Famous Album covers...

In class, we looked at and analyzed a few album covers....



Pink Floyd- Dark side of the Moon

The font does not relate to the music as there is no text. No "Pink Floyd", No "Dark side of the Moon"- Nothing! What this shows us is that they are obviously a well known band of their own era. People would have known who they are without them seeing any font on the cover. The colours are quite significant to this album cover as they are very contrasting . It's does show the viewers that the bad are maybe intelligent and scientific. The image does not relate to the music as there is nothing that relates to the spectrum picture. However, it could mean their lyrics are more intellectual than previous albums. The use of intertextuality is purely, a reference to science as the spectrum is something to do with Physics. I didn't do too well in Physics, so i won't be able to explain it well but it has something to do with the reflection of light through a mirrored shape and you get those colours of the rainbow coming out the back of it. The band are not in the Album cover as they are already a well established band of their era (1970/80's). The album cover is a piece of art in its own right as it is very abstract. It is now their brand logo and well known, even to this day.


Nirvana- Nevermind

The font does not relate to the music as nirvana were a grunge band with heavy rock songs. Having that font does not symbolize their genre very much. However,  the album name 'nevermind' has a water like font, so this does relate to the album. The colour scheme is blue making it feel quite grim, their music is rather melancholy and grim itself, so the music does relate to the colour scheme. The image  itself is pretty shocking as it is pushing the boundaries of what is and what isn't acceptable and/or appropriate to put on an album. The image is of a naked baby diving in a very deep swimming pool just to get some money which is being dangled in front of him. This could be a metaphor of what Nirvana's lyrics are about. About how society will jump into the deep end, naked,  just to achieve something less than necessary, but instead you end up sinking. Kurt Cobain was known as a "spokesman of a generation". There is no intertextuality to anything in this album cover. the band are not pictured in the cover as the picture says enough to shock the viewer. The album is not necessarily a piece of art in its own right, but it is symbolic and known very well to be linked with 'Nirvana'.


Coldplay- X&Y

There is NO text on this album cover so the font does not relate to the music. The colours are quite curious as 'Coldplay' have used a multi coloured scheme. However, the primary colours on the object doesn't relate to the band or their music. The image is ambiguous as it could mean anything to anyone and would symbolize an object or person. However, most of the general public would look at that and say that it doesn't mean anything! There is no intertextuality as it doesn't relate to anything specific. The members of 'Coldplay' are not pictured in the album as like Pink Floyd, this is their second latest album so they are already reputable. The reason that it IS a piece of art in its own right is because it gets people talking about what it could be/should be. If people are drawn in by it to try and make sense of it, Coldplay have done a good job.



The Killers- Sam's Town

The Band name of 'The killers'  is like a neon sign title, something you would see in a sleazy town. 'The Killers' have had that same font title for previous albums making it quite symbolic. 'Sam's Town is written in a contrasting, sophisticated way. This could tell us that this album has more sophisticated music/lyrics in it. the colours used are old colours of White, Black and Grey. This portrays being stuck in someones mind or reminiscence. This could mean the music could be quite spacey or dreamy meaning the colour scheme does relate to the music. The image does not really relay the music very well. This is because it has two very contrasting images of a goat symbolizing rough animalism of the music. there is also beauty pageant depicting feminist representation. This has intertextuality of a beauty queen. The background behind the goat and the woman is a wrecked caravan with a broken window. This could be somewhere that the woman lives or used to live. The band are not pictured in this album cover as it becomes mystical. However, because they are well known, there is no need to see them.




Queen

the font is quite medieval relating to royalty of the name 'Queen', however there is not any reference from the font about the music as they are more pop/rock. The colour scheme relates quite well to the music, as it is full of darkness and shadows. However, there is a high light shining down upon them, lighting only their face up. It makes them look like Heroes, saving people by listening to their music.The picture is VERY iconic as it has been used many a times and is very well known. The use of intertextuality is interesting here as it looks very religious. It is possibly a symbol of Jesus on the cross with Freddy Mercuries arms folded like that. The original picture is from their smash hit 'Bohemian Rhapsody' but became so well known in the song that they used it as an album cover. I think this is a piece of art in its own right as it is a still from a song that is so well known.

Our trip to HMV...

As we are creating our own album cover,  Tom and I had to do research on contemporary Digipaks. So on Wednesday the 10th of November, 2010, We went as a class to do a research lesson in the local music store, HMV. We based our research on a questionnaire given to us before we arrived at there.

1. Stand in front of a range of CD's and allow your eye to travel until one or some design(s) catches your attention. Examine it: What features drew your eye in to it? 
   
   • the first album that caught my eye straight away was 'Biffy Clyro's' digipak of their latest album, Only Revolutions. The reason it caught my eye, was mainly because of the colours placed on the front were Red and Blue. These are two very contrasting colours, so putting this on the front of the album creates an attractive eye catcher. These colours also represents the French Revolution, linking to the title of the album.
     
     
     
   
   • Another Album that caught my eye was Battles' debut album, Mirrored. Like Biffy Clyro's Album cover, the colours sprung out at me. Mainly of the yellow drum kit and red keyboard. Another reason why this interested me was as I looked at this cover, I thought I was seeing more instruments to the left of the picture. I then looked at the album name 'Mirrored' and realized that it was a mirror reflection of the glass room.
     
   
   
   
   2. Where are the music DVD's located in the store?
   
   
   • Looking around the store, I noticed that the music DVD's were four rows down the shop, about 3/4's of the way in to the store. This meant that they are obviously not as successful as the CD's that came before the DVD's.
   
   3. How were the Music DVD's arranged? Eg. By genre/artist?
   
   
   • They were actually arranged in a simple alphabetical order, line after line, stretching out over half of the store.
   
   4. Look at a range of DVD's. What percentage of the following do they mainly showcase?
   
   • Performance- 70%
   • Documentaries- 20%
   • Compilation- 5%
   • Other- 5%
   
   5. What is the purpose of the Music DVD?
   
   
   • The DVD's show the artist or group performing in a live performance/ show. This then encourages fans to go and watch the real thing, live.
   6. Where are the CD's located in the store and how are they arranged?
   
   
   • As you walk into the store, the CD's are located from the right side of the shop, with all the new chart singles and debut albums. Moving more into the middle of the shop are genre music CD's like: Rock/pop, Hip Hop, Metal, classical etc.
   
   7.  What does this tell you about the relative importance of CD's compared with DVD's?
   
   
   • There are more CD's than DVD's as people want to listen to the band instead of watch them. CD's are also more portable and easier to use than DVD's.
   
   8. What is being played  at the listening posts?
   
   • Songs from the charts were being played when we were looking around the store. This was to encourage customers to buy the albums and singles. The song that was on while we were looking around was 'Club can't handle me' by Flo Rida.
   
   9. Does this give you any indication of HMV's customer base?
   
   
   • There is a very wide range of genres for different people who like that sort of music.
   
   
   
   
   
   We then found one DVD and two CD's in our genre (as recent as possible) and analyzed them:
   
   
   CD-Biffy Clyro/ Only Revolutions:
   
   
   
   • Images- People standing in an open field holding red and blue flags with a fire behind them. 
   • Brand identity- They are rockers that wear red skinny jeans.
   • Presentation of artist/band- They are not on the album cover or in the digipak itself. They are obviously well known already.
   • Other information- There is Historical context of the red and blue symbolizing the French Revolution.
   
   
   
   CD-Kings of Leon/ Only by night:
   
   
   
   • Images- Eagle face is being morphed into human faces in a green tint background.
   • Brand Identity- They are quirky and want to stick out as a different band to others.
   • Presentation of band/ artist- The bands faces have been combined into one and morphed into the eagles face. This shows that they are serious and the eagle symbolizes being quite solemn and stern as a band.
   
   
   
   
   DVD- Keane/ Live:
   
   
   
   • Images- A photo of the band on stage in front of the crowd with the lead singer strutting his stuff!
   • Brand identity- They are very laid back rock stars. They dress like normal everyday people speaking out to all types of audience.
   • Presentation of artist/ band: They are natural performers.
   • other information: The image is distaughted.
     
     
     
     
     
   
   
   To finish off our trip, we handed out a questionnaire to a staff member with these questions....
   
   
   
   1. What is your customer base at HMV? Guildford Town center.
   2. Why do you arrange the store the way you do? To increase sales and merchandise.
   3. How do DVD sales compare to CD sales? Why is this? DVD's outsell CD's 40% because there is a larger variety of genre's of DVD.
   4. How do you encourage people to come into your store? By offering customer service, and putting up adverts around Guildford.
   5. What stratagies do you use to compete against internet downloads? deals such as '2 for £10', Rewards and loyalty cards.

How do we apply to Goodwin's 6 rules to our music video 'Not Today'

1. Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics- Looking at similar bans with the same contemporary rock genre as us, They also use a music video split into performance and narrative genres. For example Maroon 5's 'She will be loved' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIjVuRTm-dc
2. There is relationship between lyrics and visuals- In our music video we have the occasional word that would match up to our video (or vice versa) "I scream and I shout" Tom runs out of the house screaming. "Traffic jam inside my head" There is a quick close up of a traffic light stuck on red (the red symbolizes frustration). "I get frustrated, I get so mad" Tom rips up a letter in frustration.
3. There is relationship between music and visuals- The band Derek's Neighbour will be playing they're own music on their own instruments.
4. Demands of record labels include lots of close ups- In our video, close ups are regularly used of Tom acting such as at the beginning of the video of Tom's eye opening and him sitting up. Here we see his face.
5. Female Body Reference are frequently used- we haven't used any female body reference in our video as it does not fit the song or even the genre. We do show a females body, but with clothes on.
6. There is often intertextual reference- use of sony ericsson phone texting "Could be down to why I protect my heart"

More to come - Just you wait!! x

Andrew Goodwin's 6 rules of Music Video...

1. Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics- An example of this is:
2. There is relationship between lyrics and visuals
3. There is relationship between music and visuals.
4. Demands of record labels include lots of close ups.
5. Female Body Reference are frequently used.
6. There is often intertextual reference.

Andrew Goodwin

Not Today- Animatic

When we finished creating our storyboard, we took pictures of each one in order, uploaded them to 'Finalcut Express' and edited them together to make a small music video from. Once we did this, we turned it into a quicktime file and uploaded it onto youtube so we could easily make it a link from youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lifh1aU1anY

This helped us to achieve what our music video would aspire to be like (not rubbish drawings). But this gave us the right idea for the real filming process.

Cheers for reading. x

Email to Derek's Neighbour

We had to write an email to one of the band members to ask permission to use one of their songs.
The only way we could get in contact with a member of Derek's Neighbour, was if we contacted their myspace. www.myspace.com/Derek'sNeighbour.
This is what we wrote....




Hi Matt,


Me and my friend Tom Bates are doing a music video for our coursework in Media Studies A2's. One of the objectives was to find an unsigned band on Myspace. We found your band, Derek's Neighbour on www.myspace.com/Derek'sNeighbour.

e noticed you were unsigned and were wondering if we could pick one of your songs to use for our music video? Tom mentioned the song 'Not Today' as we both agree that it would be a great choice that constitutes a good music video. We understand if you don't want us to use your music, but to be honest, it sounds pretty phat!
 
Please get back to us asap as we will need to start planning ifn we can or cannot use this (or a) song.


Thanks alot, Nick and Tom

x
 
 
We got a reply from Matt saying this:


"Hi there Nick,



Thank you for your email.


Me and the rest of the band feel very privaledged to be asked - and would like to help in anyway possible. I am glad you like our tracks, especially 'Not Today' - we have always thought it would be quite a cool concept music video.


We will give you all the rights you need for producing a music video of this song. Please feel free to email me again if you need any more help in any way.






Best wishes,




Matt (on behalf of Dereks Neighbour)"

Actors for music video...

There are two parts of this music video...

1. The Performance (Artist playing/performing within the music video)

     2.  The Narrative (A story being told within the music video)



In the Narrative, 

• Tom Bates and Sarah Waterman will be acting as the couple recently broken up. 

• Tom will be the Teenager that always procrastinates in life, putting things off and living a simple and boring life.
• Sarah will be playing the girl who is loved by Tom. In the video, the viewers never see her face, creating an illusion of something special about this girl! 

 
In the Performance,

• Matt Veira will be playing electric guitar and singing.
• Dan Veira will be playing electric bass and singing backing vocals.
• Nick Veira will be playing drum kit and singing backing vocals.

Derek's Neighbour: Mood Board

This mood board represents the band 'Derek's Neighbour' and the song 'Not Today'.

The song is about procrastination, heartbreak and putting things off, like commitments for example (The Ring). It is also about wasting time and how we should stop putting things off in life (The clock).

Star Studies- Muse

Comparing two songs and seeing how Muse have changed as a band since the first one...

The songs I have chosen are very contrasting genres of the music video and music. This is why I chose these songs as I wanted there to be a big difference between the two songs. They also show the viewers how the band Muse have changed as the group.

1. The First song I have chosen is 'Bliss': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMqsWc8muj8&ob=av2e 

• Here in the mise-en-scene side of this movie we see that they are wearing normal clothes, The lead singer (Matt Bellamy) has dyed his hair bright red. 
• During this stage of their career, They're music was very rocky and stayed within the heavy rock genre in their album (origin of symmetry).
• The genre of this music video is a spectacle, meaning that they use lots of special effects in the video, such as Matt Bellamy falling down this pit and into (what looks like) space. 
• the editing is very stylized with use of slow motion.

 2. The second song I chose was 'Undisclosed desires':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8OOWcsFj0U&ob=av3e

•  The Mise-en-scene of this video is a complete contrast to Bliss. In this video there is a lot more going on with different machines and TV screens. Their clothes are a lot more futuristic and funky. e.g. Matt plugging in his shoes at the beginning. These changes to me mean that they have changed into a more wealthy and industrial band since Bliss.
• Muse have become progressively more confident with their music over the years so they are now spreading out their genres in this album- The Resistance. So this songs genre is a very electronic/Contemporary R&B/Synthpop. Thus giving them more interesting ideas for a music video. This also means the music can speak out to other people who are into these genres and not just Alternative rock.
• The Genre of music video is now a hybrid of performance/image and a slight hint of sexual (girl dancing in wire suit)
•  The editing, like Bliss, is also very stylized, with use of slow motion and depth of field. They use simple shots like mid shots of Dom Howard (drummer), Low angle shot of Bassist (Chris Wolstenholme), high angle shots of Matt clicking into microphone, and close up on Matt singing (look at picture).

 The overall difference that Muse have created about themselves is their image and style of music. they have changed their image to stand out from other bands in the charts by dressing futuristicly and have a quirky theme about their image. The design of their clothing is more than contemporary, It is ultramodern like in Undisclosed Desires. They have changed their style of music because they want to speak out to a wider range of listeners. So in their newest album they use a wider use of different genres, such as Heavy rock e.g. Unnatural Selection , Synthpop e.g. Undisclosed Desires, Classical e.g. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)

Cheers for reading

Nick. x

Music Video Questionnaire

Please circle answer...

Name:


1) Gender?

Male, Female


2) How old are you?

16-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 50+

3) What is your favorite Genre of Music?

Metal, Rock, Rap/R&B, Dance, Pop, Other (Please state)

4) How often do you watch music videos?

Once a week, twice a week, three times a week, Everyday, Never

5) What is your favorite genre of music video?


Spectacle (special effects etc) Narrative (story) Performance Sexual (use of women/men’s body image) Image (imagery or dance routines to promote a star’s image)

6) Which do you prefer?

Comedic video, serious narrative, big budget, special effects, simplistic performance from artist, low budget natural settings, other (please state)

7) Would you expect to see the band/artist performing in a music video?

Yes, No, Not Necessarily

8) What is the most important thing you would expect to see in an Indy/alt rock music video?

(Please state) e.g. performance from band/good lighting etc...


9) How influenced are you by a music video to buy/download the song?

Very, Not very

10) In our music video, we hope to use an epic landscape. Do you prefer a big landscape e.g. a mountain or a simplistic setting e.g. a bedsit?

 
 
We gave this Questionnaire out to 10 people and made our results out of what people wanted in our music video.

(All participants we at the age of 16 and 20.)




Questionnaire results:

1. Sex...Male: IIIII    Female: IIIII
2. Genre of music... Metal: 0, Rock: III, Rap/RnB: IIII, Dance: II, Pop: III, Other: II
3. How often do you watch music videos?... Once a Week: 0, Twice a Week: III, Three Times a Week: II, Everyday: IIII, Never: I.
4. Favorite Genre of music video... Spectacle: IIII, Narrative: IIIII, Performance: II, Sexual: II, Image: I.
5. Which do you prefer... Comedic video: IIIII, Serious Narrative: I, Big Budget/special effects: II, Simplistic performance from artist: II, Low Budget/Natural setting: II, other: 0
6. Would you expect to see the band/artist performing in your music video? Yes: IIIII, No: I, Not necessarily: IIIII.
7. What is the most important thing in a music video? Examples: performances, Good lighting.
8. How influenced are you by a music video to download the song?... Very: III, Not very: IIIIIII.
9. Landscape... Big landscape: IIIIIIII, Simplistic: II

Cheers for reading. x