Album Inspiration

For our half term homework, we was set to go re-search albums and websites of artists which inspired us or who are in the same genre of music with the artist we are doing. For this, we went to HMV when we met and looked at CD's and took photo's (with the stores premisson). We have allready posted the Kesha CD in much detail, this is because she is the artist we are doing, we can then interpret this into developing our own CD. This post is for rest of the CD's.

Lady Gaga.
Lady Gaga is one of the major pop stars at the current time and with this alone we thought was a 100% look at.

This is the cover and the back of Lady Gaga's first album 'The Fame'. Again like the Kesha album, we can see the front cover is a close up of the artists face. This is to represent the artist but to also get the face and image out to the public, this is something which we have picked up on and may use. This is very generic for the pop genre. It focuses on the artists image, something which most pop stars do these days. The mise en scene with the black background contrasting with her pale face and white hair again draw the attention back to her.

The back of the album does exactly the same thing as the front. It draws to the image of the artists as being crazy and wacky, something which she is. We have also noticed that the name is on the front AND back of the album, she is promoting herself majorly, getting her name out. This is something which we are going to use on our CD cover.

 This is the inside of the CD and the inside of the booklet. The inside of the cover again is promoting her and her image. However what is different is the CD itself, it is very plain and almost dull, this is a contrast to the rest of the CD. We think this is because not many people see the CD itself cause they are listening to the songs on the stereo. This is something we have picked up on and will use towards the making of our CD.
The booklet again is very self promoting, while also catching the audiences eye. This is something we need to pick up, since when asking a few people we know, not many people even look in the booklet when buying a CD. We are deciding to make our booklet eye catching so that they will pick it up and look inside it.

Rihanna
Rihanna is a well known figure in the music industry. She makes similar, but totally different songs to kesha, this is a reason why we choose to look at her.

 

Like above, this is the front and back of the CD. Just like any other pop CD, the front cover is a close up of the artist. Again this is to support there individual image of this artists. It also self promotes the artist and their songs. We can also see that on the cover they are promoting what songs are on the album, this is unusual since many pop stars don't do this. We also see that they is no emphasis on Rihanna's name. They are expecting people to know who she already is, this is totally different compared to Lady Gaga's album, the emphasis is all on her name. The black and white effect works well on this CD cover.
However the back is very generic of a pop CD, this is because they is a long shot of the artist. This is to promote the artists image. It is also to lead the audience into buying the CD. For example, Rihanna isn't fully facing us, only her head in, this will intrigue the artist since it represents her songs and therefore they will buy it.

However, the two images (front and back) and very different, one is very in your face upfront, her eyes look like there staring at you, whereas the other is very tempting and secret.

 

This is the inside of the CD and the inside of the booklet. The first thing which i find interesting about this is that all the images are different, unlike lady gaga where she uses the cover of her booklet and the back of the CD the same image. The Cover of the booklet is very interesting. The negative technique is used here, it's used very effectively. Again the CD is very plain with only a 'R' on it. This is to draw attention to the image of the artist rather than the image of the product itself. This is something we are on about using.
Inside the booklet is very different, it's very image based whereas Lady Gaga's booklet is very lyric and text based. This again is effective since it draws the reader back to the image of the artists, while also giving information about the lyrics.

Kate Nash

Kate Nash is a very popular artist within the target age group which we are aiming for. This is the reason why we decided to look at her.

 

Like the others, this is the back and front of the CD cover. Also like the others we see that the artists is on the front of the CD. This again is self promotion. We can see that the most striking thing on the CD cover is the name 'Kate Nash' The text stands out because of its difference in looking like its been written, we could include this kind of text on our cd cover. Kate nash has a very simple looking cd cover and has a picture of her on it. Her picture relates to the type of music she creates as it is very child like, as though shes talking through her songs instead of singing. She is a more classy artist compared to Ke$ha because Ke$ha is more of a party girl in her videos. The layout of the songs on the back cover is abit mish mash as they are arranged sid by side and numbered.

Another Digipak we looked at was Ellie Gouldings' album 'Lights'. We chose to look at this artist because she aims at the same target audience as Ke$ha although her music genre of Indie-Pop is slightly different to that of Ke$ha and this is reflected in the Digipak.

The front and back covers of the Digipak are both quite appropriate to an indie genre as they  are both quite simple in layout and fonts etc. Although there are features on the front and back covers appropriate to the pop genre. These features include a close up of the artist as the dominant image covering the front cover as they are the main focus. Other features include the use of glitter and colours such as gold contrasted on a plain black background; this is similar to our artist Ke$ha's colour scheme on her album.

The mise-en-scene of the front and back covers is very minimal. With no setting, little lighting and no costume visible. The use of having no setting emphasises the importance of the artist and her music opposed to any props or gimmicks. There is some lighting on the front cover of the CD by use of the dark black background and some lighting on the artist's face to make her stand out on the cover and be the main attraction. In terms of costume, no particular outfit is visible apart from the strap of a black top visible which once more adds to the effect of making the artists face stand out from everything else on the cover. The artists hair is a major feature of the CD cover with it being loosely curled to connotate innocence with glitter and bright lighting highlighting points on her hair and face, which contains little makeup to make her appear natural and pure to her audience. 

The layout on this front and back cover is the most simple layout of all the digipak's we researched. This is highly effective upon the artist's audience as it portrays a persona of her music being the main focus rather than props or effects. The back cover also has a plain black background to help the font stand out and catch peoples eyes. The font on the front and back covers is gold to stand out against the plain black background. It is also in a simple bold font for emphasis. The main font on the front cover saying the artist's name and album name also has an effect of the titles themselves being lights to parallel the album name.

The dominant image and simple style help sell the artist as serious about their music though the use of glitter also reflects the artist having a fun side to her personality.


(Same as the website we saved this as a draft before publishing it)

More locations

THE WOODS LOCATIONS (TWO CHOICES)

1.

2.

As we have found two locations we did two recee sheets to determine which will be best to use. We looked as a group at them both and decided that the second choice would be easier to access as its nearer to the house location, also we prefer the wood setting because it looks more mysterious and surreal compared to recee sheet number one. 

THE WHITE ROOM

The white room we thought was the perfect location for dance and lyric scenes as it is bright and simple which we hope will show off the main character more clearly. We also wanted a bright room for the dream effect so it looks almost unreal. Whilst doing the recee sheet for this location we found there were plugs which could come in handy when using powerful bright lights. There is plenty of room for the dancing which was the main concern of ours when choosing a location. 

Location (with reece sheets) + Shot types & Storyboards

When deciding for the main location of film, we decided to look at 2 totally different locations. They both had there advantages as well as there dis-advantages.


First Location: West Bridgeford.
West bridgeford was the first location we looked at. This location was our first choice since it looked alot more like a old persons home without the need of loads and loads of props. This was an advantage to us since it meant that we didn't have to carry loads of props every time we need to shoot or re-shoot something. The other advantage was that it was close to one of our other locations.
Even though this seemed a good location, the actual location of the location seemed to pop up. Even though this was easily accessed by a NCT bus, not all of us in the group have NCT bus passes, therefore this issue was raised and was talked about in great detail.
Below are photo's of the living room (the main room in the narrative).

These are the reece sheets for the West Bridgford living room. On these we think about the power supply, space of the location and where we could place the camera as well as many other things. These are helpful for all of the the locations that we test because it helps us make a correct and accurate decision on where to film.

Secound Location: Aspley
Aspley was the second location which we looked at. This location was always going to be our back-up location, just in case something went wrong with our first option. This location didn't look like an old person's home, so we would need a few props to make the location seem realistic. However, since this is Jordan's house, the props could stay there. One advantage of this was that it was a simple 10 minutes away from college if we ever needed to do a quick re-shoot. It is also accessible by a numerous of NCT buses and also a Trent Barton bus, this meant that all the cast and crew could easily get there.
A dis-advantage of this is that it's always full with family members, therefore would need planning if we wanted too shoot or re-shoot. It was also quite far away from our main option for the forest.
Below are pictures.

Again, like the West Bridgford location, we did another reece sheet for the Aspley location. This was for the same reasons.

Conclusion
After some talking, we came to the conclusion that the first option would be alot better for us. This is because it makes the filming seem more realistic. It was also closer to the better location for the woods, this therefore making it easier to do one long shoot rather than numerous shoots on different days.

LOCATION

West Bridgeford - Kitchen.

Before we even started looking at the scene for the kitchen, we decided to look for the living room scene. This is because they wouldn't be any continaity errors if the main girl went into the kitchen and she came in through a different door or direction. Since we decided on the West Bridgeford location for the living room, we decided on the West bridgeford's kitchen.

This is also alot easier for us since we would be able to do one day location shoots rather than numerous shoots.

The kitchen also reminds us of an old person, witht he old style cooker, the old style tops and cupboards, this again helps us make it seem more realastic.

Below are pictures of the location.

These are the reece sheets for the kitchen. Because we wanted to use this kitchen from the start, we only did a reece sheet for this one. This is because the kitchen is a lot more spacious and would of been easier to get all the equipment + characters in.

STORYBOARD/SHOT TYPES ETC.

These are our shot list. These are going to help us when we do finally go and film since we already have our ideas down on paper and don't have to stand around coming up with them. Even though this is only a rough idea of what we would like the video to look like, we still might change bits when we see what looks decent when filming. It will also save us time when editing since we know what scene goes with what bit in the music.

This is our storyboard. We used this to roughly draw down key scenes or shots which would help us when filming. It also gave us an idea of what we would want a certain scene to look like (for example scene 25 when the girl runs away). It also helped us with the shot type cause we could then say whether a shot type was realistically achievable. 

Make up for Girl + Old Man.

This is the make up for our main girl. We used a range of makeup, glitter and paint. We've used this to represent the wild side of the girl. The make-up will be like this when she starts dancing sexy and while in the white room. This represents kesha since we releate glitter to her. This also represents to our target audience since it's getting dressed up and looking galermous and nice, something the target auidence like to do. The purple is in contrast to the plain makeup she'll be wearing when helping with the man.

This is the test shot page in which we used for the girl. This will be helpful when we come to do the make up on the day of the shoot. This is so we know exactly what we're doing and how to do instead of messing around with it.

This is also the test shot page for the old man. Again this was very helpful in deciding what we want the old to look like. It also gives us an idea whether we need to make him look more like an old man through props or actions or whether he looks perfectly fine without all of that stuff.

Digipak Cover Research- Ke$ha

As a group this week we went into music stores such as HMV to research into exisiting CD covers and take pictures of the front/back/inserts and analyse them. We chose artists relevant to our genre and even an exising cover of our artist.

Ke$ha- Animal

                                                        

This is the front and back cover of Ke$ha's album 'Animal', both are highly appropriate and relevant to the pop genre. This can be seen in many ways, for example the close up of the artist on the front cover of the album (left), as the pop genre usually values an artist's image and look as the main focus opposed to CD covers of genres such as Indie or Rock. This can be seen on album covers such as 'The Killers - Day and Age', which simply contains a mosaic based image of a landscape with no focus on the band themselves.

The mise-en-scene is also appropriate to the genre on both the front and back covers of the CD. The plain black backgrounds helps the accompanying font and image of the artist to stand out. The font on the front is edgy looking with sharp edges, colourful and glittery to reflect the artist and genre. Although, on the back cover of the CD, a variety of fonts are used to great effect and to reflect the variety and fun nature of the album. To emphasise this image of glamour, glittery images are also used on the back cover aswell as a zebra print pattern with connotations of being wild, this also reflects the albums title, 'Animal'.

The layout on the front cover is pretty simple, whilst quite erratic looking on the back cover. The front cover simply has the artist name at the top of the CD, artist picture in the middle, and album name slightly tilted at the bottom of the cover. The layout of the song list on the back however is different from the generic vertical numbered list. The songs are presented horizontally along the back cover and in a variety of fonts, boldness and italics etc however they are all in a gold font to represent once again the idea of glamour and superiority.

The image and style presented of Ke$ha on the front and back covers of the Digipak is that of a simple style glamour and fun. The artist image dominates the front cover showing she is the main focus, her dark eye makeup and orange glitter lipstick also represent the dominant ideology of a 'party girl' and her serious expression is almost like she is not to be messed with and fiesty. And the erratic and inconsistant layout of the back cover sell her as an unconventional artist, and in the addition the glittery image of waves and the glittery fonts and colours portray her as fun and kooky.

This is the inside of the digipak, showing the CD and the cover of the insert. Once more both are appropriate to the pop genre and consitant to the rest of the digipak. Both the CD and front cover of the insert have both a simple style and layout and also has the black background and stand out glittery bold font representing the youthful fun vibe of the genre. The text on the the insert states, 'It's party time', this furthur emphasises the dominant themes of good times and partying consistant to the genre and artist. All the font is in capital letters and in the same edgy font, this reflects the idea of being loud and youthful. Once more these aspects of the digipak sell Ke$ha as a glamourous, young party girl.

The image above is the inside of the insert within the digipak. It is appropriate to the genre as it is full of random images with minimal font and a dominant image of the artist. It is also full of lots of action and fun to reflect the artist and once again masses of glitter; almost like Ke$ha's indivual signature. Ke$ha's costume and outfit within this image portrays her as a variety of a red indian with the headress and red face makeup, this furthermore pushes and promotes Ke$ha's image and style as being random and kooky from different generic pop artists. A toy dinosaur is also shown in the insert reflecting a song from her album; the song which we are planning our video on. On a personal group note we find this inspiring to what could be included in our own Digipak as we intend to include an image of a toy dinosaur on our CD.

The layout of the two middle pages in the insert blend  together to make one big page and landscape which is visually pleasing and interesting to see all the different images going on.


Our draft for our CD cover

Reflecting from these examples of Digipaks by artists similar to ours, we planned our own Digipak for Ke$ha which is shown above. Within our Digipak we wanted to include similar connotations recognized within the pop genre within albums such as Lady Gaga's such as glitter, bright colours and bold fonts. In our drawn draft we heavily included glitter on the Digipak, and we hope to incorporate the title and artist in a unique, way to reflect our artists personality and attract an audience. We want to include a large picture of our artist on the back of our cover to reflect the importance of our artist, we also hope to create our own font similar to the font seen in the draft. We will do this by drawing it on paper and scanning it in to photoshop. We also want to create a collage of pictures on the inside cover to create our artists fun, young personality. In addition to this we are using black backgrounds throughout our Digipak so our bold, glittery colours will stand out and be eye-catching. We want to include an image of a dinosaur on our actual CD to reflect the song title, we also intend to create an effect of dinosaur prints around the CD to make it appear fun. In the future when we make our Digipak we hope to use Photoshop to our advantage by using effects to beautify and improve our cover as we learn them along the way.

evaluations and analysis

                                      Evaluation of previous student work

This is a sheet to help us plan our music video. we evaluated previous A2 students work. We discovered many types of techniques that could be used in music videos, Such as green screen work, different scene transitions used with edits and good camera work. With seeing and discussing others work, it has made us realise the difference in genres and how fast or slow the cut in editing needs to be. It has also made us keen to use confident actors/performers in our video, as this is a key aspect to make sure the 'singer' interacts with the audience by looking straight into the camera.
We found that quite a lot of the previous work had a bit of out of time lip syncing at places. To get this correct in our video, we will have to make sure the song is playing in the background and to allow a couple of extra seconds onto each end of a shot. 
Overall we thought that the past videos were to say average, and we believe we have the potential to include some of the good technicalities those had, into a complete music video of our own.  

Textual Analysis Grids

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mB0tP1I-14
This is a textual analysis grid, which enabled us to annotate and analyse  certain music videos that relate to our genre. In our case this genre is of course pop/dance. Therefore we automatically thought of Lady Gaga. Her videos are interesting and unusual and involve mostly dance performances. Whilst studying Lady Gaga's video 'love game' it was obvious that the use of light and the urban surroundings created an atmosphere in which maybe the teenage audience can relate to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEbgBKV4_Mk
This is the second textual analysis grid. Analysing Ke$has music video 'Tik Tok'. We chose to look at other music videos done by Ke$ha, as she is the artist we are using and also because it will help us to establish what kind of content she uses in her other videos. Other content being things like, mise en scene, lighting, editing and camera work. Seeing and concentrating on what her videos consists of, puts a mark onto what her audience expect of her and the kind of music the video has with it, to make the genre compatible with the performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F57P9C4SAW4

This is the 3rd textual analysis. This is analysising Katy Perrys music video "California Gurls'. We chose to look at Katy Perry because she is in the same category as Ke$ha in the music industry. Her music videos are also has crazy and wacky as Ke$ha's so therefore its a good comparison. The way in which she portrays the songs messages in the video through stuff like narrative and visuals is something in which we want to do within ours.