Wednesday, 23 December 2015
53. Photos I plan to use
I want to have various pictures of the artist, as well as having pictures of him with the featuring artist to promote to the target audience their upcoming song and music video in the website, as grime artist don't have websites they promote themselves through social media, so I wanted to create a website focused solely on news and social media. The pictures I want to use of my artist allow the target audience to see the use of mise en scen associated with the artist brand, the main picture I want to use is with my main artist wearing a bucket hat as I want the bucket hand to be apart of our brand image and synergy, also our target audience will be able to relate, as our target audience are urban young teens/adults that are most likely be appealed to the fashion accessory (bucket hat).
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Monday, 14 December 2015
Friday, 11 December 2015
Ancillary decision making
 |
| In our music video our artist is wearing a camouflage coat, so we wanted to use the camouflage as part of our synergy by incorporating it in our colour scheme |
We used snapchat to create a video which give evidence of our decision making.
 |
| Here is our mock up for our digipack. |
 |
| From our research we decided we wanted the placement of our album title and artist name to resemble 'Avelino's -Iconic Ambition' album. We notice a lot of grime artist have used this placement. |
Thursday, 10 December 2015
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
Branding
Branding
As time went on we realised we needed to brand our main artist. I noticed in the music industry, artists have their own sort of brand that also helps audiences identify them and make them somewhat different than other artists of their genre. Since our artist is upcoming we wanted to start giving him a brand that is similar to his genre but also helps him stand out. Our synergy idea contributes to this, our synergy item is a bucket hat that he wears in one of the base tracks of the music video, we will also use a shot of him in the same bucket hat in this album cover, this is what will help him be recognisable as an upcoming artist because he'll be seen as "the guy that wears bucket hats most the times".
Also we decided to re design our background theme to also brand him. We picked black because it's similar to grime and we thought white smoke infuses well, especially since grime artist/ UK afrobeat artist like to identify themselves with expenses such as luxary cars, bling and smoking.
As time went on we realised we needed to brand our main artist. I noticed in the music industry, artists have their own sort of brand that also helps audiences identify them and make them somewhat different than other artists of their genre. Since our artist is upcoming we wanted to start giving him a brand that is similar to his genre but also helps him stand out. Our synergy idea contributes to this, our synergy item is a bucket hat that he wears in one of the base tracks of the music video, we will also use a shot of him in the same bucket hat in this album cover, this is what will help him be recognisable as an upcoming artist because he'll be seen as "the guy that wears bucket hats most the times".Also we decided to re design our background theme to also brand him. We picked black because it's similar to grime and we thought white smoke infuses well, especially since grime artist/ UK afrobeat artist like to identify themselves with expenses such as luxary cars, bling and smoking.
Blogging, Filming and Editing. Getting the balance right
Reflection on balancing blogging,filming and editing
As we grew deeper into the coursework and we were now filming our videos, editing and blogging I noticed i struggled to keep up and fell out of the habit of blogging. I ended up solely focusing on filming sessions and neglected blogging, which resulted in me dropping marks and having to work harder to build my blogs up.
If had a chance to do it again I would blog after every media lesson,and then again over the weekend that way i would be blogging a least three times a week and this would've have prevented me from losing possible marks. I fund it even more hard to juggle all three when we started editing. Even if I was blogging a reflection on a filming session that would've helped me since I would've been blogging along the way, whilst my memory is still fresh. Since I didn't do that sometimes I find it hard to think of what to blogs and what forms of media I can use to present it.
Now I'm starting to find it easier because I've had to catch up on it but yet again If I had done that from before I would already be in the routine of keeping up and wouldn't find it so hard.
Final day of editing!
Deadline Day
Prior to the deadline day I felt very stressed and anxious about completing everything. I was worried that we would have to rush towards the end of our editing session and just deal with what we had. I also expected editing rooms to be really busy. Surprisingly it was calm and relaxed and we ended up completing everything to the standard we wanted it to be. I didn't take pictures but take a look of these short clips I have from the day, you can tell things went our way!
Prior to the deadline day I felt very stressed and anxious about completing everything. I was worried that we would have to rush towards the end of our editing session and just deal with what we had. I also expected editing rooms to be really busy. Surprisingly it was calm and relaxed and we ended up completing everything to the standard we wanted it to be. I didn't take pictures but take a look of these short clips I have from the day, you can tell things went our way!
Expectations vs reality
Expectations Vs Reality
In this blog I'll be sharing my personal opinions on the extent to how far the music video reached my original expectations. I'll discuss each stages, right from my first individual thoughts, the original group original plan, after pitch adapted plan, the second adapted plan and the final product.
EXPECTATION
My first individual thoughts:
After being put into my group and deciding on the song 'bae'. I already had a vision on what I wanted the video to look like. In the original video Tion Wayne (main artist) and Afro b (featured artist) had their separate girls, I wanted to keep to this idea. I basically wanted to keep it similar to the original video but have different locations. I mainly had the different shot types and camera angels/movement planned in my head i'll illustrate this on our storyboard at what I specially had in mind. At one point I even wanted to somehow use a drone to get birds eye establishing shots!. I feel my individual idea wasn't over the top apart from the fact I wanted to use a drone baring in mind i don't own one!
Original plan:
The original group plan was yet again similar to the original video. We also planned on filming in Leicester square, the London eye area, Westfield or Oxford Street and Tottenham Hale Village local area, also Manor House local area. We also decided we would have two separate date scenes, one in Creams Cafe(Featured artist with his girl) and Frankies and Bennies restaurant (main artists with his girl). We never really considered seeking permission to film because we figured people film with cameras in these public areas all the time for example tourists, not knowing in this case it's different. We also (mainly me) had quite crazy ideas for example getting our artists to perform in fancy cars like Mercedes Benz rather than your common Vauxhall Astra. The drone idea was also still considered but we figured that we wouldn't be able to use one and so thought about ways we could still get birds eyes establishing shots without a drone.
Second plan:
Our locations we kept the same, but the main change was we came up with a plot twist. Instead of the artists having two different girls, we decided why don't they have the same girl and not know they're seeing the same girl and then at the end of the song reveal this. We were really excited about doing this idea but also worried about if it didn't work. By this stage we've changed who were going to use in our video bare in mind they were from outside the college.
After the Pitch:
After the pitch we learned that we needed to get permission to film in our location and we needed to ask well in advance, we still intended to use our planned locations but just ask for permission. we figured we'll just get establishing shots of London. We didn't have intentions of using expensive cars since none of us own any!. By this point we deiced that we were going to make sure they were dating the same girl and include three main base tracks. We also had a clear idea of the outfits we would use.
REALITY
Final product:
Looking back to my first thought, a lot had changed. In the end getting permission for our locations was quite difficult and because our artists were from outside of college, arranging sessions started to become difficult so we ended making our sessions more local. Our locations in the end were Stratford Westfield (TGI Fridays restaurant) ,Olympic stadium Stratford, Manor House residential area and Tottenham residential area. We ended up having more footage of one of our artists with the bae than the other artist and so we had to try harder to ,make it clear they were seeing the same girl. In the end we didn't use restaurant scenes. I also noticed all our shots ended up being night shots.
EXPECTATION
My first individual thoughts:
After being put into my group and deciding on the song 'bae'. I already had a vision on what I wanted the video to look like. In the original video Tion Wayne (main artist) and Afro b (featured artist) had their separate girls, I wanted to keep to this idea. I basically wanted to keep it similar to the original video but have different locations. I mainly had the different shot types and camera angels/movement planned in my head i'll illustrate this on our storyboard at what I specially had in mind. At one point I even wanted to somehow use a drone to get birds eye establishing shots!. I feel my individual idea wasn't over the top apart from the fact I wanted to use a drone baring in mind i don't own one!
Original plan:
The original group plan was yet again similar to the original video. We also planned on filming in Leicester square, the London eye area, Westfield or Oxford Street and Tottenham Hale Village local area, also Manor House local area. We also decided we would have two separate date scenes, one in Creams Cafe(Featured artist with his girl) and Frankies and Bennies restaurant (main artists with his girl). We never really considered seeking permission to film because we figured people film with cameras in these public areas all the time for example tourists, not knowing in this case it's different. We also (mainly me) had quite crazy ideas for example getting our artists to perform in fancy cars like Mercedes Benz rather than your common Vauxhall Astra. The drone idea was also still considered but we figured that we wouldn't be able to use one and so thought about ways we could still get birds eyes establishing shots without a drone.
Second plan:
Our locations we kept the same, but the main change was we came up with a plot twist. Instead of the artists having two different girls, we decided why don't they have the same girl and not know they're seeing the same girl and then at the end of the song reveal this. We were really excited about doing this idea but also worried about if it didn't work. By this stage we've changed who were going to use in our video bare in mind they were from outside the college.
After the Pitch:
After the pitch we learned that we needed to get permission to film in our location and we needed to ask well in advance, we still intended to use our planned locations but just ask for permission. we figured we'll just get establishing shots of London. We didn't have intentions of using expensive cars since none of us own any!. By this point we deiced that we were going to make sure they were dating the same girl and include three main base tracks. We also had a clear idea of the outfits we would use.
REALITY
Final product:
Looking back to my first thought, a lot had changed. In the end getting permission for our locations was quite difficult and because our artists were from outside of college, arranging sessions started to become difficult so we ended making our sessions more local. Our locations in the end were Stratford Westfield (TGI Fridays restaurant) ,Olympic stadium Stratford, Manor House residential area and Tottenham residential area. We ended up having more footage of one of our artists with the bae than the other artist and so we had to try harder to ,make it clear they were seeing the same girl. In the end we didn't use restaurant scenes. I also noticed all our shots ended up being night shots.
Premier of music video
Music video preview and group introduction
Direct Audience Feedback - We asked a few people to describe what they thought of our video in 3 words.
Premiere ending
Digipak preparation
Digipak preparation
As we are going to be creating album covers , the use of adobe photoshop will be essential. I am not that familiar with the programme so I decided to attend a workshop held by my media department.
During the workshop I learned how to cut out images and copy on to others and I also learned how to blend images together nicely
We were also given detailed hand outs on how to use our new techniques in case we forgot them in the future or we needed them
What is the importance of cross promotional package ?
Digipak display in lesson
What is a digipak?
In this context our digipack is our artists album packagingDigipak importance
The digipak acts a promotional tool for our artist and also gives our artist a platform for expression. In order to achieve the aim of cross promotional package we need to have a different form of media from our music video and this will be shown through our digipaks and websites.As a group , within our lesson we discussed the generic features of a digipak and came up with this list.
- Title
- Colour scheme (usually 3 colours)
- Some type of graphic
- Song list
- CD
- Barcode
- Font types
- Recording artist
How i need to achieve this
I will need to analyse digipaks from my genre and stick to the conventions of my genre however I am aware that finding digipaks from my genre will be hard because it's core target audience are teenagers to young adults who use more of social media than CD's so therefore there is lack of digipaks for me to observe.
Featuring artists feedback.
We filmed an interview with our featuring artists to get his personal opinion on how the felt filming went, highlighting both good and bad points. Unfortunately we weren't able to get an interview with our main artists.
Filming session vlogs
We have created a vlog on our filming session, to show you what we usually get up to during filming.
Editing session vlogs
We created to a vlog to show you what we get up to in our editing sessions (evidence of editing)
Tuesday, 8 December 2015
Mise en Scen (costumes): grime vs mianstream
We stuck with the conventions of the genre grime. Artist dress according to London urban culture as they want to reflect where they come from, as that's how they connect to their fan base by using shared identify. We wanted to do the same thing, in order to connect to our fan base.
Compared to mainstream we noticed that the clothing is very simply, affordable brands such as nike, adidas ect. They not only reflect urban culture, but they represent it as well. Their target audience recognises it as part of their brand image, also that's what they most like feel comfortable in, and it compliment the gritty London setting.
Through research I looked at Krept and Konan who are popular on the grim scene, but are transitioning to mainstream, as their music has transitioned, so had their image. I think is to connect to wider audience, but also to reflect the certain lifestyle they have now that are on a bigger scale.
 |
| These two pictures reflect how they represented themselves before becoming mainstream. |
 |
| These two pictures show how mainstream has changed their image and brand, rather than reflecting them 'repping their ends' they reflect an expensive lifestyle that most of their original fans wouldn't have. |
With our own artist we used a combination of basic dark coloured tracksuit bottoms/jeans with a sweatshirt or hoodie, but in some scenes we dressed the look up bit, so the fans can still relate and recognise them, but still reflect the lyrics of the song.
47. What is a cross promotional package and what do we expect to see from them?
A cross promotional package includes different media forms that work alongside each other to promote the same thing i.e our artist.
What's the importance:
It's a promotional aspect which helps bring awareness to the artist thus selling the artist and encouringing consumers to buy and listen to their music.
The front of the DigiPack will have aspects of what the artists represents and their genre. This helps emphasise the brand image which increases popularity. It also gives an idea of what to expect from the music itself. If a fan actually buys a DigiPack instead of downloading/streaming, it can suggest their loyalty to the artist.
What we expect to see?
A CD package/art work that promotes the artist's album:
What's the importance:
It's a promotional aspect which helps bring awareness to the artist thus selling the artist and encouringing consumers to buy and listen to their music.
The front of the DigiPack will have aspects of what the artists represents and their genre. This helps emphasise the brand image which increases popularity. It also gives an idea of what to expect from the music itself. If a fan actually buys a DigiPack instead of downloading/streaming, it can suggest their loyalty to the artist.
What we expect to see?
A CD package/art work that promotes the artist's album:
- Title
- Image of artist and synergy
- Song list
- Record labels
- CD
- Colour scheme to suit genre
- Leaflet/ Album description
- Barcode
- Anti- Piracy
- Font Types
- Parental Advisory
47. What is a cross promotional package, what do you expect to see in them
What is a cross promotional package
A cross promotional package is different media forms that work alongside each other to promote the same thing. In this case for our artist promoting them (the artist) through a album a music video abnd artist website would be a cross promotional package.
Using Cross promotional package to promote my artist:
Digipack
This is a modern way of CD packaging. It allows more inclusion of info about the artist and also adds value (since it literally sells the artist). It also plays on our love for music
Conventions of a digipack, what you expect to see:
There are three parts to a digipack, the outer layer, the inner layer and the spine, below is a example of all three parts
A cross promotional package is different media forms that work alongside each other to promote the same thing. In this case for our artist promoting them (the artist) through a album a music video abnd artist website would be a cross promotional package.
Using Cross promotional package to promote my artist:
Digipack
This is a modern way of CD packaging. It allows more inclusion of info about the artist and also adds value (since it literally sells the artist). It also plays on our love for music
Conventions of a digipack, what you expect to see:
There are three parts to a digipack, the outer layer, the inner layer and the spine, below is a example of all three parts
| Outer layer |
 |
| Inner layer |
 |
| Spine |
Monday, 7 December 2015
Sunday, 6 December 2015
Friday, 4 December 2015
Thursday, 3 December 2015
Re Shoot
Filming pic.twitter.com/0dIgtCCyAU
— Group24 (@Group24_) December 1, 2015
— Group24 (@Group24_) December 1, 2015
Here is some footage of us recording our base tracks again on the 1st of December . These videos have been posted on to our twitter account and on our snapchat because we feel that social media is a necessary factor for promotion especially with our young target audience.
1 day until deadline !
Pre-deadline update
As tomorrow is the deadline for our music video we have been spending a lot of our time editing our video and putting things together. Our re-shooting was successful and allowed us to improve some of our shots , our final aims for our final lesson before the deadline are to carefully sync our second verse as we have been struggling to do so , rotate our picture of the image of the two love interests as it is currently shown sideways and finally fill in anymore random gaps that keep popping up due to a lot of shifting and moving of videos.
I am confident we will meet the deadline as we have worked according to our schedule , after re shooting we put all our effort into editing and have made progress. I can see that there is a difference with our current product and our rough cut. Our establishing shots cut more on beat , we have more footage than we had previously and better lighting in the majority of our videos.
Wednesday, 2 December 2015
Monday, 30 November 2015
Sunday, 29 November 2015
What we get up to during editing (3)
Editing Session 3
This editing session was quite a successful one towards the end. In the beginning we had disagreements about what clips we should put into the video and what we shouldn't because by this point we all had different visions and so we had a quite a few disagreements. Some of the clips were also ruining he quality of our video for example bad quality of lighting in our footage or shaky hand held camera movement, this made us feel quite frustrated. In the end we learned how to improve some of the clips that had shakey camera movement by using "wap" and w tried to brighten some of our dark footage. We also carried on working on putting the song together.
filming session 3
Location& Time of day:
Manor House Residential area, in the evening
Original Objectives: To get both artists together to do the bases track together in the residential area of manor house This filming session faced more difficulties than achievements.
One main issue was the weather, throughout the whole day it was foggy we thought that by the time it was the evening the fog would clear up but this was not the case. It was really foggy but we had lighting and when we did film if anything our shots looked quite cool!
Another issue was that both artists were supposed to come that day but in the end only our featured artist could make it...
Sadly we had difficulty getting much done because the featured artist kept forgetting his lyrics.
During filming we had a site manager of the area come up to us and ask us what we were doing, he was friendly and actually explained to us that we needed to get permission to film there beforehand which was quite a shock to us since it was residential area and we had been told it was ok to film there. He was kind enough to let us off and carry on filming. Later though security had to stop us from filming ad so this prevented us from a least having our featured artist get his 1st base track done.
Next time we will...
Make sure tat we find out if we need permission to film, whether residential area or not. Always make sure we have back up plans just in case an artist/member of group can't make it, that way every session will some what be productive. Check up on our artists to make sure they know there lyrics before filming sessions, this will mean that in the future less time is wasted a there's less bloopers!
Editing skills put in our work
Editing skills put in our muisc video
When editing I feel as if it was important to also make sure that the edits we use in our video are similar to music videos of our genre. We want to ensure that we edit our song in similar inspired styles of our genre. Prior to and during editing we watched various music videos of our genre to get a feel of the type of edits and special effects used. In the video below are two examples of edits that we've included into our video so far.From 0:00-0:05 seconds is quite a slow fade transition between two establishing shots. We noticed that in a lot of UK afrobeat music videos that are very similar to our chosen song (talking about a particular girl they like) have a lot of fade transitions, especially in the beginning when establishing particular artists or group of people, we do go on to introducing our artists in the same format of this. A UK afrobeat music video that does this is YFS- ALE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-slKKhtL7c this is seen at 0:27-0:38. I fell that having slow paced shots and fade transitions especially at the beginning, sets the mood of the song an clearly introduces who will shown in the video. Also it's a nice way to set the scenery in time to the beat of the song.
The second edit that you see from was especially inspired from a UK grime/rap video. We really liked it and thought the best time to use it is at some point during the main artists verse on the base track. Our song is UK afrobeats interlinked with UK grime and our main artist is the rapper and so it would make sense to use that sort of edit on his base track, it fits in and suits with his part of the song more than the other parts.
Insspiration muisc video : Kilo Keemzo- Boogie dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aroX6CqQ1SM @0:45 seconds
Friday, 27 November 2015
Branding
Branding
As our music video preparation is almost over , as a group we will focus more on our branding. As well as our digi-pack that is soon to come , we have decided to start organizing our blog so that it suits the artist and its genre. We have chosen a dark theme as it mirrors our pending album cover and our main artist is also seen wearing dark clothing in our music video.
Before
After
Editing - 7 days until deadline!
Thursday, 26 November 2015
Editing - what are the issues?
Editing
1)
2)
Some visuals from filming
Some shots that we took whilst in Stratford pic.twitter.com/n61fs4JNu8
— Group24 (@Group24_) October 31, 2015
— Group24 (@Group24_) October 30, 2015
8 days until deadline !
Final Week
As our music video deadline draws nearer (04/12/15) we will be in the editing suite a lot in attempts to pull together our final pieces. The good news is we have quite a lot of usable footage that we can still incorporate in the video and I think progress wise we have considered a lot of the feedback given to us by our teachers and our target audience. Realistically to finish the video before the deadline will not be an easy task but with a lot of focus and effort it is definitely doable. Our aims for our next sessions will be to fill in anymore gaps that involve the base tracks , we also need to ensure that we are cutting the base tracks using a variety of shot types. Our next media session is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon where we will continue our editing. I believe that our video will be successful because we have followed a lot of the conventions for our genre and used good artists.
Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
Monday, 23 November 2015
Sunday, 22 November 2015
Filming session 1
First filming session
Date: 29/10/15
Location: Stratford Westfield https://goo.gl/maps/RNQFswd454S2
Stratford Olympic Park https://goo.gl/maps/3Gxc2dLwDW62
For our filming session the outcomes we wanted to achieve was:
get enough establish shots of the area
film and complete both date scenes (main artist with the 'bae' and featured artist with the 'bae)
The plan was to all meet up both artists, the bae we decided that it will be easier to get the shots of the bae dating both artists on different occasions out the way so then we can focus on doing the base tracks. We would all head over to stratford where we would get one of the artists with the bae to act like they're on a date that included having shots of them in the Olympic park area and then heading over into Westfield to the restaurants where we would get shots of them on a dinner date. After completing that we planned to go over to Leicester Square where we would get the main artist with the 'bae' on a separate date and have shots of them in the area and also head over to tower bridge to get establishing shots of that area.
Actual turn out: For the ancillary work originally we wanted to use the green screen in college but since our artists are not from the college we had to do the ancillary work outdoors. In terms of filming we met up late which meant we couldn't go to Leicester square afterwards because it would be too late by then so we had to get both couple shots done within stratford olympic park and Westfield. What we did was have our main artist with the 'bae' walking through stratford olympic park and 'chilling' and then we had our featured artist with the 'bae' in TGI Fridays Westfield on their dinner date. A few things that bothered us for example the weather, it was rainy and this was one of our hazards but we came equip by having an umbrella. Also after an hour of filming the security on site of the olympic village stopped us from filming because we didn't have permission, which we were not aware that we needed and so this prevented us from completing all the shots we needed for that area. After reviewing our footage another thing that bothered us was that the camera filters were turned on which ruined the quality and lighting of our footage.
What we'll do next time: Next time we'll ensure that our organisation skills are better and that way we can meet up earlier and get more things more. Since we met up late this led to us having to change our original locations meeting up earlier next time will prevent this. Another thing we'll do next time is ensure that if we need permission to film at certain locations we'll sort that out before hand so that our filming sessions don't get cut short.
Date: 29/10/15
Location: Stratford Westfield https://goo.gl/maps/RNQFswd454S2
Stratford Olympic Park https://goo.gl/maps/3Gxc2dLwDW62
For our filming session the outcomes we wanted to achieve was:
get enough establish shots of the area
film and complete both date scenes (main artist with the 'bae' and featured artist with the 'bae)
The plan was to all meet up both artists, the bae we decided that it will be easier to get the shots of the bae dating both artists on different occasions out the way so then we can focus on doing the base tracks. We would all head over to stratford where we would get one of the artists with the bae to act like they're on a date that included having shots of them in the Olympic park area and then heading over into Westfield to the restaurants where we would get shots of them on a dinner date. After completing that we planned to go over to Leicester Square where we would get the main artist with the 'bae' on a separate date and have shots of them in the area and also head over to tower bridge to get establishing shots of that area.
Actual turn out: For the ancillary work originally we wanted to use the green screen in college but since our artists are not from the college we had to do the ancillary work outdoors. In terms of filming we met up late which meant we couldn't go to Leicester square afterwards because it would be too late by then so we had to get both couple shots done within stratford olympic park and Westfield. What we did was have our main artist with the 'bae' walking through stratford olympic park and 'chilling' and then we had our featured artist with the 'bae' in TGI Fridays Westfield on their dinner date. A few things that bothered us for example the weather, it was rainy and this was one of our hazards but we came equip by having an umbrella. Also after an hour of filming the security on site of the olympic village stopped us from filming because we didn't have permission, which we were not aware that we needed and so this prevented us from completing all the shots we needed for that area. After reviewing our footage another thing that bothered us was that the camera filters were turned on which ruined the quality and lighting of our footage.
What we'll do next time: Next time we'll ensure that our organisation skills are better and that way we can meet up earlier and get more things more. Since we met up late this led to us having to change our original locations meeting up earlier next time will prevent this. Another thing we'll do next time is ensure that if we need permission to film at certain locations we'll sort that out before hand so that our filming sessions don't get cut short.
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