Ancillary task - CD Cover Draft

The following pictures show how we got to our final designs.

This is the original picture that we took, the idea behind the picture was a man sat in a lonely room and this relates back to the song lyrics. We needed to edit this image to make it look more like an album cover, whilst editing this album cover we used the Arctic Monkeys - "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" album as inspiration, this album is has a simplistic design when the main image on the cover is a man smoking a cigarette.

First of all we had to cut the edges off the image, by this I mean we had to get rid of the unnecessary items on the floor in the picture. We really only wanted to have the man in the chair and nothing else in the background.  To select the man in the chair we used the ‘Magic Wand’ tool on Photoshop, after doing this we put a white background behind the image of the man in the chair.

After doing this we thought the image looked too plain, so we decided to put a drop shadow on the image to give the cover more depth, it also makes the image of the man in the chair stand out more.

We then put the fonts on the images, we had two different idea’s on where to put the band name and album name on the cover, from looking at out album cover analysis of the Arctic Monkey album we thought it would be best to put it at the top, but after asking our focus group what they thought of the album cover we found out that the best place to put the names of the band and album would be on the back of the chair, this is because this area is right in the centre of the of the cover so this is where people would look first. These are the two different idea’s we had.

Poster analysis 2

This poster uses a similar convention to the Green Day poster, the Oasis title is the same as it is on the album cover, this is there so that people that have seen the poster will recognise the album when it is released into the shops. This poster also uses an effect to make the picture look brighter and more colourful, this will also make it stand out more so that people notice it. We are planning on using a similar style for our poster as our front is in a similar style to this poster.

Poster analysis

This is the album poster for Green Day – American Idiot. This advertisement follows the popular convention which is the picture that the band uses on the album cover, stretched to fit the page. This form of advertising is popular with music albums as people that see the poster will then be a lot more likely to recognise the album cover when the album is released. As the background of the album cover is black it makes the white text and images stand out. This album cover is a very simplistic design. We thought this type of poster would be good for our album poster, there are a few changes we would make from this though, firstly we would put more information on the poster e.g. the date that the album is released and some song titles. We do not want to put too much information on the poster because if we put to many images and too much text on the picture it will be less recognisable when people that have seen the poster see the album in shops.

Questionnaire analysis

We distributed the questionnaire in the 6^th form centre. This was a convenient and efficient way of conducting it as we get differing ages and opinions, it is also important that 6^th formers fall in to our target audience. 

 

 We thought it important to distribute the questionnaire to an equal number of males and females as this gives a more accurate representation on widespread opinion.

Our target audience is Indie so we tried to mainly distribute it to people with indie tastes, in order to get their opinion on the conventions they prefer. However it is important to gather a range of data in order to come up with a widespread and varied opinion. 

 

This gave us an idea of how interested in music videos our target audience is. This would ensure that the data collect from the later questions would be useful.

A lot more people watch videos on Youtube than music channels or anywhere else this encouraged us to conduct research in to The Coral’s Youtube channel.

As we already know our participants are familiar with a range of videos so we know the results will be useful and effective. This will help us decide what to include in our video, as these where the three most popular and serious answers, it is likely to be a balance of these 3 key ingredients.

This chart was created by comparing answers given to two separate questions on the questionnaire (5 and 6) and will again, as with the above results, sway our decision making regarding the structure of the video

Music video questionnaire

Age…………….                                                   Gender……………

What is your favourite genre?

Indie      Rock     R’n’B    Rap    Dubstep

Do you watch music videos often? (please circle answer)

Yes   No

How do you access music videos? E.g. Youtube, music channels

………………………………………………………………………….

What are three key ingredients of a successful music video?

………………………………………………………………………

What do you think about music videos that follow a narrative that corresponds to the lyrics?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

What do you think about music videos that use dance routines and studio simulated footage?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Album analysis- Foo Fighters- Wasting light.

This album cover uses a vivid, translucent collage effect in order to draw the eye, the contrast of the plain black background and the bright merging of images has an instant effect.  The contrast of simple design and eye catching complex effect is interesting and is something we could implement in to our own production.

The theme of contrast is continued on to the back cover with distorted colourful shapes adorning the black background. The oddly placed yellow lettering again creates an eye catching effect, it also fits in with the album title, ‘wasting light’ as do the distorted, brightly coloured shapes, we get the idea that these smudges of light and touches of colour are almost intruding on the black and simple album cover, the light is being wasted on the blackness.

The cover for the booklet is a simple band logo but the colour scheme of yellow and black is consistent.  The inside is more colourful than the outside as if the light has spread. We can now make out the band and their instruments, although there is still some distortion and filter, which creates an interesting, striking effect.

Album analysis- Arctic Monkeys- Whatever people say I am that's what I'm not

This is a simplistic but highly effective album cover.  It depicts the typical conventions of the indie genre in smoking and the mid- twenties male and manages to be eye catching and effective without being in your face. This is achieved by the use of black and white and the fact that the man appears to be staring right at you.  There are no distractions from the picture, no band or album name, this gives the cover that minimalistic feel.  This is overall effect is something we intend to replicate in our production.

The minimalistic design is maintained on the reverse, with the picture taking up the entirety of the back cover and the track list written in a small font in the corner, almost reluctantly. This continues the theme of simplicity and the reliance on imagery rather than text.  There is an obvious link to the front cover as the picture is very similar. At first this may seem lazy but when considered fits in perfectly with the overall minimalistic, simple look of the design.  This is an interesting technique and is something that we will consider when producing our own album cover.   

The theme of smoking continues on to the CD cover, usually the CD just has the band and the name of the album so this is a fairly original and interesting idea. Note once again the omission of any text, this is a fairly unusual and striking CD design, ensuring that the consumer is entertained even before playing the CD.

The booklet consists of several pictures of the band members doing normal things such as going out with friends or smoking. This is what a large majority of the target audience would spend their free time doing and paints the band members as just ‘regular Joes’, or just like them.  This immediately allows the audience to relate to the band and establishes a firm bond by presenting themselves as genuine.  There is a wide variety of shots, including mid-shots and long shots. This ensures the viewers interest is sustained throughout reading.

Dreaming of you. The story of our video

A young man sits alone in his room, saddened by the recent break up with his girlfriend. He moves around the room doing different things, keeping himself busy. He stays there for hours. He sits on his bed in darkened room with his head in his hands and thinks of the good times he and his girlfriend shared together.  He stares at pictures of them together getting more upset by the second, before putting them in his pocket and walking out of his room for the first time in days.  He decides to go to the park to get some fresh air and clear his head.  He sits on his favorite bench in the entire park, the bench where he shared his first kiss with his girlfriend. He sits for a while, thinking and taking in the fresh air. Then he sees her. She walks past hand in hand with another man. A brief moment of awkward and heartbreaking eye contact is made. Distraught the young man gets up from the bench and marches quickly away without looking back. The girlfriend watching him walk out of her life as if a part of her still loves him. He gets back to his lonely room, still angry but he sees no point in wallowing any more. He stares at his bedroom wall which is covered with memories, moments they’ve shared things they’ve done together. After a moment of starring he lunges forward and proceeds to rip them from the walls, he franticly tares around the room until every trace of her is in pieces. Except one.  He stands in the center of his room and looks at the destruction he’s caused, panting and still holding back tears. He takes out the picture from his pocket and looks at it one more time before crumpling it and dropping it in to the bin. Both mentally and physically exhausted he collapses back in to his chair, where he will no doubt remain for some time.  

This helped us when drawing the storyboard and planning the shots for the first time as it gave us a clear, concrete idea of what we wanted to happen.  We brainstormed intial ideas by creating a word collage. This gave us the key themes and concepts of the song and provided a great starting point to come up with a story.