Deconstruction of Album Covers

This album cover is clearly a take on Jack on the beanstalk which instantly sparks interest for the viewer as its familiar, but its been distorted to seem much more mythical and scary as well as the boy but much younger than the original. It all builds to give the album cover a spooky, dangerous and mysterious image. The ladder looks rough and impossible to climb again adding to the danger factor of the album cover. The sky is green where as up in the clouds its purple which gives the cover a toxic look as if the sky is poisonous and again dangerous, but retains this enigma of where the ladder leads to and the eye grabbing colours that attract us to the album. The fact that the character is a young child represents the naïve curiosity that the viewer can relate to and feel a part of whilst also reinforcing the danger he is in.

This is clearly designed to resemble the punk nature of the band and appeal to a rebellious youth audience. The stencil style of the red words across the undisturbed black and white image reminds us of spray paint on an undisturbed wall in society which is associated with rebellious youths. The way the figure is dressed is a typical punk style with his tattoo saying punk being made very clear as well as his hair, which gives the album a first look punk style reflecting the nature of the band. This is also represented in the scratchy scruffy writing of ‘…And out come the wolves’ which loosely resembles their punk style through their rejection of traditionally pleasing writing.

 

Reviewed Music Video Source Images

These are source images to give inspiration for our reviewed Music video idea

Music Video Timeline

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NoYpy82MNkjF5YulXaEmtWaArByzYeSEn_Bn6lZGMIc/edit

Music Video Shots Timeline

MUSIC VIDEO TIMELINE                                          SHEET NO: __1___

TIME	LYRICS/MUSIC	WHAT DO WE SEE
00:01 00:03 00:05 00:08 00:10 00:12 00:15 00:20 00:23 00:25 00:27 00:30 00:35 00:37 00:42 00:47 00:52 01:00	Intro beats Intro beats Intro beats Intro beats Intro beats Intro beats Beginning tune	Long shot from behind of two people on colourful bicycles. Cut to close ups of the wheel on the road. Close up of the faces listening to headphones of the song. Wide two shot one punches the air. Close up shot of the wheels on the road. Mid shot of them laughing. Wide shot of the crossing over on bikes. Close up shots of wheel spokes. Wide angle, stop at corner, served drinks. Extreme close up shot of drinking shots. Wide shot of throwing drinks on each other. Mid two shot of sat on pavement for a cigarette, have a break and chatting to each other. Close up of pedal as they get back on bikes. wide angle shot from behind as they cycle of in a drunk manner. Long shot of the two boys seeing how their sexuality affected their lives; Boy 1 being bullied by other kids. Boy 2 having an argument with his parents. We then see the 2 Boys being very affectionate with each other. They bicycle towards the club, they then lay down their bicycles and enter the club.

Treatment for Music Video

Media Studies - Treatment

Music Video Pitch

Media Studies - Pitch

Research into similiar artists

The Prodigy

We're researching into the Prodigy as a means for inspiration for our video from a similar artist. We're looking into the ways the Prodigy promote themselves and the way they utilise new media technologies as a means of inspiration for our artist.
http://www.theprodigy.com/index.php The Prodigy use their website to keep in connection with the fans particularly currently with a merchandise label advertised on their website called 'Red Ant Label', they use this by having their fans send in pictures of their red ant tattoos. Also to attract hits for their website they have a hot topics news feed which shares news that feeds into their psychadellic image.
http://soundcloud.com/theprodigy The Prodigy use soundcloud to upload new tracks they've made to again keep in connection with their fans and promote their own music.

 This is a music video of the Prodigy's for the song out of space, It clearly links in with their image and continues to market them as this psychadellic, partially insane band.

Initial Music Video Ideas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wed_2Xe_FSM
We looked at Groove Armada Superstylin' because we liked the style of the music and the idea of the giant speakers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DPF_pWIy3w
We looked at Smack my Bitch up by The Prodigy because we liked the genre of music and the insane style of the video and the style of point of view shooting. Another aspect we intend to take influence is the representation of sexuality.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfoFSTf6jw0
We looked at move any mountain because we liked the 80s party style of the video.tion





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPzv_EwxMl0
We looked at The Shamen Ebeneezer Goode music video for the live element aspect of the club party.

This is an album cover for the band youth, this could be a possibillity of influence for part of the club scene to try and create the same insanity within our music video as is shown in Ebenezer Goode and Smack My Bitch Up. This could be an idea for a way of suggesting that our character is on drugs without showing it literaly.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Az_7U0-cK0

This is Aphex Twins Come to Daddy, we looked at this because although its not neccessarily the aim of this video it shows a good way of suggesting the use of drugs through the panic attack of the old lady and the blue face inside shouting at her.





We started looking into the fifty shades trilogy due to its success as a way of promoting our artist and song whilst also taking influence from its 'Red Room' as the 'Grey Room' in our video with a similar idea of suggested activity that goes on. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n14/andrew-ohagan/travelling-southwards This is a negative review of the novels which we looked at because although its negative it admits that it sold multi millions due to its controversy, which we'll take influence from as a means of promoting our artist.

 

Initial Musc Video Ideas

This is the song we've decided to make a music video for because we like the heavy trance sound of it. Our first thoughts for the video was following a homosexual going to a club where this music would typically be played. We thought of a location of a big night club with lazers and strobes and women and men in leather dancing.

We thought we could fill a blacked out room with people and lights to re-create the club location and then have men and women dressed in leather on podiums dancing to suggest the gay club scene. The character would argue with his parents over them not accepting him as gay and then at the club he would take drugs, this is where the music would slow and the camera would 180 degree rotate to give show the change in the night. After this the club would be much more distorted and crazy. For the live performance element we could have the DJ in the club as the artist performing the song.

Why is Piracy Perpetuating Plastic Pop

Lars Ulrich was publicly critisized for taking actions against piracy in the music industry by suing napster. Although he claimed it was never about money but control, the fact that he was wealthy made it seem like only wealthy greedy rock stars cared about piracy. However Lily Allen did still speak out against piracy, after some older musicians had spoke out against the internet copyright laws, with the arguement that they had already made their money and they didn't care about making it impossible for the younger artists to make their living off music. However she was soon recieving death threats and hate mail and was forced to take the website down. Although some older musicians have expressed their concern for younger musicians trying to make it in the music industry with piracy looming over them. Massive Attack's 3D reported to the BBC on how worrying it was to see how many downloads each unlicensed piracy site was getting, '25,000, mulitply that by all the [unlicensed] sites in the world and that can be my whole profit gone'. He goes on to say how the continued actions of piracy will 'cheapen' the music industry. Noel Gallagher however has stronger opinions on consumer use of unlicensed downloads of music, making the point that if it cost the artist a lot of money to make he should at least be able to make that money back from the sales of the album he made. As an  independant artist on his own record label he explains that his tours are progressively becoming longer and longer due to this, and the money he loses is out of his own pocket rather than being backed and covered by a company. He goes on to say that this causes the music to be made by comittee and focus groups, using Jimi Hendrix to make the point that the artist makes the music how he wants to and then the consumer accepts it and buys it if they want to. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins follows to explain how this new piracy technology has turned 'Music culture into a service culuture' meaning that artists no longer make music based on their ideas and personal talents, they make music that is to be a commercial success. He concludes in noting how even if someone was to build a manufactured model person of a musician he wouldn't be picked, it would be someone who had commercial music and straight teeth and looked like the most typically socially acceptable person.

Trent Reznor and the Formula for Future Music Business Models

Masnick is the CEO and founder of web blog techdirt and Floor64.

Trent Reznor is singer/songwriter, composer and producer, he is the vocalist and many of the instrumentals in Nine Inch Nails. Masnick used Reznor as his example in a presentation in Cannes in France. In his presentations Masnick argues that the connection with fans in addition to the reason to buy results in the business model. Without these Masnick believes that artists will struggle to make money.
Through example of Reznor we can see that he connects with his fans using online alternate reality games as a way of follwing the band in a more involved manner. In addition he also would purposely leak music to build hype over the next coming CD, he also made CD's which changed colours under different light and heat intensity's which is obvoiusly the reason to buy coming into effect. This also helps to combat piracy as fans feel urge to buy the physical copy. Due to this leakage of music he was eventually dropped by his record label which provoked him to make it on his own. For one of his albums he gave away 9 free copies to stimulate the interest in his music using the connection with fans part of his scheme. He then sold the next 36 copies at $5, and a two disc CD box set with a booklet for $10, the box set and booklet increasing reason to buy. Following this was a $300 deluxe package and 2500 signed copies. They won a grammy for their song wish in 1993 and had a song at number two in the charts in 1994, their highest selling track in America. He then released an album called 'slip' for free. Reznor is an easy example of this formula because he uses many methods to Connect with his Fans and give them a reason to buy his albums, like his connection through the website which offers forums, pictures, videos and updates from the band.