.

The texture of the background that the graffiti is sprayed onto is smooth and urban, reflecting the slower, calmer tracks in the album that are more stripped back and acoustic (such as Up in Flames). However, the colours and tones used for the graffiti and paint are bright and neon-like, which contrasts to their other album covers (Viva La Vida, X&Y, A Rush of Cold Blood to the Head and Parachutes) which are very naturalistic and organic in tones. The artwork/covers for these albums are shown below.

The text for the album name 'Mylo Xyloto' is very bold and rounded, and is simply an outline of each letter. The text is in white which stands out from the colourful, chaotic background and could be seen to represent simplicity in a world of chaos.

There is meaning behind these visual techniques, and Chris Martin believes that ‘Graffiti often has its critics, but it changes something that’s really drab and oppressive into something else… That’s the idea of the record too, is to be trying to find colour within darkness and depression and all the terrible things in the wold. It’s trying to find the light in them, and that’s what I think a lot of graffiti does, is put a lot of light into darkness.’ From this quote we can see that the meaning of the album is to create light and colour in a world of darkness and oppression, and the visuals mirror this message too.

There is a certain amount of enigma in the album title ‘Mylo Xyloto’, and there are linguistic devices used in this. The two words are unknown to the English dictionary and were in fact coined and created by Coldplay themselves. In an interview, Chris Martin (the lead singer of the band) was questioned about the meaning behind the album name ‘Mylo Xyloto’ and why they used it for the album. He replied ‘You’ve got to have an interesting name…’ and did not explain much more of the meaning. Online forums have speculated about the meaning of ‘Mylo Xyloto’ some claiming it is to do with a graffiti artist named Mylo, and some believing that it was created to ‘just sound good’, however we will never know.

Coldplay are represented in an interesting way through the digipak artwork. The colour, paint and graffiti add to their ‘meta-narrative’ and connect the audience to the stars. The band’s meta-narrative portrays them as loud, vibrant, colourful, unique, authentic, interesting, and bright and reinforces their stardom. This helps to sell their product because the audience feel happy and excited when they see the colour and urban feel of the artwork and therefore somehow feel connected to the meta-narrative of Coldplay.

The fact that the Coldplay have adopted the urban aesthetic for the album and have chosen to use graffiti as a symbol reveals a great deal about the target audience and the demographic that they are aiming the album at. It suggests that they are targeting ‘Mylo Xyloto’ at teenagers and people of a younger age (young adults too), and this is reflected in the electric-indie/alternative genre that the band has created. The electric samples, synths and riffs or chords used throughout the tracks in the album are evident in the digipak and the cover appeals to the younger audience members which increases sales. It is vital for the record label and institution to get this correct in order to maximise overall profits of the album.

Group: Concept Development

Today we had a group concept development meeting at the begining of the lesson. We talked about the progress we have made so far along with the skills we will need when in the production process of our coursework.

During the planning process we have progressed our concept in many different ways, including:
- The idea of creating 30 seconds of visual before the music starts to establish the scene and expose the character
- This will compose of establishing shots such as a railway, the boy's home, landscapes and other urban areas
- At the end of the 30 seconds we will create a fast-paced montage edit with a CU of the boy's eyes in front of different locations
- We will need to use the green screen for this and then we can overlay the locations much more easily with the boy staying centrally framed
- This is a skill that we have already rehearsed and practiced in the Drama Studio
- To be conventional and reinforce the band's meta-narrative, just before the music begins, we will use similar text and graphics to display the band's name (Coldplay) that is already being used in their current music videos
- However, to make our video creative, authentic and original, we will create our own text to display the name of the song (Up in Flames)
- Aside from the text, we will take inspiration from the music video for Love and Oxygen, and overlay heavily colour-corrected footage inside various different shapes
- These shapes will be the symbols that Coldplay have created for the album Mylo Xyloto such as the flames, teardrop and possibly the butterfly
- For the main section of the video, rather than shooting the boy in front of green screen and then overlaying the footage of children playing in the background, we have chosen to shoot both clips at once
- This means we cannot differentiate time remapping in Premiere (the boy in slow motion and children in real time), so we have decided to shoot all footage in slow motion at half speed

Our targets:
- Find an actor to play the part of the boy
- Find extras to play the parts of the children playing in the background
- Start to experiment with overlaying different footage in unique shapes

Well done Joe and Henry, you have worked hard to make improvements. Please read all my comments carefully and carry out instructions - they are mainly to do with the look of the blog and the multimedia criteria. You should also be using the comment facility on the blog, you could start by replying to some of my comments, ie informing me when you have made changes so I can go back and remark. There is high quality analysis from both of you which individually should ensure a level 4.

Group: Brighton Footage & Location Reccie



Above is our footage for our Brighton location reccie.

We travelled to Brighton in order to take various footage alongside completing a location reccie. We spent the majority of our time filming around and on the pier, with shots featuring the ferris wheel and the buildings on the pier.

We practiced taking ES (establishing shots) such as the time lapse of the ferris wheel at the start of the video and also completed CU (close ups) of the seagulls in Brighton. We experimented with the tempo of different shots for example using time lapse techniques, and used various equipment such as the track and dolly to achieve shots with some subtle movement in, whether it be tracking a character or adding movement to timelapses.

We encountered various obstacles and problems throughout our reccie. These included:

- Weather problems (heavy rainfall), and we had to therefore protect the equipment

- In post-production we found it difficult to colour correct the footage due to the drastic changes in weather and lighting when shooting on the day

- The memory on the SD card ran out halfway through the day, however we managed to overcome this by carrying a second SD card with us

By completing this location reccie we can then apply the problems on the day in Brighton to our shoots for our final music video.

Group: Location Reccie

In order to assess the practicality of locations in terms of camera, risk assessment and other difficulties, we need to carry out location reccies wherever we are thinking of filming.

We carried out a reccie in Pembury Orchards around some disused warehouses and barns to assess where we could place the camera, dolly and track for filming. We looked around the surrounding area and fields to see if it was dangerous or to view any potential hazards.

Risks:

- Roads nearby (road safety)

- Dangerous and sharp objects in the area

- Old scraps of metal and corregated iron lying around

Despite these risks we believe that this is a suitable location to film in because it is aesthetically correct for our concept and it is an old, empty, desolate urban area.

Below are some photos that show the suitability of the location.

JP: Costume, Props, Lighting & Location Ideas

COSTUME & MAKEUP
For the boy...
- Dark clothes
- Slightly old/worn
- Shades of grey and navy
- Dirty, messy face and hair
- Small drawn on symbols like tattoos under his eyes in black
For the children behind...
- Brighter, colourful clothes
- Newer, more stylish items
- Well-groomed, clean face and hair
- Bright wellies and coats/macintoshes

PROPS
- Football
- Tennis ball
- Fire
- Toys (wooden train, old chess pieces, small dolls without heads)

LOCATION
- Railways (such as one that we filmed in our Brighton footage)
- Desolate houses
- Old, disused barns and warehouses
- A small, cramped house
- An empty park with a swing swinging with nobody on it

LIGHTING
- Strong, front-on artificial lighting, but making it look natural
- Little/no back lighting to avoid highlights
- Soft overall lighting to make the video seem naturalistic and avoid an artificial aesthetic
- No spotlights
- Overall desaturation of colours to give the video a realistic, dull cinematic feel

JP: Concept Development

Today we had a meeting to develop our concept after reading the reflection on our blog from our teacher. The reflection said we hadn't created blog posts to illustrate our blog development, and therefore Henry and I discussed how we could break up the shot that tracks back gradually from the young boy.

Our ideas...
- 30 seconds of visual before the music begins
- This will show our artistic flair and skill and create a more complex video
- The footage will include establishing shots and tracking shots of locations
- We will intercut these establishing shots with footage of the young boy arguing with his parents and being shouted at and punished by his parents
- This footage before the music kicks in will show character exposition and give the young boy prevalence so that the audience are positioned with him and feel sympathy
- It will show the gradual downfall of his parents' lives and how the boy slowly felt outcast from society
- When the music begins, we will intercut the single track back of the boy with B-roll footage of destruction and toys or objects being set on fire in slow motion
- The devil side of the boy will be shown through sped up shaking of the head which may look like he is having a sort of fit
- This will be intercut between the tracking shots of the boy in the urban location