Brief 08 _ XL25 _ Submission Boards

Sam Lane

Extended Practice

OUGD603

D&AD : XL Recordings

Background

Target Audience / Tone of Voice

XL Recordings are reaching their 25th Year Anniversary this year and are looking for a way to celebrate their long established History and Success. They have given us a number of events which they class as significant and are looking for creatives to bring them to live and ‘Illustrate Label History’.

The brief states that the target audience is obviously music lovers of all ages, but also states that the brief should not be determined by an audience. If it does the job of illustrating the significant events, then the target audience will automatically be interested. We are looking to create a tone of voice which is bold, unique, quirky and humorous in order to help us illustrate what we need to.

Brief

Deliverables

Illustrate a significant event, or series of events, from the history of XL Recordings. Celebrate the artist and highlight their seminal moment(s) in a way that engages and communicates to your audience.

A Full Scale Viral Campaign including; - A Viral Video (1 Minute Long) - A Print Campaign - Advertisements across Web Platforms - A Supporting ‘Interactive Campaign’ Video (1 Minute Long)

01/08

Extended Practice

Sam Lane

01

Reference

OUGD603

D&AD : XL Recordings

Commercials (Colour & Props)

Commercials (Birds Eye View / POV)

We have been researching into tons of different commercials that have influenced our design decisions. We really wanted to play around with colour, both through the use of props and through the use of the background. These first two commercials from Microsoft (left) and Belling (middle) are probably the best examples that we used as reference when filming out video.

Much like colour and props, we have also been looking a lot into Filming styles and we are very much interested in telling the story of XL Recordings through a first person perspective (POV). You can see in these commercials shown above, Belling (middle) and Honda (right) use this first person perspective brilliantly, creating a narrative through hands.

02/08

Extended Practice

Sam Lane

02

Research

OUGD603

D&AD : XL Recordings

Idents / Typography

Music Videos

A lot of the research we undertook was into pre-exsisting idents and short commercials for various different brands, often related around muic, as this is relevant to us. We really found influence in these MTV idents which were used in the late 80’s. They again use a first person perspective and build the MTV logo from Props. As well as this, we have been looking a lot into different films and music video that explore moving typography, as this is also something we are interesting in exploring to help show the history of XL .

A large section of our research consisted of looking into existing music videos of XL Artists that we plan on creating little scenes from, to help celebrate that particular event. We analysed videos and picked out certain common objects, colours, shapes and forms that we could then reference in our final video.

03/08

Sam Lane

03

Extended Practice

Development

OUGD603

D&AD : XL Recordings

04/08

Storyboarding / Video Editing

Type Experiments

We had to move out of our comfort zone with this brief. It was the first time that both of us had really properly put together a piece of film, so we had to learn how to edit moving footage, colour wise, as well as putting the clip together along with a soundtrack which was sourced, mixed and cut with the visuals. This was helped by our constant storyboarding, planning and development. It took use longer than we expected, but hopefully we’ve picked up some valuable skills along the way.

We also both did quite a lot of experimented with Typography and making it come to life through the use of After Effects and moving image. Here are two examples that use the colour scheme we depicted and also are reminiscent of the ERA that these artists recorded in, and the style of their work.

Sam Lane

04

Extended Practice

Storyboarding

OUGD603

D&AD : XL Recordings

05/08

Visualising the concept in the form of storyboards was key to the execution. Each individual piece of history has been researched, referenced and carefully planned before any type of physical execution is thought about. You can see here how this process happened, We went through lots of different storyboards and plans before gathering the props and filming the videos.

Sam Lane

05

Extended Practice

Campaign Concept

OUGD603

D&AD : XL Recordings

The campaign is split into various separate Sections, which is also spread across Print and Digital, which is asked for in the brief. At the heart of the campaign sits our Viral Video, which is what showcases the History of XL Recordings in a unique and memorable way.

Supporting this, we have our Print Campaign, which is a series of Posters linked to the events showcased in the video which also bridges the gap between print and digital through the use of Augmented Reality.

As well as this, we have multiple adverts for the campaign which spread across multiple online platfoms such as Youtube and Spotify.

The whole project is brought to life and the campaign is shown how it would work through a second video we created. This video is called the Interactive video and shows how the Campaign would go viral and succeed in promoting XL Recordings.

06/08

Extended Practice

Sam Lane

06

XL:25 Viral Video

OUGD603

The initial video we created as part of this campaign was the 25 Years old video. During this video, there are multiple scenes that follow a specific storyline, taking the viewer on an adventure through the History of XL Recordings by reenacting certain memorable and iconic events that have happened.

In the end, I wasn’t really happy with the quality f the video and I still feel that it’s a bit rough around the edges. I’m happy with the concept, but I don’t feel we had enough experience in this field of work (moving image) to create visuals that were super crisp in quality and colour. Something to work on in the future.

D&AD : XL Recordings

From Top Left to bottom right those events are ; XL Recordings Birth, Dizzee Rascal Winning a Mercury Prize, Jamie XX collaborating with Gil Scott Heron, Gil Scott Heron Dies, Adele Wins an Oscar and Finally XL Recordings have their 25th Birthday cake and eat it.

You can view the video on the CD attached in the submission folder, or alternatively you can view in on my Extended Practice Blog, tagged under the Code ‘Brief 8’.

07/08

Sam Lane

07

Extended Practice

XL:25 Interactive Video

OUGD603

The Interactive Video was the second video we created for the D&AD Submission and this was to show the Viral Campaign working in action.

Here are some screenshots of the video. We wanted to show how the campaign worked in the street, including the Augmented Reality feature, as well as online, across Social Media Platforms and related websites such as Youtube, Spotify, Twitter and Facebook.

D&AD : XL Recordings

Again, I wasn’t 100% happy with the quality of this video. I think it essentially achieves what we set out to do in showing the concept and execution of the project, but again, our filming skills are not the best, meaning that it may look slightly amateur, especially for D&AD judges.

You can view the video on the CD attached in the submission folder, or alternatively you can view in on my Extended Practice Blog, tagged under the Code ‘Brief 8’.

08/08