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.