MUSIC VIDEO COMPLETED!

After months of hard work me and my team-mate have finally completed our music video, enjoy! 

COMPLETED ADVERT + DIGIPACK

CLOSING STATEMENT

I have now come to the end of my course and would just like to say its been a lengthy yet great journey, and a massive thanks to everyone whose helped me through it. I've learnt so many valuable skills throughout the year that I know will be of use in the future. Having a great teammate to work with has made this entire process all the more enjoyable, being able to combine Esther's skills of video editing and my skills of designing (the Digipack & Advert) we managed to construct a 'new artist' and everything that comes with it. I would like to conclude this journey by giving a massive thanks to my teacher Miss Dunn whose supported all of us throughout this process, and who without our work wouldn't have turned out as successful as it has, and of course Mr Sleeve - who was more a life saver than he was a helping hand! So yeah, I hope you like our Advert & DigiPack and enjoy watching our Music Video as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Many thanks!

EVALUATION - Q4

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

EVALUATION - Q3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After completing our music video and ancillary texts I gained audience feedback from a number of my peers. I tried out two different methods in conducting feedback, one included a survey and another is of one of my peers (target market) who filmed himself watching the video whilst giving feedback. 

I also carried out a questionnaire to my target audience (between the ages 16-19) asking them questions on our music video, asking them what they thought was good about our video and what we could improve on. Below is an infogr.am showing the results I gained:

Overall, I am pleased with the feedback we received from the group of people within our target audience who we showed our video to, as the majority of the comments we really positive. The few negative comments we did receive were either due to things we couldn't change such as some of the camera angles we filmed at, and the quality of some of the shots. Nevertheless this showed us that our editing of the video was good as people really enjoyed it as a whole. I feel that through the process receiving feedback on my music video I have learned a lot about how to make videos in the future,

EVALUATION - Q2

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (DigiPack & Advert)?

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EVALUATION - Q1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convetions of real media products?

When producing our music video we got a lot of inspiration from pre-existing music videos. In some ways, this meant that we were very much conforming to the covnentions of real media products, as we were looking at existing material and taking ideas from the stereotypes that have formed in the Hip-hop genre. Below I have created 9 key-frames showing how I have used, developed and challenged forms and conventions, and with each one I have taken a screenshot of our music video.

Production Diary 12

So, as I said in my previous diary I decided to get some audience feedback from our target market. We worked on our advert and digipack based off the feedback gained and made the valid changes, and finally everything is completed, yaay. The music video is also completed, I think it would be a good idea to gain some  audience feedback on that as well, so we might as one of our peers to film themselves watching the video and giving their comments and thoughts on it. But yeah, everything is finally completed, I am now going to begin working on my evaluation.

CHANGES

Based off our audience feedback I made changes to the colour scheme, to blue and yellow being the main colours that stand out. To match the colour scheme I had to changed the colour of 'REDEMPTION' to blue on the advert and digipack, and also added in ratings from 'The Source' & 'XXL' magazine to make the advert look more realistic. I made the same changes on the digipack, and also changed the front cover of the album, using the same image as the advert, this was so that there was a stronger correlation between the two making them relate mote. I also changed the left panel colour from purple to blue so everything worked well, and the colour scheme flowed thoroughly throughout both advert and digipack.

Audience feedback on our Digipack + Advert

With what our digipack and advert looks like so far, we have decided to collect some audience feedback, we printed them out in A3 and asked our peers to comment what they think of our work so far. As our peers are between the ages 16-19, their feedback was very beneficial as that is basically our target market.

All those yellow sticky-notes you see below is all the helpful feedback we gained!

 You may not be able to see it very well but most the feeback was gained was based on the colour scheme of both digipack and advert. Most people liked they fonts and concept of our work, however felt that the their were too many colours, and these colours didn't really work to make it look appealing (pinks, purples etc.) They also really liked the images used for both advert and digipack as they felt that they were strong, and the model used followed hip-hop conventions extremely well.

Based off our feedback we have decided that we are going to change the colours to make it fit in better with our hip-hop genre. We have decided that we are going to scrap the pinks and purples and are going to go for more darker, masculine colours such as blue, black as these colours are usually associated more with the hip-hop genre and further support our male star.

Production Diary 11

So far the creation of our digipack and advert if going well and is nearly completed, I have yet to complete the extra panel where I have to put the 'thank-you' note from the star. The advert is pretty much done, I think now is a good time to print both advert and digipack out in A3 in get some audience feedback on it from our target market.
In terms of the music video we recently filmed the extra skate-boarding footage to give narrative to the video and are currently adding that in to the rest of the video. So far everything is going well!

Digipack progression

I have now completed the majority of the Digipack and all I have left to do is to fill in the extra panel which I am going to fill with a thank-you from the artsit. I have highlighted the things that I have added, including the spines which I simply filled in black and put the album name in the middle making it look simple yet bold as all the attention is on the album name 'REDEMPTION'. 

Just to make my Digipack more aesthetically pleasing, I added a small verse from the song onto the extra panel which included a still shot from our video, this gives people who want to purchase the album more of an idea of what our music video entails, 

Digi pack changes CD + COVER

I made some changes to the CD and front cover because I felt that with the way they looked before, the digipack didn't flow well. This is what the digipack looks like so far:

I bascially changed the whole look of my digipack. I decided to fill it all black as it looks more realistic as a CD cover. Further changes I made it to make it look more legit was adding major music labels such as 'Sony' and 'Jive'., I also included the tracklist at the bottom of the CD a this is what you typically find on real CD covers. 

For the front cover I decided that I had to change the image back to the original as it definitely stood-out more, with the star having direct eye contact with the audience I felt that this was far better as we are trying to début a new and upcoming artists. Just to make him more bold and appealing I decided to put an -outer-glow' around and him and then 'spray-paint' around him in black to fit the urban theme. The album name was the biggest change I made. As it is the first thing you look at when buying an album I had to ensure that it was the one thing that stood out from the rest of the album, so I chose a strong graffiti font that flowed well with the genre, and put both a gold stroke and an 'outer-glow' around it.

Advert Progression - nearly there

Alot of sudden changes have been made to my advert whilst editing, mainly to the fonts and their colours. I thought that the album name 'REDEMPTION' needed to stand out more and the way it looked before just wasn't working that well. Therefore I decided to change it to a more bolder and 'hip-hopish' font, one that suited the genre, I also increased its size. 

As editing continued I added in the hit single name 'Kick Push' and chose a sort of 'free' font that suited the element of skate-boarding that features quite heavily within the lyrics and video. 

Editing Process

We have so many different angled shots of the star which add to the conventions of a music video, as you can see in this shot we purposely put Clinton in front of a grafitti background whilst filming him, this made sure that we followed hip-hop genre conventions throughout our video as we have many shots of him performing in front or within a graffiti-urban environment.

Digipack Production changes

So the Digipack is 85% completed. However, after gaining some feedback form my peers they had advised me to change the font and colour of the same 'Jeremiah', so after experimenting with multiple different fonts I found one that I believe works well. I chose a bold font that has a black fill and gold outline making it stand out.

Production Diary 10

It's been a while since I've updated you on what's been going on, so here goes. So far I have begun creating the Digi pack for my artist, after many changes and errors it is finally starting to come together and look like a real album which is exactly what I wanted! I have done most of it, now it's just about adding the specifics and perfecting it to make it look as real as possible. In terms of the advert I have yet to complete, I haven't been focusing on its production too much as

I have spent most of my time on the Digi pack which as I have already mentioned is now nearly created so  I can now go back to focusing on completing the advert. In therms of the actual music video the first half has been edited and all footage has been put together now the focus has shifted on editing the second half which needs to be done ASAP as we have very limited time left to complete it! So yeah, that's what's been going on so far. :))))

Editing Process 1

Currently editing the music video on the software Premiere Ppro CC. We imported all the footage onto the software and have begun cutting them into clips that we can use. Whilst editing, we realised that some of Clinton's lip-sync was not on pont, therefore, my team-mate and I decided that we are going to re-film the poor lip-sync's in a different location to ensure that we achieve excellent lip-sync.

Editing Begun

We have imported all of our footage onto the Mac and are going to start the production of our Music Video. 

Advert Production

Also in the process of creating the advert for my Artist. Since my last post on the Advert I have made changes to the name 'Jeremiah', outlining in white and putting gold spotlights behind it giving it a dramatic and appealing look. In terms of the Album title 'Redemption' I am going to to change the font to the same graffiti font used in my Digi Pack, this is to ensure I keep to the 'house-style'.

DigiPack Proudction.. changes

I have made some changes to my Digi Pack since the last time I posted. The main thing I changed was the font used for the Title 'Redemption', I changed it to another graffiti font but this one made the name stand out a lot more. I also changed the stencil font I used for the back cover to a graffiti font making it look more rustic and 'street'. I am happy with the progress made so far however I am not too sure about the font and style of the name 'Jeremiah'', I feel that it is not strong enough especially for a up and coming artist a more bolder needs to be used, plus the colours need to be brighter in order for it to stand out and catch the eye of the audience.

Digipack Production

We are currently in the process of creating our Digi Pack for our Debut Artist. This is what my Digi pack looks like now, as it is a Hip-hop artist we are debuting the aesthetics are very important when creating things that promote him. Therefore I stuck to the typical conventions of the hip-hop genre including grafitti backgrounds and a stencil/graffiti font. However, I have deliberately made the colours quite bold and in a way bright, I feel that they add edginess to the Digi pack portraying this up and coming artist as someone with a unique style. 

DigiPack Flatplan Idea

In class we created Flatplans for our DigiPack. After many trials, we came up with a final design for our DigiPack, the colours in the backgrounds  are supposed to represent a graffiti background. Below is what it looks like on paper, and hopefully it will look even better once it's digitally designed!

Chosen images For Our DigiPack

So I am going to begin creating the DigiPack , below are the chosen images I am going to use. 

This is the main image of our DigiPack as its going to be on the front cover of the album, so this what you will first see when you look at the album. Strong image as its a close-up plus he is looking into the camera addressing the audience. 

This image is going to be used for inside the DigiPack, I am going to create a 'Shoutout 2 all my homies' page whereby he's thanking his supporters, family, friends etc. Strong image as he looks friendly making it more personal to the person looking at it.

This image is going to be used for the back cover of the DigiPack, I am going to place him on the right third of the cover and have the track list of the album outlining him on the left. 

This last image is a still shot from our music video. I am going to place this on the inside left of the DigiPack. I have editted this image on PhotoShop to make it look much more dramatic.

PhotoShoot 3: DigiPack

Here is a screenshot of the second photoshoot that we carried out for our DigiPack, even though these images came out successful, in terms of following hip-hop genre conventions, the first shoot we did with Clinton wearing white suits the image we are trying to create for him a lot better. So we have decided to go for the first shoot and use the images from that shoot for our DigiPack. :)

PhotoShoot 2: DigiPack

Here is a screenshot of the second photoshoot we carried out was for our DigiPack which turned out quite successful. We are going to carry out one last shoot for our Digipack with Clinton wearing a different outfit, this time in black, and we will then decide which images to choose.

Production Diary 9

So far we have filmed around 90% for our music video, so we have enough footage to start putting the video together. We need to film some fila footage to include in our video, so we are going to go to a skate-park and film people skateboarding as this is what I song is all about. In terms of the advert I have completed the main parts of it, now I'm just working on adding the specifics and perfecting its looks to make it more aesthetically pleasing. I am now going to begin on designing on the Digipack and focus on that as we are limited for time!

advert progression 2 CHANGE!

Whilst editing I realised that the font used for 'Jeremiah' wasn't appealing enough, therefore I decided to completely change the font. I chose a more bold and larger font which suited the genre far more, and it definitely made his name stand out making it the centre of attention. I chose two different colours for the name, the first was white with a stroke of gold and the second was black with a stroke of gold, between the two I decided to stick with the latter as black conforms to the hip-hop genre a lot more, it also makes his name look more stronger and adds that drama to his name, and this in turn makes it more appealing to the eye.

advert progression 1

Progression has been made for creating my advert. So far I have changed the font for my advert, I have changed it into a graffiti font as I thought it would be far more stronger in terms of conforming to the hip-hop genre. I have also added his name 'Jeremiah' in block white capitals with a sort of spotlight behind it. Few labels have been added; iTunes and Def Jam.

Advert Designing has begun...

So I have begun designing the advert for our star 'Jeremiah' and his album 'Redemption'. As we are debuting Jeremiah as a Hip-hop artists I am ensuring that I follow the conventions of the hip-hop genre whilst creating the advert. So far just by looking at the advert you can instantly tell that it is an advert for a hip-hop artists, this is due to the graffiti background and the black puffer coat. Plus the use of bold letters for the album name again associates very much with the urban/hip-hop scene.

Photoshoot 1: ADVERT

For our Artist's debut advert we took a photoshoot of Clinton aka Jeremiah in Waterloo Graffiti Tunnel. We decided to shoot in this location as it conforms well with the hip-hop genre and follows the conventions, and just by looking at the graffiti background you can instantly tell that this new artist is hip-hop.

Below is the image we have chosen to use for our advert:

The reason we chose this image was because we felt it was the strongest out of all the images. The pose that he is taking makes him come across as though he has 'dominance' and 'power', which is what all hip-hop artists come across as having, this appeals to the audience as it follows the conventions of a hip-hop artist. Further, he is looking directly into the camera which allows the audience the familiarise with him as he is a new artist. 

Lupe Fiasco - KICK PUSH lyric analysis of chosen song

Before doing any filming I did a lyric analysis of the song. This is so I have more of a clear idea of what the song is about, and therefore I'll have a more clear direction when it comes to filming the video. Below is the lyric analysis of my chosen song 'Kick Push':

 

Music Video Pitch.

LUPE FIASCO - Artist Research

Lupe Fiasco energized hip-hop when his highly anticipated 2006 début Food & Liquor leaked on-line before shooting into the Top 10 of Billboard's album charts upon its release. Critics hailed the rapper as the savior of the genre on the strength of tracks like the skateboard anthem "Kick, Push" and his mellow, Ggrammy-winning duet with soul-jazz singer Jill Scott on "Daydreamin'." 

Born Wasalu Muahmmad Jaco on February 17th 1982, in Chicago, Illinois, he is the son of a gourmet chef and engineer father. When the rapper was a child, his mother gave him the nickname "Lu" by shortening his first name. By high school his friends began calling him Lupe and he picked up Fiasco from a track by hip-hop super group the Firm. A fan of rapper Nas, Fiasco began rapping at age 19 with the group Da Pak, which signed with Epic Records and released a minor single before splitting up. He then signed with Arista, but the deal was cut short when he released a minor single before splitting up. He then signed with Arista, but the deal was cut short when the label folded in 2004. Fiasco forged on, eventually finding himself on the hip-hop radar when he released a series of critically acclaimed mix tapes. He signed with Atlantic Records, released 'KICK, PUSH' as a single and appeared on Kanye West's 2006 song 'Touch the Sky'.

After his début leaked, Atlantic rushed the release of Food & Liquor, and the album met with rave reviews for its strong storytelling, mature subject matter grounded in his Muslim faith and inventive mixes from name producers including West, Jay-Z, the Neptunes and Mike Shinoda. The disc earned three Grammy nominations including Best Rap Album. The Cool, a loose concept Album that follows aome of the characters on his debut, also received positive reviews and yielded the single "Superstar". In 2007, Fiasco also formed a super group with Kanye West and Pharrell. 

Lyrical Style

Fiasco has been credited as a pioneer of the conscious hip-hop movement, which focuses on social issues. Subjects touched upon on his 'Food & Liquor' album include absent parents, terrorism, Islam and religious war, and prostitution. Fiasco attributes his interest in social issues to his highly cultured upbringing, as he describes his mother as 'very intellectual' and his father as a 'Renaissance man'. He rejects the misogyny common in hip-hop, which he discusses in the song 'Hurt me soul'. Despite this, Fiasco is strongly opposed to censorship in music,: "If we're going to censor things that are offensive, then we are going to have to blind and deafen everyone. Come on, man. Let's focus on education and literacy and poverty."

CHANGE OF SONG.. AGAIN

Once again we have had to change our song as we realised that we didn't have enough time and tools required to create a video to the highest of quality, plus the our female star Sachelle was unable to play her part (due to personal reasons). So now, we are extremely pushed for time nevertheless we are going to do as much work as we can in the short amount of time that we have left.

Speaking of which, we have already chosen a new song - 'KICK, PUSH, LUPE FIASCO'. We have stuck with the Hip-hop genre as that what me and my team-mate enjoy the most. This also means we can keep our Digi Pack idea the same, meaning that out photo shoot, colour scheme and chosen font will not change.
This song is more of an old-school song and has the typical old-school beat to it. The song contains a lot of repetition and rhyme so throughout our video you'll be able to see a theme running through and this will in turn hook the audience to the song. We have come up with a concept for the video and have chosen our filming locations and hope to begin filming ASAP!

Below is the audio of the song...

Chosen Fonts & Colour Schemes FINAL

Rough Album Cover Flatplans

Here are two flat-plans I have created for the Album  Cover. I have gained inspiration from both Drake and Tory Lanez who are Hip-hop artists. Personally I prefer the second one with the close-up shot of the artists as it grips the audiences attention quicker, also because it is the Artists debut album it would make the appeal a lot stronger as the audience will be able to familiarise with the artist quicker. 

Production Diary 8.

We have begun branding our 'Digipack', so far we have chosen the different fonts that we'd like to use and have also chosen four color schemes that we have to narrow down. We have come up with ideas for our Advert and Album cover so we plan to take the photo shoot of Clinton this week. 

Colour Scheme Ideas

Here are four color palettes that I have designed using the software 'Coolors', I have created very similar color palettes all consisting of black, white & gold. I have decided to go with these colors as they are bold and definitely stand out. Further, these three colors, particularly gold, are usually associated with the Urban/Hip-hop scene so it would make sense to apply them to our Digipack. 

                                                        

Chosen Name and Font ideas

The name we have decided to go with for our Album is REDEMPTION, and for our star Clinton is JEREMIAH. We have chosen this name as we feel it fits well with the Image we want to give him. I feel that this name links well with the hip-hop scene and definitely follows the generic conventions of Hip-hop.

We used 'Dafont.com' to come up with a different font ideas for out Album Cover. Here are some font ideas for both our Album Title & our Artist.

For the Album Cover Name - REDEMPTION:

For the Singer's name - JEREMIAH: