Album artwork - Similar products

I am comparing four R&B album digi-packs to see how they portray their image through various conventions. 

Janet Jackson - Unbreakable 

 

Alicia Keys - The Element of Freedom 

Rihanna - Good Girl gone Bad 

Whitney Houston - I look to you 

All four album covers include a picture of their artist. They all focus on their face. Two of the four albums are face on profiles of the females, showing and empowering the female identity as strong and independent. The other two albums created by Rihanna and Alicia Keys are more secretive showing less eye contact towards the audience.

In terms of technical conventions all front pages of the digipack apart from Rihanna’s use a medium close up shot this captures the essence of their beauty through such a simplistic shot, showing their target audience who would all fall under females ranging from late teens all the way through to adults. Rihanna’s front page relates more to a medium long shot; this emphasises a seductiveness to her. However, to keep it personal and relatable the back page does have a close up of her face where she makes eye contact to the camera showing her target audience she can connect with them.

I then wanted to look at the symbolic conventions of the album digipacks. I am comparing how the artists portray and use different forms of Mise-en-scene to connect to their target audience. First of all, in terms of character positioning all the artists are pretty central in their album covers, if not they are just off centre this shows they are owning their album, expressing female empowerment once again this is important as it helps them create a connection with their target audience who will be wanting to copy their style and ways. I then looked at costume and noticed Witney, Janet and Rihanna are all wearing pretty simplistic clothing, which shows off their skin and natural beauty. They all have a block colour whether it be white or black and keep it as simple as that. In terms of the genre of R&B Pop I think this type of look is heavily associated with it, as its giving the message that less is more. In contrast Alica’s album arguably stands out as the top she is wearing looks more exotic and creative, this is a different way of showing confidence in wearing things more out there. Overall all the artists do show bare skin a lot throughout their album artwork and this shows a seductive, confidence to these females, they are selling confidence and sex appeal which ultimately is what will sell albums. This connects to not only their target audience but also helps to reach out to a wider audience maybe even including males. Another element of mise-en-scene is facial expression the four female artists I’m looking into all seem to have a more serious, secretive look on their front page, however on the back page of the digi-pack they are more relaxed and friendly looking. Lastly I wanted to look at lighting, I found that Witney, Janet and Alicia all use bright lighting also known as beauty lighting to show their whole face, they have done this so the audience feels they can see them and therefore connect with their music. Rihanna chose to use dim, mysterious lighting surrounding her, yet on the back page we still see her face lit up just in a more secretive way, this also works to the genre however exposes a more hidden image of her as an artist.

Relating the technical and symbolic conventions I have looked at on the artist’s album cover I would say in terms of analysing them with Richard Dyer’s star theory there is a clear connection between the stars being both a commodity produced and consumed on the strengths of their meanings, which are attached to the target audience. The stars have to be a commodity, construction and ideology to be successful. The star must also be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer. The female artists create this through their seductive front covers, which create a mysterious vibe tying in with Dyer’s second part to his theory stating the star must be simultaneously present and absent. The audience see’s the artists who look sexy and flawless, however then they see the back covers which show a more open and honest side to their character and the audience feel they can then connect and relate to the vulnerability of their natural make-up that all the world can see. All four artists therefore achieve Dyer’s star theory by creating an image that they are both accessible and desirable at the same time.

Having analysed these four albums, I do think, the artists seem to capture the essence of what it is their consumer wants. They give themselves as a commodity, construction and ideology to the audience creating a great opportunity for there to expand their target audience and continue to excel in the music industry. They have all in my eyes successfully constructed a star theory that fits into the genre of R&B, and I believe on top of their natural talent at music, this star theory has also explained their huge success.

Shot Lists

In my group we have created our shot lists, this is basically there to provide an order of the shots that we want to capture as well as give us a guide of the shots we need to take. The shot list is important as its used in the real film industry so the whole crew understand what needs filming and can tick of the shots as you go, this is crucial so you don't leave any shots of and forget them. The reason we have done such a detailed one is to try and stay organised, we want everyone to know what needs doing and are hoping our shot list will help the day run as smoothly as possible. 

Checking the progress of the sets for shoot day

I went to the studio, and looked at the sets we have so far, some are in progress being built whilst other things such as lighting have been ordered and I was waiting to see if they had arrived. 

The reason my group and I decided to do a set check is so that, we know what we still need to get for shoot day so we have time to sort it out. The most important thing for us is that we are fully prepared and ready to go, the last thing we want is to forget something or not be ready. Overall I think our set check went well, one of our main elements is the wheel, which has been built out of wood, with a double layer on the bottom so we can have a dancer stand on it and it be strong enough to not fall through. The wheel looks really good, and is what we were hoping for, its size is 6,1 Meters in height so our girl who is tall already, and will be wearing heels can stand and pose within it. 

The last thing we needed to check was our lights that we had ordered in for our shoot, they are hot pink and a turquoise light blue these colours are crucial as they play a big part in the colour scheme we are hoping to use. We are really happy with the colours they are, and were relieved to see them in person, as you never know what colour they will be when ordering online. 

Filming roles

During a shoot you usually have different filming roles these include the Director who is responsible for organising and instructing the actors as well as the rest of the crew as to where they should be. 


You also have a Camera person solely in charge of capturing the footage on the camera throughout the shoot. 

Often there is an Art Director in charge of looking after and organising things like props and costumes. 

There is often a producer whose responsibility it is to oversee aspects of the shoot, organising the other members of the production team and ensuring the smooth running of the shoot, this is crucial to getting effective execution of the objectives.

 Lastly you have someone on Sound Playback and Lighting Desk, who take care of how the lighting is looking and have the skills to set up the take using the playback desk, so that in later processes such as editing your editor knows what’s what and can then cut and edit a lot quicker.

Allocating filming roles for our music video shoot

In my group we have allocated roles for our shoot day. We believe dividing the jobs and duties up will not only save time but mean we make the most out of day, it terms of productivity. We all have a set role which we will focus on sticking to on the day of our shoot.

My allocated role is the Art Director and sounds playback and lighting disk. I am going to be responsible for the set, props, costume, make up and continuity of our shoot. My main job is to keep things organised and ready to go when needed. I am going to need to focus on things like costumes and props making sure they are in the right place at the right time, as well as this I want to have everything looking good and clean so when it goes in front of the camera it looks good. The other side of my job is being in charge of playback and lighting disk this means I stand with the playback disk in front of the camera before each new shot of footage, it basically stores the music for our song, and plays it back over and over so we can have it on loud speaker in the studio to shoot, so our dancers and set crew can listen to the song as we go. The key to the job is to be ready when the director shouts “rolling” then “playback” that’s when I have to get into the correct position where ever the dancer or singer is standing and place the playback very near to them. The key to the job is listening out for others, and keeping focused on what is going on in the set, as an art director I need to be ready to improvise in case we end up with say the wrong costume that doesn’t fit, or we cannot get hold of a prop.

The reason we have given ourselves individual jobs is because we feel each role specialises in a different aspect so that everyone completing their jobs are doing them at high standards to execute a high level of organisation and standards on the day. The media production is a social collaboration which requires a division of labour, with people who have specialised skills in order to create the right shots and end up with the correct representation of Dyer’s star image for the ‘pop promo’ and single release. I think the way we have allocated ourselves roles works as we can all focus on that one job, and do it to the best of our ability with the end goal being we will have a good shoot day with a large amount of usable footage at the end.

Emailing our make-up artist

We were put in touch with our make-up artist Jackie Witney, and so put together an email specifying all the different looks we are trying to achieve. In our email we asked Jackie if it would be possible to create these looks for our music video. Below is the emails back and forth discussing our make-up for the shoot. 

Having sorted out the emails, we are now ready to create the looks we want. 

Shoot day confirmed

We have been given our shoot day on Wednesday 2nd of November. Having received this we have had to email our actors informing them of the confirmed date. This is now the date where we will need all our costumes, props and actors ready to go so we can hopefully shoot with as little problems as possible. 

Below is an email I sent out confirming our shoot day: