Conventions of a CD cover of a similar genre ¬
Previously in the blog I have looked at CD covers such as Lady GaGa and La Roux that I feel that I have used, developed and challenged. Here are further examples of similar CD covers that show the conventions of the pop genre.
Conventions we used for the CD cover
• As you can see we have used many conventions from both the La roux album and lady GaGa. In all four-album covers there head takes up most of the cover. We used this convention too some respect by having a close up of Abi on the left side of the album cover. Making them the main part of the cover therefore makes the artists very noticeable.
• Another convention we used was the choice of font and how we purposely selected it to suit the rest of the album. The font of Lady Gaga’s album certainly suits it’s celebrity style and so we choose a quirky font to match the quirky style of the song and music video.
• Another convention of an album cover we used was the position of the singer. When looking at other artists it was more often than not centred either at the top or bottom of the cover. Although this may seem obvious many artists choose to position the title in a different place due to the picture or even not have their name on the front cover at all.
• The back cover was also pretty conventional with the song list taking up most of the space on the front cover and the picture not really being very important. The song list is obviously the most important part of the back cover and therefore the font choice and colour is again very important – it needs to be readable but also stand out. We feel that our back cover does this. We made sure that the writing was readable by making it a standard white and making sure none of the background distorted the writing.
• The barcode and extra information is also an important feature of any back cover and is therefore why we added that. We made sure there was enough room for these features by altering the song list.
Conventions we developed & challenged for the CD cover
• The background of our album cover has challenged many other artists in the same genre who have simply just used a plain colour with some lighting, it is not very noticeable and instead the artist is made the centre of attention. However on the other album covers the background is certainly not very noticeable. Therefore we challenged the convention of the background by making it an important scenic shot. This is very different to the other albums – La Roux’s is a simple red background. Compared to ours where we used a sketchy effect from photoshop on a scenic background of tress and part of the hockey pitch. Obviously the lighting of our cover is used in photoshop and we feel it looks very effective. The gradient tool was used regularly to add lighting from different angles – adding a natural sunlight to the front cover.
• We also developed other album covers of the same genre by adding three secondary characters that were used in the music video to display Abi as unpopular & clumsy. However this personality is not really seen in our album cover because it was only the theme in one song and not a recurring theme. The same can be said in Kate Miller Heidke video of The Last Day on the Earth in which the video follows a lonely theme which is not seen on the album cover (Little Eve) – which is colourful.
• We also developed the convention of the back cover by adding Kate Miller Heidke’s name in same colour and font as on the front cover. We did not find many artists had done this and thought that it added more to the back cover.
Conventions of a Advertisement of a similar genre
Conventions of a Pop Music Video
We challenged the conventions of a music video by having a unique idea which we have related to the text. To challenge the conventions of the kind of character you would have in a music video we chose to have our main character as a clumsy outsider who can’t play hockey. This contrasts to the usual hit music videos that have attractive young woman as the main focus of the video. Such as, Brtiney Spears;
Mis-en-scene –We used costumes to symbolise how Abi was left out of the group of girls who wear all wearing the same outfit. Abi is left in the changing room deciding what to wear as she wasn’t good enough to wear the same kit as the other three girls. This was subverting the typical genre of pretty girls always fitting in and being popular because Abi the main actress is attractive yet still disclosed from the group. We also used different colour hair bands as the tempo of the music and the different colours of Abi’s tops added colour to the costumes. We used natural lighting outside and when we filmed in the changing room it was slightly dimmer to contrast with the natural outside lighting. We used the conventions of a typical actress from music videos to create the look of the girls playing hockey. With lots of make up and the main girl having eye shadow and rave paint on her face. We did this to show the video was to do with fitting in and how the main girl tried to copy the others so they would accept her.
Setting – As our video was based around hockey we filmed outside on the hockey pitch and in the changing room.
Editing – As the music was fast paced and it had a strong beat throughout the song we had to speed up some of clips to go with the beat. Such as when Abi was hitting the ball and when she was walking down to the pitch. This is an alternative we used instead of cutting out irrelevant information we sped it up to make it go with the music and the temp of the song. We also edited certain scenes so Abi moved position on every beat to add variety to the shots. As it is very conventional for music videos to jump cut to the beat of the song we did this in our video. We also sped some images up and put them in a different order to create variety and avoid repetitive shots.
Camerawork – We used a variety of shots in our music video such as ariel shots to look down on Abi as she was singing the lyrics, cutting to close ups and shots from the side of her. We varied our shots outside with full shots of the pathway to close ups of the stick. These are typical conventions from pop music videos which are used to create a fast paced, fun and easy to watch video. Another typical convention of a music video is the cut from a long shot of the character to a close up of the singing. We used this convention while Abi was in the changing room.
Comparison with other Music videos
Girls Can't Catch - Keep Your Head Up
Girls Can’t Catch | MySpace Music Videos
We feel that this music video by Girls Can't Catch is a good way to show how we have used and challenged conventions of a pop music video. Conventions that we used that are also clear in this video are the close up's of the main singer or singers to represent the main character(s). Furthermore the fast editing pace in both our music video and Girls Can't Catch shows the theme of competing in both music video's. Another convention that is clear we used is the setting - which was obviously very important to set the scene and the plot of the music video. Costumes in both our video and Girls Can't Catch is a further necessity and convention we used.
However there are also conventions we challenged in our music video - most obviously (as previously mentioned) the blonde, good looking girl being unpopular and clumsy throughout the music video. This is obviously challenging other famous pop videos where the Main singer is the most popular girl showing attitude and dancing etc. This is certainly shown in many of Brittany Spears music videos where she shows star image and voyeurism. Furthermore we again challenged a convention seen in many pop videos by having no boys with the girls and instead only including girls. This convention can be very important in pop videos to further show the main characters popularity. Both these conventions we challenged are certainly shown in Brittany Spear's most famous pop video "Hit me Baby One More Time"
Advertisement and CD cover conclusion – The most important aspect of the advertisement and CD cover is that it’s the first thing peoples eye are drawn to. Using bright colours and an attractive girl on the front ensures that the socio demographic group we were aiming the CD at are attracted to it. We used bold writing and an interesting font so you could see the artist clearly. We also put the singer on the front cover so people would recognise the singer, this is done with millions of CD covers. For example;
We also used the background of the girls in the background to show some background to the songs and the music video. We used synergy by having the advertisement the same background and lots of images of the main singer. We also used the same font to advertise it so people would be able to see it in the shops and see the similarities.
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