CD Cover Analysis

Our ancillary task involves making an album cover, an insert and a poster for our artist. To decide how to develop our ancillary task we looked at different album covers and posters of similar artist's to our genre.
Daisy analysed at Katy Perry and Kesha's album covers.
Stacy analysed Katy Perry's Teenage Dreams album cover.


I looked at Lily Allen's album "It's not me, it's you"
Using Mis en scene to analyse this album cover, you can see that Lily Allen is dressed in a pink dress, with no shoes and a black fascinator. This gives the impression that she's dressed up for a happy occasion, such as an award ceremony. These are not casual every day clothes. Over the front cover she is lead on a giant L, and on the insert she is sat on a giant A. These letters being her initial's gives this impression that this album is all about her, which ties in with the album name, 'It's not me, it's you.' giving the idea that the other person is the problem and she's perfect. I like the way the back ground colour is just blank and beige, this makes the subject stand out and be the main focus. The unnatural position of Lily Allen on the giant L gives an interesting feel and is obviously posed, Lily Allen is not looking at the camera, however in the insert of the album she is. Her whole body is visible is every photograph. The back of the album is a collection of letters spelling out Lily Allen, but they are all jumbled up, still letting the consumer know that the album is Lily's. Lily Allen's name is in large font on the top left hand corner of the album cover, with the album name underneath.









I also looked at Lady Gaga's, The Fame.
Unlike Lily Allen's album cover, not the whole of Lady Gaga's body can be seen, however in the insert and on the back cover the majority of her body is visible. Lady Gaga is dressed in black with the typical weird Lady Gaga style glasses, the name of the Album is written on her glasses. Lady Gaga's name is written in larger font compared to the album name along the bottom on the album cover. The visible background of all the shots used, again is plain but this time black compared to the light beige of Lily Allen's album. The photograph in the insert and on the back cover is the same of Lady Gaga in an unnatural performance pose. I like that she's not looking at the camera in this photograph and that her eyes are not visible on the album cover.

Codes and Conventions

After looking at several music video's within our group, of other artists similar to Katy Perry we have come to some conclusions about the codes and conventions of our genre.
All of the music video's we analysed gave the impression of a suppressed woman coming into power and control over the situation. Generally these women were in bad relationships and have 'got their own back' on their previous partner, or have completely disregarded men at all. This is a reverse to the traditional view of women as the weaker sex, but sees them as stronger and independent. In Lily Allen's video for the song Smile, she pays a gang to beat up her partner. Even though the viewer can clearly see Lily Allen is doing wrong, there is a feeling of justice and justification. In our music video we will bend this convention slightly, by showing our artist as weak in the beginning, however getting stronger and becoming happier with herself.

Music video analysis

Stacy analysed Katy Perry's Hot 'n' Cold video, Jamie T's if you got the money video and Kesha's Tik Tok video.


One of the videos that I looked at was Lily Allen's Smile. I watched the first minute of the video online and print screened every time there was a change in scene or shot, this was to show how narrative and performance is interweaved. Narrative being a storyline, like a mini film within the music video and performance is the artist singing. First I put the screen shots in order they appeared in the video.

Lily Allen Smile Original Order



Then I put them into narrative and performance story lines to show how the themes flow throughout but still form an easily followable timeline.

Lily Allen Smile Different Shots



After this analysis, I realised that the majority of the first minute of this particular music video was taken up by performance rather than a narrative story line, and even though the narrative was broken up alot by performance it was still clear what was happening. Which is shown when put all together continuously.
It was also obvious that although the video is fast paced and switches between different camera shots rapidly, (which suits the pace of the song) only a few shots were taken. Most likely filmed continuiously, then broken up and fitted together within the editing process.
The narrative doesn't relate directly to the lyrics, however does relate to loosly to relationships, as do the lyrics.
Many of the shots of Lily Allen in performance are close up, this shows off the artist's face and makes her more recognizable.

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin has identified a number of key features in music videos. They are:

- A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.

We will be taking these ideas into consideration when analysing music videos.

Genre

Our project is focusing alot on the genre of music that we have chosen to use. A major part will be looking at the codes and conventions of existing media texts, and to not only use them, but to challenge them, twist them and change them to fit how we like.
There are a few theories that relate to genre that can be used in the pre-production stages of our video.
-Rick Altman said that genre is a set type and a group in which any medium can be classified within. When applying this to music, examples of which are reggae, jazz and drum 'n' bass etc. In each case the acknowledgement of genre depends on the acceptance of the generic conventions. Genre can change over time, and become to mean something completely different, it's open to manipulation, it's not set hard. Altman also said that viewers pre-read media texts, and they become passive viewers which ultimately restricts genre.
-Richard Maltby said that the success of Hollywood is dependent on the combination of predictable elements with slight variations. This suggests that as producers we should follow the codes and conventions of our chosen genre, but also add some variation within our piece so that the audience does not become bored, and so that the media text is not predictable every time.
-Jon Fiske said that any one type of media will display main characteristics of it's genre, but it is likely to include some characteristics from other genre's. Categorizing a media text into one genre would mean deciding which characteristics are more important. This theory can be applied to our project. Our genre of music is pop, but because pop music is such a wide spread genre there are alot of characteristics from different genre's such as R&B and soft rock. When looking at existing music videos and media packs we will have to consider focusing our research on artists that are very similar.

Audience theory

When thinking about audience and how the audience effects our music video production, it is important to remember audience theories.
Below are some audience theories.

The Hypodermic Syringe
The hypodermic syringe theory suggests that mass media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. This theory expresses the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. There is no escape from the effect of the message, the population is seen as a sitting duck.
An example of this is, if you are a man and you see another man wash his car. You, in theory, should feel the need to wash your car.

There are other theories that have a different idea and oppose this view.

The Culmination Theory
The culmination theory suggests that while no one media text will have an active effect on the viewer, years and years of watching violence may make you less sensitive to violence.

Two Step Flow
The two step flow theory suggests that information from the media moves in two distinct stages. First, individuals pay attention to the mass media and recieve the message. These individuals then discuss the message and their own interpretations with others, this discussion influences people's opinions and behaviour.

Uses and Gratification Theory
The uses and gratification theory suggests that we decide what media we consume, we also expect certain things, we expect to be gratified by what we have watch. The types of gratification are:

1.Information
2.Entertainment
3.Personal identity
4.Social empathy/social personal interest
5.Escapism

This is slightly more relevant to film and television program, most music video's also contain a narrative, as ours will.

Questionnaire analysis

The results of our questionnaire can help us decide what to put into our music video. Our results show that our target audience would like us to use, pop music with a female artist, using a mixture of narrative and performance. The settings must be bright in natural sunny settings.

Music video questionnaire

After finding out what the main target audience for our chosen genre was, we constructed a questionnaire asking about features of music videos that they find attractive and interesting and that work well. Here is our questionnaire and results.

1. How old are you?

8 and below (0)

9-12 || (2)

13-16 |||||| (6)

17-20 ||||||||| (9)

21-24 || (2)

25+ | (1)

(Main age of participants - 17-20)

What is your favourite genre of music?

Pop ||||||||||||| (13)

Rock/metal | (1)

Indie |||| (4)

Grunge

D&B || (2)

Rap/Hip hop

Other (please specify)...

(Most liked music genre - pop)

Do you prefer male or female artists?

Male ||||||||| (9)

Female ||||||||||| (11)

(Most liked gender of artists - female)

Do you prefer bands or solo artists?

Solo |||||||||||||||| (16)

Bands |||| (4)

(Preferred artists - solo)

How well does a strong narrative work in a music video?

Very well || (2)

Well ||||||||| (9)

Average |||||| (6)

Badly || (2)

Very badly | (1)

(Thoughts on narrative - works well)

How well do shots of live performances work in a music video?

Very well | (1)

Well ||||||| (7)

Average ||||||| (7)

Badly ||||| (5)

Very badly

(Thoughts on live performances - well/average)

In a pop genre music video what colouring scheme works best? (e.g. Katy Perry, Girls Aloud, JLS)

Bright ||||||||||||| (13)

Dull || (2)

Pastels |||| (4)

Dark/shadow | (1)

(Preferred colour scheme - bright)

In a pop genre music video which combination of people works better?

All female |||| (4)

All male || (2)

Mostly male ||||| (5)

Mostly female |||||| (6)

Mixed genders ||| (3)

(Preferred combination of people - mostly female)

What setting works best in a pop genre music video? (You can choose more than 1)

Natural outdoors (field, park, beach etc.) ||||||||||||||| (15)

Industrial outdoors (car park, on top of buildings, school etc.) |||||| (6)

Natural (domestic, everyday life etc.) ||||||||||| (11)

Surreal (animated, in space etc.) ||||| (5)

Busy (party, festival etc.) ||||||||| (9)

Quiet (alone, library etc.) ||||||||| (9)

At night (dark) |||| (4)

During the day (sunny) |||||||||||||||| (16)

During the day (rainy) ||| (3)

(Preferred settings - natural outdoors, natural, sunny, busy, quiet)

Target audience analysis

As part of our research into target audience's we looked at magazine's that mentioned the artist Katy Perry because we have chosen to use one os her songs, we also looked at magazines that mentioned similar artists to Katy Perry. I focused on the magazine 'Heat' which is not known for commenting on music, but is more of a current affairs 'gossip' magazine.
There was one article in heat directly involving Katy Perry about her relationship with Russell Band and how she's putting off having children with him.
This is an example of how artists not only attract an audience through their music but through their personal life aswell. Even though Katy Perry and fiance Russell Brand are clearly not the same person she's pretty much mentioned in every article about him. For example another article talks about a new film Russell is appearing in but still mentions her.
Articles are not the only things that occupy the pages of 'heat'. 'The hoop of horror' highlights embarrassing situations of celebs, such as being caught looking orange rather than tanned. On this page Katy Perry is photographed holding a cuddly toy with a banana skin on its head, while she is looking scared. Compared to images of other celebs, such as Cheryl Cole photographed grabbing her own bum, this is not a photograph suggesting anything bad about Katy Perry. This gives the impression that the audience that this magazine is aimed at (women ages 16-25), are a fan of Katy Perry and don't wish to see her in a bad light as this would give the magazine bad press.

Stacy looked at articles, forums and Katy Perry's website, the analysis of which you can see here.
Looking at Katy Perry's website and forums the majority of people who left comments were aged between 15-21 and were female. This is a very similar audience to 'heat' magazine. When looking for magazines mentioning our artist we could not find any aimed at men or boys mentioning any artist even similar to Katy Perry. This gives the impression that her main fan base are 15-25 year old females.

Existing album covers moodboard

In order to create an idea of the type of album covers our artist and similar artists use to inspire our own creation we created a moodboard of existing album covers. This allowed us to easily compare similarities and differences between the album covers.

Original video

Below is the original video for Katy Perry's Hot n Cold. This is the song we will be using for our music video.

Copyright

Due to the fact that we are not using an original song we had to take into consideration copyright laws, therefore we emailed Katy Perry's record label asking permission to use her song.

Below is the email that was sent to Capitol records.

Choosing a song & style

The first step in deciding which song we were going to use, was deciding which style of music would be the most interesting to produce a music video for. We decided that 'pop' music would be the best as it has many examples to look at and draw ideas from. We also made the decision to use a song with a female artist/artists as all of us in the group are female it would be easier to produce a video with female participants. We mind mapped artists that fitted this criteria.

After looking at several examples of video's we decided it would be the best idea to use a single female artist. We decided this because of the limited resources we have at our disposal.

Introduction

For our A2 media studies coursework project we must produce a music video, CD album cover and a poster advertising the album release all using the same artist. This blog will contain our progress in producing our practical products.

We must include the following...

Advertisement poster:
- Release date
- Where it will be available
- Photograph of the artist
- Photograph of album cover
- Name of artist
- Name of album
- Review or tag line e.g. from a magazine

CD album cover:
- Photograph of the artist
- Colour scheme
- Style
- Song title
- Album name
- Artist name
- Booklet containing lyrics, messages, credits and photographs