When thinking about designing a web page for the artist I think that using a main black and white colour scheme would be most effective. This represents the band image, their music and matches the band's logo.
My web design wouldn't be entirely different to the official website for the band. My webpage would include recent news regarding the band, tour date, links to social media accounts and of course a shop where fans can perchase clothing, albums and other merchandise bearing the artist's image.
MUSE official website
As you can see in the screengrap, advertisement for the lyric video for 'Psycho' can be seen, which is perfect to show the type of advertisement I would use, with a large banner dominating the screen. The content is odd and visually eye catching as well, including a man with a mine for a head holding a child and the text in a very military style font.
Digipak design
Digipak for MUSE's album 'The Resistance'
For the digipak for the album I would use dirty greens and blacks to advertise it if I were to do it for 'Psycho', it would include the original album artwork, a booklet of artwork, the CD and a few vinlys.
This is the complete digipak from MUSE. It is from their album, 'The Resistance'. The boxset is priced at around 60 pounds, and it includes the original album artwork, a booklet of artwork from the band, a hard outer case, a 2GB thumb drive, the CD and 2 12" vinyls. The outer case appears bland however on opening it the colourful artwork is revealed, contrasting the outer case nicely.
MUSE are an English Rockband with an image that crosses over into both organic and synthetic. They are known for their incredibly energetic performance style. While they are a rockband they differ in style to other English rockbands such as Iron Maiden. This is because their image is less dark and more friendly. Furthermore their music is slightly less intense and their fan base includes die hard rock fans and also people who would not usually listen to the likes of AC/DC or Iron Maiden.
When thinking about making a music video for 'Psycho', I would like to include high action sequences amongst quite a neutral yet energetic performance. For the performance I would like to use the studio with a black setting and bright white light.
The video would not have a narrative, however I would like to have sequences in which a group of men are undertaking military style training, running through assault courses and being drilled by a higher officer. This could be filmed in the countryside around school, whether it is an official assault course, or if we were to build one. This would fit in with the track nicely as the lyrics are about miliary style training.
To create it more visually interesting, the studio could be filled with strobe lighting in places where the music becomes heavier.
The video would fit in with the bands image nicely as MUSE's style of music is loud and quite in your face at times, therefore the high intensity of the action in the video would match this.
For costume, I would have the military men dressed in full combat gear (camo trousers and jackets) and military boots.
Military clothing
For the people performing in the studio I am not entirely sure what would work best, however at this time I think that black clothing would work well.
MUSE are signed with numerous Record labels that are, Warner Brothers Records, Helium 3, Taste media, Mushroom records and Dangerous records. This is because of their success and popularity, making many companies want to work with them.
They also have many fanpages, links to which can be found on the MUSE offical artist website. These websites are made from different people all over the world, which again shows their worldwide popularity, despite being a British rock band. This includes sites from places such as France and Spain.
The Artic Monkeys are very organic artist's, and their image is presented as quite quirky and individual. This is shown through their style, album art and music videos. For example their album artwork is very neutral using a black and white colour scheme, however there is often some eye catching colour thrown in. This generally pulls the focus onto their perfomance and talent, rather than creating a synthetic image. As a band they are very similiar to other artists such as The Vaccines or The Kooks.
An Example of their organic album artwork
I have chosen to use Flourescent Adolescent by the Arctic Monkeys as my first idea as the music video.
Here is the official music video for the 2007 track and as you can it is a strong narrative video.
My idea for the video would include a gand of hoodies or unruly teens going about creating damage, making noise and other general anti-social behaviour. The video would begin by following a group of well dressed teens leaving a nice house, with two parents waving them off. Once the teens round a corner we see them change into trackies and hoodies. One of the ring leaders takes off his back pack to reveal spray paint and baseball bats. The shot would then cut back to the studio where a group of middle-aged singers, drummers, guitarists are performing the song it self. This would provide a stark contrast to the previous shot as the men in the studio would clearly be the parents seen previously.
Therefore, I would hope to create a narrative around this suggesting that if we (the parents) have provided our children with such a priveleged unbringing, then why do they feel the need to give themselves a different image associated with the 'thug life' and progress to smash things up and behave badly.
The video and narrative would develop to show the damage that the boys are causing until an elderly woman witnessing it all calls the police, who then arrive and arrest the boys. We see the police handcuffing them all and the two parents seen previously standing there. This is how the video would end, witht the camera moving up toward the parents faces, and then a caption to appear 'How could it have come to this?', which is the same thing captioned in the actual video.
I have taken the basis of an idea from the official music video.
In terms of setting, it would obviously be more convienent to film it nearby, therefore I like the idea of filming the destruction sequences in the woods as it would give a nice 'organic' and 'natural' feel to an artists work that is organic to begin with. However, I would be concerned that the narrative would become unclear if we filmed this part anywhere other than a residential area. I have this concern because I think that filming it in a residential area will give it much more of a social realism feel to it.
For costume, in my mind the boys would begin wearing Chino's, Polo shirts and Loafers, however once they change they would don black Adidas/Nike tracksuit bottoms, a black hoodie, a baseball cap and trainers.
Polo Shirt
Loafers
Black baseball cap
Chino's
Black Hoodie
Black tracksuit bottoms
Black trainers
I would like the boys to go from this image:
To this image:
As for the parents and the performers, I would like them to be dressed in a nice dress, shirt, knitted sweater, chino's and smart shoes.
Fansite
The Arctic Monkeys website is very simplistic following a black and white colour scheme. This links to their organic image, which suggests that they are all about the music, not about a synthetic Star image. Information on the site includes a fanforum, touring dates, pictures and videos.
Official website for the band
There are also many fansites, on of witch can be seen above.
Their social media accounts Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter they have 1.66M followers, which creates the perfect platform to interact with fans and promote their products.
