Magazine Cover Research 2 - NME

NME (New Musical Express), is a weekly music magazine that tends to focus on particular music trends of the time, it mainly focues on bands and musicians that are very popular and tends to focus on specific genres that are popular of current times, but it also features vetran and classic bands and musicians (see Ian Curtis cover) as well. NME follows a similar layout to Q, in terms of how the logo is positioned, how the band are photgraphed and teh backgropund. The differences here though is that NME has alot more vibrancy that Q lacked, alot of their covers feature a big array of colour and font schemes, that really grab the eye. The cover is also packed full of otehr pictures as well which brings in more focus on otehr things featured in the issue i.e. album covers and pictures of other musicians. I only have oone criticism of this magazine cover and that it's sometimes a bit too packed full of things, sometimes tehre is so much packed on the cover it becomes a bit of a mess and just becomes really muddled and confused. Theses covers don't portray this well, except maybe the Oasis one a little bit, but passed NME covers have just been a bit of a mess.

Magazine Cover Research 1 - Q Magazine

As part of the project, one of the tasks is to design a magazine advert, but as I have stated before I am extending that into a bigger magazien package and part of that is a magazine front cover featuring the band. So over the next 4 blogs I'll be looking at 4 different magazines and talk about what goes into their covers and what possible inspiration I can draw from them.

Q magazine covers all different types of genre and music and reviews pretty much all the latest music releases and features articles of all the latest musicians aswel as articles with veteran and classic musicians. Q's album covers are very simple in design, all there magazine have the basic layout of the magazines logo in the left hand top corner, with the main featured musician or band featured on the front cover standing in front of a white background (except for the odd expection like the U2 featured cover above), and feature lots of different colour text in the same font about what is featured in the issue. What I like about the Q covers are is that they are very simple and straight to the point, when you look at the cover you know whats going to beside and whats featured, its very straight to the point which I feel is what is needed for a magazine cover it just gets straight to the point, as well as the photos used for the front cover, they have been taken incredibly well, some front covers reaching fantatsic in terms of photography . However saying that at times the covers do come off as a bit blanned and boring, there isnt much in the way of vibrancy, it doesn't always grab your attention, the only way some people might pick it up in this case is if a band or musician they like is featured on the front, other than that, it just comes off as a little boring at times.

Research-Magazine Advert

Part of the project is to create a magazine advert for the song that I'm doing. I've decided to do an advert for both the single and the album it will feature on, aspart of my extended magazine idea. These are just a few I've pulled off the internet for both singles and albums, but there arn't many on the internet so I basically grabbed what I could get a hold of. However these are all relevant as each of these adverts are from different music genres and sub genres e.g. Green Day (punk), Queens of teh Stone Age (stoner rock), Metallica (metal). Yet they all show that adverts follow a similar style and princible in design, they just feature a picture of what it is advertising with release information, the band name, some show reviews and they all have similar design choices. At the moment if I had to draw inspiration for my two adverts, I'm currently being drawn to the Arctic Monkeys, Foo Fighters, QOTSA and Mettalica adverts, with mine possibly taken the shape of either of these 4 or incorporating ideas from all 4.

The Treatment

A Decision Has Been Made...

As stated in previous blog entires I've been trying to decide which PABH song to use for this project, with one of mylast blogs stating it was a choice between "The Lighthouse", "E=MC Hammer" or "I've Got Guestlist to Rory O Harras Suicide". After some careful coincideration and some in put from my new partner Chloe, we both decided on using "E=MC Hammer" :) Not only is it one of my favourite songs by the band but it is the longest out of the 3 and it also has much alot more possiblity for what we can do in terms of a video, plus it just has more potential of being a single than the other two, the other two songs are great songs but don't have the best potential for being a single, due to that they are really short songs and due to that the music video would be shorter leaving little room for bigger ideas, where as "E=MC Hammer" is an avergae length song and leaves rooom for a longer video which we can use to create a better storyline or idea for the video.

Exciting New News!!!!!

I am excited to announce that I will be no longer wroking on this project by myself  :) Thats right I have now been joined my Miss Chloe Carr after been abandoned by her former partner and completely dropped in it because of it. So I offered to let her join me and I am excited to be working with someone new and can't wait to see what she has to offer to the project and what ideas she has. So in the words of PABH this is truly "Awesome, Radical and Totally Bodacious!"

Updates and The Band

As indicated before the band I'am doing is a real band, who have very generously, allowed me to use them and one of their songs for my project :) As proof of this I'll be posting a print screen up soon of the E-Mail I got from lead guitarist, James Brown, confirming it was perfectly fine for me to use them. As for the song itself that I am using, I am still unsure of which song I want to use, in the post with my presentation video I said that I was going to use their song "The Lighthouse" but I'm still a little unsure. At the moment it is a toss up between "The Lighthosue", "E=MC Hammer" or "I've Got Guestlsit to Rory O Harras Sucide". Until then here is a link to the bands website for more information onf the band and any intrest I may have engaged from you: http://www.pulledapartbyhorses.com/

Project Presentation

So last week I had to do a presentation in front of my class about the project I am doing for this course. Despite being a really nerve racking experience, it was also quite a useful one to. In the presentation (see video above) I talked about the band I had chosen, what my intentions for the music video, digipack and magazine would be and also showed off my artwork I had designed i.e. a logo/branding ideas for the band and ideas for the digipack pages. This was good experience as it allowed me to see what else I need to do with my project and what I need to tweek in order to make the project completely solid and tight and to have a complete strong focus on what the project will be. I have already have most of my ideas completely established and that don't need any changes done to them, in which I have a set idea but there are some that definitley need looking over and taht might need possible changes.

Research - Album Artwork

Here is the album from Pulled Apart By Horses, from the top down is, the front cover, album artwork for Back to the F**k Yeah, The Crapsons, Yeah Buddy, I Punched a Lion in the Throat, I've got Guest List for Rory O Harras Suicide and Get Off My Ghost Train. Unfortunatly this isn't all the artwork as it is quite difficult to find, but these few give the whole feel of the band and the artwork throughout. It shows alot of the bands humour and how modern and different the band are, as well as sticking to the skull iconography the band use pretty much all the time as well as the many other gothic features used by the band. Each piece of artwork for the cover bookelt was designed by an individual artist, something taht is rarely done anymore and shows a lot of dedication from the band towards their debute album and the fans who have supported them over the years. It also makes it even more individual and unique, and shows a true dedication from the band.

Research - Music Video 2

The Chapman Family - Anxiety

 

 

This is very clever music video, in my opinion it has a clever portrayal of youth gang crime in the U.K. something that can be seen protrayed from the council flat setting, the clothes worn and the make up used to show the different gangs. It also fits well with the song title "Anxiety" fitting in with themes of teenage anxiety caused by the gang violence portryaed in the video. It also gets even more clever at the big climatic end when it looks like two gangs are about to face off with each other then strip naked and embrace each other, offering quite a strange if unique message about spreading love rather than violence. The video also contains quite a few decent camera shots especially at the end when they all strip naked so nothing explicit is seen, as well as lots of stunt work with the actors in the video jumping off of ledges which is also cleverly done and fits into the youth culture. 

Research - Music Video 1

Pulled Apart By Horses - Back to the F**K Yeah

This video fits with the style of the band, especially the weird supernatural and horror aspects they use. Like in this video where the band are dragged backwards through the woods by some mystical force, which could be a reference to the Evil Dead film series, which is set in the same strange and spooky woods and has a similar strange force taht you never see that carries people into the woods. It is a very clever video and very simple, it's entertaining and quite funny, which are a lot of what the band is about, just humour and entertainment. I think I also like the great camera work, especially when the band and getting dragged through these woods and when they gather back they are all bloody and muddy, something the camera work picks up on. As well the effect used for when they just shoot backwards is really clever as well and really well done and delivered.