Preliminary ideas

 This is one of my initial ideas for my magazine advert. My intention is to capture an urban cityscape, in order to connote messages over chaotic reality. It is an over the shoulder, long shot, to capture the person's perspective and construct the representation that she isolated, as they are separated and looking down at everyone. The high angle shot reinforces this and also represents the subject's high level of power or status over the world. The subject is on the rule of thirds, to draw the audience's eye towards them, and it relates to both the album cover and music video as the main character's face is never shown. The road also influences where the audience are drawn to, as the road creates leading lines. This looks interesting as the road disappears off into the distance, connoting the person is out of reach of reality and modern life. However this could be composed better so that the leading lines lead to one of the text headings, as this would draw attention to the album title. This idea could also be improved by using a visual style, as i would like to use surrealism, to create an abstract image. This image would be black and white, to make it look more emotive and the subject more isolated, then the text in red to make it stand out and relate to the song 'Bloodstream'. I think that the shot of the road from a bridge works well because they are metaphorical locations. Both the road and bridge connote escapism and freedom, traveling to different paths. Therefore it does create surrealist messages of escaping reality into dream worlds.

This is another version of my magazine advert idea. I have made improvements on the first idea by changing the composition of the leading lines, so that on the advert the headings will be placed in the centre, bringing attention to them. Also i have repeated the image, to create a sense of surrealism. It conforms this visual style as it deconstructs the image to look abstract, therefore also deconstructing reality. It would be shot in dark lighting, set on a street, so that there are bright spot lights from the street lights, highlighting the subject. The subject still creates a sense of enigma by having their back to the camera, walking down the road, escaping reality. To add colour i will airbrush the photo on Photoshop and make the lines on the road red, to draw attention to the centre and the leading lines. This image creates a narrative through the enigmatic character and the theme of escapism. I like this design as mirroring the image relates to the album title 'Mirrored worlds' and the surrealist visual style. I also like the composition and the long shot, as it is suitable for a magazine advert; not too boring or overcrowded. However the location of the bridge, giving a view of the urban landscape works better because the camera angle would make it look more extensive and infinite. The weakness of this idea is that it isn't clear what genre it belongs to, therefore it needs to conform to the indie genre, as magazine adverts usually feature close ups of band members, to make it recognisable. 

This is the main idea for my album cover, as it responds to both the minimalist and surrealist visual style and looks original. The idea is to have someone looking into a mirror, then the reflection is altered and shows the back of them. This was inspired by surrealist photography where someone's reflection is deconstructed then reconstructed to change the perspective of them. A lot of surrealist photography is also in black and white, to focus on tone and the portrayal of the subject. Therefore the front cover of the album will be in black and white. This also makes it minimalist as it makes it more simple and plain,  so that colours don't cause a distraction from the main focus and theme. There is a lot of negative space, with only the subject and prop in the centre, to draw the audiences' eye to it, which is another feature of minimalism. I will construct this idea through Photoshop, and use this technology to insert the altered image onto the reflection. The headings could go across the top, in a simple font to establish the minimalist style, yet they would stand out as the layout isn't crowded. The use of a character in the image creates a narrative, creating a sense of enigma and possibly sympathy for her. This can also make the image relatable to the audience because they could relate to the subject's loss of identity and belonging, or maybe the desire to escape normal reality. 

This album cover works best for its composition, because each feature is placed on the horizontal rule of thirds, making it eye catching. From researching surrealism, eyes are a key visual, used to show someone's point of view but manipulate it into something unusual. Therefore i have done a close up of an eye, which will be altered in photoshop, to create an image, portraying the persons vision. To make it cohesive to the magazine advert i could use the same image or setting, then merge it with the eye. This creates the same connotations and representations as the magazine advert, as the road is a metaphor for escapism and represents people in modern life wanting to escape the repetitive nature of everyday reality. The magazine advert is also shot in a way that shows someone's viewpoint, which is the same idea as this image. It also relates to the title 'Mirrored worlds' because it shows a reflection. The composition is typical of an album cover because the headings are placed above and below the image. It also looks minimalist therefore it gives the audience a clear understanding of what to notice. This design also includes leading lines, which lead to the centre of the cover, attracting the audience to this cover in a store, because it immediately draws your focus. However I prefer the other album cover design because it is more original and includes a person that could be a band member. This cover is less clear of the genre because i haven't seen any other indie covers similar to this, and there is limited mise en scene to reference conventions of the indie genre.