OUGD406 Studio Brief 1 - Development

OUGD406 Studio Brief 1 - Development

As the Maccabees' to me was a very dazed, textural song, I wanted to play around with different photographs I had with different effects to reflect this dazed, textural vibe. As the song is called 'Go' and the album name is 'Given into the Wild' I knew the photographs needed to be of landscapes to relate to the song. I then heavily edited the photographs, adding light movements, textural effects and more. I think these show the magical nature of the landscapes, suggesting that nature and 'the wild' are tranquil and beautiful, which is why someone would be 'given into the wild' relating to the album. I think my designs can be interpreted as this, however I think I could of made a more detailed design which has its own originality, as I feel that what I have produced has been done before. However I decided to start to play around with other designs once I had created these. 

I then started out by playing with different designs on Photoshop, but ultimately I knew I wanted to experiment with texture, therefore I started playing around with paints just to find different texture. Once I started doing this I wasn't finding any inspiration from it as I didn't really know what I was doing. 

After this I took photographs of the painting, but then just for fun I started playing around with using really slow shutter speeds just so I could get interesting light effects. As in the flat I was in there was an old disco ball, I thought it would be interesting playing around with the shutter speed on this, which I found actually created some really nice effects. I played around with these images on photoshop and decided to use vibrant colours and overlay the image several times. I decided to do this as quite a few covers I've seen, particularly Podhojsky uses recursion therefore I wanted to experiment with it as well. In addition when looking at Podhojsky and Krug, there was a similarity in the colours chosen, which I wanted to inform my designs, which is why I chose to keep the colours used but I played around with the colour balance making the contrast stronger and the colours more vibrant. Pink/blues was a prominent colour that I have seen a lot and are colours that I find work well and suit the style really well. I then created  shapes and lines to divide the sections of light movements, however I'm unsure whether or not to choose to do this or leave it how it is. While producing these, I did not interpret this as The Maccabees - Go and actually felt it suited The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be instead, which others agreed with. I think it went well with this song as the video features a lot of recursion and repetition, therefore I edited one to be a repeated pattern, in addition as I used a disco ball which were very popular in the 90s, in relates again as the song was produced in 1999 and the video to me has a very 90s feel to it.   

The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be

The video for the track was directed by Michel Gondry, and utilized ground-breaking video and film effects in its depiction of a young woman's nightmares (the girl is played by actress and dancer Stephanie Landwehr. The video, which drew much visual inspiration from Ray Davies' 1975 Granada TV production Starmaker, received much media attention and became one of the most well-known videos from the band. The video also makes specific visual and thematic references to the dance sequence "Dames" (music by Harry Warren; lyrics by Al Dubin), choreographed by Busby Berkeley for the Warner Brothers musical Dames (1934) directed by Ray Enright.



Single Cover

Album Cover

Shots from the video 

Lyrics


And how does it feel like to wake up in the sun,
And how does it feel like to shine on everyone,
How does it feel like to let forever be,
And how does it feel like to spend a little lifetime
Sitting in the gutter screaming symphony

How does it feel like to sail in on the breeze,
And how does it feel like to spend a little lifetime
Sitting in the gutter screaming symphony

And how does it feel like to make it happening,
And how does it feel like to breath with everything,
And how does it feel like to let forever be,
And how does it feel like to spend a little lifetime
Sitting in the gutter screaming symphony

And how does it feel like to to be a Christian being
And how does it feel like to spend a little lifetime
Sitting in the gutter screaming symphony


Interim Critique

From my questions that I asked, I got a good response as certain things like - 'Do you think it is original?' a lot of people said no to the The Maccabee designs which I expected, but I had positive response for the Chemical Brothers designs and people said it was original therefore I'm definitely going to go with this design for The Chemical Brothers. I did have a selection of my designs for The Chemical Brothers but I got an even response for which one to use, so I think I will edit them slightly and try and get more feedback to show for the Final Crit.

 

I then went onto edit these designs that I had but with minimal editing, yet all had very different looks. I created these two designs which I am happy with and I decided to show in my final critique. I got very positive feedback as my peers who evaluated my designs, interpreted the designs as quite chemically, and reminded them of a kaleidoscope which is the anesthetic I was going for. 

After the critique, I still wanted to continue trying out different editing options as from my critique, the two designs above got an equal response therefore I wasn't sure which to go with. Therefore I continued to change the center of the designs multiple times as I'm not to sure which I should go with. I then had another mini critique where I asked all my peers to rate which one they all preferred and I found that them and myself preferred the second from my two original designs, therefore I will take this forward to submit.