The document provides information on various topics related to planning and designing music videos, album artwork, and magazine advertisements. It discusses conventions to consider, such as avoiding certain clichés in music videos. It also summarizes theories like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Todorov's narrative theory that could inform creative works. Key recommendations include researching previous works for inspiration and avoiding mistakes, focusing on the song premise rather than genre for album covers, and including essential details like the artist/album name in advertisements.

1. Secondary
Research
Shannon Jezzard

2. Music Videos
Pete Fraser, Principle Examiner says when planning a Music Video you should look at previous work
for inspiration, and also to see the mistakes that they make and therefore you can make sure you don’t
make these mistakes yourself, for example:
Ten things to avoid (though there will always be examples which disprove the rule!):
•1. Well-known songs.
•2. Overdone effects – you shouldn’t use effects just to disguise poor footage.
•3. Aimless driving around.
•4. Scenes involving booze, fags or drugs (even simulated).
•5. Shots of people just walking around.
•6. Speeded up footage or footage run backwards to cover lack of material.
•7. Zooms.
•8. Found footage – it should be your own unless there’s an exceptionally good reason.
•9. Atmosphere-less stage footage.
•10. Over the top stories.
By making sure you look at previous work you are able to address areas that work within the video and
areas that don’t to make sure that yours is ticking all of the right boxes.

3. Male Gaze Theory – Laura
Mulvey (1975)
Laura Mulvey states that “mainstream film satisfies especially the male spectator by
projecting his desires on screen. Women are regarded as objects in ‘fetishistic’
displays for male viewer’s pleasure”
Within our music video we are going to dismiss these generalisations about how
women are portrayed on screen, with the characters in our music video being of an
equal status, with possibilities that the female character will be more dominant as
she’ll be resisting the ideologies of teenage ‘love’, similar to in the film 500 Days of
Summer, where the female character has more of a control over the males feelings
rather than this being the other way around, which is a more common scenario seen
on screen.

4. Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs

5. Maslow’s Theory
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states that human growth is
dependant on five separate physiological, mental and
emotional needs/desires. He says to be able to reach the
next stage up within the hierarchy you need to achieve the
need below, such as to feel love and belonging you need to
also feel safe within your community and well fed.
Music videos help to achieve belonging, because when
listening to a genre you’re a part of a group that has an
interest in similar music to you, and therefore helps you to
reach the next stage in the hierarchy. They also help you to
achieve esteem, as when you’re within a certain social group
you gain confidence and the respect of others.

6. Todrov’s Narrative Theory
Equilibrium: a state in which opposing forces or
influences are balanced
Todrov’s theory argues that There are five stages the narrative
can progress through:
• A state of equilibrium
•A disruption of that order by an event
•A recognition that the disorder has occurred
•An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
•A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium
Therefore Todrov states that narratives do not have to be
linear, and within our music video it will not follow a linear
structure. It will go from past to present day scenes and
therefore following non-linear conventions of music videos.

7. Album Covers
Christopher Budd who interviewed Julian
House (a creative partner at London
creative agency) in the September 2012
edition of Media Magazine found that he
does not tend to focus on the artist’s genre
of the album artwork he is creating. He
states that “each specific job exists in its
own world with it’s own set of reference
points”. We will take this into account with
our work as we will focus on the premise
of song rather than the conventions of the
genre it falls into for our album artwork,
still looking at the artwork of similar
genres and taking into account some
elements but not completely focusing our
design based on the genre that the artist’s
song we are focusing on falls into.

8. Making Album Covers
On eHow, Alexander Grouch explains 11 steps of making album artwork.
The first two steps he lists I believe, are the most important as they are to study the album art
you like, so you’re able to see what styles interest you in order to influcene your work and to look
in depth into these styles, looking at the complete digipack such as the inside booklet, to see what
themes and conventions run the whole way through.
The next step is to ‘sketch a rough composite that details the elements you want to use’. This is
one of the most important steps as you are getting your ideas down so you can work with them in
the future, so you are prepared for your actual album cover design.
Whilst designing my album cover I will take these points into consideration, by researching and
looking into album artwork that interests me so I’m able to reflect the conventions within my
own work, so I have ideas of what my album cover looks like before I design it, so when it comes
to producing my design I’m prepared and do not get stuck for ideas.

9. CD Cover Conventions
CD Covers usually contain conventions that are common on the majority of
covers, although there are always that do not conform to the typical conventions.
Usually album covers contain the band or artists’ title, album name and a main
image. Sometimes they also use a logo, which is normally the typeface the band
uses for their name.
Within my album cover design I do plan to stick to these conventions and make
it simple and easy to see the bands name and title of the album, although I plan
to use hand drawn images within my album cover as well as a photograph.
Band Name/Band Logo No Band Logo Band Name
Main Image
No Image
Album Title No Title

10. Magazine Advertising
• Magazine adverts are to entice and
persuade readers into buying a product,
or to make the public aware of its release.
• Specifically with music adverts within a
magazine, the band/artist, or the album
that’s being released has to be clear and
easily identifiable.
• Nat Bodian, an advertising expert states
that a half-page ad "will be about two-
thirds as effective as a full-page ad in the
same publication." Meaning that an ad
large enough to dominate other ads on
that page, or a fractional-page "island"
should be noticed.

11. Hierarchy of Effects Model
• The Hierarchy of Effects Model puts 6 objectives of
advertisements into a clear and simple diagram.
• The Means-End approach theory of this model suggests
that within a advertisement, a message should be
contained to lead to the purchase of the product, but with
albums and CDs often the consumer is persuaded by the
artist releasing the album, although the fact that the
advert is giving the listener
knowledge of the albums release so
if people are made aware of the
product, they are more inclined to
buy it.

12. Conventions of Magazine
Adverts
The conventions of music magazine adverts is that they should feature, the band or
artists’ name, the title of the album, a main image (sometimes including the cover art
for the album, the release date, a record company logo and the formats the album
available’s in.
Main Image (the
same as to that of
Band Name the album cover)
Album Title Release Date
Formats Record
available company
in Logo
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