CD Cover and Advert comparison

Before I started to design my magazine advert I wanted to have a look at some of the conventions and relationships between CD cover and the advert. We want to develop a relationship across our digipack and by doing research it will enable use to see how similar or different the two are in the music industry.
I started by reading a copy of Q magazine and I came across some of the adverts, so I typed them into google to find the album cover that accompanied them.

The first advert I found was advertising Adele's new album 21. I started by looking at the fonts used, the title font 'ADELE 21' the font and colour scheme is used consistently throughout. With the artists name in white and the title of the album in green. Green is then used once more on the advert, this is evidence of creating and using a house style that makes these two easy to pair. The pictures are both very similar, firstly both are black and white which helps keep continuity. In both the artists gaze is directed away from the camera, the pictures are very similar which maintains continuity. Just in case someone does not make the link between the two, they have added a small version of the album cover on the bottom of the advert. This helps to customer when buying the album because they know what to look for.

I then came across another advert in Q, this one was for White Lies debut album, 'Lose my life'. The relationship between the album cover and advert is very strong, but I believe that using the same picture twice lacks imagination. Adele and her designers have done it perfectly in my opinion, they are not using the same image twice but it is very similar so it maintains the house style without looking as if they have just cut corners in the design process. However the title fonts are the same, this is something that we will defiantly be doing across our digipak.

 Here is both the magazine advert and the album cover for Rihannas new album 'LOUD'. The house style created between the two is very strong, this is done by the consistent use of fonts. The title font is in exactly the same font and colour which creates a positive relationship between the digipak and advert. The pictures are different but are have similarities, the album cover is a close up of her face whereas the advert is a medium close up. Rihannas hair style is exactly the same in both images and they have even put in a screen grab of the album on the magazine advert. This helps the audience make the link between the two pieces of media, this can be seen in Adeles media brand above.

The relationship between Jessie J's album artwork and the magazine advert is very strong. The main similarity is the image, they have used the same image of her to increase the relationship between the two. The dimensions are exactly the same, they have added the album cover to an A4 dimension window and then filled the empty space in black. The black used to fill in the box also fits the house style as it matches her hair colour, lipstick, clothing and nails. The fonts and colours are used constistently throughout, the gold from the title is used to highlight text, 'debut album' and Includes the #1 international smash' this again strengthens the house style between the two.

The magazine advert and album artwork for Plan B's album The Defamtion of Strickland Banks also have a strong relationship and consistent house style. The main colour used is Red, this is used over both of the platforms to maintain the house style. Red is used for the titles of each page which helps create a rating system based on colour. Red is used to catch the eye of the audience, it also highlights the main tag line on the advert. The images are different one is black and white and one in colour, however the audeince can still see that the artist is the same. This is done by the use of the microphone on the advert which links to the performance based setting on the artwork, including the sign at the top of the album. Also similarly to Adele and Rihannas there is a small screen grab on the album put on the advert this is useful for the audience as they know what to look for on the shelf.

Overall the links between the digipak and advert are clear for us to see. The images are similar and in some cases the same, the use of fonts are consistent over the two, no new colours are introduced on the advert that have not been used on the album. This strengthens the house style and is something we will have to consider when constructing our album. Another convention I have discovered is that taking a screen grab of the album and putting it on the advert so the audiences know what to look for.

Noel Gallagher Magazine Advert

Here is a magazine advert promoting Noel Gallagher and his UK Arena Tour 2012. This will be a useful advert to analyse as we will be making our own magazine advert. It will be interesting to look at the relationship between the advert and the CD cover, and see what elements link them together to create Noel Gallagher's house style. We need to make sure that our CD cover and magazine advert can been easily related to each other.

The obvious elements that link this advert to all of his CD covers is the font that 'Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' is written in. This is a key way to create a strong house style and we will have to make sure this consistency runs throughout all of our digipak.

Album Research

Before making our digipak we need to look at the key conventions of professional albums, and to see how the use of colours and fonts are used over the four panels.

The main conventions of the front panel is to promote the artist and the name of the album. The picture is generally a close up of the artist, this is done to create eye contact between the artist and the audience. On the disc is normally the name of the artist and the album name. There is generally some form of legal content on the disc but the position is varied and the record label is normally given recognition. The CD cover colour is normally a block colour and images are rarely used, this is something for us to consider when making our CD disc. The back cover of an album has the song list, generally the song list is vertical with numbers next to them but on occasions it can be horizontal depending on the picture. The back cover then has more legal content followed by a bar code and other ways to promote the artist such as their website.

The picture is a close up and the colours that Jessie J is wearing have been carefully selected so that they can be used across the four panels. The use of colours across Jessie J's digipak is very consistent the backgrounds are all white which helps create a house style. This is also  maintained by the consistent use of font. The artists name is in the same font on the front cover and the CD disc. The font for the song title 'Who you are' is also in the same font but they have chosen to change the colour of this font. The back cover is dominated by the colour black which is key to the front panel, most of Jessie's accessories are black. Overall the colour scheme is consistent and the use of fonts help link the panels together. However I believe that the colours on the disc do not fit in with the hous style as this colour is not used anywhere else, perhaps picking a colour from the front cover would have looked better.

 Here is Adeles digipak, I believe that the house style they have created is very strong, again this is done by the use of fonts and colours but also the use of images. The image on the front cover is again a close up which promotes the artist, this image links well with the back cover although she is looking at the camera in this picture they are similar. Both close ups and in black and white.The green that is used on the front cover is picked out and used on the disc, this gives the digipak colour and the title of the album is also on the disc cover which stregthens the house style. The fonts used are consistent and simple, this helps increase the house style of the digipak.

Here is the digipak for Tinie Tempahs album Discovery.The strong house style is created in large by the colours and effects used on the front and back panels. The stylish effects to give the album a mystical aura gives the album a unique look which also links to the title, Discovery suggests something new, something different which is certainley the case for the effect used. The triangle also strengthens the house style, it makes the images look similar to each other. The colour of the CD is again a block colour and is picked from the front cover which strengthens the link between the two. The font is used throughout the whole album, its used for the title font, the font on the disc and the song list.

The use of bright and vibrant colours is the key factor is creating a strong house style in Coldplays digipak. The front covers bold colour is picked up upon and used over all the panels.

This ideas are apparent in the digipaks for Oasis, Plan B and Noel Gallagher

Further Editing

All music videos have tranisitions and Final Cut allowed us to add a wide range of genre specific transitions to complement our clips and enhance our video. Adding transitions was very easy and was done by selecting the start or end of the clip. If we wanted to add a fade out we would select the end of the desired clip and if it was a fade in we selected the start. We then had to click on what transition we wanted, because our genre is Alternative Rock we used fades and cross dissolves. This is because these transitions are evident in many Alt Rock videos and are a key convention that we must follow if we want to make a realistic video.

In our video we decided that some footage would look more effective if it was slower, some of the clips were over before our target audience would have been able to see the footage and take the connotations. Matt decided to slow down some of the footage so people could appreciate it more, he did this by selecting the clip that needed to be edited then going to the tab Modify and selecting Speed. This then pops up a sub menu which allows you to alter the percentage of the speed. Because we were looking for a slower effect we had to decrease this percentage, we were then able to watch the clip in viewer and make ammendmants if needed.

We were able to lock clips on the timeline so that they remained in place, especially after Matt had made sure the lip sync was tight. On some occasions we found that when footage was dragged on to the timeline it moved footage that was in the way knocking it out of the specific position it had been put in. Locking the clips meant that this stopped happening we were also able to lock the track so that did not fall out of allingment with the clips. If we need to unlock tracks we were able to do this easily and the re lock the footage once we had edited it. This was done by clicking on the pad lock.(right)

Filming Four

We made another trip up to London with the understanding that we had to get our filming right.

One of the main criticisms we received was our lack of point of view shots. Due to the fact Glenn was available after 12.30 Adam Matt and I went up to film some of the shots that we had not got in previous filming. We decided that there was not enough perspective shots so we filmed some of these whilst we waited for Glenn to arrive. We felt this was an effective way to use our time in London without Glenn.          

Unfortunately I had work later on in the day so I had to leave before Glenn arrived, but Adam and Matt stayed in London to film with Glenn. They revisited the tunnel that we filmed in previously, this time it was lighter. This was significant because we found that our footage was clearer when we got back to the class room, which makes for a better quality video.

Notion of Looking

These are some of the shots that we have come up with, we wanted to show more people in and around London and define life. This shot on the right presents the concept of voyeurism which is a key convention of music videos.                                                                           

P.O.V Shot

The picture on the left was taken on Southbank and is another point of view shot which shows Glenn observing life. This also creates voyeurism, this is something we felt there was not enough of in our rough cut.

Editing

The small picture on the left is the viewer box, this is a preview of what the final video would looks like. This is a useful tool because we can watch the footage as we are editing it, this helps us identify mistakes in our work and put these right. This box allows us to edit save time, without this box we would have to edit all our mistakes we have not identified at the end of the editing proccess.

This shows the video with all the added effects and tranisitons that have been added in final cut, we can see how the transitions fit the music if they do not then we can take them out during the editing proccess rather than noticing at the end.

The first thing to do on Final Cut was to add our audio track in so we could see how our visuals looked up against the music and also identify areas that the lip sync was off. Matt did this by opening the audio file and dragging it to the bottom of the panel. The audio track is in green and located at the bottom of Final Cut, this is what it looked like when the track was imported.

Another section on Final Cut is the browser section, which stores the uploaded footage in one place. This was useful in saving time, we did not have to search our computer every time we wanted to edit footage. One of Final Cuts key elements is Non Destructive editing. By using the mark in and mark out tools which do not delete our footage. This enabled us to re use footage had Final Cut not have had non destructive editing we would have had to take extra care in what clips to use and the process would have taken a long time. We also named the clips that have been uploaded, this contributes to the effciency of Final Cut. Going back to the mark in and out tools, we simply loaded up the footage and then when we started to edit we clicked mark in to start the cutting proccess and mark out when we had the clip we needed. We then dragged the clip into the timeline, the clip thats selected remains in the browser section and is not deleted.

This is what the clip looks likes when it has been dragged onto the timeline, it shows a small shot of the first frame of the footage. It also shows the name and the length of the footage.

Once Matt had gone through all the footage and with close reference to our animatic selected the footage the timline began to become more populated with seperate clips. Below is what the timeline started to look like.

When Matt was editing the footage he found that there were several black gaps that needed filling with footage. However because the timeline was showed the video in minutes these gaps were very small and could not be seen. Matt seeked advice from a class mate, what he then did by using the tool in the bottom left of the timeline was make the clips bigger. All he did was drag the dark grey arrow in between the two black arrows. This allowed him to make the clips bigger by being shown in millieseconds rather than seconds, which made to gaps easier to see, enabling Matt to fill the gaps.

Conventions of Music Magazine Adverts

Before we make our magazine advert we need to research professional work that is seen in magazines such as Q and NME. We need to discover the key conventions of magazine adverts so that we can bear this in mind when making our own advert.

So firstly the image, the main image is normally a close up of the band/ artist. This is to promote the artist people will see the performer on the front of the advert and  remember the face. If the performer is well known the audience will recognise them and link that advert to a previous song or album that they liked. The gaze of the performer varies, generally the main character is looking at the camera, this is to try and engage them with the customer. People will be more encouraged to buy the album if they feel the artist engages with the audience. The shot of the artist is normally a close up again to involve the audience, the more involved the audience feel the more likely they will buy the album.

The title font is normally large and bold, capital letters are used to catch the eye of the audience. The title font is what the promoters want the audience to see. The colours are generally bright in order to catch the eye of the potential buyer. However if the colour does not fit the house style it will not be used, for example the Myo Oxyloto the colours work because the album is based around colours, the album Every Teardrop uses flowing painting images that link to the album. Rihannas magazine advert uses the colour red for the title font. This colour is picked from Rihannas hair so it links the picture and the image which strengthens the house style. Jessie J's album also uses a bold colour to capture the audience they have used the colour gold for the artists name, however in this the picture dominates half of the page. Our eyes are still drawn to 'Jessie J' the gold colour is also used throughout the advert.

In magazine adverts colours are used to grade the importance of the information. For example 'NO. 1 Album' on an advert would be written in a colour that catches the eye, when someone is browsing through a magazine they will immediatley see this phrase. This is similar with ratings the adverts aim is to get people to buy the album this means they have to show how good the album is. They do this by showing ratings they have recieved and put them in vibrant colours so peoples attention is drawn to it.

Some adverts for example Plan B's and Rihanna's their is a small screen grab of the album. This is so people know what they are looking for in the shops. This is a useful tool to promote the digipak of the artist stregthening the link between the two.

Grasping Final Cut

In our AS Media Studies we were introduced to a programme we had never use before in Photoshop. This was similar at A2 with the use of Final Cut. We started to get to grips with Final Cut when editing out animatic, this will make us more confident when editing our final video. This practice will allows make the editing procces quicker and increase the quality of our editing.

Final Cut will give our video the professional edge that other software can not offer, we would have the tools that professionals have when making big budget music videos. This gives us the best oppurtunity to make a great video, we will not be held back by lack of transitions or available effects. Final Cut will help us make our product genre specific and link to the digipak and advert we will have to make. It will help us by its range of tranisitions, we are able to use cross dissolves and fades that are a key convention of our genres music videos. This will help us reach our target audience easily.

Below is the layout of Final Cut, it allows you to add several tracks on one timeline we will also be able to import audio and match the visuals and the lyrics. We had to watch several videos on You tube as well as manual given to us by our teacher to get the grips with the software.

CD analysis

Oasis Single Covers

Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds is a fairly new band so they do not have a lot of single covers to look at. I decided to look at a band with plenty of single covers that were in our genre, who better than Oasis, Noels former band.

The bands name is always written in the same style, this creates Oasis's house style and develops a relationship between all of these single covers meaning they are all linked. However on certain tracks they have decided to change the colour with them favouring the plain black and white. When people see this they are instantly reminded of oasis straight away.

The position of the name is varied, generally the easy thing to do is to place the name at the top but Oasis have not stuck to one position, and even place it on the guitar for the video importance of Being Idle.

Not all of the single covers actually state the name of the song, this is interesting because how are people supposed to know what song they are buying. Going 'by the book' you would say that you cannot have a single cover without the name of the single on it by Oasis are notorious for going against the grain.

I have noticed that three if these single covers are fairly similar, the covers with the dark background with the semi circle of light, are easily linked.

Noel Gallagher Digipak

Noel Gallagher band 'High Flying Birds' are a british band that formed in 2010, they have just released there first album called High Flying Birds. Here are three single covers and the cover of the album, bottom left. We found the album cover in Q magazine, which then led us to search for some of the single covers. This was also used as a magazine advert in Q which took up  awhole page, this was useful to us because it helped us see what adverts from our genre look like.

Originally we took some pictures of Glenn facing the camera, but  upon further research you can clearly see that in most of these album covers Noel is not facing the camera. Except the album cover, but even that is blurred, this research has altered our original ideas. We will have to make a CD cover for our Digipak and we will have to take into consideration house style, which these four covers do very well. The title font 'Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, is the same across all four, this keeps consistency and continuity across the covers. It also means that if you had thousands of album covers you would easily be able to group these four together. The song names are even in the same font which contributes to the house style. We searched on da fonts, and looked at the handwritten section of the fonts, we looked at the effect Noel Gallagher has created doing this and decided to see what it would look like, so Adam found a list of fonts that we fitted this description.

On further analysis you can see that the pictures have little relevance to the song title, however the picture for the cover of What a Life, uses a location that is seen in the video. However 'The Death of you and Me', the location on the cover is not even seen throughout the video, this gives us something to ponder. Do we use a location that is seen in our video, it could be shot from a different angle or height, this will help create a link between our video and CD cover.

There is also a link between them in terms of the lighting and effects used, if you look carefully all the single cover, the colours start at an faded turquoise. It then changes across to an orange, this is a subtle touch but it works with the pictures. I had a go at doing this on Photoshop, if found a plain picture of Noel Gallagher. I originally tried doing it over the whole picture but it did not look right. So I used the Quick Selection Tool, to cut out the background, I selected the gradient tool and found the colours that matched the effect on the cover 'What a Life'.















We have decided not to use the 'normal' setting for the overlay, but changed to 'colour burn', we felt that it gave us the effect that we wanted.

Action Plan

After getting our feedback we realised that their was alot of work to do for our video. We watched the video again and Adam and I came up with a plan of action. Some of the main points are ...

• We needed to show life more, shots of poorer areas and richer areas which was our original ideas. Define Life.

• Change what Glenn is wearing, we decided the black is boring to look at and effects the mis en scene.

•  We needed to show more point of view shots to complete the first point.

• We have decided to get Glenn to actually sing because some of the lip syncing looks unrealistic.

•  Glenn needs to look more enthusiastic and smile more.

• Film more in daylight, because some of our shots were hard to see. 

We are going to take this sheet with us when we next go to London to film, otherwise we may forget some of these points as it is easy to get side tracked up in London.

Feed Back

This is some of the feedback done by our class mates, we all sat infront of the projector and each had a piece of paper to put our constructive criticism on. This was very useful for us in terms of finding out what other people thought, but it we also found out alot. Personally I saw things that I did not see when the video was in final cut, but when you actually sit there and watch your video it is quite clear what needed working on. This is meant that the feedback we got we agreed with, but there were some elements that we did not pick up on.

• People picked up on the miming was out of sync in some stages

•  Some our shots were held for to long

• Some shots were too dark

• We needed a stronger performance, singing and playing the guitar with more vigour 

• The story was not clear

• Our artist looks a little bored

Rough Cut

Here is our rough cut for our video 'AKA ... What a Life', this will be watched by our class mates and teacher and we will recieve feed back on how we can make it better. It will be interesting to see what other people think of our video, this criticism will help us realise what needs to be corrected and what looks good. There may be something that does not fit into our video that we have not seen, but someone else may pick up upon.

The rough cut will give us an idea of how much work we have to do, and if the video actually meets our expectations when we started the course.