Brand Identity in Music Merchandise

I will look into brand identities of a few artists, so that I can have some more understanding and knowledge of branding merchandise. I will also explore how identity can be built and exploited across different mediums. My genre is Indie Rock, and so I have chosen to look at a few albums from this genre and the house styles, to widen my perspective, and help me to create my own digipak, and magazine advertisement for the single “Helena Beat” which I am currently making the music video to.

I will first look at Florence and the Machines new album Ceremonials and its accompanying merchandise. I will analyse the brand identity within it. 

Album Cover

“Ceremonials” was given its name due to an art installation found by the Lead Singer Florence Welch 

who told MTV News “It was an art installation done in the '70s, this video piece all done on Super 8, this big procession of kind of coquette-style hippies and all these different colored robes and masks, and it was all to do with color, really saturated, brightly colored pastas and balloons. I saw it a couple years ago, and it was called 'Ceremonials' and then, like, Roman numerals after it. And the word sort of stuck with me, and I think the whole idea of performance, and kind of putting on this outfit and going out almost to find some sort of exorcism or absolution, to kind of get outside yourself, there's a sense of ceremony to it”. It is the bands 2^nd studio album and their second consecutive UK Number One in the Albums chart. The concept of “Ceremonials” could be illustrated through the branding of the album.

This is the logo used on the all of the CDs and merchandise from the album. It is a good portrayal of the album genre as it depicts the era of art deco in the 1970s and the way Florence Welch dresses, in the sense of smart and colourful. It also gives an aged look to the products as the music is that somewhat similar to the style in the 1970s, a “hippy”, “psychedelic”, and “bold” implication. Which contrasts well with the softness of the fine lines completing in rest of the letter, for example the letter ‘N’, is simply a diagonal bold line, and without the finer lines guiding the viewer’s attention in the direction of the completed N, it may be unrecognisable, and instead it offers a softer feel to the letter than if it were to be plain bold letters. This effect also gives the font a transparency which compliments most backgrounds when the font colour is changed. I love the contrast between the soft fine lines and the striking lines as the emphasis is overwhelming and conveys the genre superbly. This compliments the new music that is the “indie genre” becoming more and more popular nowadays, and this enables people to recognise the genre almost instantly. 

Merchandise for the album-

All of these are branded especially for the Ceremonials merchandise through the release of the album it also helps to promote not only the CD but the band also.

The digipak seen above displays the colour scheme for the album. The colours appear to be very dark, with the use of black and the contrast of lighter colours such as in her skin and the font colour. The colours appear to be black, cream and muddy beige. These colour portray a feeling of mystery and calmness. The mise en scene in the photograph, show Florence in a calm, collected, sexual and seductive, yet mysterious attitude. This is mostly down to the way she has been styled however, her body language also says a lot through the picture, especially in the mirrored images adjacent to her. She appears to be wearing a black glittered sequin v-neck dress, which when the light catches the dress, the light illuminates the dress to reveal golds. Florence is also photographed at 3 different angles of the same position, this is a clever concept as it takes one normal photo and extends the audiences view of the original photo, as if to reveal all sides of her. I like this as it portrays as if she has 3 sides to the one character. It could also resemble a secret, this is implied by the way her neck is elongated to the side and her body language where she has one of her hands holding her arm as if for comfort. This is what makes the photo display a seductive and mysterious element, the mirrored images simply exaggerate it.  The contrast of red hair on Florence, also makes this album recognisable and iconic to many audiences.

back            |digipak|                front

The album cover conventions have a simplistic design and colour scheme that showcases the artist and the title of the album. This is effectively portrayed by the contrast in the background against the light colour of the text, as said above.

The back of the album follows similar conventions to that on the front as it uses the same colour scheme and fonts, however, it uses lighter colours however, still keeping the contrast involved. The colours are now muddy beige and cream instead of the black and muddy beige. The text on the back shows a reverse in contrast compared to that on the front, where the text is now black and the main background colour is the muddy beige, with the large letters depicting the word "ceremonials" is in cream. This swap in contrast could be a link to the "viewed from different angles" effect such as it was on the front.

Rough Cut Video

This is my first (rough) cut of my music video "Helena Beat" 

As this is my first rough cut, I am pleased with the results of my editing and I am looking forward to hearing my feedback. Once, I had completed my rough cut and played it back I have noticed a few errors in the filming and the editing which will require some more work for the final cut. 

Day 3 and 4 of filming! 20-1-12 and the 23-1-12

Day 3


This was the 20th of January and unfortunately the weather set our filming back a bit. So we only managed to film Scene 5, however, it was one step closer to end of my filming. This was the "prostitute scene" where I had both of my actors to film, fortunately they co-operated together extremely well and I was extremely pleased with the outcome. All in all a very good evening, despite the later bad weather which stopped my filming.


Day 4
My final day of filming! Today, the 23/1/12 I had some final touches to make to finish off the rest of my filming and I was again, overly pleased with the effort James put in and the outcome of the footage that I obtained. This evening I managed to film scenes 4, 8 and 9 plus all of the mask shots that I needed!


Therefore I have now finished my filming and I am now going to begin editing which I plan to finish for the 30/1/12.




Here are some pictures of the mask I painted onto James's face and the result of trying to get it off!

My face paint and my fox hat!

TANGOED! getting the paint off was not as easy as getting it on! 

Organising Day 3 of filming

There has been a large gap between filming, almost two weeks, for unavoidable reasons, such as James's AS exams. However, I want to get the rest of the filming done as soon as possible. Therefore I have organised to do the rest of the filming on the 20th of January in the evening and allowing some time on the 21st January to do the day shots. 

These days will need to include Scenes: 4, 5, 8 and 9 and those scenes containing the "mask". 

I arranged this day in advance so that I can make sure each of my cast are available on this particular day to film, this is very important as I need both of my characters on this evening in order to film the rest of my video.

I also have until the 30th January to complete my Rough Cut and piece everything together. This should be achievable providing I get everything that I need to filmed over the 20th and the 21st. 

Day 2 of filming 7-1-12

Today , I began my second day of filming. On this day I wanted to complete most of the house scenes during the day time. James and myself only had until early afternoon to film, so there was a lot to get done in a short amount of time. Due to this inconvenience, I was unable to film the mask scenes that I really wanted to do. However, they will have to be postponed until the next day of filming.

Again we managed to cover a lot of footage, completing scenes 1, 2 and 3. Again, I was very pleased with the way that the footage was taken and the emotions portrayed.

I was disappointed to some degree that I have not kept to the shooting schedule as I hoped to have filmed within one week, however, due to certain circumstances the schedule had to be postponed.

I am hoping to complete filming by Day 3, by completing scenes 4, 5, 8, 9 and the mask scenes, I am allowing a night of filming and a morning of filming to complete the rest of my filming.

Day 1 of Filming 6-1-12

This was my original Shooting Schedule.

Today was the start of filming, in the evening. I first tested out the camera by filming short and long clips with and without the tripod. After having a quick test of the camera and its functions I began to film. I did extra shots of what I had previously planned and added in a few different frames to give me some extra footage just in case I needed it.

I managed to get more than I previously planned to film this evening. In this one particular evening I got Scenes 6, 7 and 10. The majority of the scenes involved outside. I had hoped to had completed scene 5 also, however, Lauren was not available to film that evening.

I was pleased with the filming completed on this day, I felt like good progress was made and the shots were of good quality and to the standard I wanted regards to emotions and portrayals.

Preparation for filming.

I decided that by panning times and having a rough schedule for each day of filming could work to my advantage, leaving plenty of time for re-do's and errors. I am filming in three different major locations; the river (morning and evening), the alley (evening shot), the house (more specifically the bedroom and kitchen with some lounge and kitchen scenes). Again, to my advantage, these locations are all very close together and does not take two minutes walking distance between all of them. To help me plan what scenes I were to do, I made a shoot schedule which planned out all of my scenes and I decided on dates and time which they were to be filmed on specific dates.

To enable my planning further I made sure that I had my animatic on a portable device so that I could refer to it when I needed to find out what came next in the process. This helps to reduce confusion and reduces time spent pondering on what comes next.

To aid me in my process of filming I am to use a large tripod for the majority of my outdoor scenes, to help me capture a steady and professional shot. Myself and the crew are well aware that the weather at the moment, is not the best and is very temperamental when it comes to cold snaps and rain. Therefore, as stated in my risk assessment, filming will have regular breaks where we will return to the house to get warm, or have our coats and flasks nearby for a quick "tea-break". If necessary, due to the cold becoming to unbearable for either of my cast then I will incorporate new clothing into their shots and still be able to maintain (for James) an Indie look and (for Lauren) a revealing promiscuous look. 

Another worry on my behalf when it comes to filming is that afterwards when it comes to editing, whether I will have enough footage to edit my work. To eliminate this worry, I want to experiment with all of my shots and play with angles and techniques, this would give me enough footage to "play with". 

As I had previously desired, I wanted an Indie look for James, therefore, I had some research to do. After I researched the "indie look" I decided an outfit for James. It consisted of a large sweat top, cream chinos, and brown leather boat shoes, all of which he luckily possessed, This outfit gave off a look of denial, regret and delusion due to the dark colours, such as the shoes and the sweat top. The creamy yellow chinos were chosen, as the colour yellow is meant to represent an emotion of hope, this idea of "hope" is that which portrays that his character can look past all of his wrong ways and get on a path of happiness instead on binge drinking and resulting to prostitutes "for a good time". 

I also chose a second outfit for James, for the first scenes when he wakes up in a delusional state, this was simply a "scruffy" look of tracksuit bottoms and an old top.

For Lauren, this was quite an easy outfit to put together, I wanted something simple but effective, therefore I got her to wear suspender tights and a top underneath a coat which can be worn off the shoulders. 

As a result I was very pleased with my chosen outfits. It suited the indie genre and conveys all the messages I want them to. I am excited to see how all of the outfits together. 

James's outfit

Number One

Number Two 

Laurens Outfit

The Mask

For some of the scenes that are featured in my video, James will be wearing a mask to show that he is not himself and instead has a split personality, almost schizophrenic. This will be portrayed in the sense that he is a fox.

Although it seems a bit of a random animal, I chose to give him this alter-ego  as foxes are seen to some as vermin. Although the character is not always vermin, some of his actions in this video- such as the prostitute scene show that he is not "acceptable". In some cultures they see foxes as being cunning, trick masters and are very known for being aggressive; these are all characteristics that James's alter-ego possess, therefore making it the best animal for his alter-ego. 

This mask will actually be painted on by myself.

Typical Red Fox

I am hoping to make it look something like this: 

Yet the orange will be all around the face and there will be no ears as I have a replica hat of a fox head. 

Scenes

Scene 1- 0:00- 0:35

In this scene James wakes up from a drunken "night before" and looks around to try and find out what has happened.



Scene 2- 0:35- 1:00
Walks into kitchen makes a cup of tea, then goes upstairs to get redressed only to find a girl in his bed. Stunned he goes back downstairs.


Scene 3- 1:00- 1:30

Goes downstairs, drinks tea, starts getting destructive before leaving the house.

Scene 4- 1:30-1:45

River scene, walking down the river looking out and reflecting on his actions

Scene 5- 1:30-2:15

Prostitute Scene, finds a girl, they depart down the alley together and he leaves, wiping make-up off of his face


Scene 6- 2:15-2:45

Becomes angry, goes back down the river before retuning home.

Scene 7- 2:45-3:10
Hesitates at the front door thinking of what is going to happen next.


Scene 8- 3:10- 3:30
Reaches out for the alcohol cupboard and begins to raid it and commences "binge" drinking


Scene 9- 3:30- 3:54
Runs upstairs, continues to drink, becomes very drunk staggers out the door

Scene 10- 3:54- 4:09
Exits house, see him walk off down to the river pathway again.

Shooting Schedule

This is our first schedule for shooting over the next week,

This is a rough guide to shooting any scenes that do not get completed will be rescheduled into the following week. 

Organising To Shoot The Video: Update

28th December- No filming actually happened on this day as originally planned. Instead we had a meeting to let each of the cast members know what was expected of them and what I wanted them to do. I also took them to the locations that I wanted to film and showed them rough ideas of what I wanted the scenes to be played out like. 

After this, we decided that a shooting schedule would be better than txting to arrange dates. So we planned through a shooting schedule to arrange times and dates to film my rough cut.