Album advert analysis - Oliver Thompson

This music album advertisement includes many typical conventions of music adverts. A typical convention in this is that it includes the band title, it also includes the album title and the name of singles, which consumers may be able to relate to. The advert also includes the typical convention of album artwork as it tries to convey what genre of music the artist is. Another convention is the advert is that incorporates Magazine reviews rating it (NME). Additionally it includes the typical conventions of the website links for it and the sales outlets (HMV).

Analysis of a student digipak, Oliver Thompson

This digipak contains typical digipak conventions. The artist name The Jane Bradfords is included and on the back page there is a shot list. Another convention added was the bar code and copyright information also on the back page. There is the artist name on the spine of the album and another convention used was the lyrics on the inside of the cover. The colour scheme also compliments itself and helps to give idea to what is the genre of the music.

This digipak worked well as the artist title and and other information was clearly shown through the vibrant colour scheme which would help to attract consumers. Also there is effective use of lyrics in the cover. However it does not contain important typical conventions such as Artist imagery is not included.

Digipak analysis, Oliver Thompson

This digipak is an album for the Sneakyspeeks. This digipak follows typical digipak conventions. It contains the artist and album name “face in a crowd”, there are also images of the band performing, introducing each artist with their name and what instrument they play. The spine of the digipak is covered in information and there is artist and bonus information behind the CD. There is imagery on the CD which reflects the genre and fits in with the black and red colour scheme.

Filming, Oliver Thompson

Today we filmed our last shots in the schools drama studio. We wanted to film our "house of fun" as a crazy new club, which really went with the songs lyrics. We were able to utilize the studios lighting effects, of which we chose to use the disco ball lighting making the the mise en scene perfect. We wanted to give ourselves a formal look with a crazy twist, as the main character has matured however we still considered the crazy aspects of The Madness "House of Fun" music video.

Our props were that of an adult party with the alcohol, cigarettes, sunglasses and trilby hats. Also i made a small poster for the House of Fun which was shown to the camera in one of the shots so the audience understand the new setting.

Furthermore as a group we uploaded and edited in the new final shots. We had to cut the shits to the beat and get the lip syncing perfectly in time.

Letter to our Record label

Stiff Records Ltd
The Blue Building, 8-10 Basing Street
London W11 1ET, United Kingdom

Dear Stiff Records

I am writing a letter to you, to ask for the permission to use one of your artist’s songs in our own production, for our A level media coursework. The song is The House of Fun by The Madness. We really appreciate it if we could hear from you soon.


Yours sincerely

William Wise

Mornington Rd
Woodford Green
Essex IG8 0TP

Pitch

In the end we didn't use this idea as it lacked narrative and our feedback was quite negative. The feedback received in our group felt that we lacked creativity and that we didn't plan thoroughly enough, as the music video was based around 4 monkeys running around in different places. We decided to change our music video to House of fun by Madness as we have a better narrative and fits our idea well. The previous song we were going to do didn't have a music video as well, this made it difficult for us to think of a music video, whilst House of fun by Madness had a music video which gave us a couple of ideas o what to do and to help us follow the style they achieved in their music video.

Analysis of "That Tree"

"That Tree" is produced by the artist Snoop Dogg Featuring Kid Cudi. The song was released in December 8th 2009 and is off his album Malice in Wonderland. The Genre of this song is hip hop. The music video includes typical conventions of a music video such as lip syncing, performance,narrative, is cut to the beat of the music which is a moderate pace and the artists are heavily featured as the center of the music video."That Tree" Contains typical convetions of a hip hop music video such as it objectifies women. this represents a specific life style they want people to see they live. The music videos length is 4 minutes 34 seconds, which is not a typical thing for a music video its slightly longer tan the average 2 to 3 minute video.

This screen grab below shows the typical convention of women being objectified.



This screen shot below shows the music video convention of lip syncing and performance.

Madness- House of fun

Pitch-Song choice and Artist Background

Song title/band: "House of Fun" by Madness

Genre/Style: Ska/Pop

Band Members:
Graham "Suggs" McPherson
Mike Barson
Lee Thompson
Chris Foreman
Mark Bedford
Daniel Woodgate
Carl Smyth

Record labels: Stiff, Virgin, Lucky 7 Records

Years together: 1976–present (on and off)

Song Released in 1982 and was their only number 1 UK hit.

We decided to change our idea from The Monkees (see below), as we felt that our idea was not specific, would cost a lot and the performance side of it would be too hard whilst wearing the suits. And whilst the song fitted in with the Monkey suit idea, we decided to do "House Of Fun" instead without the Monkey suits and with the idea stated above.

Original Idea
Song/ Artist- Hey Hey, We're the monkees (theme from the monkees) By The Monkees
Target Audience- Teenage girls
genre/Style-Bubblegum Pop (which was targeted at a teenage girl audience between 1967-77)

Our idea was to go around in Monkey suites doing different things and creating a narrative through the lyrics of the song, as well as incorporating performance.

Evaluation questions for practice music video

1. identify the task as well as the song/artist

Our task was t create a prelim music video for the song No More Mr Nice Guy by Alice Cooper.

2. How have you used digital technology during the construction of your video?

We used digital technology as when we filmed we used a digital camera which connected to our Apple computers. We used technology in the editing as we used the software I movie HD. We also used it when uploading our Prelim task to youtube.

3. Discuss the planning stage of your production and the steps that you went through.

Firstly we identified the genre and used the internet to find the conventions of a typical rock music video including using youtube to see some of the videos. We then created a story board which helped us plan out the shots and the story line which we were to include in our task.

No More Mr Nice Guy - Alice Cooper