Camera Test:

We took the camera that we could be using to the Seeward Studio and had a go using it, locating the slow motion and all the manual settings. We also have the idea to film in 21:9 widescreen (aspect ratio used in cinematic productions) but as we don't have access to a wide angle lense we will have to fake the effect by cropping the top and the bottom off the image. In this video we have done this very thing but it is a much wider ratio than 21:9 and looks a bit ridiculous. We will hopefully however fake 21:9 and make the final production look much more cinematic and professional - a lot of music videos these days use 21:9 widescreen.

Album Cover Analysis: MUSE [The Resistance]

MUSE are very well known for their extremely artistic and abstract album artwork. The typically intergalactic image shows a solitary figure staring at planet Earth from space surrounded by a kalaeidoscopic mosaic.

Although intended to be deliberately quite abstract, the image relates to the band's usual lyrics themes such as the world, politics, conspiracy theories, science fiction, conflicts, and space. It's also an immediate attention catcher with the use of bold colours filling highly defined shapes. This overall theme provides a brilliant potential for extending the album art to t-shirts and other merchandise which people will happily buy (for quite a bit of money) at their concerts.

Of course the MUSE logo again features prominently in the top corner of their album artwork and this has been the case for all four previous studio albums.

The artwork for 'The Resistance' won Best Art Vinyl 2009.

The back cover serves the main functions you'd expect of an album. It displays the track titles and numbers and contains copyright information.

The text on the back cover uses many different colours seen on the front of the album which creates a colour scheme for the album as a whole. You also see the colourful writing on the edges and all the writing is made to stand out through the use of a lightly coloured background.

On the back there is an image of the band walking down a street looking very casual but smart. The back and white image and casual nature of it show a maturity to this, thier 5th studio album.

Album Covers:

After selecting around 10 albums that I own, I noticed that there were lots of similarities; many conventions which most album covers use...

Conventions of Albums - Front Cover:

• Name of Band/Artist
• Title of Album
• Artwork/Image of Artist
• (Usually common for bands to have artwork and individual artists to have picture)
• Colour scheme
• Theme (Graphic/Icon/Style/Colour)

Conventions of Albums - Back Cover:

• [Name of Band/Artist]
• [Title of Album]
• Track Listing
• Copyright Information
• Continued theme/colour scheme/artwork
• Producer Information
• [Band/Artist Website]

Conventions of Albums - Inside Covers/Spines/Booklet:

• Pictures of Band/Artist
• Continued theme/colour scheme/artwork
• SPINE: Name of Band/Artist
• SPINE: Title of Album
• BOOKLET: Song Lyrics
• BOOKLET: Producer/Studio/Engineer/Mixer/Mastered by/Writing Credits/Copyright etc. Information.

Conventions of Albums - CD Artwork:

• Continued theme/colour scheme/artwork
• Name of Band/Artist
• Title of Album
• Copyright Information

From looking at the album covers you can also tell genres apart very well, as individual artists will tend to be dressed very significantly and the colour scheme with be such that it depicts the nature of the music. However with bands, it is harder to instantly recognise the genre as their album artwork tends to be more abstract, unique and orginal although still giving a sense of the sound you might hear.

Album Covers serve many different purposes. They sell the album, the band/artist as an image, and the work of the record label. People will enjoy looking at the artwork and/or images provided by the purchase of the album and it give the audience a deeper insight into the theme and meaning behind the music.

Music Consumption:

I listen to music a lot of the time, sometimes when I'm walking to school, on journeys, but mainly on the computer. Since Spotify has come along it has become the first thing I open when I log on. It gives me access to unlimited free streaming of almost any music whenever I want!

However I find that not all music is suitable all the time - it depends on mood. I also tend to go thorugh band 'phases', this is only really noticeable if a band I like have released an album - but I will mainly just listen to that. As a 'muso' I will know all the words in a day or two and really listen to everything going on in each track. I will be very influence in my own music writing by and new sounds or styles I hear, often always wishing that I had been the one to come up with that!I also go to gigs to see bands perform live, and I also perform live myself as part of a band. I think performing live is great for the audience as it's enjoyable and entertaining. It is also beneficial to the band aswell as performing live regularly increases our audience and keeps the excitement up.

For example, for the release of our first album on March 14th, we played a gig for 400 people whos ticket sales made us back the money on the cost of the gig and all the CD production costs. That night we made £600 on album sales alone showing that if people like what they hear live they will buy the album...

What Music means to me: early teens

Coldplay's 'Fix You' was probably the track that stood out the most from my early teens as it was one of the first songs that we learnt in my band and provided an excellent build-up for an audience at a gig who would always go crazy when it reached its climax where the whole band enter.


Coldplay - Fix You

What music means to me: childhood

When I was young, mainstream music was definatley a lot better than the mainstream music of today, with the late 90s to early 2000s providing us with some great songs.

I chose this song for my childhood as it was on one of the first albums I ever bought, it had a great music video, and it was the title track to ITV's 'The Premiership' which I watched every week!

What Music means to me: now

Music means a lot more to me now than it has ever meant before. Being a musician, a band member for nearly six years, and a songwriter, I have had the chance to create, perform, and produce lots of music. Now when I listen to music I always love to hear something new, original, creative and outstanding.

When I first heard this song on BBC Radio 1 I was blown away by its creativity and couldn't wait for their album release.

The album 'Man Alive' by Everything Everything was released at the end of august and is definately worth getting!