RMA Digipaks and Promotional advert

Kelly Rowland- 'Here I am'- Digipak

This digipak has a blue effect on the front  and back cover of the album. This effect gives a ‘cool’ and mysterious feel to the album because it isn’t the usual effect used for an album cover. The effect makes the album look sophisticated possibly to reflect Kelly Rowland herself but also looks distinctive so that it stands out from other albums because it challenges the usual codes and conventions of a digipak. The disc is much different from the front and back cover because it hasn’t got the blue effect on. Instead there is a brown effect used almost like a sepia effect.

All 3 parts of the digipak include an image of Kelly Rowland to show that she is the main focus of the album and she is the main thing trying to be promoted.

The close up of the artists face shows her expression and makes the audience feel more connected with her because they feel closer to her. The eyes are looking directly at the audience to again make a personal connection to the audience and make them feel like she is looking at only them and no one else. The artist’s lips are slightly open similar to Rihanna on her album. This slight open lips could provide a sexual appeal . The artist’s cheek has water droplets on perhaps to link to the blue effect and water.
Unlike the front of the digipak, the back of the album has no image of the artist’s face- instead a medium close up from her waist up of is used. The artist is topless which defiantly provides a sexual appeal because she is known to be an attractive woman. The blue theme is continued with the thin white writing for the track listing. This font is fairly unclear on the blue background because it’s showing that Kelly Rowland is the focus- not the songs.

Katy Perry- 'Teenage Dream'- Digipak

This digipak is much more brightly coloured than the other albums I have analysed. The main colours used are light blue and light pink. The whole digipak has the theme of pink fluffy clouds, blue sky and sweets.  These light colours are possibly used to show that the genre of music is pop rather than heavy rock where mostly blacks would be used. The pink fluffy clouds could resemble candyfloss to fit in with the sweets theme but also clouds link with dreams which therefore connects it to the title of the album ‘Teenage Dream’. One of the discs is made like a doughnut and the other like a lollipop.

The front cover has an image of Katy Perry lying amongst this soft fluffy looking cloud, maybe trying to represent her as being an innocent person. A long shot is used in order to fit her whole body in. Katy Perry is wearing no clothes and she is just relying on the cloud to cover her up. This adds sex appeal to the artist and shows off her figure. Her dark hair contrasts with the light pink cloud to make her the most important item on the front cover. The swirly font used for ‘Katy Perry’ looks like strawberry sauce which again fits into the sweets theme of the digipak. The ‘Teenage dream’ font is different to the font used for the artists name but still has the same theme running through but this time it looks like the pattern of a candy cane or lollipop.

In the centre of the digipak there is a large close up of the artist on the left side which takes up the whole left side of the cover. This is in order to promote the artist as she looks pretty and innocent in the expression she has.

The back of the album cover has the pink fluffy cloud theme on to link with the front cover to ensure that the audience know that it is from the same album. The font is all in upper case and in a dark pink to stand out from the light pink background. The ‘o’s’ on the back of the album cover are all smaller versions of the candy cane patterned disc to show continuity of the sweets theme.

This promotional advert shows Rita Ora in a medium close up rather than the typical close up’s used on album covers. Her pose looks directly at the audience to make it more personal to them. The colours used on the advert are black, white, grey and red. These colours seem popular amongst female album covers and adverts perhaps because they are the most effective and because all of the female artists have an attractive and seductive side to them, therefore red is used.

The artist is wearing a plain white top so that the focus isn’t taken away from her face and the name of the song that it is advertising. The masculine black hat shows that she is a strong women and isn’t afraid of being different from the stereotypical female.

The background of a grey brick wall may resemble Rita Ora’s background and how she has worked her way up from being on the streets to being a famous artist.

The font of ‘How we do’ is different from ‘Rita ora’. The font for how we do is larger and bolder to emphasise that this is the main purpose for the promotional advert- in order to promote the name of the song. The ‘Rita Ora’ font is in a less clear, smaller ‘Aztec’ font because the audience already know that it is Rita Ora from just looking at the image. The red font of ‘Rita Ora’ and ‘Party’ links with the red lips to connect the image with the writing.

This promotional advert for Rihanna’s album ‘Loud’ has the main colour of red. The faded red border links with Rihanna’s bright red hair therefore making the advert all about Rihanna, emphasising that she is the main focus of this advert. The red has connotations of romance and adds sex appeal to the artist

The white font used is very clear and upper case letters are used to catch the audience’s attention even more and to show that it is important information.

Two images are used on this promotional advert. One image is a medium close up with her not looking at the camera and the other image is a close up used for the album cover, again not looking directly at the camera. This challenges the codes and conventions of typical images of artists on album covers because they usually look directly at the audience to make it more personal.

RMA Improvements

This is the first draft of the Nicki Minaj music promo analysis. I have made these improvements on the second version which I uploaded on my blogger.

RMA Music Promo's

David Guetta (Feat.Nicki Minaj)- ‘Turn me on’- Concept

This music video is a concept style due to the unusual objects and scenes shown throughout the video. Interestingly the lyrics do not fit with the visuals hardly at all apart from  a couple of parts, one being when it says ‘My body needs a hero to come and save me’ and where she talks about needing a doctor and cuts to a medium short of David Guetta which makes the audience think he is like the doctor. This is the only section of the video where the visuals actually link directly with the lyrics.

At about 17 seconds into the video there is a close up of a pair of white lips which aren’t meant to look like real lips. The lips move in time with the words however it isn’t coming from the artist’s mouth; instead a material object. There are then a couple more close up's used of metal hands and legs tapping to the beat of the song. These continuous close ups of different parts of the metal body may represent she is gradually coming alive and each part of the body is being built. The camera then pans down the artificial golden metal body to show it lying down and that it ‘needs a hero to come and save me.’

At the chorus is another part where the visuals do link with the lyrics; where it says ‘Make me come alive come on and turn me on’ This links with the visuals because it is a non-human object singing this therefore its showing that she wants to come alive and ‘turn her on’ to become a human.

At about a minute into the video, during the first chorus the non- human object suddenly gets turned into a plastic body rather than just a golden metal figure. This again links with the lyrics as he is ‘making her come alive.’ Gradually through the video this metal figure transforms into a plastic version of Nicki Minaj and then finally Nicki Minaj is shown after about 1.20. This gradual transformation builds tension as Nicki Minaj is such a well known artist and therefore excites the audience because they know she is going to come on the screen but they don’t know when.

Once Nicki Minaj is finally shown, she has long pink hair, a black top hat and wears a long black dress covering up most of her skin apart from her chest where a diamond shape is cut out. The reason why she may have pink hair is to show lust but also her unique personality as not many people have pink hair.  The long black dress suits the dark, dull and eerie atmosphere that is portrayed in the video due to black being associated with death and funerals which again links with the lyrics of ‘I’m too young to die.’ The diamond cut out slightly showing her chest area contrasts with the rest of the dress because it is not a revealing dress, it also differs from her other videos because in her other videos she is sometimes shown to have very tight or skimpy clothing on which is why the video has unique feel to it. However the small cut out is not too revealing and sexual but still keeps the slight sexual appeal which she has in her other videos.

At about 1:58 there is a close up of Nicki Minaj dragging an axe across the concrete floor. This close up of the object again links to the mysterious atmosphere to the video but none of the lyrics directly link to the weapon.

The lighting is very much dull with a yellowy tinge and is an artificial light of torches and flames rather than daylight. This dull artificial lighting adds a dull and mysterious feel to the video and perhaps makes the audience feel on edge rather than happy and safe.

Taylor Swift- ‘You belong with me’- Narrative

This music video is a narrative style because it is telling a story throughout the video with the visuals constantly linking with the lyrics. The basic storyline is that Taylor Swift is in love with a boy but he has a girlfriend. The girlfriend is seen to be more popular than Taylor and she gets upset that she can’t be with the boy, but she tries to show him that he should be with her. However in the end the boy falls in love with Taylor Swift and chooses her over his girlfriend.

The first example where the lyrics link directly with the visuals is in the first 15 seconds where medium shots are used to show that the boy is talking on the phone whilst Taylor is looking at him: ‘You’re on the phone with your girlfriend, she’s upset’. Another example of where the lyrics fit with the visuals is where it says ‘She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers’ and it shows the girlfriend in her cheerleading outfit and Taylor in her outfit. An establishing shot is used at the beginning of the video to show that both the boys and Taylor Swift’s house are next to eachother. This is important to include because the following parts of the video only would make sense if you know that they live next to eachother because otherwise the audience wouldn’t understand. At 1.30 a close up is used of Taylor Swift to show her upset facial expression that she can’t be with the boy she loves. A point- of- view shot is used at 2.30 to show that Taylor Swift is watching what is happening and make the audience more engaged because they can empathise with her.

A reaction shot is used at 2.30 to show the audience that Taylor Swift has seen the boy and the girlfriend have an argument on the football pitch. In the first 30 seconds of the video various long takes are used to show that the boy and Taylor Swift looking at each other through the window. The long takes are used to set a slower pace as the song has just started and then short takes are used when the chorus begins to match the faster pace of the chorus. The long takes used may also show that they are constantly thinking about eachother.

The lighting in this video is made to look bright and natural to resemble the up- beat pop genre of music that the video is and that Taylor Swift is young and feminine.

Rihanna- 'Where have you been'- Performance

This video starts off with a wide angle shot of Rihanna in a murky lake. This shot is used to allow the audience to view the surrounding area and if there are any particular props used in the background which may link to the lyrics/theme of the video. At about 12 seconds in a close up is used of the artist to show her serious emotion, however the rest of her face is still under water apart from her eyes. The serious emotion is used to set the solemn atmosphere and emphasise the theme of the song that she is trying to find someone.This is an unusual shot which resembles the uniqueness of the video and the artist’s edgy style. The close up also shows her make -up smudged around her eyes from the water making her look mysterious and quite scary looking also emphasises by the serious an sombre expression she has on her face. There are a number of close ups used in the first 40 seconds of different parts of Rihanna’s body coming out of the water and a close up of her stomach is used. This may be used to add sexual appeal as she has an ‘ideal’ figure and could provide an idol for other females.

At the start of the video there are three different ‘looks’ for Rihanna: the first look is the Rihanna coming out of the water with smudged make- up and a stern facial expression, the second is a more innocent and glamourous looking Rihanna and the third there is an egypitan desert look used. These different looks could resemble Rihanna trying to find who she is looking for in all these different places. At 1.30 a fourth look for Rihanna is used. The lighting in this scene has a yellowy tinge to make it look like they are dancing in the sunset and the dance routine in this scene is different to the dance in the Egyptian scene. Throughout the video Rihanna wears many different outfits making her look glamorous and attractive which is another reason why it is a performance video

At about 50 seconds into the video it is clear that it is a performance based video because Rihanna begins to dance to the audience. The upbeat dance routine links with the upbeat pop tune of the song and backing dancers are used to perhaps emphasise that Rihanna isn’t looking for someone on her own.

The editing used to make the video judder at 1.05 is used while Rihanna is enthusiastically dancing. This judder is used to emphasise the dance moves even further and show the audience how fast she is dancing. At 1.08 an superemposition is used where two different images of Rihanna are overlapped and the pace is sped up as the song is getting to the chorus. The fast pace editing give a lively and fun vibe. Various short cuts are used throughout the video, particularly at 1.24 where Rihanna is dancing. These short cuts provide a fast pace which makes the audience feel the dancing is even faster and better than it is.The video involves exciting dance moves and bold outfits and the choreography of the dancing is done very well and everything is in perfect timing making the video look skilled and professional. At the end of the video it reverts back to Rihanna’s first look of her being in the murky lake.The end of the video echoes the start of the video to show completion and that the 'journey' has come to an end. This flashback is perhaps used to show that she hasn't found the person she is looking for and she is still in the same situation as she was at the start of the video.Despite being a performance based video it also has elements of a narrative video due to it ending the same way it started.