Album/Poster Idea Coming To Life

Just like I did before I officially filmed my music video, I also decided to do a test photoshoot for my briefly thought idea for my Album and Poster covers. Overall, this went really well but as expected is was not as easy as anticipated. 

As seen above, I started out with a couple of plain shoe shots, playing around with the various setting I have on my camera. As you can see above, the first image's background is slightly more defined and in focus than the second image. This is due to the difference in camera setting. For the second shot (and what I ended up using for the duration) I used a 'sports shutter' setting, which allowed me to take miniature photos every second, to allow movements to be captured. 

This was ideal for me as I wanted my photo's to capture my eye-shadow's powder. 

As seen here, I had to begin with experimenting various ways to make my powder 'fly'. With this image, I blew excess powder to the direction of the shoe, in order to add depth and diversity to this shot. This worked well I thought, but this was not what I was after.  

As well as the shoe, I also pictured before and after shots of the products I was using to create my final photo. The middle photo amongst these pictures above was taken right at the end of the shoot, and I like it so much that I may try to incorporate it into my Digipack's back design, as it could demonstrate the unnecessary mess of using large amounts of make-up. 

For these final photo's, this is how I wanted my overall image to end up. At the beginning, you will notice that there is not as many products on display as this last image. This is because I wanted to see how much of a difference the products made as a three, rather than just one. To clear away from the 'purple' theme, I began to add a shade of blue eye-shadow, to add more colour and boldness to the image. I think this process worked really well and helped me massively to reach my end result. 

This last image is the one I will be using for my front Album cover and Poster, as I believe it was my most successful image in demonstrating power and strength against mass amounts of cover up. 

Potential Album and Poster Idea

The idea I have come up with mentally involves another hidden message to do with true beauty, just like my music video incorporated. My visual image I have currently is all to do with a heel crushing some make-up and for the powder to be visible enough to add depth and uniqueness to the overall image. 

Thanks to my research, I want to keep a colour theme apparent within my Album and Poster. I plan to use the same picture for both in order to gain audience recognition for my artist. I also visualise the use of a female accosted colour such as purple, as this is bold and links to the boldness of my hidden message.

Purple Heel ,Black and White photo, Purple Eye Shadow, Excess Powder.

My position of my heel will be as above, an equal back of a hardly worn shoe, to encompass elegance and perfection. I will then attempt to take many mini photo's using one of my other camera settings in order to capture the best picture. My aim is to have the shoe crushing an old eye-shadow. I have also come up with a concept behind the crushing of my make-up too. 

The heel itself represents power, strength and height, to tower over the excess amounts of make-up that is not needed. It is also to show that women are strong and confident enough to not need to hide themselves anymore. The action of 'crushing' presents the shoe and woman as to have the freedom to choose to 'fall short' (a reference to my music video's song) of societies expectations. Here, the overall concept is all about NOT meeting expectations of others, which is one of my potential idea's for an Album Title, 'Expectations'. 

Poster Inspirations

Ariana's poster below is my most inspirational poster, as I admire the overall layout and visual appearance of the poster. What I really like and want to try and ustilise is how the album title 'My Everything' and Ariana Grande is split up by the singers waist. I believe this split makes the poster look really neat and elegant, which is the overall tone that I desire my poster to have and hold. 

However, I would also like to challenge this poster as I do not desire nor want my artists poster to have the albums other songs. I may however include some of Låpsley's well known songs, as from previous research, this grabs more attention and listeners for my artist.  

Although Nicki Minaj's 'The Pinkprint' is just an album cover, it is the only one that has really inspired me.
I love how the powder used has elements of disorder, yet still overall looks incredibly neat. For my album idea, I want to now also use powder in some form, as it adds uniqueness and diversity compared to all other album and poster covers. 
Purple and pink is also a very strong, popular and bold colour to use, which is a evident in all of my poster inspirations. Therefore, I am going to potentially utilise this colour in my own planning, album and poster.

Selena's 'Star Dance' album and posters are one of my personal favourites that I have come across in my research. Again, the artist has highlighted the use of the popular Black and White photo effect, (as seen below) it makes the artist appear bolder, most illuminated and ultimately more sexual. 

Within the poster above, Selena Gomez has continued her albums theme, as now the most important information is the artists name and release date of her album. In planning my own, I will remember to try and utilise this technique.

Poster Conventions

Evidence has proven that nowadays it is not just Album Posters that are being produced, but also a range of other promotional billboards that grab listeners attention. These include posters about tour dates; even the occasional poster on a new music video! 

Taylor Swifts 'Bad Blood' music video managed to release a poster with ever main and supporting cast member on it. From Taylor to Zendaya, by this phenomenon and her team thinking so creatively to release this amount of posters allowed the video itself to reach 1.1 Billion views and growing! Swift used these other global stars to reach a larger demographic and an increased fan base, as once a viewer watches 'Bad Blood' sites like YouTube create an 'Up Next' playlist full of other Taylor Swift songs. 
An aspirational method carried out perfectly!

  

The 'Bad Blood' posters all followed the same theme. A black and white photo with the use Single and Music Video title in a bold red. Although they showcase various 'models', the posters all appear identical. They all include 'produced by' and 'directed by' names, alongside a lyric 'Band- Aids Don't Fix Bullet Holes'.

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/band-aids-and-bullet-holes

When researching the importance of this song lyric, Cheyenne Corbine has interpreted this exact lyric perfectly. She describes what seems to be the meaning behind Taylor Swifts lyric; it also linking to what the singer may have been feeling when writing. The conclusion I and research have come to is that Taylor Swift is commenting on the scars words leave behind when 'shot' at another person. Although a weapon causes physical damage and pain, many have argued that lasting words and mental damage is a worse off attack. 

Therefore, Swift and her team have clearly repeated this theme on many posters to emphasise that thinking needs to take place and lot more before words escape our mouths.  

Kasabian also follows many typical poster conventions; challenging them too. The image used on the poster to the left uses the same image and theme as their album showcases to allow audience recognition. Another convention the band have kept to is the feature of 'hit singles' the album encompasses. This is very common in most artist posters as again, the band is trying to reach a higher state of audience recognition, hopefully resulting in an increase in audience demographic. However, Kasabian here have also challenged typical poster conventions with their use of their Website link feature in the top left-hand corner. 

                                                This is another use of the band trying to spark a larger audience interest, as seen below, the website takes views to many area's of the band, whether it be to their 'official store exclusives', or their 'downloads' section. Although it challenges typical poster conventions, it also a very interesting and clever feature to include in any poster. 

Kings Of Leon are also another well known band who clearly also conform to many of the same poster conventions as rivalling bands such as Kasabian. 
The only obvious difference in content between the two explored bands are the use of date titles and information. On Kasabian's, there is not evidence of a release date or anything along those lines. However on Kings of Leaon 'Only By The Night', there is a red 'OUT NOW' date. The emphasis of these words being in bold almost promotes a shocked and disbelieving tone, a light forceful nature to this adds the right amount for audiences to believe they should make this purchase. Again, another technique I will remember to include.  

Inspiration Digipacks

Flume- 'Skin':

When researching influential digipacks, Flume's 'skin' came into mind instantly. It follows all typical conventions: constant theme, little wording, main image and has a clear colour scheme. 

The colours are vibrant and eye-catching and extremely simple but effective. I will remember these factors when it comes to creating my digipack design. I will also remember to use minimal wording as I want my audience to be enticed by my albums artwork. 







On the back of my digipack, I will need to remember to add a barcode, information about my artist record label, and their other song titles so that I myself am also keeping to the conventions of an albums back cover. 

I will also plan to incorporate a running theme visually on my album too. 



Tune Yards- 'I can feel you creep into my personal life'

When I found Tune Yards new albums cover, I was instantly struck by the use of black and white and a solid background colour. This links to my editing process, how i originally tried to keep my overall image black and white, with elements of colour. 

Due to this, I may begin to think of ways I can incorporate this back into my digipack, seeing as I did not use this effect for my real music video. 

 When searching 'Tune Yards', I came across this image to the right. I love the use of colour and how they have kept this turquoise background as a theme. Seeing as my song is called 'Falling Short', it may be wise to see if I can include items of some sort falling, or hanging in some way, as this adds depth and interest. 

Eva & Fix- 'Punctual' 

This album cover automatically brings interest and diversity to any potential audience as it is so unique and eye-catching. I have always liked to use of layering, and the way this album cover has been left is truly amazing to look at. 

Originally, I had the idea of layering different images over each-other, but maybe a more effective route to take would be to layer the same image over and over, as this adds detail and individuality. 

Digipack Conventions

Digipacks blew up around the early 2000's are still a widely used in today's Music Industry.

Research has shown that Digipacks are traditionally in the style of a gatefold paperboard, or a card stock outer binding, including one or more plastics trays capable of holding a CD inside. Visually, there are three main designs a Digipack can appear in: Type Based, Minimalist and Portrait. 

Typical Album Cover Conventions:

Artwork of some kind, whether it be a photo or a digital piece.

Album title, artist name all within similar fonts.

Simple colour scheme's which mirror albums overall feel.

Type Based:

Minimalist:

Portrait: 

Within any album cover, there are certain conventions and information artist need to incorporate. The album cover should aim to release the content of the artists album, therefore making their advert easily identifiable for future releases. Album cover should also have a theme, image and and an easily distinguished genre. Most of all however, the album look is ultimately what sells, as if it looks good it will attract more interest for the artist. 

Inside an Album Conventions:

Occasionally lyrics to songs.

Information behind the makings of the album.

Continuation of the overall albums themes. 

Another photo or two of the artist or form of artwork.

Typical Album Back-Cover Conventions:

Artist name.

A barcode.

List of songs that are within the album.

Copyright information, record company name and the year it was released.

Editing

When it came to editing, I ended up chopping and changing my clips and ideas more times than I could count! Despite using my three point light kit, the conrast between light and shadows still proved to be a slight issue within filming. However, I began searching for these contrats as I feel they added depth to each shot, especially amongst my 'click' clips. 

Once editing began, I immediately knew I wanted my video in black and white, as from my later research I found that there is not many video's that are pictured entirely in black and white; here is where I want my uniqueness to shine from. 

The emphasis on hands is also mirrored with the emphasis on my models eyes. With this in mind, I then began to experiment with the 'pleasentville effect', keeping my black and white theme, yet colourising their pupils to continue to add depth and interest. 

With this idea in mind, I then began to experiment with this effect on some of my other shots too, such as the one to the right, the red lipstick and the Naked 2 pallet both being in colour, and the rest still within the black and white theme.

At 2:16 seconds, my removal of make-up process begins. After careful consideration, I decided to begin to add colour saturation gradually, until the end shows all of my models in complete colour. This saturation grew by 5% each time, starting at 80% all the way through to 0%. I feel like this works really well with my overall message of my music video, as the colour adds the life and energy back into my models, as they are free from their cover up.

Above is an example of the same clip, but with and without my change in saturation. It is clear that this is not an obvious change, but I do prefer the overall look and feel of this change. 

The photo above is a side panel within Final Cut Pro which I used to originally apply my 'pleasentville effect'. I had to add and drop the 'colour correction' effect onto select clips in order to then change and modify my overall clips appearance. It ended up being surprisingly easy once I got the hang of it. 


A final thought- People don't live in black and white anymore, they live in colour. Simplicity is beauty and by my ending highlighting my models true beauty through colour, it highlight this further. No longer do they need to live in black and white, behind make-up, they can live in natural colour.