Kanye West Album Cover Analysis and Inspirational Album Covers

Kanye West's album cover analysis

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Here are some album covers that inspire the initial ideas of my own album cover [visualization, colour, composition]

1. MBLAQ - Just Blaq

The band members have been photographed individually but during editing, they have been given a 'panel' each which cuts the side of their full body for example, shoulders, arms and the side of the heads are cut off. The use of black and other dark colours respectively compliment the name of their debut album named 'Just Blaq' pronounced black. I am inspired to use a paneled image like this one and see how it works with my own band.

2. Kanye West - 808's & Heartbreak
The front cover (right) for this is simplistic and has a literal image of the heart being torn, as the title of the album says '808's & Heartbreak' . The back cover (left) shows the artist West, with an elongated heart coiled around his arm and waist. As the background image is animated and the foreground image of West is real, the art behind him comes to life as the heart squeezes him. West is not shown on the front cover as this album is not a debut album, therefore he must have an existing fan base already. The colours of this album inspire me as it is bright and colourful which would suit the Korean Pop genre which I have chosen for my video.

N.E.R.D. - Everybody Nose (All The Girls Standing In The Line For The Bathroom)

Technically this is a singles cover, but the composition and colours inspire me as they are bright and vibrant. Also the paneling or sectioning is present here like MBLAQ's album. Each band member is given a colour and a section of the cover. Each member does something different with their hands though are standing in the same way. Although this album has nothing to do with the name of the single, the fact is that they are recognized regardless of what is represented on the cover as N.E.R.D.

M.I.A. - Kala



This is M.I.A.'s second studio album, and on this album, her face is shown at the center slightly obscured behind the glasses and hat, but again he fan base is established at this point. Four of the same images are placed under name and above her album name. The album cover as a whole looks like a viral ad or subliminal message, as the pixelated fills of the lettering look like a computerized message and the repeated 'Fight On!' message circled around M.I.A. herself. There is an interesting colour contrast between the background (blue, green and purple) and foreground font (red and yellow), which causes every element of the album to stand out. The back of the cover, however, is slightly confusing as the choice of background behind the song list is too overbearing resulting in difficulty to be able read the song titles.

More Inspirational Shots from Existing Videos

There are some inspirational shots and sequences from the video 'Lupin' by South Korean girl band called 'Kara'. The shots I've chose will inspire me when story-boarding the female scenes of my video.




Twenty-two seconds into the video, has a sequence of a cat walk by the middle figure of the group. We see her walking in one shot in a black set, then the video cuts to footage of her walking in the same style in a hallway. As mentioned in a previous post (post with Girls Aloud catwalk), I'd like to incorporate a catwalk scene in my video to distinguish female empowerment within the females in my video.



Catwalk in black set (0:21)



Catwalk in hallway (0:22)

The footage the cuts back to a high angled shot showing all the girls doing a catwalk in different directions, keeping the center girl in both shots (black and hallway set).

There are also low angled shots that I particular like, as they show dominance which the girls in my video will be showing as they are the ones the boys are fighting for.



Low angled long shot (0:20)



Low angled long shot (0:24)...Also a nice touch is the beam of light slightly passing through her legs, gives the shot a glowing and flashing effect.

Another use of long shot to mid shot, long shot to mid shot during a dance sequence (mentioned in the break dancing post) is effective in this video, although very quick, it breaks up what may have been 4 seconds of a static long shot of dancing.
{Click to Enlarge}

Long Shot - Mid Shot - Long Shot - Mid Shot
(0:27 - 0:31)

Transformation of Komal to K-Zee

Transforming Komal on Prezi

Breakdancing Routine (ideas of how to film one)

These two videos show a break dancing routine, where the dancer is seen dancing to the beat, which is where the footage also cuts in places. These two videos provide me with an idea of how to film a break dance routine, inspiring me with shots that look successful for example in the first video at 0:18 we see a extreme long shot of the dancer for one second, the camera then cuts to the profile of the dancer showing us a mid shot, and then it cuts to a long shot which is slowly zooming in, which then cuts to a close up of the dancer who is looking and is lightly turned away from the camera. There is then a brief long shot, until the camera cuts to a close up shot of the feet then finally back to the long shot. This play between long shot to mid/close up shot and back again is successful as it is on beat with the music creating clean and smooth editing.





This second video, shows the same scene but with two dancers. In this video the camera is constantly moving slowly, if not following the dancer's moves (0:31).

Costume Ideas

Costume Ideas

Location - Roundhouse (Bloomberg TV Studio)

Above is the location where I will be shooting the indoor scenes of my music video. It is a reasonable sized TV studio in Roundhouse Camden. I was shown the set, and was quite surprised by the darkness of the room, which I thought might be a problem since my video is meant to be 'bright'. I expected there to be a white or coloured back drop, but instead the whole room is a green screen, with a black curtain to cover it which can be alternatively used as a background. I am considering using the green screen to change the whole feel of the video in order to bring out the 'bright/colourful' element of the video.

YG Entertainment Research

YG Entertainment on Prezi

Star-text and Star evolution - Fans and Marketting : Rihanna

Although Rihanna’s fans are not as loyal as the fans of the more legendary artists such as Madonna, or even Beyoncé, who seems to be on the path of being legendary in a few years or decades, they are fans who like songs or albums which are at that moment ‘hot’, and may get bored after a while. While there may be a handful of dedicated fans, there have not been many stories of fans crying (or fainting) as Rihanna appears on stage (like fans did for Michael Jackson), there are those who mouth the lyrics to her songs during a concert.
When Rihanna first started out, she could have been a ‘one hit wonder’ without her transformation (thanks to her stylist and management team). Rihanna’s fans evolved as Rihanna did, they moved forward as she did. Rihanna became more popular because her music became more known and started charting highly. Her fans also grew as her sense of style changed and was featured more on magazines, becoming a somewhat inspiration to other girls. Girls, who are her fans mostly, as teenage girls in particular, were more affected by Rihanna’s assault by Chris Brown. Seeing as many are subjected to violent relationships though feel they cannot do much being so young. This assault may have been a blessing disguise as the unintentional publicity, had fans pour support to her, she was the victim in the situation. Talk show hosts such as Oprah and Tyra Banks had also reached out to her, and she was payed for doing interviews with Diane Sawyer (Good Morning America).
To separate Rihanna from the other artists coming out at the time of her debut (or early years), her label and management team had to change Rihanna both musically and appearance wise to make her stand out from the rest. This would have captured the audience’s attention more instead of dismissing her as just ‘the rest of them’. As Rihanna became a fashion icon, she influenced many of her fans, which gave her an advantage in terms of acquiring new fans from her distinct look. Many of these would be women and young adults/teenagers.
Rihanna’s mentor and collaborator Jay-Z had made Rihanna gesture (left) the ‘Freemason sign’ or diamond hand which is a triangle shape to promote Jay-Z’s recording label, ‘Roc-A-Fella’, although many see this as an Illuminati sign often associating them with the cult. Therefore, Jay-Z using Rihanna (in his ‘Run This Town’ video) to promote his fashion line is a form of synergy. Not only was she promoting his label, she was also promoting herself ahead of the release of her album 'Rated R'. Rihanna is known to promote Nokia, as seen in Rihanna’s earlier videos, she promoted the Nokia 3250 in her ‘Unfaithful’ video. Later in November 2009, Rihanna partnered up with Nokia to promote her album ‘Rated R’ and Nokia’s new X6 phone. The promotion included live streaming of Rihanna’s London (Nov 16th) concert on to the X6. “We are thrilled to be working with her [Rihanna],” said Liz Schimel, the global head of music at Nokia. “She’s excited about it personally: she’s a very innovative, cutting-edge, fresh, young, exciting global celebrity, and she has enormous pull around the world. She’s truly a global superstar.”
Rihanna also appeared on The X-Factor live shows in 2009 to promote her album and single 'Russian Roulette' from the 'Rated R' album.
To further promote 'Rated R', Rihanna had a photo shoot taken showing herself in a dark, monochromatic light. Her minimal clothing highlights the album title, 'Rated R' which also creates voyeurism (circled images) as she is topless in some pictures showing a sense of vulnerability as the viewer looks at her.

*Click to Enlarge*

My favourite album cover

Above is Michael Jackson's Dangerous album from 1991. I like this cover as it holds so much symbolism and hidden messages on the cover, each related to Jackson. From researching forums (formspring and michaeljackson.com) about the album cover, many people have posted their thoughts and theories behind the symbolism in this cover.
From analysing the album cover, the symbolism I have picked up on includes:

• The chimpanzee at the top of the crown is Bubbles, Michael Jackson's beloved pet
• The various animals under Jackson's eyes represent his love for animals
• The single white glove is Jackson's trade mark, which the King and Queen (dog and bird) are also wearing on their right hand as did Jackson
• The roller coaster like track holding carriages (either end of cover at the bottom) has various people and things in it for example, a skeleton, children, Bubbles and a young Michael Jackson
• The entrance sign of the roller coaster is a pirate skull sign which is found now in Disneyland on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride
• The exit sign is an eye in a diamond looks like the Illuminati eye but is not in a triangle like the real Illuminati eye
• Michael Jackson in 1985 is engraved in the blue area surrounding the arch of the 'Dangerous' sign
• The hand holding the young child holding a skull of a dinosaur, has the white tapes on the fingers; another of Jackson's trademarks
  
• The bubble underneath the bird/Queen has Adam and Eve inside of it
• There is a peace symbol on the left pillar of the bird/Queen's throne
• Inside 'Dangerous' is a globe of the world which looks like it is in a factory. Perhaps it was his project for world peace?
• The crown above Bubbles' head represents Jackson's new status at the time: 'King of Pop'
  

Analysis of Black Eyed Peas - Rock That Body

The video I am analysing is 'Rock That Body' by Black Eyed Peas. The video uses many special effects including computer animation but also interesting after post-editing effects which look interesting and inspirational.



The video begins setting the scene of a neighbourhood with its people who seem to be moving in a robotic nature. This effect is achieved by cutting one or two frames of movement and reversing the copies of these frames (one frame reversed, one frame normal).

At 0:09, a bright light from the sky 'blasts' a character onto the screen(Will.i.am) dressed as a superhero.


From this, instantly the audience realises that the video is not a true representation of real life, therefore the video must be exaggerating a whole new meaning. This is an amplified music video as its visual content does not match the lyrical meaning of the song, therefore amplifying the video content into a completely different meaning. The video involves transformer like robots, bigger than humans (or robots themselves judging by the way they move in a jittery way).

Fergie (and the rest of the B.E.P. members) is introduced in the video in costume and props adding to the 'superhero' theme of the video. Fergie here is seen in a tight-fitting, metal bustier with what looks like gun barrels on the bust. She also holds a gun with a speaker on the barrell.


Iconography wise, this may reference the 'FemBots' in Austin Powers (first image), or an even earlier pop culture's first example of a gun bra The 1979 film 'Mr. Mike''s Mondo Video', which featured women in laser-spewing brassieres (second image).

FemBots in Austin Powers (above)

Laser spewing women from Mr Mikes' Mondo Video (above)

The sound and visuals match as Fergie's voice is auto-tuned to sound high pitched and robotic, keeping in tune with the robot, superhuman/hero theme. The lyrics and visuals begin to match at 1:03 where Will.i.am blasts the pedestrians with his speaker who initially appeared to be broken and jittery. As they Jitter, Will.i.am blasts them with his speaker gun and immediately they begin dancing normally, and are no longer robotic.

People jitter... Until they are blasted by speaker guns which make them dance normally...

The lyrics read:

Let me see your body rock,
Shakin' from the bottom to the top,
Freak to what the Dj drop,
We be the ones to make it hot, (To make it hot)
Electric shock, energy like a million watts,
Space be boom and the speakas pop,
Galactic boom and miss the spot,
We bumpin' in your parkin' lot!

The lyrics have terms that refer to sci-fi context such as 'Electric shock', 'energy', 'Space' and 'Galactic'. So instantly the lyrics relates to the visual content more than it did from the start of the song. As they go on to blast or zap these 'broken' dancers they become normal, so in that way the Black Eyed Peas are helping them, therefore they are seen as the heroes.

From 2:10, a black transformer robots return and is seen as a threat it grabs Fergie. Will.i.am then jumps on to the back of the robot and make their way out of the tunnel. The silver robot which was shown at the beginning, is the good robot, as the black one is the bad one. Usually anything related to the colour black gives off a negative vibe (at the exception of Batman), so the badness in this video, is associated with the black robot, where the silver robot is the good one. Their rivalry is seen through their dancing, as they prepare to battle. The silver robot is often seen behind the Black Eyed Peas, which the audience associate at the good one further more.

Towards the end, the black robot is defeated and it falls to the ground.

The Transformation of Rihanna

The Transformation of Rihanna by Komal & Hasina on Prezi

Final Cut effect tests

With the footage we used for the 'sharks' task, I had played around with the frames, by using the razor tool and sectioning few frames. Once I had done this I duplicated the frames and made one faster (by 150%), and the other I kept the same speed but had reversed it. I then watched it over and felt it was still too slow, so I sped up the whole section making it 170% faster than the original speed. This gave a more 'jerky' effect than it was before. As there is no set effect in Final Cut, I cannot apply it to footage automatically. Instead I have to manually cut frames, alter the speed and put the frames back to try and achieve the effect in Rihanna's Disturbia video.

I have tried to achieve the effect with another clip, this time, by using the razor tool by se

ctioning the clip, then speeding one part to 250%, then the next part to 150%, then next to 120% and then back to 250% and so on. It gave a more smooth jerky effect than the clip above as I did not have any reversed frames in between the normal clips (only at the end had I reversed all the clips and added it to the end).

Mind Map of Initial Ideas & Screen shots of Inspiration

A particular sequence I like is from Destiny Child's Bootylicious (1:15-1:23) which features various dance sequences being edited together very quickly with cuts to black, in between each of the shots.

Cuts to black then next shot:


Next shot:


I can see this same sequence in my own video with Lollipop, where the girl band (2NE1) are singing the last line of the first verse. It's tempo resembles the tempo in Bootylicious where Destiny's Child sing :-

Baby can you handle this
Baby can you handle this
Baby can you handle this
I don't think you can handle this

Another video with a shot that would suit with the girl band in my video, is Can't Speak French (00:05) by Girls Allowed. This is a shot where the girls are walking in a line towards the camera in slow motion, like models on a runway.

Special Effects Email

As I was trying to find out the name of the effect used in the Disturbia video, or even how it was done, I couldn't find any answers on the internet from just searching on Google. Instead, I came accross an animation, illustraton and visual effects website called Anachronistic Productions. On their website, gives users the opportunity to ask questions to the people behind the company. I had emailed Christian Darkin and he had replied giving me the answer to how the effect was created and advice about filiming during the performance. Before the reply, I had a chance to practise with the sharks footage on Final Cut, to try to achieve the same effect as seen in Disturbia. I had cut the frames from in between the movement during the dance sequence, but had not sped the clip up and I didn't paste the frames back in. So the effect wasn't achieved but following the reply from Christian Darkin, I will paste the frames back into the sped up clip to see if this would achieve the right effect.

The email and reply below,

Sent by me, on 25 Sep 2010, at 00:17:

Hello,

I am about to direct, film and edit a music video for my A2 Media studies, and I came across an effect which I am dying to know how it's done and the effect's name! The effect is from Rihanna's Disturbia video, where the video has many jerky, quick movements. I've tried testing this in Final Cut Express, but I can't seem to get it right. What I did was, I got a clip and cut out some of the frames during a dance sequence and then watched it over, but it didn't give that psychotic jerky effect like in Rihanna's video. What is the name of the effect, and is it achievable in Final Cut Express, and if so, how?

Thank you very much for your time,

Hasina

Reply from Christian Darkin(26/09/2010):

Hi,

I think it's a combination of fx and good choriography. In the edit I think you need to cut out a few frames between every movement (yes every single movement) speed them up and put them back in again.

You'll get a problem doing this because it will throw the dancers timing out so you'll have to make the dancers compensate somehow with their performances

Christian

Analysis of Rihanna - Disturbia (using Goodwin's Ideas)

The video I will deconstruct is 'Disturbia' by Rihanna as it shares the genre of pop with my chosen track ('Lollipop') and shares the video genre of performance. Though my video will not resemble 'Disturbia' in terms of concept, prop use or lighting, there are particular visual ideas from the video which I would consider replicating.


The video begins with an uncomfortable (off tune bizarre sounds) intro of the song, which sounds like it is drowning out and echoed. This is accompanied by the dark under lighting creating shadows on the characters faces insinuating a dark song; sound and vision work nicely here.


In addition the use of props adds to the Gothic idea of the video as the scene looks as though it is a torture room with its devices. This video reads beyond realism as the video slightly romanticises torture in the sense a female victim/torturer (rather than a male) looks glamourous rather than vicious; even though in reality torture is an unfortunate occurrence. The name of the video 'Disturbia' is instantly picked up as we see a woman struggling with her hands tied assuming she is disturbed from the torture. We see fast movements within the character as she makes jerky movements. This effect is created by cutting frames from a sequence which the human eye cannot establish the 'gap' in the sequence.

During the first verse of the song, we understand that Rihanna is confused and this is illustrated in the video as we see images of Rihanna in a cage, often shaking her head vigorously and 'going insane'.


The idea of Rihanna being a prisoner is related to the song's lyrical message as there are many hints in the lyrics that she is in fact paranoid and disturbed and this mirrors the images shown to the audience. They may not be as literal as the lyrics may read e.g. a thief at night coming out to grab you, this is not literally seen, though we see the symbolism and metaphorical meaning behind this line. We then see a conflicting side of Rihanna as we see her taking a dominating role where she pats the head of a man. It conflicts with the idea of her being the prisoner being tortured initially, then seeing her being the torturer. This could be Rihanna's alter-ego where she plays both roles of victim and torturer and so the role switches back and forth, therefore the performance iconography intentionally contradicts the meaning of the song (which its lyrics may be subjective to either victim or torturer).

Torturer? (@ 1:55)

Prisoner? (@ 0:42 & 2:09)

Rihanna's dance routine is a reference to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' routine, where the moves are very sharp, static and robotic due to the frames being cut. There is also that element of horror and Gothicism similar to 'Thriller's.

Rihanna is heavily promoted as she is the main star of the video. This hidden promotion is represented by routine close-ups of her face, flattering or unflattering (due to the concept of this video). There are many close-up shots of Rihanna's face which connects a sense of intimacy with the audience and with Rihanna, but towards the end, a particular close up questions our sympathy for her as the close-up is not as 'friendly' as the others. Her eyes are nearly rolled up in the back of her head, and the slight vindictive smile she has gives her away, and immediately we remember the torturer role she plays.

Notice the soft lighting coming in from the side - It gives the impression as if she is the victim, and we feel her pain.

The harsh under lighting here contradicts the previous close up - We see a dark side to Rihanna, she does not look like the victim here, more like the torturer. (Supposed alter-ego?)