Magazine Advert Analysis

This album advertisement of Lily Allen stood out to me from the rest due to the black and white effect. As both of these colours contrast each other it makes every detail stand out, especially her name. This black and white style has particularly inspired me for my own advertisement as I think it will work well with my artist as she has a similar look to Lily Allen. The music genre is also the same and wouldn’t cause confusion to the audience. This advert could also work with simplistic and limited text as the image of the artist is strong by itself due to the black and white editing. Furthermore, this advert doesn’t follow the usual style of music advertisements as most are edited to portrait. Due to this powerful image of Lily Allen being landscape I don’t think it would have worked as well on a portrait advert. I would like to use this style for my advert because of the similar image I have taken of my artist and because it is different from other adverts.  

Researching particular album magazine adverts has given me a lot of inspiration. This advert of Mumford & Sons has a simplistic style and is straight to the point as shown by the limited text. This is the type of look I would like to go for as it conveys that the album is a must buy as nothing else on the page needs to persuade the audience to buy the album. This particular album has gone for a different approach of promoting the album by simply calling it ‘The album’. This comes across as it’s the only album out in the market and that it must be brought.  Even though this is a very interesting approach I think I will go down the ordinary route by displaying the album name. The image on this advert portrays the bands genre ‘indie/alternative’ as the image isn’t of what you’d normally see walking past a shop window; it is very interesting and appealing. The band and their instruments and shown in the image which connotes that the band write and play their own music.

This magazine advert of Laura Marling has followed the usual conventions of alternative music magazine adverts as an abstract image has been used. This is disjunctive as the image doesn't seem to have anything to do with the album name 'Cross your fingers/crawled out of the sea' unless here is reference to other songs on the album. This makes this advert look interesting as the audience will want to know more about the image itself. This image is a drawing of natural forms as leaves and tree figures are shown and in the centre there is a colour flower which could be symbolic to the album. I think that the neutral colour scheme works well with the genre and also compliments the image colours and the orange text by contrasting against them. This makes the information stand out (name of the artist and name of the album). I like how the font style and orange colour work well with the image as it is quite feminine and shows that it is a female artist clearly. When looking through the magazine adverts this one stood out to me as the basic layout makes the advert more aesthetically pleasing due to the image and text being centralised. I would like to used this type of symplicity in my magazine advert as I think more people will want to look and read it. Having a powerful image on the advert will make it more visual and more eye catching.

Record Label

 Sony Music Entertainment is the second largest music corporation in the world and was founded in 1929 as the American Record Corporation through the merger if several smaller record companies. It is owned and controlled  by Sony Corporation of America. I have chosen for Milly Evans to be signed by this company because the artists that they have signed fit in with the same genre as Milly Evans. The artists that Sony has signed are Alicia Keys, Rebecca Ferguson, Rita Ora, Labrinth, Ke$ha and Paloma Faith. Another reason why I have chosen this company is because Sony is a well established and internationally known which will widen the target audience for Milly Evans. 

Change of Idea

Beforehand my inspiration was Yasmin's album with the coloured paintbrush effect. However I spent a lot of time trying to find a font and realised that none worked well against the pictures I had taken of my artist. I have therefore researched into a similar artist, Jessie Ware, and have found that her style is much more appealing and fits with the same genre as mine. She has used only black and white throughout the digipak which gives off a professional look. I like how the cover is quite simplistic by just stating the name of the artist and the name of the album and the fact that the image of Jessie has been edited to show that there is light up towards her face. The image makes her look very sophisticated, and would even work well standing alone on the cover. The back of the album follows the same theme of simplicity as the track list is listed centrally in a clear bold font with a thick white border around it. This makes her album look well-structured which gives a good impression of her as an artist.

 After searching through the fonts on Microsoft Word I found a similar font to Jessie Ware's called 'Letter Gothic Std' as shown below. I think this works well with the name Milly Evans and could be used as a running theme throughout the digipak.

MILLY EVANS

 
After finding this font I thought it would be appropriate to make a draft album cover to see if the font and the image work well together. It has proved to be successful and I will therefore use this in my digipak.

Inspiration

This album, “On my own” by Yasmin has a variety of different album covers that all have a running theme. Each image has been edited into black and white which contrasts the coloured paintbrush effect of her initial. I think this is very effective as her initial stands out but it doesn’t obstruct the audience’s view of the image. The use of a bold bright colour contrasting the image shows reference to the genre (pop) however she hasn’t over powered the cover by using too much colour like most pop artists do;  She has used a simplistic style.  Her bold initial looks as if she has written it herself with a paintbrush, this makes the album more personal which could relate to or have significance to her album. In addition, as a plain black and white background is used she looks quite isolated and this links in with the album name ‘On my own’.

I would like to use these album covers as my inspiration because I think they work really well and will also fit with my artist and the genre of pop. I could use the running theme of the coloured initial in a paintbrush effect over black and white images through each section of my digipack to ensure I get the same effect that Yasmin has achieved. 

CD Cover Analysis

Cd cover analysis from sammyjamesx

Digipak Research

Here I have selected some album covers/images of how I would like to represent my artist. Personally I think these covers all show a similar style and fits with the same music genre as mine. Using a mid shot of the artist, Millie Evans, on my album cover would attract the audience’s attention instantly as her face would be the first thing they see. Each of these album covers use either a black and white or neutral image with very minimum contrasting coloured text. This simplicity of the text used works as it emphasis the image giving it a very strong and bold feel.

Representations in our music video

Who- In our music video there will be two characters; the main one being the artist, Milly Evans, and the other being a puppet called Alfie acting as Milly’s brother. Due to our song choice of a silly waltz rap, Milly will be singing to her brother and about her brother. This is significant to the song as it fits with the lyrics.

What- We have been inspired by other videos to make our music video look like a Looney Tunes episode. We are therefore going to use the same opening and closing parodies of Looney Tunes videos e.g ‘Merrie Melodies’. The main part of the video will consist of Milly acting out the lyrics and trying to persuade Alfie to stop wasting his life away. There will also be many shots of the puppet doing these things that Milly doesnt want him doing.

Where- We have decided to locate our video in a house using the settings of the bedroom and the kitchen. However to make our video look interesting we are going to use bright colours in these rooms. We will do this by changing the bedding and adding bright accessories.

Why- We have chosen to locate our video in a house and use a basic narrative so that the visuals go with the lyrics. We also thought it would make it easier for ourselves if we locate the video inside as we wont have to mess around with the lighting or any other sounds. We can also shoot the video at any time and if we make any mistakes they will be easy enough to correct. Furthermore, by limiting ourselves to these settings we can focus more on using a variety of shots and styling the artist and the house. We didnt want to use a complex narrative as it would confuse the audience so we have therefore kept it simple but sweet.

How- By using our story board, schedule list and risk assessment we will be able to create our video more effectively as we can overcome any problems we think we will face. When we are shooting we will organise the shots into the correct scenes so that we can save time instead of working through the shots in order. We will aso practice a few shots from each scene beforehand so we know how they will turn out.

Examples of other texts

This video 'Foundations' by Kate Nash fits very well with our genre and the look we are going for. This video uses a silly waltz rap just like our song choice, 'Alfie' by Lily Allen as well as the focus being on a female artist in a household setting. This video is entertaining and fun which is what we aim to do when making our music video. 

This video is a good example of the type of props we will be using in our music video. There are puppets and animations used which makes this video, 'Happy Ending' by Mika look interesting and appealing. There are also shots in this video that we will also be using such as the close up shots of the moving puppets and the transitions used. Even though our song choice is quite upbeat we are looking to use slower camera movements like this video. 

'Oh No' by Marina and the Diamonds is another good example of the genre we are focusing on. The colours that are used in this video is the main aspect we like about this as the bright colours create a very vibrant look and feel. This emphasis the genre 'mainstream-pop'. 

Audience Profile

We thought it would be appropriate to look into audience profile's so that we can get a clear view of who our music video would appeal to. 

Name: Hannah Wood
Age: 19
Occupation: Works in Selridges-Topshop
Studying Fashion Management at Birminham University

Lucy listens to artists such as Lily Allen, Two Door Cinema Club, Ellie Goulding, Lenka, Florence and the Machine, Lana Del Rey, Marina and the diamonds and The Vaccines. Her favourite shops are Topshop, Urban Outfitters, Lazy Oaf, Zara, River Island and Office. She likes to keep up to date with new trends from the highstreet shops as well as experiementing with vintage clothing from unknown stores near her university. In her spare time she has a shabby chic business where she makes home little gifts such as cushions and fabric decorations and sells them online on ebay and her own blog page. She enjoys socialises with her friends and going to the 02 academy arena to listen to new and current music. As she has has her own blog she is frequently on the internet. This is where she watches music videos by her favourite artists and artists that she hasn't come across before. 

Artist Name Ideas

First Names
Ava
Lily
Milly
Esme
Talia
Lulu
Ali

Last Names
Carter
Harp
Evans
Oliver
White

We were unsure whether to stick to just a first name like artists such as Beyonce, Lenka, Rihanna and Birdy to make the artist’s name  more catchy and memorable or whether to use include her last name such as Ellie Goulding and Kate Nash. But after discussing about it we came to a decision that we shall call our artist 'Milly Evans'. The reason behind this is that we wanted to keep her name quite simple and regular like our inspiration ‘Lily Allen’. If we had used more of a unique name it would have been quite hard to make our music video match her as an artist due to our song choice of ‘Alfie’. This song isn’t a powerful or strong song and it therefore wouldn’t suit an artist with a strong name. We also thought the name sounded ‘short and sweet’ and would go with the visuals of our music video.

Ellie Goulding- Lights

I have chosen to analyse this music video because I wanted to look into the different types of pop and in this case it is electro-pop. One of the characteristics of electro pop artists is usually the artists playing electronic instruments- Ellie Goulding plays the drums and tambourine in this video. There is a clear relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as Ellie is singing about how the lights can make her stronger “You show the lights that stop me turn to stone, you shine it when I’m alone, and so I tell myself I’ll be strong, and dreaming when they’re gone.” Different lights are constantly being lit up throughout the video so that the audience can feel the strength and the energy that she feels. The lights portray her as a confident and powerful woman and therefore match the lyrics. Furthermore there are many interesting camera shots that also fit with the lyrics such as low angle shots which have been used to represent Ellie as dominant and strong. The other long shots and close up shots have been very creatively done to make the video look interesting and lively, with multi-coloured and flashing lights. However the location doesn’t change as much as other videos but because of the different types of lights it ensures that the audience won’t get bored and will give them something exciting to watch. It also shows another characteristic of electro-pop as the electronic sounds and instruments match the visuals (lights). As well as the lights, the editing shows reference to the genre of electro-pop seeing that there are a lot of lighting and patterned effects on the black background. The use of this black background makes the different coloured lights stand out as well as making her, the star stand out.

Passion Pit- Take a Walk

The second video I have chosen to analyse is Passion Pit- Take a Walk because I wanted to look at the genre, indie-pop which is what Passion Pit fits into. The video also fits in with the disjuncture category as there isn’t a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals apart from the chorus ‘take a walk’ and the visuals being outside. I think this makes the video look interesting as the video doesn’t look like a commercial for the song; instead it’s more of a short film with no reference to the lyrics. As it is a very straight forward clip that chronicles the travels of a bouncing blue ball, it focuses on the motion and lyrics of the song which not only makes this artist quirky and creative but shows off the indie characteristics. 

Coldplay- Every Teardrop in a Waterfall

The third video I have chosen to analyse is Coldplay- Every Teardrop is a Waterfall. Coldplay mostly fit into the alternative genre of music which means this video would fit into the illustration genre of music videos. The video shows characteristics from the alternative genre, for example the contrasting effects of fluorescent lights and the slow motion jerky camera effects and movement.

I have chosen this video due to the style of editing that has been used. I particularly like this because it is very simplistic with the bands performance and a straight forward narrative which visualizes the music and lyrics. However even though a simple narrative has been used the editing techniques such as the shuddery effects, animations and colours make this video energetic and exciting. This could also indicate that watching them live has the same atmosphere and ambience and therefore could be used as a marketing tool for the band. Lyrics and drawings are shown through animations so that the audience can visualise the lyrics as well as listening to them. They are also up beat and fast moving just like the editing to keep the video constant throughout and to show the direct links to the song.

There are many different camera angles used in this video so that the video doesn’t become boring and/or lose the audiences interest, for example the camera follows the lead singer right through the video but then allows him to come in and out of scenes from all sorts of angles. This makes the audience feel more involved with the music video as it’s as if they are following him themselves. The paces of the shots are very quick to match with the beats of the music and to keep the energetic feel steady all through the video. The camera shots and editing go with the lyric meanings as there is reference to being young and innocent, and having a powerful energy and spirit. The bright colours that are used also help represent this and give off a positive mood.