Album Cover Ideas

For my AS Photogrpahy work, I created some album cover copies. I decided to have a look back at my work to get some inspiration and ideas for my new own album cover. From doing this, I decided that I wanted Jonny to be on the album cover and also for him to be holding the guitar. I felt that this would help to make it link to our video and it is a motif to help protray the genre on the album cover. I like the idea of the blurred background on 'The Clash' cover, I think this really helps to make the person stand out more, so it is something I can consider experimenting with. Also, I like the use of eye contect in the second two covers, I think really helps to attract people in to picking up the album. Furthermore, another important factor is the use of font, from this I decided that I wanted my font to be clear and most probably in capitalised letter. This makes it stand out and makes it extremely clear to read. From thhis, I am going to go on to deconstruct some existing covers and then will start with the creation of mine. I am experiments with using different coloured filters and effects to try and make my album cover look as appealing as possible. I want it to stand out and ensure my target audience like it as they will be the type of people buying the album.  

Album Magazine Promotion Deconstructions

Here is a deconstruction on the some album magazine promotion. By doing this, I have been able to analyse what features I like and what I dislike, helping me to gain ideas for when I come to creating our magazine advertisement. The artists are in the same genre as the artist of our song that we chose to use, this helps me to get more of an idea as to peoples expectations of alternative rock magazine promotions.

Magazine promotion deconstructions from Kaylee1234

Deconstructing Tour Poster

In the prezi below, I have analysed 'A Rocket to The Moon' tour poster, this has helped me to gain lots of different ideas for my product. Our song we choose is in fact by the band, meaning that by using features similar to this, it will make my product fit the conventions of that genre. I really like the sepia effect of this and would like to consider using different photo effects on my images.
 

Album Cover Deconstructions

In the presentation below, I decided to deconstruct some more album covers. This will help to to gain more ideas and it'll help me to find out what the common conventions of Alternative Rock covers. I can then choose to use or subvert the conventions, I want my cover to be appeal for it's target audience but at the same time for it to stand out from other existing album covers.

Album deconstructions from Kaylee1234

Filming - 15/12/12

Today we carried out some more filming for our music video. We decided that in order to get our filming done quicker it would be a good idea to split up and film different scenes. Therefore, I filmed Jonny and Laura filmed Jess and Tom. The weather today was not great, with on and off showers, however the filming went okay and I managed to complete the scene of Jonny playing the guitar in the field. It was very windy so had to ensure the camera was steady, also at the parts where it started to rain, I had to ensure rain drops weren't coming on the lens and ruining the shot. As well as doing the filming, I thought it would be benificial to take some images as initial ideas for our ancilliary tasks.

Album Cover Deconstruction

I have chosen to have a look at 'The Scripts' album cover as they are in the same genre as our song we chose to use for the video. By looking at their cover, it'll help me to gain ideas for when I come to producing my cover. It is important do this so that the product fits in with the existing products and so that hopefully it would be successful if it was released for real. I have explored the colours, image, font and lighting of the cover in the prezi below.

Looking at Album Covers...

In order to gain more ideas for one of our ancillary tasks about making an album cover, I decided to carry out some research beforehand. By doing this, it will give me more of an idea as to what people expect to see on album covers. I decided to have a look at A Rocket To The Moon's official album covers to see  whether they have any consistent themes running through them. I want the cover to fit with it's genre well but also want it to stand out and be eye catching, to encourage viewers to potentially buy it. Below are some of their album covers with comments about what I like about them each...



I like the bright colours that have been used within this cover, the blue really stands out to me. There is a sort of blurry effect on the cover which I think makes it look more interesting. You can't really tell what the album cover is of exactly, but to me it roughly looks like a wall in the foreground and a fairground ride in the background. The album title is in a sort of random place but I think this again helps to make it more unusual and interesting.

I like this cover, I think that the shot composition is really good. I like the colours that have been used, it all looks very natural. It has a sort of sepia tone to it which I think helps to make it look more interesting. Also, I like the fact that the album cover title is written within the black circle, I think that this really stand out and it is automatically clear who the band are and what their album is called. The shot of their legs is quite unusual, it's natural and just simply showing them walking along the grass/stones.

I think that this album cover is quite unique and unusual. It is sort of a reflection, where on one side it's dark, with mountains and a moon, and on the other it's light with a tree and sun. I like the colours that have been used: blue, light blue and black and think the all blend in well together. Also, I like the fact that the title is written on white font on the black background, this helps to make it really stand out to viewers.





Overall, just by looking at A Rocket To The Moon's existing album covers it has given me a range of ideas to consider. Also, I found out that not many Alternative Rock album covers actually have images of the band on the cover, unlike in Pop music album covers. The albums for our genre of alternative rock all seem to have a sort of natural feel to them, where the images are of the natural environment and the colours also seem very natural, like blues and browns for example. Next, I will go on to deconstruct some existing album covers of bands that are in a similar genre to A Rocket To The Moon, this will help me to gain more ideas and I will be able to pick up on some of the conventions that they all have in common.

Weather

On saturday we plan to re-shoot the bits of Jonny playing the guitar in the field. It's important that we look at the weather forecast again to ensure it creates the right atmosphere for the video. By looking at the forecast, I can work out the best time of day to carry out the filming. The best time to go would be the afternoon, as it gets dark fairly early now, plus it's predicted that the weather will be okay.

Artist Stage Name

We have decided to create a stage name for Jonny and have decided to call him 'Jono' within our products instead. We done this as after speaking to our target audience, they felt that people could make jokes about his name. We thought that Jono is suitable as it links to his name, but it shorter and more catchy. I think it will stand out more on the products and be more memeroable to viewers.

How we would promote and distribute our video...

It is important that we think about how we are going to promote and distribue our video. If it was to be released for real then we would have to consider all the stages of production: from producing the video to distributing the video out to its target audience. In order for the video to be successful within the industry, all stages of production would have to be explored. Therefore, to work out how we would promote and distribute our video, it's important to find out from our target audience about the most common ways in which they consume the media and which ways they believe would be best to promote the video. If this was not looked into, and the video got promoted in the wrong places, it could result in the video being less successful as it would not be reaching the target audience well. I discussed with friends and peers ways in which they consume the media. Responses were all very similar, so here I have decided to make an animation which shows how our target audience access the media...
Consume Media by KayleeH1234 on GoAnimate

As well as this, I also carried out some research on the internet. I found that 'Mobile access and the rise of new social media sites is changing the ways consumers use and view social media'. It is predicted that consumers spend more time on social networking sites than on any other website, roughly 20% of their total time online via PC and 30% via mobile. Over the years, statistics have shown that the total time spent on social media has rapidly increased, particially due to the proliferation of mobile devices and connectivity.  This shows just how benificial advertising on social networking sites would be, as it is a way in which we can easily reach our 

target audience.

From doing this, I believe that the most successful way in which we could promote our video is through web 2.0. It is clear that our target audience are the type of people who are regular users of social networking site, with the most common two being facebook and twitter. These would be a good way in which we could promote the video, whether it be through advertisements down the side or by fans doing status' and tweets to personally encourage their friends to watch the video too. Also, dependant on budgets we could have the music video multi-platform advertised through television adverts too. We found that our target audience are the type of people who would usually watch tv around 7-11pm, so this will be a good time to have the advert. Another way in which artists nowadays can promote their new videos is through their official websites, they usually have email subscriptions where fans can sign up to and receive all the up-to-date information. Therefore, if our video was to be released for real then 'A Rocket To The Moon' can promote it on their official website. YouTube is also a good way to promote our video as our target audience are regular users of this too, we could have adverts at the end of similar songs to help promote our video to people who enjoy Alternative Rock music.

Heres print screens of 'A Rocket To The Moon' official website and Twitter. If our video was real, they could promote the video on these. Fans will be 'following' them on Twitter and signed up to their mailing list on the their website so they can easily be updated on new video releases.

Theories linked to music videos...

Here I have explored some of the different media theories and have said how my video links to the theories...

Theories linked to music video from Kaylee1234

Voice-Over Filming

Above is a voice over of the initial filming that we did. I have briefly talked about the good and bad aspects of the shots. By doing this it helps us to clearly see what we have shot so far and improvements that we need to make. The shots that we like, we will re-shoot again and experiment with them more.