This is our front and back cover to our album. We were given the genre "R&B" to look at. After doing some research into other album covers in our genre, we noticed that they did seem to have close ups of the artist, and not a lot of detail. They just had the album name and the artist. For the back cover, which you can see at the top, we decided to take a close up photo of our artist, who we named Ronnie G. We then edited the photo on photoshop. We chose an effect called "Watercolour". We then changed the lighting on the photo to make it darker. After we had done that, we decided to go onto google and get the barcode. We then placed this on the bottom left hand corner.  We had already found the font on a website www.dafont.com. We put the artists name at the top and then wrote out all of our song titles. Instead of putting the numbers of the song titles as "1. 2. 3. 4" we decided to actually write them out as "one. two. three. four." We thought that this would be unique and different as not many other albums have it. We thought that the font looked very casual. The font reminds us of jeans, which are casual and was the look that we wanted to have. The album name and the artists name are larger then the song titles as we wanted it to stand out and for people to know what album they were looking at. 

For the front of the album cover we decided that we wanted a whole body shot. We also wanted our artist to look very casual. The story behind the album is that he is going "back to his roots". His name is at the top which links in to the album name that is going down the cover. We had to put the explicate content on the album as to warn parents that their children, or they, might be listening to material that contains strong language use. We also noticed that it was on the front covers of a lot of other R&B covers, such as 50cent and Usher. 

Prelim Video

Here is a video that we made of You've Go9t The Love by Florence And The Machine. We had a few problems with doing it, as we didn't realise how complicated the video was going to be to make, and we also had problems with the amount of time that it took us to film. It did however show me the best way to use lighting and how to position people in shots. I think that although it didn't go very well, it was a good learning experience.

Using Photoshop

I had never used Photoshop before, so when creating our album cover i wasn't sure what i was doing. I decided to watch some youtube video's about how to use the programme. One of the video's that i looked at was:



There were other video's that i watched, that were linked to the same video. They really helped me and showed me what i should be doing to make our album cover the best that it could be. It helped me to learn about how to change the different lighting on our photo's so that we could create the effect that we wanted. It also taught me how to change the different fonts and colours so that we could make our album cover look good. 

Filming the video.

It was our first day of filming, and we decided that the first scene that we should shoot was 'the balloon shot'. After setting up the set - (we stacked big black box's on one another, and put a sparkly glittery curtain over them to create an effect) and making sure that the spotlights were in the correct places and were the correct brightness. We also made sure the camera was in the correct position to make sure that when we started filming, the camera was the correct height and in the correct place. 


After this was done, we had a look at the 'You've got the Love' video to look at cues for when the balloons had to be released and what Paige, the person who was acting Florence had to do. After we had established this we then started to film.


We asked the help of a few people to lie on the floor holding the balloons (carefully making sure that they weren't in the shot) and used the overhead projector in the drama studio so that they could watch the actual Florence and the Machine video so that they knew when they had to let go.


We started to film this scene, and we took a few takes. The plan was to take as many as we could, and then look over them after when we went onto the Mac computers to see which ones we did and didn't like and also see which ones needed the most amount of editing. Some of them we have to edit and crop out bits because the camera got tilted up too high and you could see the top of the ceiling with something that was on top of the drama studio. 


After we had done a few takes of this scene, we decided to do another scene that we thought was going to be a challenge.We thought that the first scene, which lasts about 17 seconds was going to be difficult to do. The difficulty's with this shot were the fact that it was a continuous shot, so everything had to be perfect in it. We started out with only a spotlight behind our Florence re-in actor, and as her face turned to the camera, we made a spotlight slowly come on.


After that, we had to make sure that she turned her head back to the side, raised her arm to the sky. The spotlight then had to dim at the correct time. We also wanted to make sure that she was mouthing the words in time to the music, so that it looked realistic. 


We did encounter some problems with filming, mainly the fact that we had to use the school drama studio to shoot our video, and it wasn't always available when we needed for various reasons. This did sometimes make it very difficult to get all of the shots that we needed in order to make a decent version of the video. However, with our video, quite a lot of the shots are the same, so we made an executive decision to use some of the shots twice. We thought that this would mean that we didn't have to have any issues with filming, however we did notice that the lip syncing wasn't right and also in places it looked very  jumpy.


We did try to edit our piece to the best of our ability. Seeing as it was a preliminary task, we used this experience as a learning curve on what she could do better next time and when we have to make our actual music video.                                                             

Planning for the video 2

Costume: There will be 2 costume changes. When the artist is on top of the black blocks, she will be wearing a grey coloured dress. When she is in front of the white screen, she will be dressed completely in white. 


Location: We will be shooting in the drama studio as it has the black, dark room and the spotlights that we will be needing. It also has a white background that we can use for the scene where she is in front of the plain white screen.


Camera Shots: We will need the camera to be in all different types of positions. We need to zoom up in the artists face quite a lot. We also need to get shots where you can only see part of her body, like her head and torso. Then we will need a more zoomed out shot where you can see her whole body. The camera will have to move around a lot also. 


Props: We will be needing helium balloons that will be released for a scene in the video. We will also be needing bubbles for that scene as well. We also need them 2 large black blocks that we can stand on top of each other that our artist can stand on to perform. She will also need to sit down on them also at one point. We will also need to have a silver sparkly string of glitter to hang on the box's and also to use in the scene where the artist is in front of the white background.

Planning for the video.

We decided to have a trial run of the balloon scene. We thought that this would be a good idea because once we have let go of the balloons we wont be able to get them back. This means that we only have one chance to do the scene. We have bought a set of helium balloons to use for the real scene, but we have also got one spare so that we can make sure that the camera is positioned correctly and that the lighting is how we want it to be. 


We want to make sure that we have the camera positioned in the correct way and that our artist is sitting in the correct position. With the trial run we are able to make sure that we don't mess up the shot when we actually go to do it. 


We were also thinking of having bubbles floating at the same time as the balloons going up because we think that this will give it a better effect. Seeing as we can't copy the video completely, as some elements are too hard to re-create, having the bubbles might make the video look more special and thought out. 

This is the balloon scene from the video 'You've Got The Love' by Florence and the Machine.

You've Got The Love Shots

I was looking at the You've Got The Love video, and was looking at all of the different shots that you see in the video. By doing this, when we come to re-create the video we will know how long each shot has to be and what sort of shot it is and what it shows in that shot. 


First Shot - The first shot lasts for 17 seconds, it starts with a close up of the artists face, and then zooms out. There is a single spotlight on her face, but then as she turns her face towards the camera, another one comes on to show her face more prominently. 


Second Shot - The second shot in the video only lasts for 2 seconds. It is a full body shot of the artist. There are a few spotlights that are lighting up the room so that you can see her face and her body. 


Third Shot - The third shot then cuts to a close up of her face. There are the same spotlights on so that you can see her face in detail and so that it isn't too dark around her. 


Fourth Shot - This is a mid shot of part of her body. It lasts 3 seconds and shows in it her face and upper body. This time there is only one spotlight behind her to create an effect. You can see the outline of her torso and face but you can't see it in complete detail. 


Fifth Shot - This shot only lasts for 1 second. It is zoomed out and shows her full body and face. There is one prominent spotlights and the others around are slightly dimmed so that they are less bright. 


Sixth Shot - This shot again only lasts 1 second. It shows half her body and face and is partly zoomed in. You can't see the spotlights but they are on, to the side of the shot lighting up so that we can see what is happening. 


Seventh Shot - This shot lasts for 2 seconds. The camera moves around the artist and goes past one of the spotlights so you get a flash of it. The camera is quite zoomed in so you can see the artists face and part of her upper body. 


Eighth Shot - This shot lasts for 1 second. It is a close up of the artist flicking her hair back. There is one spotlight directly behind her which we can see which lights her body up so that we can see what is going on. 


Ninth Shot - This shot again only lasts for 1 second. The artist is now facing the side, and again there is just one spotlight that we can see that is lighting the scene up for us. We can see pretty much all of her body apart from the lower part of her legs. 


Tenth Shot - This shot lasts for 1 second again, and shows us her top half. Although we don't directly see the spotlight, we can see that it is above her, shining down to light up the scene and show the audience what is happening. 


Eleventh Shot - This shot lasts for 4 seconds. The camera moves around the artist, and shows us her body, apart from the lower part of her legs. There is a spotlight, but as the scene progresses the spotlight is dimmed, but not fully. 


Twelfth Shot - This shot only lasts for 1 second. It shows the top half of her body, and you see the front of her as she again flicks her hair back. There again is a spotlight but this time you don't see any sign of it at all. 


Thirteenth Shot - This shot lasts for a second, and it is the same shot as the previous one but from a more side angle. 


Fourteenth Shot - This shot lasts for a second, and is a close up of the artists face. You can see the spotlight in the background but it doesn't over power the shot. The camera does move around. 


Fifteenth Shot - This shot lasts for 2 seconds and shows us half of her body. The camera does move around for a bit and again you can see the spotlights in the background that are lighting up the scene. 


Sixteenth Shot - This shot only lasts for a second and shows us the whole of her body. The camera only moves a little bit, and the spotlights aren't that bright. They are however bright enough to let us see the artist. 


Seventeenth Shot - 1 second from a different angle. More zoomed in to her face but you can still see some of her upper body.


Eighteenth Shot - This again only lasts for 1 second. It is at a different angle and is just of her moving around, dancing. There are the spotlights still on. It is showing part of her body but not her lower legs. 


Nineteenth Shot - We then see her sideways hair flick back. The camera is to the side of her. The shot lasts for 1 second in total. 


Twentieth Shot - This shot lasts for 2 seconds and is of her to the side. .


Twenty First Shot - This shot lasts for 1 second and is a close up of her face, with the camera slightly to the side. There is a very bright spotlight in the background which is creating an effect. 


Twenty Second Shot - Camera is zoomed out and for 3 seconds we see her dancing. The spotlights are still the same. 


Twenty Third Shot - The camera is more zoomed in but at an angle. Shot lasts for 3 seconds with her dancing still. Spotlights are the same. 


Twenty Fourth Shot - The camera is zoomed out. Shot lasts for one second and the camera is moving around. The spotlights are the same. 


Twenty Fifth Shot -  Camera is zoomed partly in so that you can see the artists face, and upper body. She is dancing, and the spotlights are still the same. 


Twenty Sixth Shot - For 8 seconds you see the artist in-front of a white screen. The camera is partly blurred but not so that you cant see the artist. You can see parts of glitter in the scene, so it looks like she is standing in between glittery strings.  The camera does move about a bit. The scene looks very bright and natural. The artist is standing in one place but is moving her arms about.


Twenty Seventh Shot - This shot lasts for 4 seconds. The artist is sat down now, with her arms by her sides. Helium balloons are released and you can see her looking up watching them as they float up. The camera is zoomed out so that you can see all of this.


Twenty Eighth Shot - This scene lasts for 3 seconds. She is in-front of the white screen again, and the camera is again blurred but it is more zoomed in then the first time. You see her move her hand, and look straight into the camera.

This is where we are ending our video.

Fonts for Album Cover

www.dafont.com is a great website for looking at fonts that we could use. There are hundreds to choose from. 


When thinking about what sort of font we would like to use, my group and I all decided that we wants a simple, block capital font, which is what you find on a lot of R&B albums.


Here are some examples of R&B albums that have the same sort of fonts and pictures that we were inspired by:

This is the album cover for Lupe Fiasco. The writing is bold, large and in white in front of a black background. It is very simple, but it is also eye grabbing. The picture is also very simple, just him in the shot, not posing too much. 

This is another album cover, this time of Jamie Foxx. The artist is in front of a busy nightlife, which is common in a lot of R&B album covers. We discovered through our research that a lot of reoccurring themes is that the artists are surrounded by materialistic things, such as nice cars, nice watches, nice clothes and nice environments to be around. The font is very simple yet again, and in white which is same as the one above. 

This is the album cover for R.Kelly. Again, the font is very simple and so is the picture on the front. It is just of the artist, although he isn't making any connection with the artist as he has sunglasses on and isn't looking into the camera. He also looks very mysterious. The writing is very simple and doesn't give much away. This is very common on R&B album covers.

Album Cover

The genre of music that we were given to create an album cover for, was R&B. After some thought into this, and some research into particular R&B artists, such as: Usher, Ne-Yo, R.Kelly and Chris Brown, we decided that we wanted just one male to star on our album. We picked someone from our school, and took some pictures in different locations outside. We then came up with the album name, Retrospect. We also came up with the song list.


1. Big City ft Paige
2. My Roots
3. Leave It
4. Retrospect
5. Real Talk
6. Big City part II 
7. Gucci Ting
8. I'm On H2O 
9. Down Croat 
10. 2.50
11. Bonus Track - Leave It Remix (Swedish Don)

The albums inspiration is that the 'artist' is going back to his roots, where he first came from and is looking back at how far he's come. Hes visiting the place where he grew up, and lived. And he's thinking about how he managed to get out of those difficult conditions and get to where he is now. 


After looking into what other R&B artists covers are like, we decided to go for a very simple front and back cover. We didn't want them to look over crowded, or that we had over thought the poses that we wanted our artist to have.