Album Cover conventions

Typical conventions that an album cover has includes
- A close up or mid shot of the artist in a provocative and visually enticing pose. Costume and makeup is reflective of the genre for example a rock band would have a grungy aesthetic, with a dark colour scheme to reflect the mysterious and anti authority rebel ideologies. Juxtaposing this would be a pop artist, which would traditional include bright playfully colours to echo the optimistic, feel good nature of the music.

- Name of the artist are clearly seen on the front, in a type face that coincides with the genre

- Conventionally the name of the album reflects the overall ideologies of the album and what messages the artist is trying to convey about society, music and the media to their audience. More challenging artist such as Lady Gaga named her album 'the fame monster' to encourage the audience to question their perception of the capitalist society they live in and the celebrity obsessed life one may lead today. However less boundary breaking artists with a more mainstream image, Such as Cheryl Coles album '3 Words' reefers to love, relationship and men, extremely stereotypical for the pop genre.

-Genre and lifestyle demographics can clearly be distinguish through not only the photography style of the album artwork but also what symbols they use to signify this , such as record label symbols to convey they are part of large established corporation, and may indicate to the consumer their mainstream music, and that they brand as a whole echoes this also.

Album covers and artwork are extremely important as even through the sales of tangible albums are decreasing, the artwork for the covers are still being used through downloading websites such as itunes or amazon and continue to be a important part in marketing a artist and signifying the theme, beliefs and ideas behind a album and the artist.

Press Pack preparation

Our press pack for the promtoion of an artist or band includes a promotional video, as well as websites such as music myspace pages or a homepage which fans can access new music, album artwork, gig information, photographs and the latest updates with the artist/band, this will increase fan base as well as positive publicity. We will also include a magazine article or an advertisement that synchronies with the audience one wishes to target, this should reflect the genre of the artist and conventions commonly used such a a striking and engaging picture of the subject, or a statement picture that represent ideologies of the album issues and will feature in a magazine that will most effectively promote to the lifestyle demographic of indented audience.

links to all of this will be posted on social networking sites such as twitter and facebook and well as music blogs and forums to communicated to technology medium of today, and directly promote the artist through innovative and forward thinking strategies.

Pre production planning

Before shooting my group and I have devised a list of of costume, props, make up and styling ideas and shooting schedule times to aid in efficient filming.

Props will include the juxtaposition of drugs and cigarettes and champagne glass's and luxury clothing to contrast the opposing spectrums of fame and the how desire to obtain in the 21st century manifests itself.

Styling will reflect Ideoligies of fame and pleaure seekers, by corresponding fashionable style that connote glamour sex appear with a edge, which are audience demographic will identify with. We will use the medium of make-up additionally to reflect this message, such a dark and mysterious make-up for drug taking scenes, to echo a representative of the darker side to fame and the media.

We have planned 3 shooting days in which we will use the setting of a house, bed and back seat of a car to productivly space out our filming time and enable a substantial amount of footage for us to edit in order to create a authentic and engaging final music video.