Indie Album Covers

60s psycadelia photos

I looked at 60s psycadellia for possible inspiration for our digipak. There are clear psycadelic elements of the music and lyrics that we want to incorporate in the video and the 'look' of the website and Digipak. Here are a collections of 60s posters, these posters are very collectable and can pristine editions can go for very high prices.

 

The intricate patterns of this example are something I could imagine us using for our design. The background and composition of it is quiet modern and has a kalediscope feel.

I chose this one for the font, although it may be considered outdated it is possible that as an alternative artist Adash could use this for his font.

 

What I liked about this design that although it is not as obviously psycadelic as the others, it is still a bold design with striking colours.

Psycadelic album covers

I researched different variations of Psycadelic Album covers looking at the iconic, Hendrix and a more modern example by Mika.

 

Cream may not be my favourite band but this is a very good example of a well produced album cover, there is clear colour coordination and a hand made yet proffesional feel that we should really take inspiration from for our project.

Websites

David Bowie

 Yeasayer

David Bowie-Essay

 

''I re-invented my image so many times that I'm in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.''

- David Bowie

 

 

David Robert Jones was born in Brixton on January 8, 1947. At age thirteen, inspired by the jazz of the London West End, he picked up the saxophone and called up Ronnie Ross for lessons. Early bands he played with – The Kon-Rads, The King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Lower Third –provided him with an introduction into the showy world of pop and mod, and by 1966 he was David Bowie, with long hair and aspirations of stardom rustling about his head. Kenneth Pitt signed on as his manager, and his career began with a handful of mostly forgotten singles but a head full of ideas. It was not until 1969 that the splash onto the charts would begin, with the legendary Space Oddity (which peaked at No. 5 in the UK). Amidst his musical wanderings in the late 60s, he experimented with mixed media, cinema, mime, Tibetan Buddhism, acting and love. The album, originally titled David Bowie then subsequently Man of Words, Man of Music, pays homage to all the influences of the London artistic scene. It shows the early song-writing talent that was yet to yield some of rock-n-roll’s finest work, even if it would take the rest of the world a few years to catch up with him.

 

 

Bowie's first TV experience was not musical but as the spokesman for the self-titled Society for the prevention of Cruelty to Long haired Men in 1964. Although perhaps not obviously related to his musical career, in this BBC interview he goes by his orginal name David Jones, not his stage name David Bowie, the controversy and androgyny on his hairstyle is something he carries on throughout his career, as well as the humour in which he portrays himself.



Space Oddity was Bowie's first big hit reaching number five on the charts helped by the synergy of it's release with the first moon landing. Space is a concurent theme throughout Bowie's work and the charachter Major Tom features under different guises in much of his other work. The video was recognised as one of the first pop music videos, shot by photographer Mick Rock on a low budget. The link above is the orginal music video, although experimental and using many unusual angels and editing techniques in comparison to Bowie's later looks and videos is far more safe. Bowie is playing his charachter Major Tom in the video so as a representation of a fictional charachter dresses futuristicaly in all white with excessively big sunglasses that were probably fashionable then. The futuristic representation reflects a lot of the idealism that was sparked by the advancement of technology and excitment that humans could now explore space for the first time.



Although his albums The Man who sold the world and Hunky Dory were ciritcally aclaimed it was not until he transformed into his charachter Ziggy Stardust that he really caught on to commerical success. This song from the album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, was performed on the iconic BBC show The Old Grey Whistle Test two months before the albums release. This was  the point where Bowie asserted himself as a performance artist to the public, he went on to play many charachters such as The White Duke as well as working as an actor for theatre and films, one of his most memorable performance in the Elephant Man. In this video Bowie has his hair in a rugged crop contrasted with an elaborate, tight jumpsuit cut to show off his skinny physice, not something that is linked to the stereotypical image of masculinity. It is important to note as well that 'Spiders' the other members of the band were also dressed in a similar way to Bowie giving a sense of unity to the band of this ecletic style.

On the 23rd of March to the 11 of August of 2013 the V&A held a highly popular exhibition called 'David Bowie is' they were given unprecidented access to the David Bowie archieve to curate the first international retrospective of Bowie's full career. On display were more than 300 objects including Ziggy Stardust bodysuits (1972) designed by Freddie Burretti, photography by Brian Duffy; album sleeve artwork by Guy Peellaert and Edward Bell; visual excerpts from films and live performances including The Man Who Fell to Earth, music videos such as Boys Keep Swinging and set designs created for the Diamond Dogs tour (1974). Alongside these were more personal items such as never-before-seen storyboards, handwritten set lists and lyrics as well as some of Bowie’s own sketches, musical scores and diary entries, revealing the evolution of his creative ideas. The popularity and depth of the artistic mediums that Bowie explored and inspired throughout his ongoing career reflects the complexity of the ''bizare self-constructed freak''.

Androgyny looking at David Bowie- Life on Mars

It’s a God awful small affair
To the girl with the mousey hair
But her mummy is yelling, “No!”
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is no where to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seats with the clearest view
And she’s hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a sadd’ning bore
For she’s lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man!
Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

It’s on America’s tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
‘Cause Lennon’s on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a sadd’ning bore
‘Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It’s about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on

Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man!
Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

Life on Mars? was initially released in the 1971 album Hunky Dory, and was later released as a single in 1973 after Hunky Dory failed to do as well as Bowie desired. After its re-release as a single, the song reached the #3 spot on the UK charts and stayed on the charts for 13 weeks. Recently the resurgence of the single’s popularity occurred due to the BBC television program named after the song which liberally uses music within the show. The song was released during a tumultuous period of history when the Vietnam War was still raging, although it was nearing its completion.


Bowie is wearing make-up, has brightly dyed orange hair, and porcelian skin. He has restyled glam rock in a striking and almost effeminate way.

Bowie is a unique style icon, in this image you can see how he both clings to conventions of masculinity in his suit, but gives it an effeminate twist showing off his personal style but colouring it powder blue with a racy striped tie.


Bowie's effeminate style was not always accepted by society, in 1970 on Bowie first apperance on Top of The Pops, him and guitarist Mich Ronson caused controversy after viewers saw them 'cuddeling' up on stage, in relaity Bowie simply placed his hand on Mick's shoulder. Outraged homophobics called in and to this day many people are uncertain of Bowie's sexual prefrences, even though he has been happily married for many years now.

Hunky Dory

Hunky Dory is the fourth album by singer-songwriter David Jones, stage name David Bowie. Hunky Dory is one of Bowie's most highly celebrated albums and my second favourite. The album cover represents Bowie with flowing golden hair, rosy skin and an opulent speckled fur coat, on the back of his album he is represented in long high waisted flares shot from a low angle making him look even taller.Although Bowie androgynous reputation is mostly linked to his following album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, his style in the Hunky Dory Album and the following photos prove that he was experimenting with androgyny before that. The style of the following photos was influenced by a  Marlene Dietrich photo book that Bowie brought with him to the photoshoot. Marlene is a famous German film actress. Bowie challenges superficial male conventions, taking the long flowing hair of the sixties further (album was released in 1971, end of the sixties) by also donning what could be seen as a woman's coat and painting his face with make up and adorning statement jewelry. In many ways Bowie is reflecting many traits of the Glam Rock period before it's time.

Patti Smith

I'm looking at David Bowie and more specifically androgyny  in males as I believe it is more relevant to our music video. However I would like to make a nod to androgyny in females and to the artist Patti Smith in particular.

Approaching Editing

On our first real day of editing, we set about organising all our clips in keeping to the timing of the animatic that we had already made. This means that we can build around the original narrative which will give us a strong frame on which to rest the performance clips of adam, cutaways etc. that we will want to add later. However this is harder to do than we initially though, because we had to keep so religiously to the timings we often felt like we were cutting from clips that we liked because they were too long according to our animatic. This can feel somewhat restrictive, especially when you have more than one favourited video in one section that has quiet a short time space according to the animatic. Luckily, we took note of all the videos we were cutting and still have the originals to make alterations later, we dropped many to the side so we could still see them whilst we are editing, this will make it easier later on when we want to adjust.

First Look at Dailies

Today we had our first look at al the material we had filmed over half term and the first week back. We were all very glad with the footage, although we realised we were missing a performance of Adam in the park, this was due to severe weather changes half way through filming that prevented us from filming him as we originally planned. However, we have a lot of great footage of him lip syncing in other areas. Whilst we looked through our footage, we categorised our material into different folders and favourited the footage we especially liked as well as making notes on all the different variations of the same clips and which parts of not so good footage we could potentially use as cutaways etc. It is very helpful for me for us to be so anal with the organising the clips as I am naturally very disorganised and this gives me a clear focus on where we are going with our video.

Shooting Adam in the Art department

We used the all white smaller room in our art room to project clips we found off youtube onto Adam whilst he lip syncs to Take me out. We did this a couple days into our return to school and we were very happy with the results.

First Day Filming

Our first day filming set off to a great start, the weather was beautiful
and sunny, perfect for our shots with Calvin. However, upon our
 arrival at the park at the previously stated 09:45 we uncovered that
much of our cast members had backed out at the last minute or were
 just uncontactable. Although stressful, I felt that we dealt with it well
calling in replacements and finally making a group decision for Rachael
 and I to appear in the video as group members.

Production Call Sheet

It was my job in the team to duplicate a professional call sheet for both our days of filming. This helped all of us get organised and completely understand exactly how we should manage our time on both days as well as giving us a greater understanding into how the professional world of music video production works. We posted this on our Facebook group so that all our cast members would understand where to be, what time and when to be there.

Production Call Sheet Day 2 by evedibb

Music video group on Facebook

Above shows all the initial cast members for our music video, we chose a small group of boys and girls between 16 and 18 years old.

We used the social media network, Facebook to communicate with other cast members for our music video. We created a private group named Music Video and added all our potential actors, posting the initial dates for filming. By doing this we had an easy an accessible way to communicate with all our actors and a quick way to initially find out who was free to film. 

Above is our last and first postings in our Facebook group.

Animation

We made an animatic which visualises the framing narrative of our storyline. It helped us to clarify our communal ideas into one shared idea and to also work on the timings of the different shots and scenes. We each drew different sections seperately and although this meant we all had an artistic input into the animatic it did get slightly confusing as some of the timings overlapped the first time we shot it, however we quickly corrected it, learnt from our mistake and the result is our final piece above.

Lipsync Exercise

In order to determine out of the two who we would chose we tested them by doing a Lipsyncing exercise. Before filming we expected this to be an area that Calvin would excel potentially more than Adam, because as a performer we expected him to be more comfortable in front of the camera. However, after testing it revealed that they are very much at the same level with the lip-syncing, this is no criticism on Calvin more just a compliment on Adam's before unknown performance talent. In fact we found that Adam was clearer at mouthing the words. We concluded after this video that we would use both actors in our video, Adam as the performer who would lip-sync the song and Calvin as the actor who would act out the Tom narrative.

Final casting for Main part

Adam Warren and Calvin Carrier are our two competing interests for the role of Tom in our music video.
                                                       
                                                                          Calvin

 
What we like about Calvin's look in relation to the part is the androgynous look his hair gives to the character. Calvin is also a performer, he is a practicing and passionate dancer as well as an actor so we know that he would be comfortable in front of the camera.

Adam

What we like about Adam's look for the role is that he does not fit one 'type', by this i mean he is not obviously bracketed into one singular look and this would give us a lot more freedom with how we want to present Tom. Adam is also a close friend to all of us in Tripod and a dedicated artist who would understand the need for a professional approach for us to complete our video to the highest standards.