Our Final Music Video

Our Final Ancillary Tasks

Digipack

Poster

Evaluation- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used a variety of new media products during the creation of our music video. We used Final Cut, a video editing program, which none of us had experience in using previously, to create our music video. By experimenting and teacher tutorials, we quickly learned how to create a professional looking video which flowed effectively, due to the ability of  us being able to overlap videos and cut them together with a greater ease, and one which had a variety of appropriate effects, such as faded edges and speed changes. We felt we utilized this new technology extremely well, being able to use it to construct a well flowing video.  To gain audience research we used Google Documents to create questionnaires which we digitally distributed.  This use of digital technology to research our audience made it quicker and easier for us to draw parallels and make understandings based on the information as it was speedier, neater and more professional for finding out audience perceptions. We digitally sent our surveys to those who fitted in our target demographic to see what we needed to include to make sure that our video was effective in portraying the wanted genre-specific ideas.
Another new media product we used was Photoshop. I personally have had experience through Photoshop before, so took a leading role in creating the digipack, and teaching the other members of my group effects to use, such as how to create shadow effects and the use of distortion. However, I still needed to use online tutorials and teacher directed tutorials to create an exciting and genre specific digipack. One of the techniques I discovered that played an important role in the digipack design was the 'energy lines' that flowed through the 3 inner panels. To achieve this effect I created lines using the Line tool and then, using multiple layers, I was able to add colour, multiply and layer them so that they created a professional looking affect. Another technique that greatly helped in my creation of the digipack was the discovery of the mask function. This function allowed me to blur out my photos and then highlight areas that I wanted to be clear, instead of moving around the object with a blur tool that can lead to an unprofessional looking result.




During the initial stages of our creative process we created a animatic to give our storyboard more depth and allow us as creators to see how we expected our video to turn out. This is somthing we had not done before and was a different approach to how we planned creating our Foundation Portfolio opening sequence because it allowed us to explore different technologies in showing the planning of our main project.

Evaluation- How effective is the combinations of your main product and ancillary texts?

To combine both the main product and the ancillary tasks we made sure to incorporate common themes through both. One theme we decided to include in both was graffiti. As part of the hip hop culture this allowed both products to be easily identified to the genre, also tying the two together. Another tie we made was  utilizing our artists face as an important factor to all aspects of the digipak poster and music video by "branding" our products like this we established the artists importance to the products and thus made it easier on the audience to link them to each other.

Our Final Digipack Design 

We made our artist wear similar style clothing in both products and used similar settings and locations, although we decided to go more urban than our actual music video. We tried to portray our given personality through both products by having shots of our artist sitting down or with his hands in his pockets to show how he has an 'E-Zee' carefree attitude. Also, in the music video and ancillary task, our artist keeps a serious expression on his face, connecting the determinations shown in the song to the artist himself. This is also a strong convention from the hop-hop genre. In most Hip Hop videos and promotional packages the artist looks down on or away from the viewer to show an uninterested and somewhat superior look over those watching/listening to them. This tries to intimidate the audience and gives the artist more power over them . we choose to do this in both our video and our poster/digipack, as we felt this was a genre specific aspect that would tie the two together.

Costume used is the same as in the music video

Our poster location shares a similar look to one of our location from our music video.  We chose to do this as somebody who consumes the video and then sees the poster will automatically connect the two together, thus helping the video to market the digipak release. The locations for both have a graffiti theme resinating through them to show the link between them and to emphasize our chosen genre of hip-hop. The main themes of both was an street/urban theme, which we showed in our digipack by taking roadside photos and photos of large crowds. One of the locations for our music video was at a skate park allowing the shared urban theme to shine through but also showing graffiti, a key element in the posters design. We tried to use similar looking locations for both our ancillary task and music video to allow the hi-hop genre to show clearly through both and connect the two, as well as showing the correct conventions needed to link the artist to the promotional package.

Evaluation- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

During the creation of our Media product we have undergone a variety of changes to correspond to audience feedback, such as with our poster for the ancillary task. After asking various people if they felt they could identify the genre and the artist easily around half of them said that both were not clear through our poster. To develop this we changed the positioning of our artist to make him the greater focus, and changed the colour scheme and font types to relate back more to our digipack and towards the audience.

Audience feedback on our video helped us to identify where we failed to express the genre effectively, not showing enough of the artist in a variety of shot types and locations. To remedy this we filmed our artist performing in more genre appropriate areas, for example a skate park and a recording studio, and used closer angles to create a greater feeling of connection between the artist and the audience by filling the screen with the artist.

Evaluation- What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product uses a variety of forms and conventions that are typical of existing media products. One of the aspects we include is on our digipack design, in which we use the convention of having our artist as the main focus, filling the cover. Like other media products, we felt that we needed to sell our artist, and to make sure that he was well known. To do this we made sure to feature his face on the front of both the media products we created, putting focus on him in both the poster and the digipack. We used a mid shot of him standing in front of a crowd to emphasise him standing out from everyone else, while still being an elusive face in the crowd. We filled the back cover with a large close up of his face to show him with a greater importance, and wrapped the text around him to show how important he is.

Another way we utilised the forms and conventions of existing media products was with the working of the locations we dominantly used. The three main locations of the recording studio, the skate park and the water front, all show our intended conventions successfully. The recording studio gave a feeling of wealth and status towards our artist, two things that are commonly hinted at or implied in existing media products. The high tec equipment also helps us to mirror the idea of power and importance used in existing media products. The graffiti covered skate park gave the music video an urban feel, showing that our artist is 'street' and therefore relatable to our audience, but also gives homage to the original concepts of hip hop when it was first developed. Graffiti played an important role in the development of hip hop, as well as a skateboarding culture, who grasped the original style for their own. We felt that we would develop our conventions by subtlety hinting at hip hops historical background in the locations of our video. Lastly our final location gave a feeling of power and also put emphasis on our urban 'street' persona we tried to portray, showing our artist in a street environment whist having a blank sky backdrop, giving him an extremely high status by having nothing else to distract the view.

Finally the costumes we used in our music video and ancillary task were effective as they used conventions of our genre quite well. Our artists costume consisted of a dark coloured jacket with jeans or chinos. These suited our genre well as the dark colour scheme is like that of artists from our genre and the clothing styles are also typical of our genres existing artists. I believe this helped our music video and ancillary task follow the conventions better as well as matching to each other, by having the same style of clothes being worn in both. Our female artist Angel wore two costumes, one dark and one light. We predominantly used the lighter coloured costume to contrast the genres typical colour scheme. We wanted to show angel as being sexy, but not as being a romantic interest for our main artist. Thus the use of the light colours created a feeling of separateness and disengaged the audience from seeing the two as a romantic couple.

Assessment 7/2/2012

Peer assessment 2

Shooting Schedule

This is our groups shooting schedule. We decided that we would focus on scenes involving our lead female singer Angel, on days where we have access to her without disrupting her from her school work. The other times are when we can go to the South-bank in London to film  the main male artist E-Zee's rapping scenes. 

Track and Location Permission Replies

These are the replies from the record label and the people in charge of Southbank 

Talent release form

Track permision letter

Email for location permission

This is an email to see if we can film in South-bank. Daniel sent these emails out to make sure that we can film there when we need to without being disruptive or illegally.

Track permision email

Lists of Props, Costumes, Make-up and Equipment.

Costume list

• E-Zee
• Grey T-Shirt (possibly logo)
• Vans/Smart trainers
• Jeans
• Silver Chain necklace
• (supplied by Luke )
• Angel
• Black jacket
• Blue plain T-Shirt
• Heeled sandals
• Large Hooped earrings
• Gold chain necklace
• (supplied by Angel)

Make-Up needed

• E-Zee only needs some foundation to sop him from looking shiny on film
• Angel needs foundation and eye liner and lipgloss. 

Props

• N/A

Equipment

• Floodlights/Small floor lights to shine in Angels on-stage scene. 
• (Supplied by Jordan)
• Cameras, Tripods, Fig Rig,  

Artist Logos/Graffiti Tags

Due to our genre of Hip-Hop being closely related to graffiti we decided to create Tags for our artists to use on the Digipack and advert. These were created by me. Angels Tag is focused on utilizing the idea of her being sexy and feminine, so based around a pink colour scheme and using a graceful swirling type-face. The added detail of an feathered wing also emphasizes her name of Angel being heavenly and graceful.

E-Zee's Tag was focused more on a earthy colour scheme and using the E of his title as the focus point. To do this I placed the E at an angle in the middle of the picture and made it black, thus drawing focus strait to it. I then added the red Zee onto it to show they are    separate aspects of the name. Lastly I decided on a dark green for a background.

As a group we changed areas of E-Zee's logo, deciding that Angels was best for her. We decide to lose the green background and use a different font for the E, as it seemed out of place with the other text. We decided to use the same text as the Zee to bring them together.

Location post

Storyboarding

This is our storyboard. I was in charge of illustrating of our perceptions of how we wanted the shots to look, whilst the others wrote up what we needed in each scene, mainly which lyrics would be sung and when. We then made the storyboard into an animatic.  Alex and I did most of the setting of pictures to the lyrics. We decided to change some of the shot lengths and when they would come in. I feel that we will follow the animatic more than the storyboard. However, both  will be the main gist of what will be used in our actual video as no real set areas are introduced apart from the recording studio.  We felt that this gave us much more freedom in our filming as we were not curtailed in our freedom to change sets or shots if they do not work.

Here is a video of me and Luke working on what will be in the text 

Our animatic

Lyrics annotation

These are annotated lyrics to our chosen song. The parts labeled Delilah are going to be preformed by our female artist Angel, whist the parts labeled Wretch 32 are being preformed by Our male artist Luke, or his stage name E-Zee. 

Concept Ideas

Our overall idea for the music video is to show off our artists as being wistful and to give a suburban feel to the song. This fits with the theme of the song of never giving up until you do what you want to do. By showing the pair, not with fast cars and money, but as people striving for a shared dream and that they are never going to give up. This shows that these two are what the song is trying to tell people to be. The pair come together at the end to show that they finally fulfilled their dream. We also show the pair recording music together as it shows that the song could actually be their shared goal. We decided to create a feeling of the pair being two separate entities but at the same time compatible  as they are seen in some of the cutaway shots together.

These are my initial costume ideas. As a group however we decided that some aspects are not what we needed or what was conventional of the genre. For the female costume, we decided that a more natural earthy colour scheme would be more in line with our genre than the red and purple one that I had initially intended. This is because we decided it was too bright and bold to fit in, and did not fit in well with the male costume. The male costume, however, we saw little to change as I feel I had kept close to the image of the Hip-Hop genre. The one major thing we need to change is the chain on the leg as this seemed too rock/punk styled then our desired effect.

Assessment 10/10/11 TME

Check the Written Assessment Feedback sheet which was given to you.

Digipack and CD cover Photoshop Tutorial

These are our first attempts at creating CD covers for our chosen genre on Photoshop. Doing the tutorial taught me how to resize images, create a shadow effect and blur colours and images to create a better effect. This is a quick idea using what I have learned and a mock up of what our digipack could look like. The view of the group wearing near matching clothes makes them seem like a band or a gang. The image of the plane in the background is conventional as it shows money and travel. It also creates an image of power and mystery for the band members who seem to be watching the flight. The colour scheme, unfortunately, is too bright to be truly in line with our genre. We needed a darker, earthier colour scheme to show the artists as gritty and real.The Parental Advisory label is conventional of the genre as Hip-Hop usually uses explicit language and adult themes.

Our Chosen Song

Wretch 32 Ft. Delilah " Don't Be Afraid

We decided on this song as it has various areas which we found inspiring to create a music video around. These included the slow, ballad-like opening section that we thought would be effective to show a darkly lit stage for, and the fast rap, which would be shown in a suburban environment. We also could imagine who we would like to see singing the parts and how they would be marketed.

Job Roles and Initial Ideas

This is a video of our group having a discussion on what we should do for our music video and what roles we would take. My roles are primarily to do with the mis-en-scene and more focused onto the singers, characters and storyline. This means I am in charge of finding people to be our performers and how to dress them and portray them in our videos.

Initial Ideas

As a group we have decided to use the genre of Hip-Hop in our music video. My personal input was to have a female lead as, although most Hip-Hop artists are male, a female artist may be easier to create an image around. 

Peer Assesment

Assessment TME 24/09/11

WWW: You've made an attempt at almost all the entries, and have tried to include visual material in each of them which should be recognised. You've clearly spent some time going through the entries.


EBI: Although you have included some of the results of your questionnaire, they do seem a little bit basic, and without analysis. Remember the point is to find out what your target audience wants to see within your music video and how you are going to advertise the release of the single/album. You need to explain what the target audience thinks and how this information will impact on the video and ancillary task you produce.

-Include a paragraph explaining what the questionnaire is for.

-You need to include another two magazine adverts with analysis.

-You must include one more record label, with a bit more explanation throughout the entry. 

-Your cover analysis of the Estelle album is not long enough.

-You must increase the length of the Conventions of a Hip Hop entry.

- There should be more explanation about how meaning is created in the analysis of your 5 Music videos, don't just have bullet points with the denotation, also include the connotations and meaning created through the use of the micro elements.  Your Chipmunk entry is not complete.

-Good mood-board, but needs a bit of explanation. What is going on in it?

- I am not sure what the Birds clip you've included in the Bordwell and Thompson entry is supposed to exemplify. Is it a graphic match? Try to find another more suited clip. You should give more explanation to each of these clips, they don't seem to be anchored to anything particularly - rather just shoved in. Explain why you've used them.

- I don't know what the work "epasize" means. Check your entries for coherence before publishing.

Grade - PR

Survey Results

The Questionnaire was to make sure that the music videos we produced were in line with the audiences expectations and desires of what a Hip-Hop music video should include and, by asking people what they expect to be in a video and what we should incorporate to produce a good video, we can utilize the input and create a video that is coinciding with the audience's requests.

(note: all text in Red are text answers to questions)

Are you male or female? 

How old are you?

What Ethnic group do you belong to?

White British white British whiteWhite English white British White British whiteWhite BritishWhite British Black British Black Caribbean

Do you listen to Hip-Hop music

By using the above data we can see that, out of 11 people asked, around half were male and half were female. This is a good thing for our survey as Hip-Hop is a genre that appeals to an even mix of male and female fans. I also asked more 17-20 year old as they were more likely to listen to this genre of music. I asked more White people than Black people, which may make the results a little biased. More people listened to Hip-Hop of some sort than those who never listened to it at all, allowing a fair view on what needs to be in our music video

 

Looking at the above graph, we can see that the main aspects that have to be included into our video are beatboxing, branded clothing, fast cars and skantily clad women.

Can you name a Famous Hip-Hop artist?

Swgger Jagger, 50 cent, no, Dappy, nicki minaj, lil wayne, eminem, keri hilson, NOPE :), jz Eminem, Tinchy Stryder, Eminem, Jay Z

By looking at who is recognised as a leader in this field of music, we can understand what image to draw insperation from, in this case, the most recognised, Eminem

How often do you attend Music Concerts or Festivals per year?

 By looking at this pie chart we can see that over half of those surveyed never go to music concerts, so the idea of trying to use concert based advertisements (Now in concert etc.) will be infective.

How do you consume music?

By looking at how people consume music we can see how to sell them music.A good idea would be to have a down-loadable album off of Itunes or another big downloading site, and state that the artist has his own youtube channel on which to watch him/her.

Do you enjoy videos with Story-line or Singing and Dancing?

Using these stats we can see that our music video needs to have some form of a storyline in it to attract the audiences attention, and should not focus on a large dance routine.

Audience research Questionare

Genre Research 5: Magazine adverts

            Advert for Wretch 32’s album Wretchrospective. Tells the date and who will be guest staring to make people excited about the upcoming release. The poster uses dark colours to show that this is a Grime artist who is shady and cool. Poster is a blown up version of the disk cover, but also shows the cover separately to draw attention to what it looks like so people remember. Lots of graffiti techniques have been used on the poster, like the paint drips under the main title and the effect on the hands. This is because graffiti and Hip Hop are very close.The bling and the indie style wristband give the impresion of style and wealth, while the plain white tee and grey jeans give a casual feel to the artist. At the side of the poster are different places that are selling the album, such as HMV and Itunes. This makes the reader aware of how to get the album, and also will advertise these places as well.

            Shows the album big in the middle of the screen to make sure the reader sees it and remembers it.The two artists are shown on either side to show that they had a joint effot in creating this album. The pair are wearing snazzy clothes and the one on the right is wearing a neclace and headphones. These show that they are sucsessful and able to afford these things. The type face is based on graffiti style writing, with stencils at the top and free writing at the sides. the piece is in black and white apart from the date of release. This draws our attention towards it.