Album promotional posters - Rihanna

Album Promotional Posters

For my Album promotion poster research I decided to focus on the female pop music artist Rihanna. Throughout her years in the music industry she has changed her image multiple times to possibly widen her music experiences within different music markets/ genres.

The album promo pictures used for her 2010 Album ' Rated R' appealed to me the most because they have a 'Raw cut edge' feel to it. The Combination of danger, rebelliousness and sex into one must have attracted a lot of peoples attention towards the posters.

In this promo picture below Rihanna is seen with a machine gun prepared for battle in a spiky futuristic outfit that could possibly represent her new sharp and edgy look. The Album's Logo is placed on the top left hand corner of the poster. The Letter 'R' not only symbolises her name but it also stands for the R in the title of her Album. The contrast of the black and white is a powerful tool used to make the poster stand out and three of her song titles are cleverly blended into the photo.

This promotional poster below shows Rihanna covering her half naked body with a board with the name of one her singles on it. Here implied nudity is used to attract people to the poster and again the album's logo is used to to help the viewer recognise the title of her album.

Conventions of a promo advert

The conventions of a promotional advert

• Ratings/opinions/reviews from fans (quotations)
• The band name
• Tour date details
• Album artwork
• I-tunes/play com adverts
• Website details
• Singles (taken from)
• Album name
• Record label
• Nominations and awards
• Release date
• Statistics of tickets
• Bold letters
• Picture of Album

Pictures of promotional album advertisements

Promotional Album Advertisements

To have a first hand experience to see how Albums are advertised I decided to buy a music magazine today to look through and study. I bought Q Magazine's latest issue

The title of the Magazine and the appearance of the cover did not come across as ' musical ' to me. However the big bold subheadings saying ' AMY WINEHOUSE' , ' BRITISH SONG WRITERS ' and ' BRITISH SONGS' gave me the impression that the magazine had articles related to the music industry. This helped influence my decision to buy it.

This two page spread at the beginning of the magazine was dedicated to an album advertisement. A full blows picture of the artist covers up a whole a page showing her importance and to make the reader aware of the artists image. Her pale , skin , red lipstick and dark hair and eyes give me the impression that her music will sound dark and gloomy. On the next page to the right quotes from multiple important organisations where there opinions matter are used to help influence the reader to the purchase the album. They are written in bold capital letters making the quotes stand out and visible to read.

A review article informing the readers on New Albums

A review article on Dubstep Albums and informing the reader on how to Buy Dubstep

Album Reviews within Magazines is another technique that is used to advertise albums. Album reviews helps to compare artists to one another and makes some stand out from the rest influencing the reader with their purchasing choice.

This album advertisement was placed at the back of the magazine on the glossy page making it more of a significance. The bands name is placed at the top of the advertisement and then the albums name is placed underneath in a smaller font. Below that a full blown picture of the band is placed, a quote from the magazine and the release date of the album is included.

Digipack Photo decision

Digipack Photo

After taking photo's of Elena our lead girl in the music video. I Narrowed the photos down to these two based on my opinion of the best ones that I could possibly use for my Album Cover.

Out of the two the photo below is my most favourite photo. I like how her face is tilted up showing that she is fixated on something else other than the camera and this could lead anyone to wonder what she is staring at. I also like the lime green spotlight hovering over her.It reminds me of someone being abducted by a UFO or something .. lol

This photo was the second one I chose because I liked how she is not facing the camera once again and the serious facial expression on her face.

I have decided to use the first image as my Album photo cover as I feel I could a lot more with the image and it would suit better with the whole genre of the music video.

Digipack Research

Digipack Research

A digipack is ..

• An economical way of a company making an album in a different way.
• A new format of a CD packaging made from card, It holds different parts of the lyrics and will have special features and DVD.

The codes and conventions are ..

• Visuals are key to the production, includes images of the artist/band, shit from concert and instruments.
• Band and artist name and album title; making the brand easily identify. Can be included along the spine and on the main cover.
• List of all the songs on the back.
• Basic information on the band and all the background information.
• Reviews from newspapers and magazines.

Why would a record label choose to release a didgipack instead of a CD?

• Many reasons why, but the main reason is that is is cheaper for them to produce.

Are there added benefits for the consumer when buying it?

• People would rather buy it because there is more things in there like more tracks and a DVD and maybe special features that you cant get on a normal CD.

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.

Although less vulnerable to cracking than a jewel case, the disc tray inside the package (particularly the "teeth" of the hub which secure the disc in place) remains rather brittle and is prone to cracking if the package is crushed. Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s.

The disadvantages of Digipacks is that they are flimsy and open to wear and tear more easily. I have personally noticed that with the Digipaks in my CD collection, the plastic trays fallout because the glue has dried up.

Album Art Work

Here are some Obscure and Remarkable album covers that stand out from the crowd

attracting the consumer to question about the artists and their music influencing them to buy the album.

Daydreamer - Dialogue (2008)
Bold slpashes of gold and red are used on this cd cover, which features a clever typography image. Haunting eyes peek out from beyond a mass of golden words that serve as hair.

The Roots - Things fall apart (1999)

This album was released with five different covers, each depicting a social disaster. The most striking of the five, seen here, shows African American teenagers being chased down a street in Brooklyn during the Civil Rights era

Black Light Burns - Cruel Melody (2007)
Taking a more classical route on this cover art, Black Light Burns manages to catch a browser’s eye.

The Beatles - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Some say no collection of cover art is worth mentioning without this cover.

More Skin With Milk-Mouth - Giraffes? Giraffes? (2007)
Nothing seems to make sense here, yet it works on this cd cover. More flying fish, an invasion of ladybugs and a Roman statue all fit together in this intriguing, colorful mess.

Evanescense - The Open Door (2006)

A moody and romantic tone is set with this cd cover art design. The mystery lies on the other side of the door.

She wants revenge (2005)
This self-titled album made a splash with this striking cover art.

Costume planning

Happy Times - Field/ Performance

After we went to look for a dress in TKMaxx we discovered that the natural, floral style of dress we wanted was unlikely to be in any shops therefore so we could have complete control over the look, length and style of the dress we have decided to buy material and make the dress.

Here is a sample of the kind of pattern we were hoping to find. The white background denotes purity whilst the blue floral reveal her feminine side which is not as present in the sad times the blue flowers show her femininity without being too 'in your face'. Also as the dress is not completely white but patterned it symbolises how she herself is not as clean or pure as she was prior to the relationship but has been changed because of it.

Sad Times - Narrative - Rooftops

To symbolise her feelings of sadness and the 'darkness' of the relationship we have dressed her in black clothing.We also decided to have her in dark boots to show both the influence he had on her but to conform to typical violent relationship stereotypes. Also the dark clothing make her look both a stronger character as a female and weaker when he pushes her as she is all in black on the floor belittling her.

Below is a still shot of Eleanor running, I like the connotations of the red top as it symbolises danger and anger which she is subject too but also makes her stand out from her dark surroundings giving her a greater visual impact on the audience and symbolising her strength to move on from the 'dog days'.

Below is a still shot of one of our practise shots of Eleanor running through the car park (video to follow), we feel wearing the black leather jacket if effective, however as you can see she is in grey in this shot. We chose to experiment with grey as it shows how she does fit in to those surroundings and shows how she is very humble and defenceless in the relationship it also is between white (happy) and black (sad) and so could be used to show the transition of her emotions. Therefore we must decide as a group if we prefer the protagonist to wear a red top or grey top as they both symbolise different aspects of the narrative.

First Fitting

A friend who is an aspiring fashion designer offered to create the dress so that we could use a unique prop in our music video.

Imagination vs Reality

Imagination vs Reality

The concept we have developed for our video is imagination vs reality, we developed this from the lyrics and meaning of the song as although we do not want to follow the lyrics exactly we want some similarity to draw links and strengthen the video.

Above is Gwen Stefani's video for "What You Waiting For" this video includes many of the ideas we came up with including Alice and Wonderland with the main characters of the white rabbit and queen of hearts it also brings in symbolic features of the story for instance the maze and the tea party.

.However in this video Gwen Stefani doesn't oppose reality and imagination in the same way we hope to. We want to represent reality with dark clothes, urban/ industrial settings, smudged make up and the "dark side" of teen life. Opposing this with a brightly coloured imagination sequence would keep the audience hooked and encourage them to enjoy the song.

Reality Sequence

We hope to represent reality by filming in a rooftop looking over an urban landscape with the opening scene involving the main vocalist surrounded by the dark side of teen life possibly the only one concious. The picture below shows the kind of landscape we hope to achieve however we will film it later in the day and possibly

add post production effects to make the whole scene seem drearier. We can hopefully achieve our opening sequence as we live in an urban area and could hopefully get permission to film on top of one of these, however we would have to recruit some extras meaning we would have to get this sequence right quickly or our extras may not be willing to co-operate.

Practice Story Board

In class we decided to practice story boarding and to analysed a music video of an Artist from our Pop-soul music genre and we chose Paloma faith. As a group we watched her music video on repeat and observed the camera techniques , lighting , camera framing etc. in order for us to story board the scenes. We story boarded up to did 30 seconds into the music video after noticing that story boarding the whole video would be a long process.

As some of us in the group pointed out the filming techniques used in the video we paused the video screen in order for another member of the group to draw the still image.We used aStory board layout that was already prepared with boxes to fill in making the story boarding process easier. And it aslo made us think about the layout of our own story board for our music video. It was good practice and prepared us for story boarding our own music video.

Story Board - Page one

Story Board - Page two

Story Board - Page three

Story Board Example

STORY BOARD

I decided to scan in this example of a story board that my group will be using to plan out the scenes of our Music Video.

Our story board will be similar to this and will include the same features like this one has.

This story board is an example of a good professional one as it allows us to decide on the type of shot , framing , Angle and duration of the clip helping us to be alot more organised and prepared for filming.

As we are filming a music video we will need to get shots right first time if we are filming in difficult or complex locations, therefore we will analyse the video shot by shot in time with the lyrics of the song and decide when the narrative begins so we do not have to lip sync all of the song each time.

Wordle

I have made a 'worldle' that displays words I think Describe the Pop Soul Music Genre

Intertexuality

INTERTEXTUALITY

In Class My media teacher suggested various editing and filming techniques that we could use in our music videos to add a touch of professionalism to the production.

She mentioned the Use of Intertextuality and this technique appealed to me the most because it was unusual and different and would be more entertaining for the viewer watching.

Intertextuality is The way in which texts refer to other media texts that producers assume audiences will recognise.

One of the pleasures that audiences experience in the consumption of media texts is the

joy of recognition. One form of this pleasure comes in recognising the reference in one

media text to other media texts. This process of referencing is called intertextuality.

MIMICRY

This means that a text will mimic or otherwise copy certain stylistic features of another text. Usually this is done in order to create a particular impact, although there may be instances where this borrowing may seem simply a matter of convenience to give a music video, for example, a particular look.

Here is an example of Mimicry in a Music Video

Weezer - Buddy Holly

Meeting

Today we had a small meeeting to discuss what we're going to do about our music video, and how we will set about to create what we want. to do this we have come up with a few things we need to do to make sure that we can get the best from what we want;

1) We will need a committed 'band' who will come and film when we need them to.

2) We need to check out the music studio in our school to see if we would be able to make a successful 'set' that would be good for the auditions and the performance.

3) We need to see if enough people would want to be in the music video to get the effect we need.

Once we have looked at doing these things we will them make a decision to what we want to do, go along with this idea or think about another one.

Chosen Genre

POP SOUL

The music genre that my group and have chosen to do a music video for is 'POP SOUL'

Pop-Soul is soul music that has been polished slightly and given a commercially viable, crossover production. The vocals are still raw, but the material and the sound of the record could easily fit onto pop radio stations' playlists. Motown was the pioneering label of pop-soul, and through much of the '60s, it was one of the most popular pop music genres. In the '70s, pop-soul became slicker, and it eventually metamorphosed into disco.

Examples of Pop-Soul artists are;

Duffy

Natasha Bedingfield

and Maroon 5

Pop soul is consdiered to be music that sounds ' black 'and urban that is sung by white people.

The main Generic Characteristics of the Pop Soul Genre are emotional ballads being sung by the artist and the music video's are often serious to back up the lyrics that are usually about heart break or difficult relationships. Pop soul videos are often narrative to portray the visual element that the lyrics in the songs depict

The iconography The Pop soul genre uses are extravagant images that can sometimes be over exaggerated or it can be very simple and basic depending the nature of the song.

For example here is a screen shot from Duffy's Music video - Warwick Avenue

The tempo of this song is slow and has a sad feeling as the song is about break-up. The lighting is dull , grey and pale to represent the negative emotions reflected through the lyrics.

The video is very simple and hasn't got a lot of change of scenery as she is shown in the back of a cab contemplating throughout the journey as she lip-synch's the lyrics.

Where as Natasha Bedingfield's Music Video for - Unwritten

The tempo is upbeat and fast, the song sounds bright and positive corresponding to the happy and optimistic lyrics in song. The lighting is done with a natural light from rays of sunshine and Natasha is often smiling whilst singing the lyrics in the video.

One similarity between both videos is that the Artists are shown singing the lyrics in the video with variations of close-up's to powerfully display the emotion that they are trying to get across in the song with their facial expressions.

Sub Genre

A sub-genre is a category that is a subdivision of a larger genre.

The Rock Music Genre for example multiple sub-genres such as

Pop Rock , Glam Rock, Rap Rock , Acid Rock ,Country Rock and Death Rock

and the list continues into up to a hundred different types of Rock sub genres.

Barry Keith Grant (1995) -

Within genres there are sub-genres which allows music to have the same basic elements, but different components. Genres are divided up into more specific categories that allow audiences to identify them specifically by their familiar and what become recognisable characteristics.

Steve Neale (1995) -

"Genres are not 'systems', they are processes of systematization" i.e. they are dynamic and evolve over time.

All genres will have similar mise-en-scene which helps us identify what genre the song is allocated to.

Jason Mittell (2001) -

Genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within the industry, audience and cultural practices as well.

Industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions of that genre to create a music video.

Mood Board - POP SOUL

What is a Mood Board ?

A mood board is a tool used by designers to help them get a good idea of what their clients are looking for. Mood Boards are basically collages of items such as photographs, sketches,clippings, fabric swatches and colour samples. A Mood Board can be actual or virtual.

How will this help me ?

By creating a Mood Board I will be able to visualize all the things that associate with the Genre of music I have decided to Research into with images from a Secondary source which will be the internet.

By doing this I will be able to develop a deeper understanding of a specific type of Music Genre and become familiar with the type of imagery it portrays , represents and stands for.

My own Mood Board the Music Genre

POP SOUL

POP SOUL

Short-listed Songs

We Have worked our choices down to these three songs and have good music video ideas behind all three

1. Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Cant Stop

Advantages;

- We have a good idea behind the song, that will allow us to experiment with camera angles.

- A good strong beat to edit to.

Disadvantages;

- We will need many people in the video, which could be hard to organise

- We would need a commited group of people to be the 'band', meaning they would have to be ready to come out and film even if we just need a few more shots.

- The idea we have may become boring throughout the music video, it would be very hard to keep the audience interested.

2. Paloma Faith - Stone Cold Sober

Advantages;

- The narrative lyrics allow us to be more creative around the story.

- The beat of the song allows different lengths of a shot to be edited, for example some longer shots and some shorter, sharper shots.

- One woman singer, which would mean one of our group will be able to star in it, so we could get shots and film more a lot easier.

Disadvantages;

- Filming a narrative would mean a lot more filing and sharper editing.

3.Chase and Status - Let You Go

This song we did not really come up with an idea for because it was our third and last song we would go to. However I still think it would be very suitable to do a song to.

Surrealist Music Video : Erykah Badu

Surrealist Music Video

Typical conventions found in a surrealist style music video are almost always a element of surprise and unexpected juxtapositions. A lot of the time this goes hand in hand with controversy which is usually one of the best ways to get publicity.

Because the media makes a fuss about it, so then you end up getting a large assortment of people checking the video out to see what all the fuss is about. Therefore expanding your audience ten-fold.

An advantage in creating a music video in this style is it can allow artist to do what ever they want because nothing within the video has to be true or realistic. This allows the director to make use of random acts in the video to surprise and catch the attention of many viewers.

This also allows the music video to be truly unique making the audience remember the specific video compared to a lot of bland samey videos

Erykah Badu is a unique music artist that is particularly infamous for going against the typical normal conventions when it comes to her songs, poems and music videos.

Window Seat By Erykah Badu

The music Video to Erykah Badu's song Window seat can be considered to be a Surrealist Music video as the videos shows her stripping her naked as she walks along a public street with a hand-held camera following her every move.

From the public's reaction in the background of the music video it was obvious that they were not expecting this type of behaviour from her making the facial reactions shots genuine and priceless.

In my opinion this Music Video was GENIUS!

The Gun shots at the end were a shock and the short poem she recited at the end would definitely have a viewer thinking.

"Group Think

They play it safe

Are quick to assassinate what they do not understand

They move in packs

Ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another

They feel most comfortable in groups

Less guilt to swallow

They are us

This is what we have become

Afraid to respect the individual

A single person within a circumstance can move one to change

To love herself

To Evolve"

WOW!

Narrative Music Video

Narrative Music Video

The typical convention usually found in this style of music video is a storyline related to the lyrics in the song played out against the song . So the narration of what's going on in the music video is the lyrics being sung in the background.

Several benefits of using this style of music video, is if the lyrics are vague they have the ability to show them in their proper context therefore explaining the moral/meaning of the song in greater depth.

The only problem with portraying your story in this style is it may harm the viewers original view on the song by giving them too much detail making it less interpretative.

This is an example of a Narrative Music Video by The All American Rejects singing

'Gives you hell'

Performance Music Video

Performance Music Video

A performance music video is a tpe of music video that shows the music artist or a band perform the song accompanied by musical instruments that were used to create the song.

A typical example of performance video would be a rock band performing in a room with a lead singer on the microphone , a guitarist , and a drum player etc.

Here the viewer is shown the genuine talents of the artist/band and how the music is being played.

This is an example of a performance video by Green Day singing their Number one hit

'American idiot'