Potential Album Cover Ideas

 

This is an image produced by Brantley using Photoshop to give us an approximate idea of what we wanted our album cover to look like. We agreed that we wanted out album cover to have a rough sketchy feel to it as it would fit in perfectly with our song choice as well as what we want our finished video to look like. One of our primary ideas is to have the three of us in our group who are going to be in the music video (Me, Sam and Tom) sitting on the floor or possibly standing wearing quite scruffy street clothes and on the right hand side us wearing formal suits.

The Male Gaze Theory

The Male Gaze Theory

The male gaze theory was originally created by Laura Mulvey in 1975 as a feminist idea that centres around how the media has specifically placed aspects and assets that appear appealing and desirable for men as sexual as pleasurable images or other such inclinations as well as the idea that using these can actually affect an audiences anticipation (mainly a male audience) to see it used in trailers or music videos as a way of attracting a male based audience. A famous example of the male gaze theory in work on a film would defiantly be the James Bond films which has always been ironically known for it's beautiful women with 'desirable' figures who always appear to throw them selves towards the manly hero in the films. The men with  the most power in James Bond are always accompanied by a very attractive provocative female. The Tomb Raider series as also famous for this but in a slightly reversed way. Rather than seeing a dominant male picking and choosing his women there is a powerful main woman in the films who is made to look very sexually desirable through her attitude and the clothes that she wears. Despite all of that this theory is a very subjective idea due to it being established and devised on the principal that it is all men who are pulled in by such luxuries when it does work both ways for males and females and would not always be the case.
 The male gaze theory did have a big influence during the 70's and Mulvey describes it as voyeuristic  in that its for likable appeal or rather just sexual.

A fine example of the male gaze theory in the music video industry would be Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke which has such obvious use of sexual appeal aimed directly at men as it features multiple top half naked women dancing and posing with the singers in a very sexual way which is obviously a direct attempt at male gaze to attract popularity and extremely controversial manner especially as music videos are never usually this explicit.
Quite the opposite to Blurred Lines is 'Bitch beta have my money' by Rihanna. This has very many similarities to Blurred Lines because of the high levels of controversy but presents the woman as the one in power including explicit scenes of violence the woman in power is dressed and behaving very provocative.

Applied Lyrics - Music Video Planning

Contradictive music to the happy sound the lyrics are run down and depressed visuals. Start happy and slowly become darker as time passes.

Key for who
Warehouse (assault) - Joe
Home (kicked out) - Tom or Sam
Job (fired) - Tom or Sam
All



(leaving job centre happy)
different pubs, same name -
Kids out in the rain - "kids" displays teenager as childish to viewer                                                    
Drain on society - waste i.e. unwanted (link to family)
Nothing on the telly -  bored lazy                                               
Barely at school - delinquent, no care for education
Acting like a fool - carefree irresponsible shows unresponcible
Well I coulda done well if things had gone better - reference to education
Slurred singing, wrong lyrics on the dance floor -
Not rich, not poor - just getting by so not a comfortable life
What you living for? - using as a sense to
Poundland pubs and Wormwood scrubs -
Last nights takeaway in Tupperware tubs -

I lost my job in Weatherspoons -
And since that day my bank has hit zero -
Hopefully things'll pick up next year though -
And if they don't then well... -

[Chorus]
It won't be long before I sign on
Is it right or is it wrong?
I've got no money, it's all gone (x2)

Every week do the lottery -
Daylight robbery -
Spend more on tickets than it's worth in the long run -
Young, dumb, living off mum -
Waiting for the right time to come -
Can't afford the bus that I used to run for -
Lurking on the wrong side of the law -
What for? -
Once more, never been abroad -
A week around here's enough to make you crazy -

[Chorus]
It won't be long before I sign on
Is it right or is it wrong?
I've got no money, it's all gone (x2)

All my shoes have holes in the soles
Live my life in second hand clothes (x2)

[Chorus]
It won't be long before I sign on
Is it right or is it wrong?
I've got no money, it's all gone (x4)
(Entering job centre together all miserable)


- walking past school goes to abandoned warehouse messes around assaulted
- walks home leeches of parents living easy, gets kicked out
- goes to job a mess carefree, gets fired, becomes poor
- jobs happy jobs carefree, bad mishaps meet up depressed




Script
(Leave job centre happy)
All - "drunk" record us wobbling outside pub
Tom - coming home in the rain
Tom - lazy scene
Tom - recording me lip-syncing that's played on the TV tom pressing remote
Joe - messing around in abandoned warehouse
Joe - people approach him menacingly
All - being handed "F" grade papers
Sam -
Sam -
Joe - bullying him shouting "what you living for
All - leaving pub looing upset
Tom - eating all the food in the house
Sam - gets fired throws apron on floor
Sam - walking go pro recording me walking mouthing lyrics
Sam - Continue
Sam - sat on the floor in town wrapped in rags


[Chorus - start]
Tom - mimes first line happily
Joe - mimes second line unscathed
Sam - mines third line in apron


Tom - mimes first line upset and depressed drenched in water
Joe - mimes line bruised and beaten and bleeding
Tom - mimes third line without apron scruffily and dirt on face
(think of idea for next part of chorus)
[Chorus - end]
This is work from Samuel Boden's blog which was contributed to by the entire group so I deemed it necessary to include it in my blog since I contributed to it also and it is important planning for our groups music video.

Lip Syncing Practice

As a group we spent some time last week to practice lip syncing to our song. This was a helpful exercise for us to do as a group because it was not only fun but also very productive because it has helped us prepare for the actual filming of our music video. We all found it very difficult to do the lip syncing at first because Sign On is a very fast song so it took us all a fair bit of practice to be able to keep up with the pace of the song.
Here is a video of us practicing our lip syncing.