3. Front Album Cover
We wanted the font of our text
to be simple and to link in with
the smooth, chilled out sound
that matched the song. It is
usually conventional to also have
the title and artist name off
centre on the cover, for example,
Matt Cardle uses this for his
album too:
We wanted our album to demonstrate the
singer/songwriter genre so that when the public see
it, they will know what it involves. In doing research
into conventions of singer/songwriter albums, we
discovered that many of them were in black and
white, such as:
Having the artists face as the central point of the cover, this
conforms to the conventions of our genre, as they do not
have any ‘gimmicks’; it is purely their voice. This is one of the
strongest conventions of singer/songwriter album covers as
it is relevant with many artists such as Jason Mraz, Jake
Bugg, and James Blake:
We kept the
background of our
cover black and
simple, so it doesn’t
detract from his calm
and content facial
expressions. Birdy has
quite a plain
background to match
her ‘look’:
4. Back Album Cover
We have taken a lot of
inspiration for this cover
from Seal – a very similar
artist to our artist that we
have created. This album
cover in particular has a
similar track layout, and
also shows one picture
with the tracks next to it,
like ours:
We decided to use a
picture of a piano
instead of a picture of his
face. We got this idea
from seeing Regina
Spektor’s album cover.
We decided it would be a
good idea to include his
main instrument on the
album somehow:
It is a convention of album covers to include a
barcode, and the details of the music company,
producers etc. We realised this by looking at
numerous back covers:
5. Website
This website really helped me understand the
conventions for singer/songwriter websites. For
example, the name of the artist is off centre, which
we have done here:
Through
researching
different
singer/songwriter
websites I was able
to chose the most
common pages:
When creating the website, the most difficult part I
found was the layout of the homepage. It initially
looked very messy and random, but James
Morrison’s website (among others) had two panels,
one for latest news and one for their work like
albums and videos – this is what I have done:
6. Our Video
Camera
It is conventional for a
singer/songwriter music video to
include a main focus on the lip sync.
This is done through use of close ups
and extreme close ups. In using close
up shots, the audience are able to
read the emotion of the song
through the artist, and also helps
emphasise the link with music and
lyrics – this gives it a visual and audio
hook.
We also wanted to engage with the main theme of
our song and demonstrate this in our video: the
soul-searching of the song matches the surreal look
of our video.
It is also common to include wide
tracking shots and/or crane shots in
singer/songwriter music videos. This
enables the audience to see the
setting of the video, adds movement
and pace and shows the full set. Our
camera techniques seem to conform
with the conventions of music videos
of this genre.
Lemar’s Video
7. Our Video
Editing
As our song is quite slow paced and
slow moving emotionally, we decided
to match the pace of our editing with,
and include long shot durations. We
closely synced our song including very
few jump cuts as they can create high
energy which our song did not need.
We cut our edit on the beat of the
music, which is conventional in any
music video. This video from Seal is a
cheat of a one-shot video, which was
our initial idea as well. However when
another scene does appear, it is on
the beat of the music.
We did however include very slight
jump cuts at this point of the video
(where I’ve taken the clip from). Seal
also uses a slight jump cut at this
point as well. We did this to keep the
audience interested at the high point
of the song and to create more
variety in the editing style.
Seal’s Video
8. Our Video
Lighting
When looking at one of
my favourite
singer/songwriter artists –
Jack Johnson, I saw that
this video contains a lot of
artificial light. I then
looked at other videos
from the genre and
noticed that artificial
lighting was very
common. It is used to give
artists a glow of
perfection. It can also
help to create an
unthreatening
atmosphere which is what
we wanted to portray as
our target audience
would be more interested
in his ‘organic-ness’ as an
artist and not whether he
can ‘put on a show’.
Jack Johnson’s Video
9. Our Video
Props
While comparing Tom
Odell’s video, it is a
convention to have the
instrument that they
play featuring in the
video. I then decided to
incorporate a piano in
mine, however we
challenged this by having
it hanging from the
ceiling – something that I
hadn’t seen in a music
video before. This helps
to also clarify that he is
from a singer/songwriter
genre.
I also included a lot of
stereotypical props that
were relevant to our
sets, so that the
audience would
recognise the set that we
were trying to create.
Tom Odell’s Video
10. Our Video
Sets and Locations
John Legend’s Video
We have used similar conventions
to John Legend with the use of our
sets and locations. All of sets take
place in one house; a piano room, a
bathroom, and a living. John
Legend’s settings take place in a
religious location; a cathedral,
graveyard and inside the cathedral.
He has used 3 just like we have. This
helps to increase the audiences
attention as we are able to cut back
and forth. It also helps to show our
artist as organic, as our sets are
stereotypical of a standard house
that is relevant to the audience
members.
All of our sets and locations
connote a standard house, however
we have slightly broken this
convention by flopping the video
vertically as if a bomb explosion has
gone off and we have captured the
second after.
