Creating a Album cover

This is my first attempt at creating a album cover. I used my star model Kid Cudi as the model for my attempt/ practice.
I used ROCNATION and the Parental Advisory symbols to make it look realistic.
I felt that the album is a bit plain and could do with more exciting colours.
I believe that the artist should be the dominant feature of the cover as the artist is supposed to be the most important part of the music, staying away from the commercialization to a point where fans can focus on the artist, however this isnot to say promotional techniques such as product affiliation should not be used, as it can in some cases benefit the artists promotion of a album.

You have to keep the customer in mind when creating the cover and making an attractive cover is key for the customer as they will not pick it up unless it is well advertised or attractive.

Editing

Editing our music video was the most challenging part of our music video as many people would find when using a new software for the first time. We took more shots than needed when filming so we had options when editing, also gave us freedome to experiment with angles and cross cuttng with angles/scenes. Keeping to the beat with your edits we found is a very important factor as not doing so will make the video look out of place and have no real flow, effecting not only the video clarity but also the narrative. We have also attempted to keep the lyrics in sync with the actions of the artist, just to add to the effect of the narrative and give it a more thoughtful/professinal feel.

When it come to getting used to software in this case Final Cut Express it takes some dedication and time in learning how use and experiment with the software. As a group we have spent a lot of time on Final Cut so that we were ready to edit our music video to the best of our ability. We have found many useful effects that we have used in our peice however look not to over use effect as this would not show our real skill or potential of what we are able to do on final cut.

Artist Website

I decided to create a website for the Artist that we have made. I have chosen to use MySpace as my form of web page in his case, due toits mass use across the world, its accessbility for fans, and its endless ways to interact with fans.
Doing this will require me to have photos of the artist and a theme for the artists page. We have created a'bad boy' image for our artist yet to give him a sense of fame and status i must bare in mind how i put across the artist in the way i design the website down to minor factors such as colour schemes.
For an artist to gain further recognition from fans, they will need a website or a web page. MySpace, Facebook or any social networking website will be suitable; or perhaps even a whole new site for the artist, this is the case with many worldwide artist however it is clear that these social networks prove to be moe beneficial in terms of promotion of the artist. Many artists use Myspace as you can upload photos, videos and music to share with fans.

Filming 2

We decided that our use of the 1st person affect to give the effect of a drunk and crazy night was working very well so we looked to continue this in ou further filming today. We felt that using or main chaacter with no trousers on will give a comedy effect as well as a serious one as this is what happens on crazy nights.

The main character is woken up by the man (myself filming) holding the camera and have to rush out the door and we will do quick cuts to give a rushing effect.

We did a few variety shots of close ups of door openings to give variety of shots in our work.

I would like to point it i filmed the music video so far, allowing myself to get my ideas across which so far i believe is working very well. I in particular remain to refrain from level shots, or keep the camera still as i feel as soon as i start filming from a straight on angle it starts to take away from the narrative.

Filming in first person

As a group we are looking to film in first person in order to give out video its own unique narrative. Researching other music videos i found it rare to come by a video filmed in first person, which is very good to know for the group as we now feel we are pioneering the idea of first person filiming in music, as well as not being tempted to similarise are peice with other videos filmed in first person, basically allowing us freedom with our ideas.

I myself will be filming the first person shots, and personally i feel it is better to minimalise cuts if neccessary as its takes away from the narrative style.
I have also looked into how to master first person shooting, and i found it works well to never keep the camera at straight angle for too long or straight angle turns, as the whole point of the style of filming is to give it a naturalistic film. Personally i feel i pulled of this style of filming very well with help from group members.

Filming

For our first day of filming, we decided to go to a group members house (chris) due to his house having a lot of space to film. We started out by renting out a HD camera from our Media department and then began. We got to 'the set' and then we got or main character B Money (played by ben) changed, ready for filming. We then filmed our opening 10 seconds in a first person style and this took a few takes and adjustments as we wanted the first approx 10secs to all be one cut. Althouh adjustments did have to be changed to our storyboard due to factors such as setting and spur of the moment ideas i feel it still provided as a guide and a benefited in giving us a sense of idea of what we was looking to capture.

After a couple hours of filming, we went back to school to upload what we had filmed onto the Mac's and see how it looked in sync with the music. As a group we felt that the filming was a great success, and we got a lot of good footage taken today.

We plan to film again this weekend and make sure we carry on this positive vibe, and good work.

Album cover analysis

This album cover is by the artist Tinie Tempah and is titled “Discovery”.

Tinie Tempah has become a huge success in recent years and this album cover relates to hisnew found sense of having the world (music industry) in his hands, due to the status and power hehas gained within the industry due to mass fan base.
He is the main focus of the cover, with what is clear to be the world in his arms, showing a real sense of control and ownership, connotating the previous ideas of his newly gained power over the music industry.
The colour scheme shows to be black and white wih only breif areas of colour, however the black background clearly signifys the night sky/space. Making Tinie seem “out of this world”, emphasised by the glow surrounding from which would be thought to be coming from a star, which once again connotes the idea that he has become as star and is currently 'shining' (making impact) on the music industry.
In the image Tinie is sitting with his hands locked together leaning slightly forward, showing his clear engagement with the audience and in a way showing a connection as if to say 'you are apart of this and my success',giving the audience a real sence of in interaction with the artist.

Finally we see how the use of clothing and in this case mainly the sunglasses, creates a mysterious feel towards tinie and connotes an idea that he is still not completly out in the open and still has is own potential locke away , which can create the idea that that he is not just a one hit wonder, it also displays from this his lack in vunerability and the way in which he still has his own controlled, strong characteristic which cannot be attacked by th likes of the media.