Pleminary task - the video

Here is the final and completed A2 Pleminary video!

What i learnt from doing the pleminary task is how to do different shots to add effect. For example, starting from 0:58 he starts walking down the stairs and then a point of view shot; then a shot of him walking down the stairs but this can be seen through the glass window. During editing i learnt the obvious: how to create a music video :).

Editing pleminary task

Unlike last time, everyone has to edit the pleminary task instead of just one person. I've started editing and finished in an hour; it was easy for me to edit it because, i edited the our last production which was the beginning of a film and i've become used to using the software 'Final Cut Pro'.
It was 1 min and about 30 seconds long which was alright because the maximum was 2 mins.

Evaluation:

There were mostly good shots such as the over-shoulder shot and the mirror out which turned out really good. I also added an 'crawl' effect to the bits where the camera was on Junior and this looked really good because it suited the music. In between his journey, i added the people saying 'fuck education'. However, there were some shots which were shaky, tilted and out of focus so i need to bare this in mind for when we start filming the music video; need to make sure the focus is fine and the tripod is fixed properly. Other than that, i was pleased which means the main production will also be good if i keep up with the pace im working at.

Pleminary task - day 2

We continued filming and that's all that happened this lesson. Junior was our actor and we had him walk through some doors (long shot); walk down the stairs (high angle); point view shot of him walking down; then an over-shoulder shot of him walking towards Kaamil. I then came up with a good idea of filming him through the drama window which looked like a mirror because of the black curtains on the other side and it looked cool. So we had him walk down the stairs and then turned the camera towards him. This was a good shot. We then filmed him walking towards the sports hall where he punched the lockers and then he walked into the sports hall and Marcus went round and round him with the camera. He then walked into the library and typed up 'Fuck Education' on word and we filmed him doing this. The last shot we filmed was of Ola kicking Junior out of the college. The lesson then ended and we had enough shots to edit for next lesson so everything was all sorted!

Pleminary task

Before we actually start producing our music video, we have to do a task known as the 'annoying pleminary task' lol. It's just a minor activity where we have to record and edit a peice and then evaluate it and talk about how we would improve to when it comes to the real deal. Maybe annoying but it brings marks so it's alright lol :D.

The pleminary task for this time is to:

'Create a walking/dancing video with different people appearing in it'

The song we are using is called 'F-Word' by the artist 'Babybird' (i've never actually heard of this artist before lol).

The video should have the running theme of young students saying "F**k Education". It should be as realistic as possible, but give the title song a connection with disaffected youth.

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The class was split into 2 groups and then we went out to film. I was in a group full of boys and it'sactually much easier working with them then working with a group full of girls because all they is disagree and you never actually get much done whereas the boys listen and do something lol.

We went out filming students from the college saying 'fuck education' and we got about 10 of them and before we could continue, lesson was over.

Here is a 30 second preview of the song we have to work with:

The F-Word - Baby Bird

Posters

What is a poster?

'A poster is a piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface which include both textual and graphic elements. Posters are supposed to be eye-catching and convey information. They are used as advertisers for events, musicians, films or other groups trying to communicate a message.'

What is a concert poster?

'Many concerts, particularly rock concerts, have custom-designed posters that are used for advertisement of the event and these often become collector's items.'

Our aim for the project is to create a poster where we advertise our CD on it and we have to combine the concert poster with the digi-pak.

The target audience for our poster are teenagers and young adults who can relate to the artist

we are selling.

We are trying to sell this new artist who has come from the estates with the dream of becoming a star and trying to prove something to himself.

The most effective place to put this advert up would be outside youth centers, schools, colleges, universities; basically any place that teenagers and young adults go to because it will be more likely for them to see the poster. Even at a bus stop and underground/overground station would be effective because plenty of youths travel by public transport.

The purpose of the advert is to attract as many 'youngsters' as possible to come watch this new artist on the block perform.

We looked at other posters from the website 'www.posters.com' and we were discussing how, just like CD covers, the posters for Rock artists have themes where as for Hip-Hop it's all about the artists.

We looked at Bob Marley's legend poster.

This image represents that Bob Marley is serious about what he does which is music. At the same time, he looks calm which gives off the vibe that he knows what he's doing.

Black and white albums and poster covers represent 'timeless'.

We even looked at Jimi Hendrix's poster.

As you can see in this image, Jimi Hendrix is holding a guitar in which he does in most of his posters and album covers which represents the fact that he is a guitarist and that is what he enjoys.

Here is a video of a photoshoot:

The purpose of this photoshoot was to take pictures for a poster and flyers to promote this band.

Brand continuity: Our album cover and poster needs to have something that continues.

Audience Types & Groups..

The class were split into different groups to work on this production and i will be working with:

Akieba, Kaamil & Mohammed.

We've already started discussing ideas about whether we will have a standalone artist or a band and we came to a decision that it will be a standalone artist who goes by the name of: 'Jason Who'. Here is a print screen of Jason Who's biography typed up on a word document (as you can see, it's still not complete).

Here are a couple of questions we've had to answer regarding our artist:

1. Which music production/distribution company would you approach and why?

Well our artist Jason Who is signed to Sony BMG so they will be distributing the music video. As well as producing for the artists, they also distribute their productions.

2. How will the musical artists' single be promoted and distributed?

TIE - INs:

There will be collectable wrisbands for the fans to collect.

TV PERFORMANCES:

Jason Who will perform on the BBC1 Programme 5:19 and there will also be a video exclusive on Channel 4, E4 & 4Music. When big artists come out with their new music videos, they are often given a lot of attention as they are show at a certain time and date for the first time.

CELEBRITY SHOWBIZ PARTIES:

He will be partying with other British top charting artists such as Tinchy Stryder, NDubz and Dizzie Rascal (these are just to name a few).

3. Breakdown of the artist:

Standalone artist: Jason Who. He is calm and collected telling stories like Nas through his music peices. He will have a smart urban look just like Kano.

4. For their first single which cover song will you make the artist sing and why?

It's going to be an original song because if it was a cover then the artist will be compared to other artists and we don't want that; he's going to be unique.

Audience types:

He is going to be alternative just like artists such as Pharrell, Kano, Stryder and Chipmunk.

There are 5 types of audiences:

1. Mainstream: this term refers to majority of the audience who share the same opinion and in this, majority of the audience who favour an artist or genre e.g Michael Jackson - he's a prominent figure of Popular culture.
2. Cult: This is the definition of a very small highly devoted fan base and often most of these artists have failed to achieve fame outside of the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences e.g Gigs - you wouldn't get the elder generation listening to his music and the youths who listen to him are loyal fans.
3. Subversive: Controversial artists who go againts the concentional social, political, economic principles of a society.
4. Abstract: They are different and their music videos usually have a different image which does not fit in with the narrative of the song e.g Wiley 'Wearing my Rolex'.
5. Alternative: These artists are also different; they are neither mainstream nor subversive and a good example of this would be Chipmunk.

History of.. Album covers

An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially-released audio recording product or album. The cover serves three main purposes:

1. To advertise the contents of the music product.
2. To convey the artistic aspirations of the original artists.
3. In reproductions of the artwork, to serve as a primary image in the promotional efforts surrounding the product, an identifiable image associated with it.

The cover became an important part of the culture of music at the time. As a marketing tool and an expression of artistic intent, gatefold covers,and inserts often with lyric sheets, made the album cover a desirable artifact in it's own right.

The album cover for Jay Z's: Blueprint 3

The instruments used in the cover were to portray foundation (that's what blueprint stands for) and the colour white was used to to represent purity. The artist used '3 stripes' in continuity on the album and his first song 'Run this town'. This is what we have to think about aswell; we need to have some sort of continuity between our album cover and our music video. We have also watched the makin of this album cover in lesson and i found it very interesting that for just one picture, alot of hard work was put into it which goes to show that profressionals really mean business and no nonsense and we should be working by this motto too.

Using conventions of a genre on the album cover makes the audience become aware of what genre the music is. For example, Pop artists such as 'Spice Girls' and 'S Club 7' would have very colourful album covers.

Pop songs are initially 'full of joy' and 'jumpy' and so the use of bright colours (as seen on the covers above ^^^) gives a sense of happiness and being optimistic which automatically helps the audience identify that the genre is Pop.

Rock artists and Indie bands have a theme on their album covers and it represents images more about their music often using pictures of their own instruments such as this one:

Jimi Hendrix was a Rock artist who was famous for being the most favourable guitar player and has also been the top guitarist on it's list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Let just say, if someone didn't know who he was then by looking at most of album covers, they would automatically assume that he plays the guitar because most of the album cover artworks consist of him holding a guitar.

However, moving onto Hip-Hop artists, their album covers are more about themselves and 'showing off' their 'bling' etc etc and a convention of their album covers are always portrait. Here are 2 examples:

Another thing, as you can in the 50 Cent picture, he is bare chested, showing off his tattooed muscles trying to prove that he is strong and wearing gucci and 'bling' showing that he is rich. This not only attracts female fans but homosexual fans aswell. 'Pink Pound' is the term referred to when these homosexual audiences make these artists money.

The key concept 'Male Gaze' (feminist Laura Mulvey), is basically when women try to see themselves through a man's eyes. Shakira's album cover for her lastest album 'She Wolf' would be a good example:

The reason why this is a good example is because, as you can see, she is trapped in a cage which means that maybe she is being controlled by a man and the female audiences can try and see her through a mans point of view; maybe they could understand why she looks like someone trapped in a cage ready to do whatever the man tells her to do.

With digital music downloading becoming increasingly popular, the purpose and the dominance of the album cover is developing. It should be noted that physical music products, with a physical 'album cover', continue to outsell digital downloads by a substantial margin.