CD Cover Textual Analysis

I Am Chipmunk! is an album of a grime/ hip-hop artist 'Chipmunk'. I have chosen to analyse this album cover because he is in the same Genre (Hip-Hop & RnB) as our music video. Looking at Chipmunk's CD Cover it represents the conventions of Hip-Hop & RnB. This will help me and my group to gain ideas and an understanding to what conventions to use and look out for when it comes to making our CD Cover.

When looking at the CD Cover the first thing you notice is the big writing, written 'I AM CHIPMUNK'. As this being his first album, for him to have the big title on the cover connotes that he is reaching out to a new audience that may not know him as if he is introducing himself. We also see him sitting high up in the CD Cover, which represents that his status is high, However he subverts his high status by the way he is sitting, it look's as if he's slouching, that helps connote that he doesn't necasserly care what people think and he does things the way HE wants almost like a rebel.

"Ready" is an album of an american R&B artist Trey Songz. I have chosen to analyse this CD Cover because the artist produces the same genre of songs that our music video and track is (Hip-Hop & RnB). The CD cover has more RnB conventions than Hip- Hop or any other genre. This will then help our group with ideas and setting conventions in our CD Cover.

Looking at this CD Cover the first thing you notice is the body of Trey Songz and his tattoos. This is to portray the sexual side of Trey and to seduce women. Its more for a womens gaze. The tattoos connote that the artist isn't all good and innocent he has a bad side to him. The title of the album is written in the same font as the tattoo to keep the similarty in between the album and the artist. Having the album name "Ready" in red helps it stand out from all the black and white in the album, it also cannots that the album is seductive and passionate, that might represent the artist 'Trey' and the songs in the album.

Final Draft of the "Thump" Cd Cover, Two Inlay Cards and the Back of Cd Cover.

Final Draft of the Magazine Advert.

Magazine Adverts that inspired me with mines.

I used these two magazine adverts to help me and give me a guideline to how I should represent and portray my advert when it comes to construting it. The advert on the left helped me to see the basis of a magazine advert, It help me have more knowledger to what is actually included and where it is placed in the magazine. The magazine advert on the right isn't a Album advert, however when flicking through my magazine I thought that the idea of the images behind the main image is a good way to portray the song for my magazine, therefore I used clips from music video and place them behind my main image of E-Man.

Evaluation.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms or conventions of real media products?

My music video has many ways it uses, develops and challenges forms or conventions when it comes to real media products. The uses of my music video used forms or conventions of real media products as we used green screen scenes which confirm the conventions of many Hip- Hop and RnB music videos, as most of Tinchy Stryder videos are all green screen videos.

We also used stereotypical props and clothing’s such as blinged out chains, hoodies, and sun glasses etc. the body language that the artists have in our music video are simple, whilst moving with the music. The dancing that’s in my music video was not a set routine; it still has some dance movements such as the thump. We also used black and white scenes when we portrayed flashbacks, this was conventional as most music videos with flashbacks were showed in black and white, another reason why we used it was because a focus group thought that it would give more and better effect to the flash back. We also used a black crop on both bottom and top in all scenes through out the video, which is very typical in all hip- hop and RnB videos.

My music video is a development from the typical Tinchy Stryder videos, as we have a narrative as well as green screen scenes. We have scenes from were the couple are on dates in the park and a café and one scene were the girl is watching the predominant character (E-Man) along with scenes with both E-Man and Roshane, were their syncing with the chorus and some verses.

My music video also challenges the usual Tinchy Stryder music videos. This is portrayed by even though we had a female character in the video (which is stereotypical to have in many R&B videos) we didn’t have her dressed half naked, our female character is dressed more casual. And also our female character wasn’t there for a male gaze dancing around seductively and shown as an object, she’s there to set a story for the audience, to portray that the two characters are in love.


2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
There are many effective combinations and similarities with the main product and ancillary texts. This was a core element of the structure for all ranges of products (Music Video, Album CD Cover and Magazine Advert).

This was portrayed by the black and white theme throughout the CD Cover, partially in the Music Video and the magazine advert. Having this similarity confirms the conventions of the genre Hip-Hop and RnB as the black white and theme is used a lot in hip-hop and RnB videos.

In the CD Cover we also have the main artist E-Man faded black to suit the other materials and theme, just like the black and white theme in the video.

In the magazine advert we included still frame shots from the footage from our Music Video “Thump” (the album title also), as well as a full length image of the main artist and the album CD Cover, so people can recognise it when its out in stores.


3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
From my audience feedback I have learnt that with the constructive criticism we have to use it to the best of my ability in terms of improvements and creativeness.


When I constructed my audience research I filmed a Vox Pox on our focus group was we got defiant about what our target audience expect to see from an RnB and Hip-Hop music video. And with the suggestions and feedback that we got from our focus group we developed that into our music video. For example one proposal that our focus group had was to have the flash backs in black and white to create a rewind in time effect. We then took this into account and then applied it to our video. Another example that the focus group said was that the conventions of what a Hip-Hop and RnB artist would be wearing is hoodies, era hats, sunglasses, blinged jewellery etc. we then used those suggestions to our advantage and presented the main artist (E-Man) in more conventional props.
We also had a presenting evening were me and my group presented our music video of what we have produced so far, were we got our feedback by media professionals they suggested points were we could improve and points they thought worked well with the video.


We also got some verbal feedback from our teacher and another student; however this was during our production so we hadn’t completed it yet.
Ms Mcleod (Teacher) Comments: “nice illustration of flashbacks and variations of shots, however include more effects/ transitions for a smoother look”.
Yousef (Student) Comments: “the movie effect makes the whole video appear more professional and also makes the black and white flashbacks work really well, on the other hand lip syncing needs to be in time with the track in some scenes”


4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

When doing my Construction; Research and Planning and Evaluation, I used a wide range of media technologies. For our construction of our video we used a Sony camcorder for filming the footage, we then used the software programme Adobe Premier to import the footage and then edit it to make our video, we also imported an mp3 file of our track “Thump” to the timeline, which helped us when syncing the footage in the song. We used a tri-caster and the green screen to film our white background footage. The tri-caster was used to create effects such as changing the contrast and brightness of the characters that are being filmed to create a black and white effect. We recorded our audience feedback of our first showing of our music video on a voice recorder and then we used Adobe Auditions to edit our feedback and to change it to an mp3 file.


For the Research and Planning I used the Sony camcorder again to record our focus groups (Vox Pox) and then uploaded that to YouTube, I also found the same genre CD Cover adverts and other videos from the internet. I took pictures of my story board from a digital camera and added them to my blog.


For the evaluation of my coursework, I mainly used the voice recorder to record the feedback on any constructive criticism anyone has on my work, this was then uploaded on to the software programme Adobe Audition, which was then converted into a mps file and then uploaded to the website www.edublogs.tv and then that was embedded to my blog.