GP: Digipak Deconstruction

Lily Allen - Sheezus Album (2013)

Genre

• Mise-en-scene is used to establish the genre of this album. The location, costume & colour are all conventional of the pop genre. The grand location of a mansion (which is emphasised by the long-shot & the door being open which shows the consumer more of the mansion) is associated with pop by the connotation of being glamorous & living an extravagant life.
• The colours are highly saturated and include gold details which connote the idea of being rich and powerful. Additionally, her outfit is quite glamorous with her heels & perfect, shiny hair which are both stereotypical of the pop genre rather than to wear casual clothes. Her costume isn't too promiscuous so this challenges the dominant stereotype of pop artists (particularly female) always wearing promiscuous outfits. However, she is wearing shorts but then again, they are not short enough to connote promiscuity & lots of people wear shorts so in this case they are not really promiscuous.

Media Language

• In terms of rule of thirds, Lily is centred (and it is just her) which makes her the focal point; this suggests that she is independent. This is anchored by her confident non-verbal language where she is leaning forward.
• The camera is eye-level which doesn't connotes powerfulness; she is still on the' consumer's' level; just-about relating to the audience. Juxtaposition is created here as Lily is seen to be in an incredibly wealthy setting with lots of mise-en-scene aspects which connote wealth and being a VIP, whilst there is still a sense of Lily being grounded as she is at eye-level.
• The Corgis could almost be a parody as corgis are usually associated with Royals (symbolism) and power; Lily could be mimicking the Royals. Also, the title being 'Sheezus' (a reference to Jesus) is related to this whole sense of power & parody as well as Jesus is so incredibly respected and widely renowned.
• The colours are warm; audience expectation would involve an album that isn't full of slow & depressing songs but more to do with happiness (which links to Lily being inspired by her motherhood'.

Representation

• Lily looks incredibly powerful through the use of the rule of thirds as she is centred. Furthermore, her non-verbal language consists of her leaning towards the camera which implies that she is confident which further connotes this sense of empowerment & independence. All this power challenges an emergent ideology of women not being successful & weaker than men; this is progressive. The gold font for the album title 'Sheezus' & her name, Lily Allen, is bold and gold which compliments the gold colours on the building & saturated lighting which both are associated with wealth & power which also contributes to challenging the regressive ideology of men being more powerful than women.
• Additionally, since the camera is at her eye-level she is on the 'consumer's level' which makes her more relatable and not 'looking-down' at the consumer at a low-angle.
• The juxtaposition between this eye-level shot in contrast to the connotation of wealth contributes to Paradox 1 being demonstrated. Lily is extraordinary as she is in this rare setting whilst being ordinary (with the shot being on the consumer's level).
• In terms of star quality Lily demonstrates some of the qualities that contribute to this title. These qualities include success (due to the wealth, powerfulness & independence connotations), youthfulness (her costume, make-up & look) & conspicuous consumption (of material goods).

Institution & Audience

• Lily is quite young herself & looks young on this album cover; the consumers are more likely to be young as people identify with their own age group more than others; they tend to relate more to the content of the music & naturally gravitate towards people like themselves (as with all age groups).

Meta-narrative

• Lily, during writing for this album, was just recently made a mother & she felt she was inspired by her experience of motherhood. I believe 'Sheezus' was the a title that reflected how empowered she felt being a mother & how powerful she felt because she had a comeback, or as Lily said 'mumback', album.

What can we take from this

• Saturated colours make the visuals look warmer which can be applied to our music video & digipak.
• If we have our character (and focal point) at eye-level with the camera, our audience will be able to identify with him more which is the effect we want to have as the audience will think of their childhood & compare it with the harsh childhood of this boy's.
• Rule of thirds can anchor this as having the little boy centred also makes him the focal point of our digipak.