Research: Album Covers

1. What are the typical features that an album cover has?

Album covers vary in so many ways between artists. From the variety of images I have above I can see that they often contain images of the band or artist, the title of the album and/or name of the artist. However even those features aren't necessarily a part of the album work. Most commonly among these images however, you can see that they represent the artist/genre/songs through the use of imagery. The primary example would be 'My Chemical Romance' with their album 'The Black Parade' which uses very dark and creepy imagery to represent the "emo" genre.

2. How would you categorise the covers in front of you?
The albums here could be categorised in so niche spectrum's as genre or even artists! Some of them can even be a product of the year they were designed in, for example the 'Beatles' album which is clearly late 60's work. There are some very broad categories that they can come under however:

Band photo: This covers everything from a simple but meaningful image of Ed Sheeran in orange, to the Beatles crossing a road stricken with imagery and conspiracy. The images are never simple and always contain some special methods of representation for the band.

Creative Photography: This is used in many album covers and is often combined with the title of the album or band to anchor the image. It can also contain some hidden message (or blatant at that) but will occasionally just be a symbol for the band or genre, like the killers image of the tops of London apartment blocks.

Digital Design: Much like creative photography these images are computer designed and generally couple with genre's like

3. What do you think the different functions/purposes of album covers?
The obvious answer to this is to sell the music. As they say the first bite is with the eye, and these album covers are the very first taste that the audience get of the music before they buy it. They display clearly what to expect i.e. genre, style and intertextual references.  I guess another function of it is an expression for the artist, regarding their thoughts, perhaps during the writing or to show what influences them.

Looking at a music video director: Francis Lawrence

Francis Lawrence has always been one of my favorite directors. He's directed some major hits like "I Am Legend" and "Water For Elephants" which are two films that i have always loved. He was born in Vienna, Austria and moved to Los Angeles at the age of three. The first music video shot with him as head director was Tidal Force - A Man Rides Through. He quickly became known for his original and imaginative music video scripts and visual directing style. He has now directed a massive range of music videos for major artists.

P!nk - Just Like A Pill

This video always intrigued me. I first saw it on singstar when i was much younger than i am today. I felt the video brilliantly captured the feeling of loosing yourself (drug induced or not) and the performance that he gets out of pink is just fantastic. The video remains constantly eye catching and seems to flow with the disjointed sounding song so perfectly.

Green Day - Warning

In this video you continue to get a sense of Francis Lawrence's style. He loves confusing the audience in terms of placement in the scene, keeping attention and at the same time not causing you to suspend your disbelief and get too immersed in the digesis and listen to the track instead. He also loves the bad boy image, as is seen in the shot where the protagonist is running in a swimming pool under a clearly marked "do not run sign"

Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body

I chose this video because it differs so much from the first two. However, you can still see Francis Lawrence's style peeking through. The video plays with the placement of the audience in the small space of the lighted room. The high key lighting and grungy look are also common across these videos. However the genre of this song requires more dance troops and choreography than the first two which were primarily performance based pop rock.

Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For?

this is another song I first saw on singstar (which is where I first found Francis Lawrence) This video contains his beloved transition, his lighting styles, strange juxtaposed images and use of super imposing the same person into a shot twice. I love all his videos because they are all so different and yet so similar. He never looses the things he loves yet keeps each artist unique. If I am able to replicate just a few of his styles and looks  into my videos I will be very happy.

What Music Means To Me

Childhood

Anyone who was born in the 90's who claims they don't go mental every time they hear this song is a liar. The song was one of my favourites and I even remember singing it during long car journeys and while shopping with my mother. It continues to represent me today, as I sit on the brink between adulthood and my childhood years. I can't remember how long ago it was that I first heard it but this song will always hold a strong place in my memories.

Teens
This song is one that I have never particularly enjoyed, however not only does it hold very strong sentimental value for me, the uplifting beat and yet somehow sombre acoustic ukulele seem to sum up for me my teenage years. I first heard the song when it was played to me by an old girlfriend, as one of the pieces she would be singing in a competition. It was later a song that featured on a mixed tape that a girl I was very interested in gave to me. The song always reminds me of my mid teens and (although it's not the best of songs) it will surely be a song that I continue to like throughout my life.

Today

This is a song that recently was added to my spotify. As my recent enjoyment of "Chase & Status" hit a bit of a high, I felt it was an appropriate choice for my modern choice. The song hits home well for me, the attitude and feel to it seem to reflect me in some ways. It is also slightly uncharacteristic of "Chase & Status" as a song. I feel that the slightly different aspect of it represents my unusual characteristics and attitudes.

Added Bonus

As a special treat I give you (in true glee style) an acoustic mash up of all three songs. I apologise in advance for its shoddiness, but regardless, here is the song that represents my life as a whole, the ups and downs, the flow (and lack of it in places) and of course my terrible voice.

My Group's Final Edit

Here is my group's edit of the 5ive workshop footage:

Prelim Evaluation

1. Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

I very much enjoyed the day, despite how tiring and difficult it was. I think the best part of the whole day had to be the end. Feeling sad, relieved, happy, tired and somehow still having the energy after 12 hours of working under burning lights to dance with everyone around the hall to the last ever playing of the song... until the edit.

I also loved the harsh reality of it all. This shoot was almost exactly like others I had been on with jake (except more fun). It gave everyone a real taste of what their future could be like and that is an unmatchable gift. It was also great working with all the crew, and being taught by a professional director was especially beneficial.

 

2. What did you learn from participating in the workshop?

I learnt a lot about the many jobs that have to be done to keep the day running smoothly. Runners, cable bashers, camera operators and grips, the director who takes care of the whole shoot and the assistant director who takes care of the director. I knew all these jobs existed but seeing them all work so hard gave me a new found respect for everyone in the industry. I also learnt a lot about how things can go wrong, even professionally; cameras breaking or not connecting, lights not working, a shot not lined up in a way it can work. This makes me feel more confident in my future shoot, because its not about avoiding these occurrences, its about how you deal with them.

I also learnt a lot about the technological side to the shoot, got to understand how the jib and camera work properly. I also saw Jake's attempt at lighting which was good despite not being his forte.

3. Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

The footage was just fantastic. The 5D truely has one of the best quality pictures I have ever seen. The camera makes such a difference, as even if we'd shot the exact same footage on a standard video camera it wouldn't have looked anywhere near as good. Watching it for the first time on monday was such an amazing moment, when I realised this was going to be a really, really good video.

Our group decided not to edit the footage into an exact replica of the original 5ive video. We decided to do this because when attempting to match up our footage to their cuts it didnt feel right. I wanted to make it more our own work and so we spent our time editing what the footage we shot wanted us to. The video we made has some of teh same feel with the choppy editing, jump cuts and slow-motion dancing. However the feel of the shots we chose (I think) is more friendly and "poppy"

 

4. How do you think your workshop experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

I now know just how hard it can be to do take after take after take and have learnt, from watching Jake, how to appropriately deal with actors to get the best performance out of them i possibly can. I know not to be too ambitious when shooting, because even when we knew exactly what shots we were meant to get we still couldn't quite manage it all. I think I shall try and go with the flow more during my shoot and obviously make sure I have absolutely everything ready with backups.

Everybody Get Up Re-Edit

A task was set to re-edit a cut up and mismatched version of the music video. Due to complications arising when video files were transferred from one computer to another, we found that not all shots matched up perfectly (no matter how fantastic an editor you are). However looking at our final cut; the main video with the original top right for comparison, I feel we did a very successful job. The purpose of the task was to demonstrate just how many cuts, in such quick sucession were needed for such a small section of film. task was fairly challenging, and showed us just how hard it will be to edit both the coming music video, and our music video next year.

Lipsynch work

Here is our attempt at a lipsynch of 'Five's 'Everybody get up.' I think we did well to put energy and enthusiasm into the piece. In my group were James, Frank and myself and although a lot of the footage was unusable due to background messups and a habit of forgetting words, I think the edit really does us justice in terms of how effective and entertaining we can be in media work.

What did I learn from this?

I learnt that when filming it is important to get several takes of the same shot, rather than relying on other shots to overlap and compensate. Each runthrough should be done to the best of our ability until we get a near perfect take then move on. This wasn't really possible with our time restraint however.

I also learnt that when editing it would be good to organise the different shots into bins; not just "Frank" "Eoin" and "James" but groups like "dancing clips" that would be good to cut to in instrumentals and a "gimicks" bin where we put all the silly stuff we got up to, so we can add it where it's appropriate rather than just where it falls with the music.

Finally I learnt that filming these can be a lot of fun so long as you find the right balance of sillyness and seriousness. I hope I can translate that to the big shoot as well as my coursework in the near future.

My Audition

My biggest hope is to be cast as "Abs" the first member of the band to jump offstage and rap at the camera. I feel I have more than proved my worth in terms of enthusiasm (having actually completed homeworks on time) and showing a great deal of commitment, having learnt the dance and all the words in time for the lipsynch work. I also feel that I am an avid performer and will bring great things to the table as a member of five. As an added incentive to choosing me for this role, it will deffinetly boost my love of media and my comitment to continueing this level of work that I have been putting in so far this year... If I'm not chosen, my confidence will surely be shot and I might not feel so inclined to keep working nicely in media...

Only joking! No matter what happens I will be thrilled to be taking part, even if I am unable to be a member of five (or to a greater extent Abs)