Rough Cut

Advert Idea

When looking and studying different advert idea's we were inspired by the image below, This is of the American musician, Sixto Rodriguez. We felt the way Rodriguez is seen & represented through this photograph was very interesting & similar to what we wanted to create. The central composition of the image works well with the low-key clothing and shadowing upon him, which contrasts against the high-key street scene background. The bold contrast separates him from the background to draw your attention to him, in which I feel works incredibly well to promote & advertise the artist.

Digipak Analysis

This is the digipak from Mumford & Sons album, 'Sigh No More'. The front cover has the typical conventions you would expect to find on the front cover, it both name of the album & the name of the band. The photograph of the band I would not say it is  first obvious who it is, unless you study the image. However, this could intrigue the audience to look further into it, but I feel if placed against others this would be seen as bland and struggle to stand out against others.

Overall the digipak has a very simplistic design, all in high-key colours. This is apart from the bold black CD, which is done this to stand out to the user/listener. This creates a star image for the band as it represents them as 'unique' from having their own style within the digipak.

From now viewing all panels of the digipak you can now see each panel interlinks within each other. The back panel is also very conventional with everything you would expect to find the back panel of a digipak such as, the barcode, tracklist & record label. I feel the back panel is well presented, the central composition high-key image against the bold writing works well, which attracts the audience attention to the tracklist & record label.

This digipak I have found very interesting and work well to promote & advertise the unknown band/artist. These four bold images which seems to be a member of the band creates a bold star image. From being presented in different colours it presents them as being individual within the band, but come together by the multi-coloured CD. 

Digipak Research

Front Cover:

• Photo or artwork of artist/band, preferably to promote a star image
• Title of Album
• Name of Artist/band 

Back Cover:

• Logo
• Barcode
• Track list
• Name/logo of record label
• Website link to artist/band profile
• Background image or artwork

Lighting Plan

Here I have created a lighting plan using an online creator to show the set-up of the studio when shooting. We have a soft box light coming from the left, lighting the back & side of the face/body. This is against the defused beauty dish lighting the front face & body from the right. As the artist sings into the microphone, we want to create a soft shadow upon the face to create different contrasts within the frame. 

We originally planned to use a black backdrop, which would contrast against the artists white shirt. However, after experimenting we decided the black backdrop would be too low-key for our style & genre of music video, we now plan to use a white backdrop which contrasts with the artists black shirt. (Which is shown on the lighting plan diagram.)

 These are screenshots from clips we have filmed in the studio using the lighting setup shown above. This shows how our lighting plan looks on screen, it has created a soft high-key light on one side of the face, then created a soft shadow on the other side. We wanted a slight contrast between each side of the body & face, but not too much that the shot looks too low-key.

Choosing & Creating Our Album Cover

These are our two chosen photographs for our album cover we selected from the shoot. We knew we wanted a bold star image style portrait, which would dominate the frame. These are the two we felt best which best fitted what we wanted to bring across to the audience and had the most potential. The first high-key image we felt the detail, composition & eye-cntact worked extremely well, but did feel if we were to choose to use this image we would need to crop the image closer from the left to only reveal half of his face. The second slightly low-key image we felt the soft shadows shown on one-side of the face worked well. We wanted to experiment with different idea's we had, this one as created by reducing the light from one of the soft boxes to create these shadows.  

Fonts

After researching and looking at potential fonts, we have decided these fonts were ones which we felt would work well with the type of genre of our music video. We wanted to gather a  variety of different fonts to try with our advert & digipak, which we can then take to select them down to a chosen best font.

Above are some examples of fonts we have looked at and then tried on our album cover. We felt we needed to try some fonts on our album cover choice before selecting a final choice, this was we wanted to see & experiment with different looks. Below is our final font choice upon our album cover, the font we chose is the 'Nixie One'. We selected this simplistic font against the bold star image portrait as it works very well for both the promotion of our star & album.

Magazine Cover

This is a front cover of 'The Clash' magazine showing the artists James Blake. We feel this is similar to the type of the representation we want our artists to bring across. I feel the way he is shown to stand out upon the yellow background works extremely well, along with the central composition of the photograph/front cover. From this front cover he is shown as a dominant character from the way both him & the title dominates the frame/cover, with the main focus upon him. 

Although this magazine does not have any specific genre, we feel this is the best magazine our artists image would look best in. We would like the same image as James Blake is represented through this magazine cover/advert. As a lot of other magazines & front covers I have looked at targets either Hip-Hop or Rock genre's.

Analysing Magazine Adverts

When looking and researching music magazines I noticed that they are mostly Rock & Hip-Hop genres. I decided to look at both different types of magazine adverts to compare them against each other. The first magazine I looked at is Kerrang which there type of genre is Rock.

All the Kerrang front covers I have looked at are all very similar to each other, this is shown through the title, colour, photographs and layout of the front cover. All of their front covers I have looked at all include the bold yellow headings against the red background along with the bold white title, this helps their magazine be noticed & stand out from others. Another thing I noticed from all of their magazines front covers is the big bold start image photographs, this occurs in mostly all of the front covers, with the central composition this is too draw your attention to the artist. This is also placed with a bold yellow slogan or name so the audience links that with the artist, such as the ones shown above of Linkin Park & You Me At Six.

From the two magazines front covers, it represents both the artists and their bands as very powerful & dominant. This is shown through the size & composition of the photograph, which also shows to readers what type of magazine genre it is. When studying different front covers of Kerrang I have seen that their target is to produce this star image of the artist to represent them in a way they want to. I feel a lot of their targets in the peruse & represent the artists as powerful, dominant & 'in you're face' again from the size & composition of their photograph.

Feedback From Our Pitch

When we presented our pitch we handed out a questionnaire to receive some feedback on peoples thoughts & idea's of what they thought on our pitch, idea's & song choice. We presented two of our idea's which we felt would both work, but wanted other peoples opinions on which idea they felt would work better. We also asked them if they felt our chosen song would fit and match our idea's for the visuals, with any comments they felt were relevant. Lastly, we asked for there opinions and any idea's they had on location.

The majority of the people we asked preferred the idea of only having one costume which would stick throughout the video, instead of having several costume changes which would juxtapose the location. Someone said, "One costume would work better with your song, keeping it simple would make it more effective." Another person said, "I feel there would be a lot of confusion using several costumes, keeping to one would make more sense in the narrative aspect." This helped us choose which idea we were going to choose, as this helped us see what other people thought from there perspective.

Everyone we asked agreed that our song choice would fit in with our idea's for the visuals. After reading the feedback we received from from our pitch most people said it would fit as long as we kept to one costume change. One of the comments we received which we felt was useful was, "Yes, I do. Only if it was kept to a serious tone." This was useful as we then thought using several costume changes could present it as humorous, this is something which we did not want the song & artist to be represented as.

Lastly, we asked if they had any thoughts or suggestions on locations, as we felt we did not have enough as we would have liked too. Two of the people suggested filming a scene in a supermarket, we felt this was a good idea and something we could look into doing, the only other suggestions we had was a hallway & shopping centre.

We felt the feedback we received from our treatment was very useful. It helped us choose the best idea for our music video, this was influenced from the comments & suggestions we collected from our questionnaire we gave to the audience.

Final Pitch Video

Storyboard - Rough Draft

This is our first draft for out storyboard, it includes our main idea's of the main narrative to the video. We have chosen to go for a variety of shots showing the characters morning, which will make more sense to the audience as the video goes on.

Our Song

Below is a YouTube link to our chosen song, by Jeffrey James - Carry You. The video is by the unsigned artist in which he has created a music video for his record.

Treatment/Pitch

Conventions Of A Music Video

Star Image: Ed Sheeran

Start image is extremely important to artists as this creates and builds them their fan-base, this is either clothing, advertising, personality, promotes, hobbies & interests. I have to talk about Ed Sheeran's star image and motifs, as I feel he has a very interesting image which is different to other artists today.

Ed Sheeran is known for his iconic ‘scruffy’ appearance of his ginger hair, hoodies and guitar, which all creates his star image motif. His iconic appearance represents him as ‘down to earth’ and by wearing this type of clothing his audiences can relate to, unlike other artists who wear expensive clothes and jewellery.

From his star image motif's he is represented to his audience as a calm, relaxed, but different artist, this is shown through his music videos, genres and slow pace of his music. I have said he is represented different when compared to other artist today, this is shown through his iconic album covers and lyrics of his personal songs. However, I feel this is specifically constructed appearance to target his fan-base. This is so his audience can feel a connection and relate to him through his personality, appearance and character.

Ed Sheeran - Advertisement, promotions & building a fan-base

In his early career he played at small venues such as small pubs, these were free gigs which he slowly created a small fan base. By performing in such places as London and around Suffolk he is seen as an artist who purely performs because of his love for music and not for the money and fame.

He then went onto appearing on the ITV show Britannia High to audience, this led to him being seen and noticed on national T.V. This helped him because he got his music and self out into the music industry through the T.V show.

Last year in May 2012 he has helped was involved in raising money for a charity which helped street sex workers for the charity One25. The gig which he performed at was in Bristol and raised just over £40’000.

He has also recently auctioned off some of his personal items, including his collection of Lego. Although he is giving all the money raised to charity it benefits for him as he is presented as someone who cares for others, but also by selling his Lego it promotes his record and music video ‘Lego House’. Helping raising the money then betrays him as selfless and wanting to help others. He can then benefit from this by creating a larger fan-base.

In his early career he performed at free gigs, this helped him slowly get his name out there and created a fan-base. By performing free he is not seen as doing it for the fame or money, he is seen as doing it purely because of his love of music which he can then benefit from.

He also performed for Nokia to promote the release of their new smartphone, Nokia Lumia, at a private concert in New York. This then links him with the smartphone which both advertise him and the smartphone, which he can benefit from by Nokia being such a large company.

He will also be performing at the free music day in Ipswich, Christchurch Park. As this is a free gig for people and fans to watch, which he also performed at the same day in 2010. This again presents him for someone who performs for his love of music, this promotes and advertise his records and merchandise, which he will then benefit from.

Textual Analysis: 2 Chainz - No Lie ft. Drake

2 Chainz is a well known American rapper, who's 'No Lie' video features the Canadian rapper Drake. Their music video 'No Lie' is a common rap music video, which includes a variety of conventions you would expect to find in a rap video/song. Firstly, from the album cover of 'No Lie' it shows the audience already what type of genre it is. The clothing 2 Chainz wears on the close-up cover, which includes a dark hooded top, dark sunglasses along with gold jewelry, surrounded in smoke. This represents his power and wealth to his audience through the mise-en-scene of the photograph/cover.


From the beginning of the music video I first realised that the whole video is shot in monochrome with a variety of slow-motion & close-up shots. The opening scene of the video starts with a vertical split screen transition which reveals the name '2 Chainz', which is already boldly advertising and showing the audience the artist. The lyrics which appear at the beginning of nearly all of 2 Chainz records says, "Mike Will made it" this promotes & advertises the producer Michael Williams, which is followed by the words "2 Chainz". This adds to 2 Chainz motif as the audience can quickly understand who both that artist & producer is through the style it is sung at the start of this record and many others.

The opening scenes then cuts to fast pace cuts of medium close-ups of 2 Chainz & a lady dancing in slow-motion, which has already included conventions for a rap video within the first 30 seconds. The next scene cuts to a close-up shot of 2 Chainz directing the audience. In this shot he fills the majority of the frame, while wearing some unique clothes, this represents his power from how he is placed in the frame and stands out & wears dark clothing to stand out from the plain background to put the full attention of the audience upon him.

Throughout the video there are several medium and close-up shots of voyeurism from a males perspective. This is another key convention you would expect to find in a rap video, which shows the type of audience 2 Chainz targets. This represents his power throughout the video from having these girls dance in the video and in some shots around him where he is seen as the dominant one. An example of this is in the screenshot on the left, the scene fades in where 2 Chainz is seen as the dominant gender from him sitting, whereas the girls are shown as weak & a possession  from the way they are both dressed and dance around the artist in a sexual way.

The voyeurism is seen in more the beginning and end of the video. I feel this has been edited in this way to accompany the main artist 2 Chainz, rather than Drake as the voyeurism and sexual dances mainly occur when 2 Chainz raps and not Drake. I feel this has been done to imply 2 Chainz is more dominant that Drake and this expresses his wealth & power through the chosen scenes.

There are several relationships between lyrics & visuals throughout the music video. This is shown at around 0.58 where the lyrics say, "And all I get is cheese like I’m taking pictures" which is when the artist 2 Chainz makes a hand movement to simulate a camera, this is a close-up shot where he dominates most of the frame and directs the audience. It is a fairly low-key shot in which there is a lot of contrast on his face, which directs the audiences attention upon the artist.

There is a straight cut to both 2 Chainz & Drake in the foreground of the scene, in a painted drizzled black & white room. As Drake is only featuring in 2 Chainz video, Drake is seen a less dominant through the height of the artist and his clothing. In the scene I have shown on the left 2 Chainz in seen at a higher height wearing dark low-key clothing, this represents him a more powerful & dominant than Drake as it puts more attention upon 2 Chainz.

The ending of the video ends in a two separate shots of both artists, this again similar to the opening of the video promotes and advertises both artists through the video, but in different ways. 2 Chainz appears to dominate the frame along with the font, he wears some unique clothing & sunglasses which he wears throughout the video which promotes his unique style, this is accompanied by lighting directing upon him, this puts your main attention on both him & the bold white font which is seen throughout this & other videos.

The next shot is similar within the layout and style, but advertises and promotes Drake. This shot of Drake contrasts with 2 Chainz closing shot from how it was low-key background, with the main attention put upon 2 Chainz and the bold white writing. This contrasts as he seems to be the opposite with a bright high-hey background. However, the attention in not so much upon Drake from his high-key clothing and how he is lit, I feel this has been done to contrast with 2 Chainz to show who has more authority as Drake is featuring in 2 Chainz music video.

The second from last closing shot is of a girl in very little clothing, which the attention put upon her from how she is lit and the 'BY DIRECTOR X' wording which advertises and promotes the director. From low-key plain background and how the girl is seen throughout the video this shows to the audience what type of music video's 'Director X' is involved in and their type of target audience.