CD Digipak - Arctic Monkeys

This is the album cover for the Arctic Monkeys, it fits in with the indie/rock genre of music that the band are known for as the person that is on the cover of the album is not actually part of the band. The overall digipak is simplistic as the band want to have little attention on themselves and the main focus to be on their music. The image on the front where the name of the band is, the font used is different to the rest of the font on the album, because the font they used for their name is their unique trademark for the band. 

CD Digipak - Rihanna

This is the digipak for Rihanna's album 'Talk That Talk'. The images that we see both on the inside of the digipak and on the outside, are all of Rihanna. This shows the conventions of a pop genre since Rihanna is a pop artist. The mise-en-scene on the CD, is that of a newspaper print with the name of the album and also the artists name. The meaning behind it is that the albums title (Talk That Talk)is, in a way, insinuating the idea that the album is about gossip and rumours, and using a newspaper print is another way of conveying that meaning. The fonts that have been used are all the same in the way it is all a newspapers font, which is quite simplistic. However for this album because the images are quite bold, the use of a simple font is effective.

CD Digipak - Katy Perry

Katy Perry

This is the digipak for Katy Perry, everything about the digipak is that it relates to the artist, what we see is what we expect from her. It also links in with what is common with pop genre, in which we see the artist clearly on the front and is the main focus. There is also the continuity of using elements that link together, i.e. the CDs are of bright colours, with a theme based around sweets. The fonts that are used are the same, keeping the continuity of the album has a whole.

CD Digipak - Florence and The Machine

Florence & the Machine

This is the digipak for Florence & the Machine, overall it links in with the overall album title 'Lungs'. The front cover we see Florence Welch (with her lungs out - linking to the album title) and we expect to see her because she is a pop singer and in the pop genre the album covers tend to be mainly focused on the artist themselves. Inside the sleeve of the album we see another close-up photo of Florence Welch again links with the expectation in a pop genre. On the back of the album cover their is an image of lungs which follows through with the theme of the albums title. One thing that the digipak doesn't do is have any continuity within it. The font that is used on the front is different to the font that is used on the back of  the album cover, it also differs from the font on the CD itself. Another thing that is unclear is that the image on the CD itself is hard to distinguish, the hands are visible to see however it is just what are the hands holding.

Primary Research - Jessica Daykin

CD Digipak - Mumford & Sons

Mumford and Sons

This is the digipak for Mumford and sons, the whole digipak keeps the same continuity, using similar photographs and the same font is used on not only the front and back but also on the CD. This gives the band something that they can be identified by - the font. It also gives away the genre of the band, by the front cover of the album and the way in which the band are not so much the main focus (makes them seem as a rock/indie band). When you do see the band, it is visible that some of them have instruments and the instruments that they have give away what genre they are which is quite country.

Audience Research

This is a screen shot of Google Trends, looking at the interest in the band Fun. seeing how it has changed over time. In recent times we see it increase dramatically and in the related terms what we see as being the most popular thing people googled in relation to fun is their Number 1 song 'We Are Young.'

Asking Permission

This is a screen shot from twitter of us asking the band permission to do their song 'It gets better'. It had to be shortened  down because it would not fit in the one tweet that we sent to them.

Audience demographic report

Target audience mind map

This mind map costumes, colours, fonts, casting, props, lighting and locations we shall need. This is all in accordance to the genre

Pitch feedback

The song has an electro opening.

Rock band/ guitar hero – check

Where did the idea come from?

Narrative

How do the two parts connect? Narrative + performance

Where will you get the props from?

You need to check green screen out

Where is your location? Is it too much?

Confusing?

Good use of hyper reality

Check out artic monkeys and pendulum  videos

Play it cool – super former animals.

This is the feedback sheet that we got after we did our pitch with the comments that people had said about our idea for a music video. 

Best and worse album covers - Lewis Shooter

 

I like this because its cross media, the linkin park music and the transformer style robot. The name of the album is reanimation and the cartoon robot would be animated

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I find this album cover very funny, its terrible because its just a guy with his guitar waving to the camera, but the title 'its me, mum' is funny because he its like he is waving at his mum

Textual analysis - Lewis Shooter

 

Slayer - Reign in blood

 

 

The cover constructs the image of the musical genre by using dark colours. The cover uses red and back as the main colours. The images they use are humans and demons, suggesting there is an evil underworld. The cover tells you the music is dark and heavy, the red and black colours suggest the music will be bloody and dark. The font is a straight shape which suggests a industrial background and grey to suggest a darkness. The forms in this cover are dark colours, humans and demonic images and darkness.

Online research - Lewis Shooter

Top 10 albums (13/09/2012)

Artist: The vaccines

Album: Come of age

The cover uses black and white picture this suggests it is quite boring and indie, the red of the title gives it some colour to make it stand out, so its suggesting the music stands out of normal music, but also the text is just plain block capitols and that suggests it will be very indie.

Artist: Two door cinema club

Album: Beacon

The cover has a colourful picture of a woman stuck to the ceiling by wind, in some room with green curtains, there is a light coming from the womans legs and this is suggesting a woman is a beacon. The text looks like an old cinematic style, this is suggesting the music is quite old styled.

Artist: Rita Ora

Album: Ora

This cover has a big black and white picture of the artist, she has make up on, an expensive looking watch, and chains around her, this suggests the music will be mainly a female singer, that has a slight obsession with herself as she called the album Ora and she is called Rita Ora.

 

 

Artist: Emili Sandé

Album: Our version of events

This album cover has a picture of the back of Emeli Sandé with a colourless background, with a plain black text. This tells us that the music will be plain and slow, it will be sung by the woman on the front. It is generically grey.

 

Artist: Ronan Keating

Album: Fires

This album cover has a picture of Ronan Keating, it has colour but is plain without much else on except for the small fire and plain text. This suggests it will be colourful music but quite plain.

Artist: Plan B

Album: Ill Manors OST

This album cover shows Plan B sitting on a urban wall in front of a city this suggests that it is urban music for young people who are familiar with cities. The text is plain and coloured into the rest of the cover.

Artist: Paloma Faith

Album: Fall to grace

This album cover is quite colourful, and conceptual, it suggests that the music will be good because the great image and colours used, but quite slow because the imagery used. The text isn’t plain it is a unusual font and goes well with the iconography of the album cover

Artist: Mark Knopflers

Album: Privateering

The album over is a picture of a van near some trees and there is a dog. The text is a plain black colour with a plain font. This suggests that music is quite British, modern and homemade.

 

 

Artist: Of monsters and men

Album: My head is an animal

This album cover is just a man standing on a beach with some sort of building in the water. The text is mostly plain but the way the OMAM is highlighted suggests that the music is more modern then you first think

Artist: Scouting for girls

Album: The light between us

This album cover shows that the album is going to be about human love shining through. It has plain black text on a light background with two hands forming a heart shape. It is suggesting the music is aimed for girls and is created by indie men.

Our Prezi

Music Video: Pitch on Prezi

Pictures/Videos Fun.

Initial Idea

There is a male person stumbling through a  corridor, trying to find a room, and in each room it has something normal in it, but he sees it as being something strange.
For example:
There's a boy playing with lego however the man sees the lego coming to life and dancing (use animation to do this).

Eventually he comes to a door and inside the room there is a cardboard robot, he sees a beautiful woman, and so he turns on 'mood lighting, however the reality is he turns the robot on. He then places a 'do not disturb' sign on the door. The man believes that their having sex but really what is happening he is just laying down on the bed with the cardboard robot next to him. When he sits up, slowly he sobers up, turns on the TV, and the realization hits him with what he has done, and then he is scared and sits on the edge of the bed.


There is a band (group of friends 3/4) are playing rock band, 1 angle is of them playing on rock band, another angle has them with real instruments and a crowd of fans, which turn out to be the band themselves.
Then there is a pan to the T.V, which has the video game playing and there is the crowd of people cheering (won't be able to hear them due to song playing).

Online Research - Jessica Daykin

The cover tells us that the people on the cover are the band and that this is their album, but the way they are dressed an styled gives an indication into what sort of music genre that they fall into which is a rock/indie band. This is supported by the colours that they use which is; the black and white image with the red font.

The cover for this album uses a simple font, which is a contrast to the image that we see which is unusual. This gives an idea that the music might be a bit different to music that we are used to hearing.

The album shows the conventions of a pop album, as the main focus of the cover is the singer herself. Even though she uses red wording to highlight her name, she also uses a pink wording to highlight the title of the album.

Emeli Sandé’s album it uses an image of her, to show that it’s just her singing on the album however it’s taken in black and white which perhaps represents simplicity.

Ronan Keating’s album cover again like before it’s an image of him to show that he is the main focus of the album, yet there is also the added imagery of flames to link in with the title of the album.

Plan B’s album it clearly states the name of the album in the middle with an image of Pan B at the bottom. The way he sits and the actions he showing gives an idea of the music that’s on the album.

Paloma Faith’s album cover the image is of her but is shown in an unusual way to portray what sort of artist she is.

Mark Knopfler the album cover shows a van in a forest, which doesn’t give much of an indication to what music genre his album is.

Of Monsters and Men album cover shows a person on a beach, everything about this cover is simplistic and not to extreme, so it has no conventions of a pop artists album but it might fall in the indie genre.

Scouting for Girls their album cover relates to the title of the album itself ‘The Light Between Us’ because it has two hands, coming together to form a heart shape with the sun light streaming through gap which is what the albums title is saying. 

Best and worst album covers - Jessica Daykin

I thought that this was the best album cover because the way in which they used two guns and place them together it makes it look like a creature or the devil, as the albums title is called. The font size they used it doesn’t take up all the focus of the image as it is just clearly labelled at the top of the image, with the album title in a larger font than the band name. The background colouring works well with the black, rusting guns as the mustard/yellow makes the image stand out more. Also the background colour is not just one solid colour, there is also other elements such as water stains, different markings, which makes it seem as though the background was hand made and they late placed the image of the gun on top of the background.

 I chose this album cover as being the worst because it is very simplistic. It is easy to tell that the photograph of the people was taken separately to the background, due to the background looking unrealistic. The fact that they are all posed and not even looking at the camera gives the overall cover a unnatural feel to it. Also the use of a plain font does not grab a consumers attention because it is a simple font. 

It gets better - Fun. Lyrics

What've we done?
Oh my God
What've we done?
Oh my God

This is really happening
You've never looked so bored
Can you feel my fingernails?
They've never been so short

It's hard to lay a golden egg
With everyone around
It's hard to stay inside my head
When words keep pouring out

Like starlight crashing through the room
We'll lose our feathers
Yes, I know it hurts at first
But it gets better

It gets better
It gets better
It gets better
We'll get better
It gets better
It gets better
It gets better
We'll get better

I can taste your summer sweat
It's never been so warm
So can we kick the covers off?
They're always on
It's never been so warm

It's hard to keep a straight face
When I just want to smile
Wish you could see the look that's in your eyes

Like starlight crashing through the room
We'll lose our feathers
Yes, I know it hurts at first
But it gets better

It gets better
It gets better
It gets better
We'll get better
It gets better
It gets better
It gets better
We'll get better

There's a fire in sky
Some snow in the ground
Not quite enough cigarettes
To calm me down

Oh my God
What've we done?
Oh my God
What've we done?
Oh my God

It gets better
It gets better
It gets better
We'll get better
It gets better
It gets better
It gets better
We'll get better

This is really happening
This is really happening

It gets better - Fun. Video

PITCH

Textual Analysis - Jessica Daykin

The album cover constructs the image of the musical genre because the band’s music is in the category of rock/indie pop band, and the album cover shows that it falls in the rock/indie band as the image shows two people however we cannot see the face of one of the people as it is out of shot and the other is not looking down.

It also shows how this band is in the pop genre to as the person with their head down could be the singer of the band, which is a convention that is usually common with a pop artists album cover.

The cover tells us that the music inside is aside from the norm, in a sense that the font style and the colours that are used on the album cover is vintage. With the background colour its sort of dark beige, and the font colours are all brown.

There is a consistency with the font that is used to write the title of the album at the front, with the title and the bands name at the back of the album. The track list on the back uses the same font as the writing at the bottom, which has all the details of record labels, etc. 

Album Covers - Jessica Daykin

The album cover for my chosen artist Maroon 5, is there latest album ‘Overexposed’. This album is creative in the sense that the images that we see are random objects, shapes, etc. The use of the bold colours also makes the album stand out more and this mimics the title of the album as the consumer who purchases the CD is exposed to an album where the cover is very busy with the amount of things that is going on. With using so many images and bold colours it is hard to make the title of the artist and the title of the album stand out. The way that they’ve made the artists name and the album name stand out is by using the same font, making the colouring white and so this is a contrast from the bright colours but the font itself is still a unique font that fits in well with the rest of the album. The track list for this album still uses the same font as the front only difference being is that it is smaller than the fronts font. However the theme is still carried and displayed on the back as the track list is going horizontally across the back of the album rather than being vertically. Institutional logos are displayed at the bottom of the album and at the back where they are usually displayed, yet it is quite small, this makes them less of a distraction to the rest of the album.

The Beatles album ‘1’ which is of their biggest songs that they produced is a contrast to Maroon 5’s album ‘Overexposed’ as the front cover of this album is simply the colour red with the number one that looks painted on in a way in the colour yellow. The back of the album has the track list is vertical which is a difference to Maroon 5’s sort of loud and bright album, The Beatles’ album is more simplistic. The institutional logos, just as Maroon 5’s, were in small font at the bottom of the album at the back, they are clearly labelled and displayed however they are just not the main focus of the back of the album.

The Scripts album is somewhere between the previous two, it does contain a range of images, it just doesn’t seem as hectic looking as the ‘Overexposed’ album cover however it is not just one single image like the album ‘1’. The band name is clearly labelled at the top and also at the back in the same font for continuity and the track list is in similar font to the bands title. The institutional logos are in a small print in the corner at the back of the album, clearly labelled, but verily visible. 

The Iconography of the Album Cover - Jessica Daykin

The article ‘The Iconography of the Album Cover’ discusses how the cover for an album can use associations with what the album is about. For example, they mentioned how a powerful looking car on a hip-hop album could represent speed, power, and thrill seeking. Or it could be a connotation of conspicuous wealth and extravagance, which is usually the main convention that we expect to see on the album cover due to the style of the genre.

In the article it also mentions about how in the modern age of technology, people will tend to download a song of site such as iTunes, rather than going to a store to purchase the album itself. The designer’s perspective (Julian House) on whether the album sleeve is still has its importance now as it did in previous years, he says that even though people tend to see the album cover on the small screens on their iPods rather than a physical copy, they still need to make sure that the artwork is available to download onto iTunes for the album.

The band or artist themselves have a say in what they would like their album cover to be, such as Pink Floyd ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ album they wanted to have a simple design for their cover instead of a photograph. In comparison to other artists covers this one in particular has no reference to the name of the band or the albums name. 

Music Video Analysis - Jessica Daykin

In the video Payphone – Maroon 5, the lead singer from the band is most visible because they play the banker in the video but also we see clips of him performing. For the rest of the band we do not see them perform with their instruments but there is a scene where we see the rest of them, and the scene is when the bank is being robbed. There is a part where four of the robbers are in a back room and they take of their masks and the audience is able to identify them as being the rest of the band. In this song there is also a featured artist in the song (Wiz Khalifa) who has a part of the video focused on him performing whilst still having the story line of he music video link in.

The genre that they are is a pop/rock band, they are somewhere between the two genres because they aren’t a stereotypical rock band that we see using dark colours and music that is intense but they are not a pop band where the music is quite cheery and light. There music has elements where it can be intense but they have songs that are quite catchy like pop songs. Compared with other artists in the same genre they use conventions of a rock band by showing the band performing the song with their instruments but they use conventions of the pop genre because in the music videos, for example Payphone, they have a clear story line that plays through the whole video and all the people/characters that we the audience see are all linked in with one another.

Over time Maroon 5 their videos have become much more complicated, for example in Payphone (Released 2012) they have a bank robbery, police car chase and car explosions, etc. Whereas their song Sunday Morning (Released 2009) was set in a bar where the band were performing with their instruments, and the other people that we see in the video of singing along with microphones because they are doing a karaoke.

The generic conventions that are evident from their videos is that they all have a clear story line/narrative because it is easy to understand what is happening within the video. They all have similarities within the music video which is they always show the band performing or the lead singers singing at some point.

Over time the film style has changed because the music videos they make now look more complicated, time consuming and also they look like they were produced on a larger scale compared with their previous videos. This may be due to them becoming bigger and well known band and so their videos are somewhat a reflection of their success, that they can produce a music that has so much action within it.

Conventional mise-en-scene is the lead singer exposes most of his tattoos to the camera so that they are visible to see with the clothing that he wears. With some of the other band members that we can see in the music video, either one or two of them have quite long hair, the long hair of the band members and the tattoos of the lead singer that we see in their music videos show that they do have some of the stereotypical traits that we usually expect from a rock band.

The way in which the band uses camera work to create meaning is that they use a few close-ups of the lead singer as he is usually the main character in the story line of the music video and so the close-up shows the emotions that the character is feeling. There are also a few establishing shots to show the location/environment that the video is being filmed in but also where the storyline has been set. With the editing they use fast cuts to change quickly between each of the scene. These create meaning as they build anticipation as to what is going to happen next. In other videos, if the different shots we see are quiet simplistic and there is not a lot happening within that particular scene then we tend to see quite slow transitions between the scenes which helps to create the general overall calm atmosphere of the video.

The videos that the band produce for their music video relate to other media texts such as TV Programmes or Films because there music videos have a story line that relates to the lyrics of song they are using and the scenes that we might normally see on either a television show or a film. The artist may do this because it might allow the person listening to the song to understand where the band is coming from with the lyrics that they have written for the song or the artist might have felt it was something that whoever were to watch the music video may find interesting and worth watching rather than something that was repetitive with no meaning behind it or even has nothing that relates it to the actual song. 

Editing our pitch

Our pitch is on 11th October so we are preparing out pitch on prezi ready for then.

Ways in which to communicate with fans

 This is a screen shot of the first page of the website, which is a blog, where fans see what has happened recently to the band.

This is on the  top-left side  of the website in which fans can join the mailer and receive direct information. There is also on the top-right side of the screen is mini logos for Youtube, Twitter and Facebook which shows that the band have other ways of staying in contact.

The band also has a street team, which is where the fans can interact with other fans and receive information from other fans about events where all the fans gather together.

Introduction

Our initial band we would like to create a music video for is Fun. They're an internationally known band from the USA and tour mostly Europe and the North America. the dates for their next tour are as follows.

Because they are an American band they have a wider range of items in their US store then their UK store.

The UK store

The US store

They are an indie-pop band. We shall be creating a music video for their song it gets better.