Canute Album Cover

This is my final Album cover, when designing my cover I ensured I had the typical conventions of a music video; Title, Song name, Image of the band. 

This is the back cover of my album, I chose to keep it simple purely because time was  running out. I have analysed an album cover that was simple but effective. My back page consists of typical conventions of an album back; title, song names producers and length, barcode, producing info and website. 

Progression on Final Album Cover

This is the original picture I have taken my final Idea from for my album cover. I liked this because it shows all 3 of the artist' and supports the narrative of them being unaware of each other.

In order to make the album more professional I experimented around with the contrast and brightness,  I was happy with the final version of the edited photograph.

Once I had chosen my font from a website i added it to the photo i had edited. However when i looked back at it i  didn't like the contrast. I found the artist name didn't stand out much which could effect the ability to sell. So i changed the contrast and brightness of the photograph...

                                      I just made the background picture slightly lighter in order to make the title bolder.

A typical convention of a music video is the song title appearing somewhere, I thought it would be good to put the title directly underneath the artist name to make an instant connection.

Album Artwork Basics...

Controversy - S&M music video

My main aim for this coursework title it to create a music video, artists album cover and artist website. However I think it will be a good idea to discuss an issue that is pretty big in the music industry right now. There has been a lot of accusation regarding the outcome of Rihanna's S&M music video claiming that she has plagiarised the work of David LaChapelle. Having already analysed this video with my own perceptions of the messages I think it is important to understand and accept the issue that it has caused. 
David LaChapelle is a fashion photographer suing Rihanna for using images in her video that are"directly derived" from his own works. LaChepelle claims that the star has copied eight of his images. the photographer asserts that the video copies the "composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colours, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting" of his work.

S&M music video analysis...

Much controversy has occurred over Rhianna's new music video S&M promoting sadism and masochism which implies sexual gratification gained through pain or the degradation of others. The video Rhianna has produced is a post modern parody of other music videos consisting of many typical conventions. The video takes editing to the the extreme almost mocking the extent of previous video's by making the edits so insanely quick it is almost vertiginous. The director has also adapted the typical convention of camera shots using different angles and de-focusing effects which makes the audience aware that they are watching a music video. The vibrant colours used within the mise en scene is emphasized to reduce the realism of the location in doing this it also increases the hyper realism. 
The first shot of Rhianna singing is a close up using the effect of a fish bowl, it is a close up shot which is a convention of many music videos. Throughout the video many effects are used, a very successful shot is the pulsing of the camera and the tilting in sync with the beat of the music. 
Within the music industry the costumes used  signify a huge part of the video. In this video the director has taken costumes to extremes making them hyper real almost as if she is mocking other extremely creative artists such as Lady Gaga. 
Although Rhianna has subjectively mocked the music industry and videos, along with Lady Gaga she has taken expectations to a new height creating a new boundary for other artists to enter.  

Costume and star image plays an extremely important role in an artists success. The way they dress, perform, act and market themselves creates their success. The genre we was interested in was indie/alternative, because of this I decided to raid my wardrobe and the internet to gain inspiration. It wasn't to hard for me however to find outfits, I generally dress different from the social trends and tend to deviate myself from society in order to make a statement. I thought it would be a good idea to  think about my costumes, and the way and reason I like dressing how I do.

In this particular video the situation is 3 girls dating the same boy, it would be silly for us all to dress similar. So I thought if I was to dress slightly edgy and experiment it would help create my character, I will be deviating from the trends the other girls are following which will make me stand out. However this can be said about all of us....

Here are my costume choices...

Album Thumbnails

I was at home ant thought it would be useful to gather a few ideas together on album art work. I will be able to refer back to these sketches when creating my album covers for ideas.

Problems we found.

Although our filming went to plan and we have all the footage we need we still came across some problems along the way.

As a group we struggled with making arrangements, we tended to let time slip past although we was soon put on track when we got filming. I think this may be simply because as first the tasked seemed impossible with the only free time being after school when it would be dark and therefore not light enough to film. This was overcome when we began getting move active and saw that the road wasn't too long and gained both motivation and enthusiasm.

The main problem was finding a date we could all film, although this date was never found until last minute we still managed extremely well as a group in communicating to ensure we was all aware of what was happening.

I think the fact that we are friends has helped us a lot because we understand each other and didn't have to get to know each other before hand which gave us an advantage. It also meant we had already mastered communication between each of us, and despite someone not being at the shoot they had a constant update via facebook, text or school on what was happening with the filming and how things were going.

Filming, Take 3

So it's now March and with time running out and so much to do we set out to film again. This time the focus was to ensure that we had enough footage from a range of distances (long, middle, close up, extreme close up), and also a range of angles (point of view, over the shoulder, etc) This day was just as successful as previous days however due to one member of the group being missing it was difficult for us to get all the shots needed. This however was not a problem and was something that we worked around.
Again we travelled a little further to get  a wider range of locations, we wont be using all of these locations because we have to remember the narrative and if we start using a lot of locations it may cause difficulty for the audience to connect and follow the narrative.
Again the weather was great and the day went just as planned, if not better.