R+P Post 25: Costumes, props and makeup

Costume is very important as it helps to solidify the concept we are trying to create with the youth subculture. The 90s sporty vintage theme is imperative in creating the right aesthetic for our music video. The costume for the DJ was very simple as there is a common theme throughout - T-shirt with an optional hoodie and headphones. For the overall costume theme, we made a clear attempt at having it relate to the location with hints of popular 'street style' like Adidas and Nike.

DJ costume

over-arching costume theme

Makeup is very important as it helps add to the identity of the actors making them look cooler, younger and fresher. The use of bright colours will help add to the liveliness of the song and music video

Props are very important in adding to the authenticity of the music video to help add context to make things much more realistic.

phone - headphones - sound desk

Overall we hope to have our costume, props and make-up connote the genres of R&B/garage music 

R+P Post 24: Planning my digipack

We all made individual album cover research to find the conventions and afterwards we met in a group meeting where we looked at the specific things we wanted our album cover to have whilst also following the expected conventions. Our aim for this task was to create an album cover that was: unique and eye catching. Which also marketed our artist as the primary aim is of course to promote the artist.

Below are some of the ideas that we had for our digipack .

The front panel: clearly has the artists logo made clear as well as clear focal image of both the singer and the producer in a mid shot

picture 1

picture 2

These designs we ended up discarding as they were far too serious for the genre of our artists which had a more fun, party vibe. These designs were inspired by Adele an r&b artist which is why it has a  tasteful black and white feel.

picture 3

This is was a popular idea in the group which demonstrated one of the artists looking away placing more emphasis on the other artist. 

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

Audience feedback to picture 1:  The audience liked this idea of having both of the artists together on the front panel 

Audience feedback to picture 2:  The audience felt like a photo that was straight on would be more appropriate and personable. As well as this they thought there was not enough of Edward and so he is overshadowed.

Audience feedback to picture 3: The audience believed that it was a nice idea and that it would be a fun twist to album covers. They thought that it would make our album cover distinctive and unique.

Overall: We decided to go with a completely new idea that incorporates the advice that was given in the feedback. We decided to have Mahalia on the front panel and Edward on the back panel, which was still a fun twist to album covers. Similarly we decided that having Mahalia on the front made more sense as she is the singer in the duo.

INSPIRATION

The boldness of the artists name was inspired from many album covers one example would be. It is very eye catching

This is the inspiration for our album cover. This album cover was particularly useful as this duo is very similar to our artists with Mahalia being a singer and Edward being a producer. This album cover puts them both at an equal weighting which we too want to convey

R+P Post 23: Planning my web page

A website is particularly useful as it is arguably a very effective means of marketing seeing as all the artists work is on place like a kind of "hub" allowing for all kinds of synergy with different music platforms such as iTunes and Spotify as well as social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. This cross media convergence is useful for the audience as they can easily navigate from platform to platform but it is also useful for the recording company and artist as not only is it consolidating their brand but they will be making money off it. 

We asked our target audience what they would expect/want to see when they go onto an artists website and the main features which came up were. We made sure to have this as our essentials and to therefore incorporate it into the website.

• merchandise store
• information about the artist
• tour dates

The example that we were really following in terms of aesthetic was Selena Gomez's website

We first designed the menu bar for our website, which includes the artists band logo clearly in the middle. The menu bar is an absolute essential as it is the key way people will be able to navigate across the website.

·      Home - where all the information is, you are able to navigate everywhere from here

·      About - the gives personal information about the artists adding more depth to them

·      Music - the consumer will be able to purchase the album and individual songs as well as be able to have some insight into song writing and the inspiration behind the album - the music video will be embedded here 

·      Tour - location and dates for live performances

·      Shop - consumer will be able to buy merchandise such as T-Shirts, jumpers, posters and mugs

Our group conducted website research and afterwards we had a meeting where we discussed our findings, the conventions of a website and our own personal visions for the website. Soon after we all found common ground. Below are rough drawings of our first website draft 

This showcases the homepage of our artists. The main parts to take away from this is the large focal images which move on rotation horizontally, revealing images focused on advertisement of the album, the tour as well as promotional shots and behind the scenes footage. 

The audience will be able to scroll down the website to reveal even more engaging content including snippets of different sections such as the "About" section (which allows the audience to learn much more about the artists and what they believe in) and a live twitter feed (which allows the audience to see updates on the artists life and events to look forward to). 

Soon after audience feedback and sharing ideas between each other (group members) we decided that there were some more features that we wanted to incorporate. 

Such as...

• A greetings page  that will have our artist logo, this will appear before the user will access the website.
• An interactive slide show of our best promo shots that will be from the Instagram account.
• Available links to social media and the music video

R+P Post 22: Planning my promo shot

Promo shots are very important because they introduce us to the people behind the music and help create or reinforce a narrative or concept of an artist which overall grabs there audiences attention.

An aim we have for our promo photos is that we want it to give some indication of your artists overall vibe and personality which will help them stand out from the crowd.

We drew some drafts that express how we wanted some our pictures for the promo shots to look like, in regards to the set up.

Below are three pictures that showcase our initial ideas

For our promo shots we would like to represent our artist in terms of costume and location. This is because both these factors play a part in the artists identity. A strong part of our artists identity is London and how it acts as a huge influence over their lives as well as fashion and costume which showcases the "youth culture" they are trying to emit.

This is very common amongst other artists as well, because they too use shots that clearly represent them and what they believe they are all about. For example, indie bands would usually have promo shots where the artists are playing at a live show since they are all "about the music"

Example: The foals - this image was taken from their website where there were many other live photos

These promo shots below have inspired us because they are very effective in capturing the different elements of the artists character whilst still maintaining a very striking overall look. The specific thing I like about the promo shots of Miley Cyrus is the effectiveness of the location which promotes the "hippie, natural, easy going" image that she is trying to cultivate for her recent album

 

R+P Post 21: My key shots storyboard

This is our storyboard which contains all of our key shots for the music video.

Our Key shots were colour coded so that we could clearly identify the different shot types to see if we had enough variation in our music video. For example, we included a colours to showcase close up shots, mid shots and long shots as seen in the image below.

The different shot types are imperative as it is common convention in many music videos of using many varying shot types as continuous editing is not essential. Which is why we have for example, switched from a close up shot to a long shot. This is good as it only makes the music video more interesting and engaging

Our storyboard consists of the location shots that we are planning on having (which also has elements of the narrative we will be representing). Having this separation from studio shots provides us with clarity and more understanding as we know exactly what we will be aiming to do when we go to shoot on location. This is especially important as this is the part of the music video that needs to be coherent to ensure the audience understand its full meaning.

phone shot - apart of the narrative

Overall, the storyboard that we created has been very useful. This is because it acts as a great way to share the ideas of our group through a visual medium so that we are relying on more than just words. As well as this it makes production much easier and simpler as it ensures that we will not forget any key shots and will help us piece together the video according to our vision. And finally because the storyboard provides us with a tangible way to represent the relationship between the music video and the lyrics of the song

R+P Post 20: My music video timeline

We created a music video timeline to help break down the song into separate sections, this allowed us to also break up the music video not only mentally but down on paper. Making this meant that we had a clear "beginning", "middle" and "end", which made things much easier when discussing narrative. 

The music video timeline had different markings which included the different verses, choruses etc. This was very useful as it meant that we could see how long the sections were and by extension how many shots we could include in the chorus for example. We included the different lighting setups too so that we could create a mental picture for each other.

As well as this we had a separate section with the lyrics so we could match up the shots and lyrics especially the ones that are directly linked.

R+P Post 19: My influences and vision for the project

To showcase our influences and visions for the project we created a Steal-o-Matic. Which acts as a moving visual representation of all the key shots we discussed from the initial ideas we put forward from our group meetings. This task was meant to test if they would work. The shots in the steal-o-Matic were taken from varying music videos from many genres such as pop, grime and Korean pop

Below is the Steal-o-Matic

Overall, this was useful as it showed us exactly how our key shots would look like with the music playing so we knew if it matched or not. This task made us realise exactly what we wanted such as the projections, and the car shots. It was very inspiring as after we created it, we had many more ideas and it provided us with a clear vision instead of rough written plans