As you can see, the album cover is very similar to the vibe that comes across with the Sex Pistols. Aggressive, different and unconventional the cover shows a drawn on Great Britain flag, and a drawn on track list, fitting the Sex Pistols and their anti Society, rebellious style.
Sometimes, an album cover can share elements with the name of the album or artist but not be directly linked to them. An example of this is Kanye West and Jay Z's Watch the Throne. The album cover is basically a gold square with an intricate pattern inscribed onto it. The link lies with the Title 'Watch the Throne'. When someone is royalty we assume generally that they have a vast amount of money and objects, stereotypically gold. The gold design on the front cover although not directly fits the name of the album or artists, still has a link to it's meaning in design.
Here is the album front cover for 'Watch the Throne'.
A Digipak can give the person looking at it a small idea as to what the band's album is about and the general vibe of the music. Generally, the Digipak matches the usual vibe that it's genre has already been using. You would expect for example a rock band to have a similar feel to it compared to another rock band's digipak.
Here is a sliderocket analysing a digipak:
FOR USE ON SLIDE ROCKET INCOMPLETE:
A Digipak is the front and inside cover of an album. It has a general set of conventions that are expected to be on it, such as:
Track list
A Barcode
The Record company's logo
Disk impression and separate disk design
Six panels
A spine with the Artists name and album
A picture of the band on the inside.
From our Preliminary task I have learned most importatnly about vertical editing. I have found that it is much easier to film the different shots all singing the song the whole way through, to then edit and drop between the different clips. Not only does it look smoother, but it is also much easier to edit than smaller specifically filmed clips. I've also learned about filming in the sense that you need to pick the right location in order to avoid things such as unintentional camera glare.
Overall I feel that our preliminary task went quite well, the uploaded quality to youtube was dissapointing but the lip syncing was successful, to make the video better we could have been more creative with the shots and to use a girl to sing the womans part in the song.
Here is the band 'The Midnight Heavy' on their profile on Unsigned.com and on the Right is or chosen song 'Fire + Bones' here is a link to the audio clip.
Like everything else, Music videos have a set of general conventions that people try to follow and is some cases avoid depending on the vision for a video. Some of the conventions are seen as Negative stereotype that are usually associated with certain genres of music. For example In rap music , you would expect girls and cars and extravagant objects. This is an example of a negative set of conventions, as they lead to a lot of music videos becoming very similar and un-inspired.
However these conventions can have positive outcomes, you can learn from them and try to avoid them when you are making your own video, which would lead to unique and exciting videos.
Before we use someone's music for our video, we had to ask permission from the band to use their song. Here is a screen shot of the band allowing us permission to use their Song 'Fire + Bones', The band is called The Midnight Heavy.
Emil Nava is a successful music video director who has worked with some up an coming, and famous British artists. He has directed the videos to some very successful songs such as Ed Sheeran's "Lego House" and Rita Ora's "RIP"
Along with his music videos, Nava has made television adverts as well, Including an advert for Loreal,
His varying work has resulted in some popular and successful music videos from the 21st century.
His first video was for a band named Kid British, and song is called 'Our House', the video cost £20,000 and was filmed in one day, after being in pre production for 10 days and was only in post production for 3 days. It also used a cast of local people from the Manchester area:
KID BRITISH 'OUR HOUSE'
He had previously worked for companies such as Pulse films, Rocket, Agile films, Friends and Wonda, but now he works Freelance for OB Management. OB Management is a company that works with young directors to find them the right record label to work for and to match them to the right artist.
Here's an example of one of Nava's music videos with a bigger name artist:
JESSIE J FEATURING B.O.B 'PRICE TAG'
Jamie Thraves begun by making short films whilst he was a university. He used these short films he had made as a 'calling card' in order for him to get his foot in the door with Factory films. They eventually let him begin to shoot £5,000 music videos.
The system of making the music videos works like this:
-A commissioner sends a track to between 5-10 directors.
-The directors send back a 'treatment' for the track that includes such things as a storyboard.
-However this in unpaid.
-The director who has submitted the best treatment, is then commissioned to make the video.
-Only then is the director paid.
The lively-hood of the directors is solely based on whether or not they get the commission.
Thraves sent treatments for both of his best known videos, Radiohead's 'Just', and Coldplay's 'The Scientist'.
He has also shot three feature films, 'The low down', 'The cry of the Owl' and 'Treacle Jr'.
Here are the videos for 'Just' and 'The Scientist'.
SLEDGEHAMMER
The quality of the stop motion animation in Sledgehammer is what makes this video so memorable a a No.2 in the list. The animation is imaginative and flows nicely as the song goes along, the singer Peter Gabriel looks as though he is actually morphing and changing into the clay figures in the video. The overall brilliance of the video comes from the ability of it to continue to look impressive even today and stands amongst modern videos as a top class production.
THRILLER
Without a doubt the most influential video ever is Michael Jackson's Thriller. Still today the number 1 sold album of all time, the video to Thriller was a cultural phenomenon. Requiring it's own TV slot time after midnight because it's 'scary' premise to be shown. Considering there wasn't a British MTV at the time, millions of people tuned in to see the long exciting video perform in a Hollywood style movie production with music. Because of the youtube generation, it's almost impossible to imagine a video with the ability to create such a media sensation and cultural sensation that Thriller had and has created and changing the landscape of music videos, without a doubt, the number 1 music video of all time.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody video was only as a result of them not wanting to appear on Top of the Pops, as in those days the No.1 song in the charts used to be performed live in the studio, or if not they would show live footage of the song being played at a previous time. The video to this song however was shot quickly , and effectively, leading it to be as well recognized a video as there ever has been, as the main shots of the video were identical to the bands album cover. The fact that the video is still recognized today shows how it has stood well to the test of time and is still very memorable.
TAKE ON ME
The video to A-Ha's 'Take on Me' is such a memorable video because still today people are confused as to how some of the technical parts of the video were actually achieved. The effortless combination of animation and live action fits together perfectly as the video shows great skill and execution. However, the real great point to the video is the added value it gave to a song that had tanked with it's first release, but after it released a second time with the video it became a huge success.
ROCK DJ
This video is mostly memorable because of the controversy and odd nature of the ending. At the end of the video, Singer Williams strips his skin off of his body and thus created more controversy than the actual original base of the video already had. The initial controversy was created by the somewhat suggestive style of the video throughout, combine this with the song being a number 1 in the charts, makes the video a memorable one.
LIKE A PRAYER
This video's created controversy is a prime example of how Madonna was able to change her image throughout her career whilst also keeping her self relevant and spoke about by those in the media. The video shows Madonna being intimate with a Black Jesus in a church. Which caused massive controversy amongst 'traditional' religious people and music listeners, as the concept offended them, however it is a prime example of a star using controversy to create attention for themselves.
BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY
The memorable aspect of this video is the sheer lack of care the lead singer of the band shows as he walks down the street knocking down any and everything that gets in his way. It play's on the stereotype that is common in the UK , that people in the North are hard and tough in contrast to those in the south who are perceived as soft. The video has been subject to parody over the years including the song 'Vindaloo'. The slight comedy aspect of the video and the singer's performance makes the video more memorable along with the fact that the song is now used as the main song for ITV's coverage of the UEFA Champions league football tournament.
BILLIE JEAN
Part of the uniqueness of the Billie Jean video comes as a result of Singer Michael Jackson's fascination with things that are 'magical'. So for example as he is walking down the street the pavement slabs he stepped on light up upon contact. However, not all of the slabs were wired to light up. This meant that Jackson had to create a routine on the fly to hit certain steps highlighting the skill and awareness he has whilst dancing.
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
The look of the video to smells like teen spirit takes the look of a 'corny' American high school and turns it into a dark, depressing setting. The scene has a slight orange tinted, dark glow to it, like a fire. But this dark image fits in perfectly with the mood and the sound of the music, dark and aggressive, the song and video are memorable as part of a culture that rose in the 90's and changed the landscape of popular music at the time.
VOGUE
As Madonna's career has progressed, she has managed to change her image significantly in order to attempt to stay current with the music and fashion in different ears of time. 'Vogue' is an example of this, as a popular dance in the 90's , Madonna capitalises on the craze of the dance 'Vogueing' with this video and hence why it is more memorable.
As the video is called 'It's all so quiet', you would expect the video to be set in a somewhat quiet, subdued place, as it is, in a tyre shop. But as the video progresses the pace of the song picks up and the setting contrasts the speed and sound of the music. As it moves onto the street it continues the 'mundain' settings that don't fit with the song. What makes this video stand out is how the settings come to life as the song picks up at points, with dancers and moving props the song becomes more exciting at points in he music where other wise it's a somewhat dull song. The video adds value to the song.
This music video is most memorable because of the real emotion that is being expressed by O'Connor down to some of the words in the song. Considering she had lost her mother, one of the lines sparks some emotion from the singer, and she begins to cry on camera. And this is what makes the video stand out more than others. As it is shot majority of the time in extreme close-up, the experience becomes more intense and personal for the viewer as they see her real emotions on camera.
