Digipak and acillary text ideas

This is a video discussion is of our different ideas for the digipak. We all came up with a design and evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of each one, before coming to a final decision.

My magazine Ad design

Tour Poster ideas

 

As a group we each sketched out some designs for either a tour poster or magazine advert. My sketch was of a magazine advert to promote the album 'Sorbet' itself. However we felt that by creating a tour poster it would be a bit more different than having another ancillary text based upon the album, and instead wanted to promote the artist more. This would overall help create great synergy in promoting the artist.

Digipak and ancillary text research

 SZA original digipak 

These are examples of  SZA's digipaks (the artist of the song we chose). The codes and conventions of R&B are adhered as well as subverted for various reasons, such as the mise en scene. There seem to be a lot of pink and purple tones which reflect the gender of the artist as well as appealing to a more female audience. This adheres to the alternative R&B genre. Interestingly, SZA does not feature herself on this digipak which is quite unconventional. She may have chosen to do this to take the attention away from her and her 'beauty, which most female R&B singers tend to do, and keep it more focused on the music and the art of it. This may be something we chose to do, as it fits in more with this 'alternative' genre giving off an edgy vibe. the actual album cover itself is meant to be a beer label with the name 'Suburban Lager' which is interesting as it does not fit in with the normal conventions. It gives off this sense of individuality of the artist and uniqueness that her fans can aspire to achieve. This theme of individuality can also be seen in her EP that features Arabic writing. This reflects her personal background being from a Muslim family which could appeal to an audience of cultural background as well as inspiring fans of how she takes pride in where she comes from. The font style on the album cover is quite old-fashioned, reflecting the beer label theme which could be seen as artistic. Another one of her EP's has this 'bling' 'S' necklace on it which adheres to the R&B genre which glorifies the idea of owning such extravagant jewellery. This would appeal to the target audience of both R&B and alternative R&B. Lastly, the back of the CD cover has some sort of pink water/lightening look which could symbolise purity and innocence, which are contiunuous themes throughout the songs on this album. This reflection of the artist as music itself correlates well to the audience.

Frank Ocean Album cover 
Frank Ocean's album cover features a rectangular picture of himself with a white border. This fits in with the R&B genre especially the sub genre of alternative R&B creating an artistic look. The font for the album title 'Blonde' is in italics and is very simplistic which is something we may choose to go for. This creates a clean look which is appealing to the target audience for our genre. The colours used here are less saturated and therefore comply with the stereotype of a male R&B singer.

Lana Del Rey Digipak

For Lana Del Rey's digipak, there is a running colour scheme of pastel blue with bold font. This gives off a classy feminine impression which represents her alternative genre. Her stance is quite powerful as the shot is slightly low angle which portrays her to be a strong independent woman and artist. The rest of the digipak is very simplistic with the only other image inside is of roses.




Magazine

Behind the scenes

Behind the Scenes - Filming

Here are some pictures from filming the music video. The first ones are from the saatchi art gallery. The other pictures are of me filming some fillers which i did for most of the fillers as i am in the music video.

Behind the Scenes - editing

When editing the video, we all took different roles each day. I in particular took part in creating the title at the end of the video as well as a fading in transition with the second to last shot and final shot. This was to create some kind of conclusion to the concept, and we varied the speed of this to make sure it moved smoothly in time with the music. Throughout the editing process, we all contributed in making sure the lip syncing and soundtrack was in sync to male the finished product look as professional as possible.  

Me editing the music video. 



Costume Research

We took inspiration from artists such as Willow Smith who also has this urban style. 

The 3 outfits I have picked out for the music video have quite an urban/streetstyle elements to them which is the look we wanted to go for. The logo's adidas sweatshirt would subvert stereotype of female's looking sexualised in R&B music videos. This would help reach to our target audience of alternative R&B listeners. The logo would also attract a younger audience that like branded clothes and would therefore want to dress like the artist. The colours of the clothes are quite neutral which reflect the mood of the song. The trousers also give off this urban vibe which isnt so girly which would appeal to the audience. 

Storyboard

We created this storyboard for our chosen song, with including various shot types such as long shots for more of an establishing effect, and close ups to show off the artist. We've made sure to include transitions such as fade in/out to help us in the editing process as well as the shot seconds. With varied shot seconds it would allow 

Production Schedule

Date	Location	Time	Props/Costume
Thursday 27th October	Kew Gardens      Saatchi Art Gallery   Soho China Town	12pm-3pm 3:30pm-5pm 6pm-7pm 7pm-8pm	Camera Cream crop top beige trousers Pink crop top black trousers
Friday 28th October	Notting Hill Kyoto Gardens Brick Lane Tate Modern	12pm-3pm 3:30pm-5pm 5pm-6pm 6pm-7pm	Camera Adidas hoodie Black ripped jeans Pink crop top

Location Research

http://prezi.com/l9z_hxk82i27/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Lip Syncing practice

   

There were a few challenges when lip syncing such as getting the words correct and saying them in time. As it's a slower song I also had to time the actual length of each word correctly. I also avoided eye contact with the camera quite a lot and looked quite uncomfortable as it was the first time doing it. So it was difficult to be convincing but in the end I became more confident and more in sync with the song. I believe that artists of different genre's should lip sync in different ways to not only appeal to their target audience, but to help with their own image. Pop artists such as Katy Perry tend to over lip sync such as in her music video for 'Roar'. This type of over acting appeals to her target audience. For artists of our genre alternative R&B, it's better that the lip syncing is more natural and not so 'fierce'. There were some challenges of syncing our video with the music as firstly, the original song was not available on the app we used. So the first time we uploaded was the music was not in time with my lip syncing. After finding the track we used to film with, it then was easier to sync in time, therefore in the end looked professional. From this task I have learnt that I need to be more confident with my lip syncing by learning the lyrics and making eye contact with the camera. This will ensure a more natural and professional look overall. What we had learnt from the editing process is how to successfully sync it in time, but to also use the correct song when filming.        

Initial Ideas

Here is our video discussion of initial ideas.

Possible Actors

Simi

Simi could be an ideal potential actor for our music video as her urban/alternative style would fit into the genre of the song. Simi is also very photogenic so would look great in all types of shots. However the negatives to using Simi is that she may not be available to film with us for a lot of days as she has a job and other responsibilities, which is upsetting for our group as she was our first choice.

Olivia

Liv could also be our potential actor as her vintage/indie style fits into the sort of look we want our artist to have. Liv's authentic style is unique which is a positive as our artist should have something different about them to stand out from the rest, which is why Liv could be a choice. However Liv feels she may not be confident enough to lip sync in public, so this may be the reason we chose not to have her in the music video.

Me

 

 I could be the actor for the music video as the last resort. If we do not find anyone else that fits our criteria and is willing to be in the video, I would be prepared to be in it myself.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory Of Music Videos

Questionnaire

This questionnaire sets out to investigate what the mass audience like to see in music videos, and what they associate with our particular chosen genre.

Do you prefer to listen to Popular artists or Individual artists? Why?

When analysing the results from our questionnaire, we found that there is a higher percentage of people who prefer popular artists in comparison to individual artists. 

With 78% of people listening to popular artists it means that our target audience of 17-24 year olds are not that familiar with individual artists much like our chosen one of SZA. When looking at the comment section of the question when we asked why these people prefer each artist, we found that they find the popular artists songs much more catchy, this also contributes to the fact that they are played in various locations of shops and parties, as well as constantly being on various radio stations such as Radio1 and Capital FM. With only 22% of people listening to individual artists, it means that we need to make sure we apply some of the stereotypical factors within the music video so that the target audience of 17-24 year olds enjoy the video. This will hopefully attract their attention, especially if they see brands and locations that they find interesting. The 22% of people who prefer listening to individual artists in comparison to popular found that they enjoyed their gigs/performances and style much more due to it being different to popular artists music videos. 

Would you prefer choreographed dances in music videos or not?



This question was asked to see if people preferred to see choreographed dances in music videos and the large majority (72%) said yes. This contradicts the ideas we wanted as we were going for a more performance and chilled look. We were planning on having no choreographed dancing as we do not feel that this would fit in to the style of genre (alternative R&B) and the tempo of the song being quite slow. The results of this question therefore implies that a mass audience interested in only R&B and Pop music would expect and like to see choreographed dances in music videos. This is mainly because it fits in with the genre as well as appealing to a wider audience. The fact that only 28% do not prefer to see choreographed dances reflects the how our genre has a niche audience which is what we expected.




What is your favourite genre of music?

From this table and pie chart we can see that the majority of  people (33%) that answered our questionnaire said that R&B is their favourite genre. This is positive for us because our genre is alternative R&B so it is fairly similar to the R&B genre which from our results proved to be most popular. Pop was a close second to being the most popular genre with 22%. This isn't a huge negative because the R&B genre isn't the complete opposite genre to pop and the genres have similarities which means those who like pop best could happen to enjoy alternative R&B too. Jazz was our least popular result (6%) and this is no problem for us as our chosen genre doesn't relate to jazz.






Overall we found that this questionnaire helped inform us of what the mass audience would expect and like to see.

Institutional research

Conglomerate Record Label: Island Records

Island Records is a major record label that operates as a division of Universal Music Group (UMG). It was founded by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall and Leslie Kong in Jamaica and has been based in the UK since 1962. Their artists include Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Disclosure etc. The artists vary in genre so this could be a potential record label to chose for our artist of the alternative R&B genre. They have artists in both America and UK and have a huge target audience with those artists. However I don't think we will choose this record label as we feel a conglomerate label wouldn't be the best choice for our independent artist to be signed to.

British Record Label: Parlophone

Parlophone records is a British record company founded in 1896. Parlophone started out as a jazz label but has slowly formed into a pop based record label however, they have signed indie bands such as Two Door Cinema Club and Rat Boy. This isn't the best choice for our record label as the artists are mainly of the rock and pop genre which therefore doesn't fit into our alternative R&B genre.

Independent Record Label: Odd Future Records

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, normally shortened to Odd Future and abbreviated to OFWGKTA (stylized OFWGK†Δ), is an American hip hop collective formed in Los Angeles in 2007. The collective was formed and is led by rapper and producer Tyler, The Creator, and includes rappers Earl Sweatshirt, Hodgy Beats, Domo Genesis, and Mike G, singer, songwriter and rapper Frank Ocean, producers Left Brain, Syd tha Kyd, Matt Martians, Pyramid Vritra and other non-musical members, notably Jasper Dolphin, Taco Bennett, L-Boy and Lucas Vercetti. There were also smaller groups inside the collective. Three of these smaller groups that are still active are The Internet, MellowHigh, and The Jet Age of Tomorrow. Odd Future is an individual record label. The reason for choosing this record label would primarily be due to The Internet being connected to this record label. The Internet are an alternative RnB/neosoul music group therefore very similar to our artist. They have an alternative/individual look again very similar to our artist due to her individual look throughout her whole album and Ice Moon. Their videos have similiaries these include: a slow beat, the alternative clothing and the use of different colours. However the differences would be that they have more performance in their videos and as they're a band.

 

Independent: Boy Better Know

 Boy Better Know record label, better known as BBK is an English grime record label. It was founded by JME and Skepta in North London. The genres involved with this record label are Grime, Eskibeat and minimal R&B. It was created in 2005 and is still active now. Roll Deep Crew and Meridian Crew are both acts associated with BBK. The current artists involved with BBK are Jme, Skepta, Wiley, Jammer, Frisco, Shorty, Solo and Drake. The crew had a regular show on Rinse FM with DJ Maximum. Jme's debut album 'Famous?' was released on BBK's label in 2008. A well known song "Too many man" was the first song on the album. In 2005 the crew disappeared after members were convicted on attempted murder charges. After this event JME founded BBK with Skepta and the group reformed with other members. An advantage of using this record label is that it is fairly well known especially amongst teenagers and that is the age group we are going for for our target audience. Aswell as it having a lot of interesting history behind it it is a very modern/up to date record label and this helps it appeal to our audience. This record label is similar to what we want ours to be as it involves an R&B style genre with in it much like our song choice. The reason it isn't similar is because BBK just involves male artists and our artist is female so the criteria of the two doesn't match. Another disadvantage to using this record label is that it mainly focuses on Grime and we are looking at the alternative R&B genre so we will have to look for a record label with R&B as its main focus.

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Overall, we have decided to go with Odd Future records as our record label as we felt an independent record label would be best suited for our artist and song. This record label also has urban/alternative styled artists which is what our artist would be about.