Rough cut of our video

This is our rough cut of our music video. A lot of the clips are out of time as the footage moved slightly before we exported. I have now changed this on our actual video on Final Cut Express and the timings are all correct. We also decided that some of the shots in our video were too long/dragged on therefore we decided to add some split screens in between him performing, and the narrative of her dancing. We have used particular shots of the dancer showing pain, such as her holding her foot in pain, and a shot of her crying, these are put in a split screen with shots of her dancing and shots of the artist singing. This adds another element to our music video and makes it more interesting.
Apart from these obvious problems with the video, and the fact that the quality we exported it in isn't as clear as we hoped, I am very happy with how our video is looking such as the washed out colour we have included in this rough cut.

Washed out effect

We firstly decided to use black and white for our music video, therefore I have analysed a few black and white music videos to look at the micro elements. We have recently decided to change this to using a washed out effect rather than full black and white. This is due to us not wanting our piece to look too boring. Also we have some nice colours such as the artists yellow hat, so we decided to just wash the colours rather than do full black and white. Here are some examples of the washed colour effect.

Research into how to use Photoshop

As I am not overly confident using Photoshop and I do not have it at home to practice on, I have been watching tutorials on Youtube to help me work out and learn to use the basics to edit our Digipack pictures.
Here are some screen shots from videos I have used to help me learn to use Photoshop

Editing day

Today we had the whole day as a group to use Final Cut Express and get a big chunk of our editing of the video done. The day went very well as we were able to spend a solid amount of time at the computer perfecting all of our shots and making sure the video is coming along as we planned. During this day we also took an hour to go and take some more shots of our artist singing parts of the song, as some of our previous shots were not very clear or we had forgotten bits. After this hour of filming the piece was looking a lot better as we had a variety of shots and angles to cross between. On this editing day we also decided that some of our shots went on for too long, with not much action happening in them, so decided to make some sections into split screen, with on one side of the screen the artist performing, and the other side the dancer feeling her foot in pain or dancing along with the music. This added a nice variety of shots to our video and made it more entertaining as there were more things going on.
Below is a picure of us on the editing day using the Mac computer, Final cut express and Photo shop to start editing our pictures

Magazine advert

I have been researching some existing R&B Magazine adverts to get some inspiration and ideas for ours. Here are some of the adverts I have found.

These Magazine adverts have proven very helpful with research for our own R&B advert for Joseph Somo. These have revealed that the majority of the adverts have the artists face on them. This is clearly for direct identification as fans will recognise the artist from a distance before they may see the text. The picture of the artist also adds to the attraction side of the advert as the pictures show an attractive side of the artists due to the makeup, accessories and poses. Every artist in these adverts (apart from Jay-Z's advert) are doing unusual poses, but ones which suit their style, and genre. Tinchy Stryders pose is a dominant pose with his arms crossed over  his chest which may be taken as defensive.
Gwen Stefani and Jessie J are also posing in a dominant way, they look very bold with direct eye contact. On the other hand, Rihanna looks more vulnerable in her picture as she is hiding half of her face behind her hand, this gives a mysterious look to the picture although she may be hiding something.
Jessie J's advert is interesting as she looks mean, aggressive and not very approachable, which is not the typical image of a female. The writing at the bottom of the advert advertising her songs is black on white which makes it stand out boldly, this is also in capital letters showng the high importance to reading them. As we can see from this advert, one of her songs are called "nobodys perfect", although the picture of her on the advert contradicts this as she looks very neat and perfect with her hair, nails and makeup done immaculately. Although the fact that she has black hair, nails and lips adds an edginess to the picture showing she is not conforming with the typical girly stereotype. Adding to this the song "Do it like a dude" links in with the way she looks, very angry, feisty and quite boyish.
Gwen Stefani's advert uses whites, greens, pinks and golds which are a vibrant contrasting mix of colours, making her advert clearly stand out from the page. The golden colour connotes wealth and makes it appear she is sitting in a golden throne, giving her a powerful image.
Jay Z's advert is different from the others as it doesnt feature a picture of the artisr himself. Instead it has a picture of lots of musical instruments, mostly old fashioned ones such as a grammaphone. The picture is very simple in white with 3 red stripes over the instruments. This is unusual as the picture is not very recognisable for Jay Z although he uses these colours throughout his texts and his name is in a big font over the top of the advert, making it easy to recognise.

From these adverts I can see that R&B adverts portray a powerful image of the artist, which is something I am going to use in my magazine advert as our genre is R&B.

Costume

From doing some practice shots in the location for our artists performance we decided to put our artist in a snapback style hat. This is due to the R&B style, we have looked at other videos, artists such as Drake and 50 Cent wear hats like this. Below is the hat we used in the music video, giving our artist the right style for our chosen genre.

Progress Post

We have done over half of our filming, the narrative side of the music video is finished and we have put it in place and started editing it on Final Cut Express. We have filmed half of the performance side of the video with our artist, but will have to film some more of him to get a good variety of shots to keep the video interesting. The filming has gone well so far and we are happy with how the editing process is coming along.

Filming

Tomorrow, on Friday the 9th of November we are going to film the seccond part of our music video, this being the performance part with the artist. We have taken a two hour slot where we are all free to go to the location to flm.
Joseph SoMo (Andy), our artist is going to be wearing a simple costume as it is R&B, we don't want him to look too gangster, so he will be in jeans, a t-shirt, trainers and a casual jacket. Through looking at what other male R&B artists wear in videos such as Chris Brown, Kanye West and Frank Ocean, this is what we think would be most suitable for him to wear as we wish for it to look like his every day activities, so not too dressed up.

Here are some pictures giving some ideas of the costume our artist will be wearing for the filming tomorrow.

Progress Post

We plan to film the seccond half of our music video which is the performance section, in the warehouse, over this week, as we can do after school etc.
Once we have filmed all of these bits, we will be completely finished with filming meaning we can start editing the footage in time with the song, therefore it will start coming together as a music video. The filming should be simple as we are using a rance of mid shots, close ups and long shots of our artist in the warehouse singing. The lighting is good in the warehouse so we are hoping that we do not need to bring extra lighting, but in case of any lighting difficulties we will take portable lights which we can set up and use on sight of filming.
Our artist Joseph SoMo (Andy) is in our year in sixth form, meaning we can easily use him during study periods, lunch times and after schools, due to this we will hopefully get all our footage done in a few days.

Fonts research for Digipack

Through looking at other R&B Digipacks I have realised that the font on the Digipack is kept fairly simple, to not detract from the picture featuring the artist. The font is often quite bold, but small placed on top of the picture. I have been looking on Dafont.com and these are screen shots of some of the fonts I've found that may be suitable.

Some R&B artists such as Drake use a handwritten simple font for their Digipack so I looked at some of these on Dafont as well and found a few suitable.

When we come to designing our Digipack myself and the group will discuss which font we like most to go on our Digipack.

Digi Pack research

Digi Pack analysis

 

 

The long shot used on the front of the cover for the Saturdays album Wordshaker, establishes the band as one, meaning there is no individual singer, shpwing they are all equal creating a star image together. This digipack challenges the usual stereotype as it is common to use close ups of the artists face, whereas here they have used a long shot of all the singers.

The soft pink background contrasts strongly with the bright coloured flowing dress tails. Each colour of the girls dresses gives each member their own persona in the band as they always wear their own colour through texts. This gives a recognisable band image.

The picture is quite sexual as they are wearing feminine dresses and are sat in very flirty almost provocative poses with a lot of skin on show such as legs. This makes the album attractive to both sexes as men would see the girls as sexy, and would enjoy looking at the pictures as well as the music, where as the women may aspire to be like the girls on the cover.

The back of the digipacl is the same photo as the front, but it has been zoomed in showing the continuous theme and colour scheme between the back and front covers. There is a record label logo on the back, a production company logo and the official copyright logo, I will include this on my artist digipack including 'Made in UK' and 'All rights reserved' to make the back cover all look professional as the other digipacks do. I will also be including a barcode which is featured on the Saturdays album.

 

The close up used on Kesha's album 'Animal' is typical for a mainstream female artist, also the pose with her mouth slightly open gives her an edgy sexy look without exploiting herself. This helps create a star persona typical of her genre which is pop. The black background with the effect of white scratches adds to the slightly rough view of her which reflects Kesha as an artist as she is known for being a bit scruffy and wild throughout her other texts.

 



The layout enables us to clearly see the name of the artist and the track list on the back of the digipak, although it is a sketchy font style. The colours also reflect Kesha's personality and her image as an artist. The colour scheme is reflected throughout the digipak with black gold and hints of purple on the back cover and used for the album name 'Animal' This mix of colour is edgy and 'cool' maybe slightly challenging conventions for mainstream pop, compared to 'The Saturdays album above which is light vibrant colours, this album gives the impression of a slightly older target audience because 'Kesha' comes across less innocent compared to the artists above.

Analysis of R&B digi packs

Beyonce's I Am digipack is very simple with just a picture of her on the front. This is to detract away from any gimics and show that it is her stripped down. Adding to this, the text is very simple, small and in the bottom corners of the page, this really makes the image of Beyonce herself stand out. The fact that she's naked also adds to the simple effect of this CD cover, this also gives a sense of vulnerability the way she is wrapping her arms around herself to cover her body, this gives a sense of her trying to hide something. This simple digipack has a black and white wash over it, making Beyonce's skin look like silver, along with the silver text portraying wealth. The direct eye contact links to Horton and Whols parasocial theory as she is building a relationship with the audience through this.

Drake's Take Care cover features him looking sad as he is looking down, not making eye contact with the audience, this would make them question this. The gold props and lavish paintings featured in Drake's CD cover have connotations of wealth as he has all these expensive things around him, this does link to many of Drake's texts such as his songs where he raps about having money. This is also a typical convention for R&B artists to show off their wealth. In this picture Drake is holding a gold wine glass, offering the idea of him drinking alcohol, again trying to portray 'the good life'. There is a parent advisory sticker, which again is typical of the R&B genre as they often have cursing in their songs.

Rihanna's Loud album features a close up picture of her face, to show her beauty as it is one of the main appeals about Rihanna. The picture has a lot of red, from Rihanna's hair and lips, red is the colour of lust, portraying sex appeal from the artist. Other than this, her make up is simple, bringing the focus to her eyes and lips, as they stand out most. Rihanna has a lot of tattoo's, but in this picture you can only see a small one on her neck, showing this picture is simple, drawing the attention to her face and nothing else. The red hair is a signature style of Rihanna, making the CD cover very recognised as her. The font is also very simple and only noticable up close, adding to the simplicity.

Justin Timberlakes digipack features a picture of him with direct eye contact adding sex appeal to the picture. Again, as the other 3 pictures, the writing is very simple, small and placed at the bottom of the picture, below him. Justin is wearing a shirt and tie in the picture, representing wealth as he is well dressed and clean cut, opposing this is his facial hair which gives him a more rough around the edges look.

 All of these R&B digipacks focus on pictures of the artist, mostly close ups. This is so the audience/customers know exactly who's album this is. The picture of them also gives the audience a visual to relate too, something attractive or aspirational.