CD Magazine Advertisements

This advert for PLAN B's album we thought was interesting as there is a big image of himself to the side, and the second image is the CD itself. The way in which his name is written at the top in red bold lettering is a good idea as it is probably the first thing you would look at if you saw this in a magazine. We also liked the idea of the ratings list from other magazines and newspapers. We thought this would be an interesting feature to use as it would potentially gain more fans of the band and have more people listen to the CD. The colour of the black and white image contrasted with the red writing is good as it makes it stand out more, this is definitely an image idea we would use to influence ours.

The Razorlight advert is also a type of advert we would be interested in using in our work. We like the idea of all four members on the cover in their own space with the light shining against them. Although it isn't a black and white cover which is what we would be leaning towards, we like the small element of colour against their clothes and faces. It is interesting how one of the band members are looking in a different direction rather than into the camera. The top left member is dressed in white rather than black, this could show that he is the lead singer maybe and the 'light' of the group. The title font is big, bold, white and eye catching against the black background. Whereas the copy font underneath is also white against black, but smaller as it is the extra information. This advert is also a good idea to use, however it would more than likely be black and white.

Magazine Covers

These are some issues of the New Musical Express, an extremely popular magazine that covers an assortment of different bands and genres. These are some modern bands that are in the same category as Bleachbird and have been chosen due to the same style and genre. All these bands look very laid back in their photo's, and they give off the impression they're in a tight knit gang. This is the kind of image we would like to give Bleachbird, because they all work very closely together to make their music and the frontmen work together to create a good stage presence for their audience. We also liked on these magazines how there is a colour theme to each one. For example on the first and middle magazine there is a lot of red and white and then on the third there is a lot of yellow.

Flat Plans

These are the two flat plans for the front, back and spine of a cd digi pack. We came up with the first idea by looking at other original CD covers. The covers we looked at all involved an image as the main focus of the cover in which we liked the idea of. On the first cover flat plan we liked the idea of having newspaper text as a background throughout the whole pack as we thought from The Libertines cover were the title is in cut up text from magazines or newspapers. We also liked that idea and would like to try it out for out title. The back cover of the first flat plan, we had the idea of using like a notebook style then having a list of the songs on the album listed on to it so it looks quite 3d. The second flat plan is a slightly different layout to the first as not the image is not in the centre of the cover, its more to the right hand side of the cover as we thought the title would look good going across the image similar to the Sex Pistols cover. Again on this one we would carry over the idea of using the newspaper print as the background.    

This is a basic idea to what we would use for the inside of our cd cover. We decided we didn't want so much going on on the inside as that is where the cd will be. We liked the idea of the inside being two photos of the members joined together on each side as then there is not a lot going on. The only other thing that we would add in is a short bit of text on the left side cover. Or If we were to make a little book to go in with the lyrics and images inside.   

These two above are basic flat plans for magazine advertisements. These are the things you would see inside a magazine when a cd is about to be released. The two we have made are similar to the the two covers that we have made as we wanted to keep the 'trademark' recognisable. We have also kept the idea very simple as again we don't want to much going on as if there was it would look over crowded and take the advertisements purpose away. All we have put on it is the band name, images and the release information on the cd.   

Songs for the video

Bleachbird

This is a sample of the music by the chosen band Bleachbird.

This is the band we have decided to make a music video for in our task. The song we are using is yet to be chosen, however Bleachbird are currently writing a new song which we believe will be used.

Click on the link above to preview the songs.

Permission

For the use of the music and band use we needed to ask permission from the band.

We Emailed Connaugh asking for his permission...

and this was the response:

By this we decided to use the song and the band, this was good as it wasn't unknown to Bleachbird that we were using their music and with this they were incorporated into the Video.

Inspirational Music Video.

We came across this video on Youtube whilst looking for inspiration and decided that we liked the theme of producing a black and white style video. We liked this idea because our theme is going to be based on indie rock type music and we believe that the black and white would work better than doing it in full colour as we thought it would be a different approach of taking back time and bringing the the past back to life, by using an unsigned local band to our advantage. What we liked from this particular music video is how the story gives you a sense of emotion towards the main character and automatically links the attention to the story. What we noticed about this style video is that with it being in black and white it is associated with negative feelings which reflects the song within the video.

Again we came accross this video and straight away we liked how is was also in black and white. Another aspect we noticed was how the story on the video starts before the actual music starts as this gives an insight of the storyline. Also we like how ther camera follows the characters every move, then sometimes she is the cameras perspective. The video is set in the mode of the first person which we thought was interresting as its as though the whole song is based on her life. Throughout the video there is an aspect of isolation to the extent that she is the main focus and there is only one other recognisable character. This is also very useful to us as the area we would be filming in is sort of like the one in this video. We liked this because it has the theme that we are looking for in our own video.    

We also like this video, it is a bit different to the others as they are fully black and white.
This video has the use of contrast between both the colour and the black and white which we also like. There is the use of different ways in which it is shot, such as the four grid shot which has different colours in each box (photo A). We like the way in which the colour is used in (photos B&C).
In our video we will be using the staged band aspect, the way it is used in this could be used in ours, however our storyline doesn't revolve entirely focused on the band.

 Photo A. We like this effect on the video for ours because it isn't like a normal video, the effect of using the different colours in each square gives a different view on each position that he is in.

Photo B & C. We like the contrast of the red and blue and the pink and green, however in the video each colour is practically pushed off the screen, fading from red, to blue, green to pink. This effect would be good to use in ours as it will place a contrast with the black and white at certain points within the video

Inspirational Cd Covers

This album cover we have chosen to look at is Tribes. The cover of the album is very simplistic, plain but catchy. Looking at this cover you would assume that their genre of music is very laid back, by their positioning and clothing. But can give you false impressions. Tribes are being represented as laid back men, taking a break on a bench against a white wall standing out but looking nonchalant. There is plants in the bottom of the wall growing through the brick and cement which might represent beauty underneath, after all the album is titled 'baby'. It may be a stereotypical representation of a band all sitting together. The target audience for this particular album is teenagers or adults of both genders with this sort of music interest. The audience are represented in the album cover by the age range of the band members as they look like young adults.

We chose this CD cover as we liked the way in which it had been set out. the whole cover is in black and white apart from a two words in the name of the band. We like this becasue in out ideas we thought of doing a black and white style video which would match this cover. Also in the logo for out band we liked the idea again of staying with greyscale colouring with only a bit of colour. Which is why we chose this cover as inspiration. Another aspect of this cover we liked is how the background is very basic and the people involved are making the cover complete. The people involved give of this tough look towards the viewer but mixing it with a white background could give a different impression as they are not usually two things you mix together. We liked this idea for out cd cover as in out badn we have 4 members and keeping it simple the way this one does would work quite well.

We chose to look at this CD cover as well because we liked the contrasting dark and light colours of the pink and the blue.
We also liked the style of font use and the

Our Plan

For our Media Product we have decided to create a music video based around one of the songs of a band and genre we both like to listen to.

The genre we have chosen is Indie Alternative, in our pair we both enjoy elements of this genre such as the style of music and the dress style of the band members and the difference in video's by existing bands such as the colours used, the shots used and the storyline behind the video.
By using this genre we will take on board all of these ideas and make them into our own.

In the product, we need to create a music video, CD digipack and a magazine CD advertisement, for this we will look at inspirational texts for each, including different videos's, CD's and adverts.
We will also look indepth into genre and audience along with producing a production logo for our company.