Completed Magazine Advert

Completed Digipak

Shontelle- The One Music Video

DIGIPAK (so far!)

Digipak Front Cover, Rough Template

Moodboard

Technical Analysis

Keri Hilson- Energy

Keri Hilson is an artist that Shontelle has said she takes lots of inspiration from. As you can see, the various different shots used in the video for Keri Hilson's Energy help tell the story of the song. This is what we are hoping to achieve in our music video.

Shots 1 and 2, are important from a cinematography point of view, and (from top - bottom, left - right) depict medium close ups of the artists face, allowing the capture of both her facial expressions, and also her overall body language. This is important when trying to show the audience the emotions of the artist. By seeing her face, and her hand movements, the audience can make an emotional connection with the artist, as they can see the emotions she is going through, possibly relating it to themselves, and improving how they will respond to the music video.

Shot 4 shows an extreme close up of Keri Hilson's face, emphasising her facial expression. It shows that she is not really that interested in the male character, which is important as the audience need to know what is going on. The extreme close up is also another shot we intend to use and we want to build a strong emotional connection between Shontelle and the audience, to increase audience involvement with the video.

Shots 6, 9 and 10 offer a completely different mise-en-scene, and the location has changed. Keri is now seen to be in a boxing ring, and is wearing costume relative to this. In our music video, we will be limited to a certain location, but intend to do inside shots, and maybe a few that are outside. It is important not to keep the location the same throughout, as an audience may become bored, so we are hoping to take inspiration from this and follow this convention, and even change costume to represent the fact the location has changed.

Shot 12 is a midshot, offering another different type of shot to add variety to the video. The mise-en-scene is the same as in other different shots, but this time you can see all of the props, and how they are arranged. You can see Keri is in a changing room, and she is clearly in costume that fits this. This is another thing we believe is important to do in our music video, make the costume and props relative to the song, and the mood of the video.

Overall, it is clear that our video can take lots of inspiration from Keri Hilson's 'Energy', and there are lots of good shots that we can maybe use to influence our production. The use of props was extremely fitting (gym, and working out in relation to losing 'energy') and we hope to follow this, and use fitting lyrics and visuals that can correspond with each other.

weekly update 4

We  have now successfully negotiated with the new artist, to film a music video for her. She sent us over her song, Save the star, and it sounded fantastic! However, she then said she may want to change the name of the song to The One (for release) as she wanted to make another song with the title Save the Star. As we haven't began any work as of yet, we said it was no problem! We are in the process of arranging dates and times to film, and most importantly- the location. We have also began work on our digipaks, working on photoshop, which are going quite well. We start filming in two weeks, so more updates will be following soon!

Audience Research Part 2

We conducted a short survey of preferred music genres among our peers in college. We made sure to question both males and females, to see what genre would be more popular overall, rather than just amongst males or females.

As you can see, Hip-Hop and R'n'B is the outright winner, and was definitely the most popular genre amongst our peers! This is the exact result we were looking for, as we are intending to film an R'n'B music video. We would have liked it to be 100% in favour of Hip-Hop and R'n'B, but the results we have gained are still good.

From an R'n'B video, our focus group said they would expect an R'n'B video to tell the story of the song, and they would want to be able to see what the artist was going through emotionally. They said they would expect to see lots of close-up shots, and lots of smooth transitions in the edit. They also said the editing type should probably be continuity editing, as this will help keep the audio in sync with the visuals.

Another thing our focus group, Ali in particular, said is that the video should be filmed in lots of different locations, either challenging or conforming to typical music video conventions. He said that the location should match what the lyrics are saying, so that there is a bond between the two. This is something we are going to try to do, although it may prove to be difficult as we are going to be extremely limited for space.

The focus group. Sophia, Ali and Tasha

Audience Research

weekly update 2

This week has been a bad week for the group. Due to personal reasons, Gemma (the third member of our group) has decided to leave the college, leaving Samuel and I to complete the project on our own. This may prove to be a huge strain as our workload has just dramatically increased, but hopefully we will be able to cope!

Andrew Goodwin Theory Applied to 'Rihanna - Unfaithful'

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)


Rihanna is arguably the biggest female pop-star of the modern day. She has a diverse style, and ranges from house produced songs, to typical R&B songs. This diversity is apparent in her wide range of music videos. The song 'Unfaithful' is a typical R&B video, containing many aspects that an audience would commonly expect. There are lots of close ups of the artists face, lots of body shots, and lots of extreme close-ups depicting emotion throughout the video. On top of this, another feature commonly seen in female R&B videos is provocative shots of the artist, another aspect demonstrated in this video. 




























2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals


Rihanna- Unfaithful Lyrics

Story of my life

Searching for the right

But it keeps avoiding me

Sorrow in my soul

Cause it seems that wrong

Really loves my company

He's more than a man

And this is more than love

The reason that the sky is blue

The clouds are rolling in

Because I'm gone again

And to him I just can't be true

And I know that he knows I'm unfaithful

And it kills him inside

To know that I am happy with some other guy

I can see him dying

I don't wanna do this anymore

I don't wanna be the reason why

Everytime I walk out the door

I see him die a little more inside

I don't wanna hurt him anymore

I don't wanna take away his life

I don't wanna be...

A murderer

I feel it in the air

As I'm doing my hair

Preparing for another date

A kiss upon my cheek

As he reluctantly

Asks if I'm gonna be out late

I say I won't be long

Just hanging with the girls

A lie I didn't have to tell

Because we both know

Where I'm about to go

And we know it very well

Cause I know that he knows I'm unfaithful

And it kills him inside

To know that I am happy with some other guy

I can see him dying

I don't wanna do this anymore

I don't wanna be the reason why

Everytime I walk out the door

I see him die a little more inside

I don't wanna hurt him anymore

I don't wanna take away his life

I don't wanna be...

A murderer

Our love, his trust

I might as well take a gun and put it to his head

Get it over with

I don't wanna do this

Anymore

Uh

Anymore (anymore)

I don't wanna do this anymore

I don't wanna be the reason why

And everytime I walk out the door

I see him die a little more inside

And I don't wanna hurt him anymore

I don't wanna take away his life

I don't wanna be...

A murderer (a murderer)

No no no no

Yeah yeah yeah

In the case of Unfaithful, the lyrics are rather contradicting to the video itself. In the video, Rihanna's partner appears to have no idea what is going on around him, and seems none the wiser that she is being 'unfaithful'. This, of course, relates to Goodwin's theory that lyrics either illustrate, amplify or contradict the music video. 

"I don't wanna do this anymore, I don't wanna be the reason why" however, is clearly illustrated, if not amplified in the video. The audience can see a closeup of Rihanna's face, and can see tears rolling down her cheeks. This not only shows the lyrics bonds with the video, and Rihanna's emotion, 

Andrew Goodwin Theory Explained

Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

Magazine Ad Research

Fitting with my analysis of a Rihanna digipak, I have decided to research a magazine ad for her previous album. Rihanna has been at the pinnacle of success in the music industry for the past few years, and each of her albums have ended up being a worldwide hit. This is undoubtedly influenced by the smart use of advertisement by her PR team, as we can see from the following album advert.

The album, Rated R, was released in the U.K on 23rd November 2009. It was Rihanna's fourth studio album, and bought even more success than anticipated. It has been argued that Rihanna's success is the doing of the hard work put in by the marketing and advertising team that works with the artist. The advert is predominantly black and white, probably to correspond with the black and white theme in the album cover. It is visually easy on the eye, and is focused around the large image of Rihanna herself.

It is important for the advert to appeal to an audience of all ages. Although Rihanna's main target audience is that of 16-24 year old females, an audience of all ages and gender will be catered for. This is due to Rihanna's worldwide appeal she has built her success on.

The image of Rihanna is the focus of the advert, this is important as the audience need to be able to recognise what the advert is going to be about. Now the audience knows it is an advert for Rihanna, they can now notice the title of the album- 'Rated R', and the fact it is her "new album". This is all still in black and white, but is now changed when the audience is giving two previously popular hits that are on the album 'Russian Roulette' and 'Hard'. These are probably in red to draw attention, as if the listener has liked one of those songs, they will be more enticed to buy the whole album, another good marketing technique displayed.

The magazine advert is something I can easily gain inspiration from as it is extremely fitting with the album cover, which is something I'm going to be interested in doing. It is extremely simple, but done to perfection so it looks sleek and approachable. It is also made clear which artist is being advertised, which is something I'm going to have to do in order to achieve top marks.

Analysis of Album Cover Art

Digipaks are now a common aspect of artist profiles. Artists often let their Digipaks express themselves, and it gives the audience a deeper insight into the minds of the artist. 

The Gorillaz Digipak

The band 'Gorillaz' use digitally created characters to represent themselves in videos, and even sometimes in public appearances (holographic images of the characters are often projected). This is then continued into their digipak design, and we see each of the characters faces taking up a leaf of the digipak. 

Rihanna Loud Digipak

Rihanna's 'Loud' digipak has a reoccurring motif throughout of the colour red. The hair, the lipstick, and the roses are all a vivid red colour, and the pictures of herself allow the audience to establish that it is Rihanna, no matter what part of the digipak they are viewing. The CD overlay is the inside of a rose, linking to the roses on the inside of the digipak, once more keeping the same theme throughout. Roses commonly connote love, maybe Rihanna is using symbolism, saying that love is loud, and maybe that love is louder than words!

Auteur Theory- Hype Williams

Hype Williams is one of the biggest music video directors in the hip-hop scene. Having collaborated with such a wide range of artists (Kanye West, Beyonce, Jamie Foxx, LL Cool J, Notorious BIG, Jay Z, Coldplay, Christina Aguilera) he is now widely recognised amongst people in the industry, and has won several awards for his work, his biggest awards being: 'BET Award for Best Director for Kanye West- Gold Digger' and the 'MTV Video Vanguard Award'. He has lots of plaudits for his work, however he also has recieved some heavy criticism. 

The video for Gold Digger contains one of Hype's signature styles. This style involves a centralised camera, focusing on the artist's upper body and a solid colour backing, with a softer, differentiating colour light in the background, creating a sense of illumination. This style can be seen in some of Hype's other videos, such as Video Phone by Beyonce, and Digital Girl by Jamie Foxx.

Another of Hype's signature styles is the use of a shot, within a shot. So the main shot is centre screen, but in the upper and lower bars of the frame is a split shot. This can be seen in Ne-Yo's video for So Sick:

Hype Williams has a big following in the hip-hop industry, and is loved by many, however, he does also have his critiques. The Complex Media blog slates the video for Lil' Wayne's '6 foot 7 foot' video, and also believes he didn't do 'All Of The Lights' by Kanye West any justice either. 

"Recently, we voiced how disappointing Kanye West‘s “All of the Lights” video is. “6 foot, 7 foot,”which happens to also be directed by Hype Williams, seems to follow a trend of his… videos full of unrelated concepts and total disconnection throughout. Apparently, Lil’ Wayne and Hype decided to do the lamest job possible in using the movie Inception as their inspiration for this video."

This quote from The Complex Media blog shows just how dissapointed they (the fans) are with some of Hype's videos, and say his concepts are unrelated, and often disconnected. I can agree with this statement, however I think personally that the unrelated concepts help add to the videos, and makes them slightly more visually appealing, and therefore more interesting. 

This huge range of visual style, and different imagery used by Hype Williams can draw as a huge inspiration for my music video. He is very artistic, and tends to be quite articulate in his work, something I think is hugely important to make a music video successful. Also in such videos as All Of The Lights by Kanye West, a huge majority of people know the song because of the video, something which I think is a monumental feat to achieve!

weekly update 2

It's now the second week, and after no luck on twitter, email, or facebook, we have decided to give up our pursuit of gaining permission to use Julio Bashmore's track. Due to this reason, we are now changing our idea. Our new idea is to film an R'n'B video with a female artist!

Star Analysis - Jay-Z

Jay-Z is known worldwide for his presence in the rap / hip-hop industry. He is estimated to be worth over £300 million and is arguably the most successful rapper of all time. However, what has he done to elevate himself to the level he is at now?


EARLY DAYS

Jay-Z first came about in around 1996, when he released his debut album- Reasonable Doubt. He released the album on his own record label Roc-A-Fella records, which at the time seemed crazy as he was an unsigned artist, selling an album on his own new record label. However, this was him laying the foundation of not only his life, but the foundation of the lifestyle he was about to pioneer.

FASHION / VISUAL LOOK

Jay-Z has followed the conventions of rap music right from the start. One of his first front cover appearances for a big magazine was that of XXL. In this image, Jay-Z can be seen smoking a cigar, and wearing a suit. Pioneering the 'presidential' look that not only he, but several other modern-day rappers crave. He was going for a more sophisticated approach, one that people could look at, and respect. However, being a rap artist, Jay-Z also wants to cast some fear into people, so has that sort of 'Don Corleone' look about him as well. This 'Godfather' style was Jay-Z trying to say: "I am the king of hip-hop. I am the Don".

He still does follow these conventions as can be seen in this cover of Rolling Stones, Jay-Z is still using that authentic hip-hop look, being 'blacked out'.


GENRE

Jay-Z falls under the category of hip-hop. He appeals to a massive audience and is known worldwide. With this massive following, Jay-Z can force his own views and opinions onto members of the public. In lots of his videos, references to The Illuminati can be seen, allowing Jay-Z to create his own hype, and get people talking about him (and his possible connections to The Illuminati)

This video on YouTube shows a screenshot of the Ram Skull (representing Baphomet) in Jay-Z's "On To The Next One" video, showing an obvious link to The Illuminati (who use the symbol).

MEDIA REPRESENTATION

Jay-Z has a consolidatory image throughout the media. He is portrayed as a hip-hop mogul, who is at the forefront of the hip-hop scene. The word 'mogul' is even used on the cover of Gar Aficionado magazine below:

Jay-Z is shown wearing a suit, and holding a cigar, giving him an almost elite look. Cigars often hold the connotation of rich, upper-class society, and the media often portray Jay-Z as one of these social elitists.

As well as this 'elite' media representation, Jay-Z is also often shown as a stereotypical 'hip-hop gangster'. As can be seen on such magazine covers as Vibe, Rolling Stone and Billboard

These magazine covers all represent Jay-Z as a stereotypical 'gangster'. He is seen with lots of bling, all black clothing, flat-caps, smoking cigars and even making hand gestures, all things that are associated with american gangsters. In the majority, these magazines are all aimed at young males, all of whom are probably interested in the hip-hop, or at least music, culture, so we see Jay-Z fitting their stereotypical views of how he should come across (as a gangster)

MOTIFS/ SYMBOLISM

Jay-Z's visual motifs tend to be based around conspiracies that he is a freemason, or part of The Illuminati. He feeds people with images that provide reiteration of this belief in lots of his music videos.

The above images both depict Jay-Z moulding his hands into the shape of a pyramid. It is believed that this pyramid hand-sign represents the All Seeing Eye. A common symbol of The Illuminati. This is Jay-Z's biggest visual motif and it is often seen in his music videos, and in his live performances. It is unknown whether The Illuminati even exist, let alone whether Jay-Z is part of the so called occult. However, with the All Seeing Eye being associated with the tribe, and Jay-Z commonly using the symbol, it is obvious people will start to make links.

Other visual motifs Jay-Z has used include the skull of Baphomet. Baphomet is another word for the Devil, and the ramskull is said to be used as a connotation of this. Jay-Z used the symbol in his video for "On To The Next One", thus emphasising this link to The Illuminati.

The second picture shows Jay-Z in a video, wearing a hoody that has 'Do what thou wilt' printed on it. This phrase was coined by Aleister Crowley, who was a pioneer in satan-worship and was one of the key founders of the free-masonary/illuminati concepts and beliefs. This phrase can also be seen on a poster commonly associated with The Illuminati and Free-Masonry:

It is these visual motifs that help create Jay-Z's self founded hype, and gets people talking about him. All over the world people constantly debate whether he is a part of The Illuminati, which sparks arguments as to whether The Illuminati even exist! This is all created just by subtle imagery used by Jay-Z, thus showing just how much of a huge figure he is.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Jay-Z has a worldwide following, branching to people of all ages and all classes. However, of course his music is primarily targeted at young males, who are interested in hip-hop.

With Jay-Z's links to other artists (such as Kanye West, Rihanna and Beyonce) he can start branching out to females as well, who may not even be interested in hip-hop but seeing as he has such a heavy influence in these artist's songs, he can get recognition from their fans too.

On top of this, Jay-Z targets people who are interested in conspiracy theories, and interested in occultism and gangs such as The Illuminati.

Weekly update 1

So its week one, and things seem to be going well! We have decided to film our video on a popular underground house song called 'Battle For Middle You' by Julio Bashmore. We have tried to get in contact with the artist via Twitter, and Myspace, but as of yet, we havent had a reply. We are going to give it a few more days before we consider changing our idea, as we don't want to work with copyrighted music without the artist's permission. On top of this, we are now beginning our audience research, and hope to find out what the public wants in terms of the music they listen to. This will, in turn, allow us to have a rough idea of what to do if we do end up changing our original idea.

And so the year starts....

Hello, my name is Corey Fielder, and welcome to my blog! This year we will be producing a music video, and hopefully you will enjoy it! Wish me luck!