Research and Planning: The Artist

Hard Fi are and English Indie Rock band from Surrey. The band formed in 2003 with four members.

They achieved chart success with their third single, "Hard to Beat" and then followed by other successful singles such as "Cash Machine" and "Living for the Weekend", which all reached top 15 in the UK Singles Chart.

Their first album Stars of CCTV had three singles in the charts. "Hard to Beat" was the first single that got Hard Fi noticed as a band. This was followed by "Cash Machine" and "Living For The Weekdend".

The band was marketed to audiences mainly on the radio and music channels. The band also used poster advertising to project their record sales further.

After looking into all of the old covers that the band has had for various singles and albums I have found that the band likes to use bold colours mostly yellow to contrast well with black and white. This is a signifier that has been anchored into the minds of the audience. When the three colours appear on a CD cover it instantly reminds people of the band and by staying with the same style and colours it is a very effective way of creating a large number of record sales.

I plan to use the basic idea of simple is better to create my advert and digipak. This may sound easier but it's actually harder trying to get the right combination of things together to make it simple.

Animatic Audience Feedback

I have asked for audience feedback on my animatic.


George Caswell - "it'd be a good video but i 'm not sure about the location and how there would be a clear shot"

Dominic Carson - "good concept, looks like a nice flow and has a good rhythm"

Jacob Dickens - "it's a good concept that fits with the song."

Beth Morrall - "I like the concept and the video goes well with the song and genre"

Charlotte Butcher - "I think it's really good."

Matt Hopper - "meh, it's alright I guess :)"

Music Video Animatic

This is my story board for my music video.
I have created this using still images that I have taken of slides that I have drawn.
At first I tried to do it in iMovie but the images kept on movnig. If i wanted the stills to move I would have made them move, but as I didn't I was left to use Windows Movie Maker. Movie Maker suddenly decided no matter what format the song was in it wasn't going to add it to my movie. I evetually gave up and so here is the links to both the song and the Animatic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcKwUSNi0l4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cKNa0DQ0I8

My Target Audience

My target audience is mainly men from the ages of 14 - 45.

I have chosen to aim at this audience because the genre of music is listened to mostly by men aged 14 - 45.

Magazine Advert Audience Feedback

After asking some people what they thought to my advert concept I collected their feed back.

Jacob Dickens - "cool"

George Caswell - "it's effective because it's simple"

Beth Morrall - "it's a bit boring, put in a picture"

Jonny Langford - "I think it's a really good idea because it's not something you see everyday and more people would pay attention to it."

Charlotte Butcher - "it's very bold."

Draft of Magazine Advert

I must advertise my new album in a music magazine.
To do this I must create a magazine advert that is appropriate for the magazine and for my target audience.
It must also fit the target audience and give the right image of the band. I have created a draft of a magazine advert.

I think the bold red colour stands out and will make the page get noticed. It is also the same colour as the CD cover which sets an anchor in the audiences mind that it is all the same thing.

The white text stands out better against the red background opposed to black. The centre line that I have put in shows this well; it brings down the whole tone of the page. The real advert will have no border around the text. The white will just meet the red.

Digipak Draft Audience Feedback

After creating my draft of the digipak I asked some of my target audience what they thought:

George Caswell - "relative to the band, variation on a theme"

Marek Norfolk - "in keeping with the bands original style but innovative at the same time"

Jacob Dickens - "It's nice. It's like the original but the colour change will make it better."

Sonny Drake - "It's simplistic but it gets the point across."