Final idea for my CD cover

For my CD cover, I decided upon using the image of the red umbrella floating upon a river. I decided upon this cover, as when comparing album artwork, I found that the CD cover was often unrelated to the music video or even directly to the artist. By therefore choosing a slightly more 'random' idea as my cover, I am conforming to the conventions expected by the genre and the wider music industry.

Intertextual references:
I was inspired for the image of my CD cover by the Pixar clip 'The Blue Umbrella' as it was similar to our own narrative, except instead of only showing the people's umbrella's we focused upon the feet to tell our narrative. It was therefore similar to our own video as it alternatively tells the narrative story through an unconventional manner, and therefore is a fitting cover for our album. However, although the blue umbrella is the main focus within their video, as our main protagonist is a feminine female, it seemed more suiting to use a red umbrella to reflect our main protagonist as red traditionally reflects femininity.
Inspiration also further came from other media texts, for example, films such as 'Shindler's list'  which inspired me, due to black and white nature of the film, with only a girl in a striking red coat shown in colour. It effectively captured the audiences attention, and showed the effectiveness of using the colour red, in standing out and connoting the correct idea such as boldness, a strong sense of character, passion, danger and a sense of femininity. All of which connotations are relevant when considering the representation of the female protagonist within our music video, and therefore red seemed a suiting colour which not only correctly portrayed our artist, but also conformed to the genre expectations of using bright and bold colours to also reflect the genre.

The idea of a red umbrella also connotes idea of honour and dignity in Buddhism, and is a general symbol of both strength and shelter, which again not only represents our female protagonist, but also by showing it abandoned and upside down, it gives the opposite message, that she as the umbrella is lost and abandoned, or that she as a person does not need the strength and shelter of the umbrella to shelter her again showing her strength of character. This shot I believe will also be used for my poster.

I therefore thought that this seemed the most suitable and convention fitting idea for the front of the album cover, with the theme continued onto the back, but instead of again showing the umbrella, I will show lily pads on the river to avoid the sense and feeling of repetition. To make my shot more visually interesting for the audience, I will edit the colours in photoshop and toy with effects to make the album stand out, and seem more visually interesting to capture its audiences attention.

For the inside panels of my CD cover, I plan on using a shot of Holly, who is the main character within our music video 'Bloodstream' pushing a bicycle down a city housed street, which will be made obvious through the style of street terrace housing which is only normally found in the city, which will make the location obvious, keeping with the urban theme showed throughout our single video. The shot itself will be composed in a way that does not reveal too much of Holly's face, maintaining the enigma which was a key theme throughout the music video. I decided that as long as the album cover was not obviously related, the inside panels could be marginally related to the 'hit' single, as the main focus of the shot is going to be the bicycle, which during the screening of our music video, the audience said was a key aesthetic aspect which they enjoyed. By also continuing the shot of the street that Holly is walking upon as the next panel, it also represents the journey that she is embarking on throughout her life, which is again reflected within the music video, and therefore by choosing this a CD panel, it carries the theme across.