Album Cover First Draft

 This is the first draft of our proposed album artwork. I used photoshop to edit and create this, using an image of the internet which will be replaced with my own image in for the final cover. 

First Draft:

As it;s the end of term, we have put together our first draft of the music video. We showed some class members and gained feedback from doing so and therefore we feel confident in our progress so far. This is the first draft of the video that we have produced:

Overall, we are very happy with the progress we have made so far. Over the Christmas holidays, we will be filming the remainder of our footage and so in the new year, we will be able to complete our video.

Audience Feedback:

In class, we showed to the class what we have done so far, overall we got really good feedback. Our peers especially liked the fast editing of our video as they thought it matched the song really well. To add to this, our classmates said that they liked the shot of the various road signs at the end of the video. They thought it was funny, lighthearted and cheerful. The negative feedback we got was on the shot of the cars and taxis, our class thought it was too long and needed to be made shorter. We have taken this feedback on board and  are now changing our video to make it better.

Filming Three:

We filmed the performance part of our video yesterday. At first we realised that the room that all of the equipment was in was too small and would make the performance look cramped. Therefore, we had the idea to film outside. We moved all of the equipment outside, including a drum kit, guitar, bass guitar and microphone and set it all up infront of a fog light as it was dark. The light reflecting on to the band looked really effective as it was like a spotlight on a stage and therefore made it look more realistic. We got close up shots of all of the characters, which included Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband. We specifically got a close up shot of Boris Johnson drumming as we wanted to use it in the video at the end of the into before the characters come out of Oxford Street station. At times, the lighting did not look right as it made the camera come out of focus but we have cut and edited the footage in order to avoid including this in our video.


It began to rain heavily during our filming and so we had to stop in order to avoid damaging not only the musical equipment, but the filming equipment too. Therefore, we didn't film as much as we hoped we would but we think that we have sufficient footage to include in the video.

Filming:

Today we are aiming to start filming the performance part of our music video. We have asked permission from the music department  to use the equipment (including drums and guitars) and we are going to film this after school today (14/12/11). However, after ordering the Boris Johnson mask on Monday and paying for delivery to get it here for today, it has not arrived. Therefore my mum has tracked down another one for us to use today. We have also had other mishaps regarding todays filming. A couple of the people that said they would help us and be in the performance part of the video have in a way let us down. One has to leave school and then come back and another who is travelling to the school at 3:30 doesn't have a suit with him and therefore will have to go home and get one first, delaying our filming significantly. However, we must film today as we need to have a rough cut of our video in for Friday (16/12/11) and therefore have no choice. As well as this, we are worried that we won't have enough time before the school closes to finish filming this, and therefore may have to continue filming it another day. This further delays our coursework as we have a fast approaching final deadline.

The White Stripes - CD Advert Analysis

This advert was featured in NME magazine in March 2010. It is immediately eye catching to the audience due to its use of the colour red. Any fan of The White Stripes will understand why the colours featured on the advert have been used. The colours red, white and black are iconic colours used by this band and feature on every album and advert that they produce.

As well as this, the two people on the advert are the two band members, Jack White and Meg. There is a strong, complicated history between the two band members with different stories being made about the relationship between the two and therefore it is important for them to feature on the advert to add to the mysterious story between the two. Also, the way that they are walking away from the camera across a crooked bridge into the night adds to the mysterious story between the two.

The block white and black writing is basic and in a basic font which is important and effective as it stands out from the quite busy with colour background.
As with many other adverts for bands and CD's, there is a main picture as the main feature of the page and then underneath it comes the writing in order of importance. Firstly, the bands name, secondly comes the album title name and then underneath that follows any other crucial details about the band/advert such as the release date, quotes that have been praising the CD as well as the record label name and production company name. This is done as extra advertisement for the record label, by naming it on the advert, it further promotes them as fans of The White Stripes may then look into the label and find other similar bands that may be of interest to them.

The advert also displays all of the nominations that the album is up for, again very important to the promotion of the album as it shows how popular it is. As well as this, out of the 11 nominations that the album is up for, some are international nominations which again shows its popularity on a world wide scale, encouraging the audience to purchase the album.

Album cover analysis: The Who

The album cover for 'Tommy' by The Who is both cryptic and enigmatic. Tommy was originally released as a two-LP set with a booklet including lyrics and images to illustrate parts of the story. The cover doesnt feature any images of the artist, as many of the punk-rock albums of the era did. It uses simple colours, black and blue, as well as small white text do not distract the audience from the cover's concept. The cover is presented as part of a triptych-style fold-out cover. All three of the outer panels of the triptych are spanned by a single pop art painting by Mike McInnerney. The cover is very ambiguous; as we are unaware of what the images are actually there, and why the band decided to feature them. The white doves flying into the image could represent Tommy, who the album is based on. the white clouds are also signs of his innocence and vulnerabilty through his life.

Album Cover Inspiration

As the concept for our album cover is relatively simple, we decided to pay great attention to the small details in order to make it look as effective as possible. One of the most important aspects of our cover is the background; which again we have decided to keep simple. For the colour we decided to keep the style quite vintage and that a light colour would comply with this idea.
 



Both of these covers, 'Rumours' by Fleetwood Mac and 'Suck It and See' by Arcitc Monkeys, use a simple light background that gives a vintage style to the cover. The background cover also compliments the simplicity of both the covers. For our cover we plan to use a similar colour as we feel this will be very effective.

Performance Idea:

We have come up with an idea that we feel will make our video more humorous and interesting. We have decided to use the music and drama facilities in school and create several performance scenes for our video. We are going to get a mask of Boris Johnson and have all our characters playing instruments, as if they are a band. As well as this, because of the competition between Johnson and Cameron and their leadership, we thought it would be funny for Boris to throw a drumstick at the back of David's head. Also, because they both went to the same school, we could also act out a sort of play/school fight between them.

The performance shots that we are going to film on Wednesday (14/12/11) are going to be filmed in the drama studio in school using the equipment (drums, microphone and guitars) from the music department.
The shots will go in crucial music parts of the song, for example at 0:20 seconds where the drumming takes place, we will have a shot of Boris Johnson on the drums.

Filming Day 3:

Today, we went to London and completed our third day of filming. We went to: St Pauls and Westminster. We went to St Pauls to capture the scene of the protests that are currently happening outside St Pauls Cathedral, reflecting the negative side of society that is portrayed in the song. At Westminster, we managed to film Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and film both Tom and Jack on London Bridge. We had planned to travel to Green Park as well to film outside Buckingham Palace, however we were unable to do this due to a heavy downfall of rain and strong winds. We therefore aim to complete our filming very soon. The shots that we did manage to complete however were very good and went as planned.
Our first draft of our music video has to be in on Friday the 16th of December, we realise that our video will not be complete but we will have a rough draft to show to our class for feedback.

Album Cover: Photoshop experiments

We have started thinking of some ideas for our album cover and I have started experimenting with them on Photoshop. I took the image of a teacup and cut the background, along with erasing some of the image and correcting it. Here is the original image:

I used the 'Lasoo' tool to cut the image from its background, and then used the eraser to delete the shadow. After I had erased the shadow, I found that some of the teacup had also been removed. I used the inkdrop tool and then the paint brush to fill in the parts that had been erased. I layered two different backgrounds onto the image; one black and one white. 

This is the image on a black background. Here you can see that there is still some work to be corrected on the bottom of the teacup, as the colour of this background highlights the imperfections. 

Whereas the white background shows the image as perfect. The shadow has been removed and the corners and edges are smooth.

Kings of Leon - CD Advert analysis

This CD advert is for Kings of Leon's 'Only By The Night' released in 2008. The advert conforms with the indie/rock genre by being unusual and eye-catching. The ad features disorted images of the band; to please fans as well as the record label. The image used on the advert is also the image on the cover of the album, making it instantly recognisable to fans who wish to purchase the album. The bizzare effects on the image also entice the audience, as well as make an iconic image for the band. The lettering and font used on the advert is recognisable to all Kings of Leon fans, as this is a signature style for them. The ad also contains vital information, such as some of the songs included on the album, when it is released and where it can be purchased. This is essential when marketing an album and hoping for it's success. The green colour used contrasted with the red and white text is another way the advert is able to stand our in a magazine. This advert may be seen as pretty simple, but this band is known for using simple yet effective artwork on both their album covers and their adverts.

The Maccabees - CD Advert Analysis

This CD advert is for The Maccabees album 'Wall of Arm's. This advert was featured on the back cover of NME magazine and therefore is suitable to the genre of music that The Maccabees make. Instead of having a photograph of the band as you would expect, the image of the band is infact made from plastic models. This is unusual and therefore effective as it stands out to it's audience. As well as this, the bright colours which feature on the clothes of the band members too stand out, again, drawing attention to the advertisement. Despite this colour, the remaining area on the advert is black and white, the background being white and the writing being black. this has been done as it is basic in comparison to the image featured on the advert and further attracts the audience because of its differences.

The lettering and font of the writing stands out as it is in bold, black, block capital letters. Also, the size of the writing has been selected depending on the importance of that bit of information. For example, the band name and album title are in the biggest font and the font size gradually decreases as it continues down the page, eventually ending with the bands website address.

The advert also advertises the songs that people viewing this advert are most likely to know or have heard and therefore will further entice them into buying this album. This is purposely chosen to be done by the record label in order to promote the album as much as possible in the most condensed way as possible.

Tour dates are another feature on the advert and this is vitally important for the success of the tour. The advert has been placed in an extremely popular weekly music magazine which music fans will buy. Many bands would opt to have a seperate tour advertisement and seperate album advertisement, however, by condensing the two, more people are likely to see it and view both aspects of the advert, promoting both the tour and album in equal ways. It also gives information as of where and when to purchase tickets which again is an important feature if the tour is to sell well.

CD Advert Analysis:

This CD advert for Rihanna's album 'Loud' focuses primarily on the artist herself, this is stereotypical of this genre as adverts for pop and r&b CD's tend to focus predominantly on the star and the glamour and sex appeal of the artist. The majority of the cover is of the star; this has been done purposely to please her fans. The cover carries the conventions of the Male Gaze, as it shows Rihanna with hardly any clothes on posing in front of the camera, this is again purposely trying to please her male fans. The cover is all red, this is resembling femininity, passion and the girly theme of the album. The red, girly theme fits well with the target audience of Rihanna's fans- young, teenage girls and also matches the genre of the album- Pop and R&B. The advert contains bold lettering, this is both eye catching and grabs attention, the date the album comes out is the main focus, this has obviously been done on purpose by the record company in order to successfully promote the CD. To add to this, the use of the sentence, 'highly anticipated album', this is used yet again to promote the album and persuade fans to buy it. The 'R' logo used on the top left hand corner is used as it stands out and is recgonised  by her fans everywhere. Overall, the advert is rather simple, this makes the album more exciting and enticing for Rihanna's fans as it is mysterious as to what is going to be on the album.

Filming problems:

During both our shoots so far we have encountered some problems that have caused us to change some of the initial ideas we had for our video. Whilst shooting our inside shots we found it difficult to syncronise our actors when switching off the lights by the side of the bed. We resolved in changing their actions in the shot and had our producer (Ellie G) on the floor by the side of the bed switching the lights on manually. We also had some problems when filimg in London, such as gaining permission to shoot in certain shops on Oxford Street. As we were unable to shoot what would have ben a lengthy section of our video we had to quickly think up another idea for a replacement shot. We all worked together to come up with extra ideas just in case this problem occured again. On observation whilst filming in London we also found that some of our locations were not as we thought they would be, e.g. the beach by the Thames. We all agreed that it would be too hard to film these shots to a good standard and have decided to replace them with better and more accesable shots. Because of this our animatic storyboard will notbe the exact same as our final music video, however we are happy with the decisions we have made and are looking forward to continuing filming.

Filming 11/12/11

We plan to film again on Sunday 11th December 2011, and hope to shoot all of our remaining footage on this day. After looking at the footage we have already shot and our animatic story board we have listed all of the outstanding shots we need to film and have planned where we are going to go/what shots to film first, in order to save time and enable us to make sure we shoot everything we need to without forgetting anything. Here is our planned shotlist for 11/12/11:

1. Woodford Station - close up of footsteps
2. Woodford Station - Platform shot
3. St. Pauls - protest shots/crowd shots
4. Oxford Street - London stall shot
5. Charing Cross/Trafalgar Square - police chase (coming towards camera)
6. Westminster - Houses of Parliament
7. Traffic shot and Bridge shot
8. Green Park - Buckingham palace
9. Woodford or Loughton Station - walking out of station/coming home shots

We also plan to get more shots of the street signs for our montage in the video, but if we are unable to get them all on this day we will go again.

Animated Storyboard:

This is an animated storyboard which we created using post-it note drawings of ideas that we want to include in our video and Final Cut editing software. We photographed the post-it notes and loaded them onto the mac computers and then used the editing software to put together the animated storyboard. This has helped us imagine our video more visually. As well as this, if we hadn't have done this task, we would have not had enough shots to go to London and film. We realised that whilst putting the shots in time to the music that we did not have anywhere near enough shots to fill up our song. Therefore, as a group we feel that this task has been vitally important in the progress of our ideas for our video.

Week 11 Meeting:

This week we have started our filming, this, so far, has gone extremely well and we have all worked well as a team to successfully begin filming. So far, we have spent two days filming and have planned one more day to try and complete filming. We have got out footage off our cameras and have now began to edit our footage using final cut, getting rid of all incorrect shots and footage that is not right and only keeping the footage we are definitely going to use! Our next day of filming is going to be Sunday 11th of December.

Filming:

Today (4/12/11) we went to London with the aim of finishing our filming for our music video. Our actors were Jack Keens and Tom Dignam.

The filming that we did went well, however, we realised that a few of the shots we had planned to do were not going to work such as the shot coming in and out of the shops. We asked permission from Topshop and they said they would not allow us to film outside their shop so we couldn't do that shot. We also thought of a few other shots which went well. However, we have not completed the filming and therefore will need to do this next weekend. This is because it got dark quickly and it was difficult to film in some places at ease because of how busy it was.

Ramones:

The CD cover does not comply with the typical punk rock characteristics of which you would expect to see on an album cover. It presents to us an image of the band, however, the writing on the cover is in pink, something you would expect to see on a female girl group album cover, not a 1970's punk bands. It is effective though as it is eye catching and unusual of the genre and would stand out in a shop. This album cover again deviates from the usual album cover as it is very basic, the background is white, the writing is pink and there is a simple image of the band. However, there is nothing else promoting the album on the front cover. This could be because the band are so iconic, that anyone familiar with the punk/rock genre will immediately know who the Ramones are and therefore their album cover does not need further explanation or promotion.

The lettering and font of the cover are typical of this genre. They aim to stand out and this album certainly supports that idea. Ramones are iconic and so do not need fancy font and lettering to sell their music, fitting with their basic and anarchic image that they displayed throughout their success. The lettering is also completely in capital letters (front and back cover) which again supports the anarchic style of the band.

The image on the cover again is basic. It is in black and white which shows the bands age as modern day bands would most likely use colour. As well as this, the way that the band are dressed was typical of Ramones and also reminds us of the bands genre. Their hairstyles and clothing clearly present to us the period of time that the photo was taken as many people dressed this way to show their identity. The way the band are standing shows their laid back personality and attitude towards music. This therefore would attract people who share these similar characteristics to the album. The front cover shows the front of the band and the back  cover cleverly shows the back of the band. Again, the back cover is in black and white which is effective as therefore the cover flows.

It is clear by looking at the front cover that they are a punk band. This is because of the perception that the cover gives off to the audience, it is clear through their clothing, hairstyles and by the way they stand that they are relaxed about their image. The type of people who would be interested in purchasing this album would most likely not be interested in the sex appeal that a Beyonce album cover for perhaps have for example. They are probably also not too bothered about the way the band looks which is why the band have opted for such a simple album cover.

Editing:

We have now began to edit the footage that we filmed on Wednesday. We are so pleased with the footage we have got so far and have had extremely positive feedback from other class members on this. This has given us a boost of confidence before filming the remainder of our video which we will hopefully do on Sunday. Last year we were only taught the basics of using the Final Cut editing software, however, this year we have been taught much more in depth and therefore know how to add special effects which we didn't know last year and so we hope that this will make our video more interesting to watch for the audience. 

Filming:

This Sunday (4/12/11) we are aiming to complete our filming. The weather however is looking quite cloudy and possibly rainy which is something we are a bit concerned about.. however, we must film so we will just have to carefully work around this. We have been let down by one of our actors and so are trying to find someone to replace them. We are really pleased with how our filming went on Wednesday and we feel that we made good use of our time and got to know the equipment better before going to London and filming. We aim to gets lots of different shots from different angles for our film footage which we are filming on Sunday as this will allow us to choose which we prefer best, giving us options. This is important in enabling us to decide which of the shots looks best in the video. 

Album Cover Analysis, 'Sex Pistols':

The Cd cover I am analysing is the Sex Pistol's album called 'Never mind the bollocks heres the...', I chose to do this particular cover as it is of the same genre as the song we have chosen to use for our music video, from the Punk/Rock genre. The cover resembles the genre very well as the swear word within the Cd name resembles the violent and controversial genre that is Punk/Rock. The album cover contains two colours; neon pink and neon yellow, the colours yet again resemble the genre of the music as Punk/Rock is very wild and 'out there' in conparison to genres such as pop for example. The lettering on the album cover is bold, this is very eye-cathing and grabs the attention of their target audience. To add to this, the lettering is very jumbled up and seems to have no order, yet again refecting the genre of music in which the album is from. The song listing on the back of the cover is also jumbled up and definitely has no order, this displays the out of control and mad characteristics of the band. This yet again fots with the Punk/Rock genre as bands from this specfic genre are stereotypically blunt, troublesome and cause controversy. Due to the fact that the album was released in the late 1970's during a time of trouble within Britain, when things such as rioting were taking place and there was controversy within government and the decisions that they were making, the songs featured on the album reflect the times. Songs such as 'Liar', 'Problems' and 'Anarchy in the UK' reflect this time period. Unlike the majority of albums, there are no images of the band on the cover of the album, this shows how the band is focused simply on thier music not focusing on star image or stereotypically focused on sex appeal or glamour similarly to other artists. Commonly on a Cd cover, the band or the artist is the main feature and takes up most of the cover with their picture, this however is not shown on this album, again displaying their controversial nature and the fact that they want to be different from other artists.
The booklet featured within the Cd cover is not very different to that shown on both the front and the back of the cover, the band have obviously deliberately done this in order to keep the same theme running throughout the album cover, with no extreme differences within the whole booklet.

Album cover analysis: The Beatles

The CD cover for The Beatles 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' is one of the most iconic album covers of all time. The cover presents an image of the band, in their signature costume, as well as many other stars (dead or alive). The digipack won a grammy for artwork and was designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. I have chosen this cover as it is not only iconic but interesting and revolutionary. It features a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover and lyrics printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on a British pop LP. In the centre of the scene, The Beatles stand behind a drum on which are painted the words of the album's title. Bold and bright colours are used to catch the attention of the audience and make the cover stand out. The cover depicted more than 70 famous people, including actors, musicians and writers such as James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Oscar Wilde and Marlon Brando. The cover may also be seen as ironic, as it is set as a funeral scene and many of the people featured are dead. The use of funeral flowers to spell out the name of the band may also been seen as satircal. Despite many colours being used on the cover, the image of the band immediately stands out, as it is centered and uses the boldest colours. This cover is dissimilar to many other albums at the time. The Beatles stemed a new era and revolutionised music. Their cover is seen as a landmark for the artwork many artists now use on their covers, and therefore this album does not comply to any genre characteristics. The final bill for the cover was £38, 823- a staggering sum not only for the 60s but even now.