Monday 31 October 2011

Similar Artist Album Advert In Magazine

This is an advert in a magazine for a similar artist to ours (Wretch 32). The advert shows the artist to promote his image and also tells us his name and the name of the album, both quite large and clearly. The advert also promotes the album further by mentioning the star names who feature on the album alongside Wretch 32. The release date is also clearly written in bold. This is accompanied by logos of stores and websites where the album is available, which then lets the reader know where and when they can purchase the album if the name, image or associates of the artist have gained their original interest. The URL of the artists Myspace page also appears so that viewers can type it in and check whether they like the sound of his music before deciding to purchase the album or not.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

More Planning

                                             This is our planning for locations and costumes.





 These are images of a storyboard we created to represent the general content of the video.


We used these sheets to plan 4 sequences of the shoot as well as a shot schedule (sequence 2 sheet).








Sunday 16 October 2011

Questionnaire Feedback

This was our audience research questionnaire.

1. Select your gender
Male     Female

2. Select your age
13-15     16-18     19-21     22+

3. Name your favourite 3 artists/bands? 

4. Which artist would you be MOST LIKELY to listen to based on genre and style?
Arctic Monkeys     Rihanna     Foo Fighters     Olly Murs     JLS     50 Cent     None

5. How would you define your favourite music genre?

6. Is there a particular sub-genre which you like more than other elements of the above genre?

7. What appeals to you about this genre/sub-genre?
Lyrics     Beats/Instruments     Fashion     Culture     It's popular

8. Which music channels do you watch regularly?
I don't have/watch music channels     MTV Hits     MTV Base     MTV Rock     MTV Dance          MTV Classics    

9. How do you consume music?
Free downloads     Purchasing physical CDs     Getting free CDs from festivals                            Online Purchase and Download (iTunes etc)

10. How much would you estimate that you spend on music in an average year?
Nothing     Less than £15     £16-30     £31-45     £46-70     £71-£100     £100-150     £151-300     £301-500     £500-1000     Over £1000


Findings



The above questionnaire was used to gain an insight into our target audience. We distributed printed copies of the questionnaire and distributed them among our peers at college, and we received responses from 15 people from the age range of 16-18 (8 males, 7 females). The results suggest that our audience listen to a wide range of artists and genres. The majority of our audience listen to RnB and Rap/Hip-Hop. Many of their favourite artists include 50 Cent, Drake, Ed Sheeran, and Rihanna. We also found that our audience watch a wide variety of music channels however, the most popular ones among our audience are MTV Hits and MTV Base. Our audience are also influenced by style as 8 people said they listen to Rihanna and 50 Cent because of their style and how they portray themselves. We can also infer from our results that our audience use online download methods such as iTunes to consume music.

The important notes which we can gain from this research is that it is good to give our artist a bold, distinct and clear style as the persona and dress code of artists seems to influence their listeners. Also we can infer that it would make most sense to concentrate on the digital release of our artist's album rather than the distribution of physical CD's as only 1 of 15 people said they usually consume physical copies of albums and singles. We also know now which music channels would be most likely to play our artist's videos on television.

Thursday 13 October 2011

Shooting Schedule

On Monday 17/10 we plan to do a test shoot in the college common room and in the booth/music studio. This will give us an idea of how our video will look and what shots we could use based on the size and angles of the room. On Thursday 20/10 we can continue this and try out a few different angles and shots, before doing the photoshoot for our digipak.

Album Art Research On Similar Artists

This album by The Streets shows Mike Skinner, the main artist standing alone at a bus stop. The scene is something that would be seen in everyday life, which represents the album's content as he raps about daily activities and thoughts. The fact that he is standing alone also represents the album's content as it tells a story of his trust issues and how at one point he feels betrayed by all his friends and feels alone.









This album cover shows the artist; Chipmunk as this promotes his image. The artist's name is clearly visible along with the name of the album. He chooses to show his tattoos in the picture quite clearly as they may tell his story. The inclusion of his tattoos seems to be loosely linked to the album title as he has changed his style and sound from his first album 'I Am Chipmunk.






 Ed Sheeran's album cover is simple like his music in he uses minimal instruments to put more emphasis on his lyrics. The cover is picture of his face as he is clearly recognizable as he is a newly established singer. Instead of the album title 'Plus' he has the symbol to represent his unorthodox style and varied style. The picture is tinted orange to typify his ginger hair.











The album 'Black And White' by Wretch 32 shows the artist centred. the name and album title are clearly visible. The concept of the cover match the album title as the colour has been removed so that it is 'Black and white'. The artist is wearing traditional 'urban' clothing with the fashionable scarf and varsity jacket his swagger reflects that of his music which is hip hop based.











*This task was completed by myself and Josh (50/50)*

Music Video Pitch

Spike Jonze: Music Director Research


Wednesday 12 October 2011

Representations In Our Video

Write about Representation in your music video (at least your intentions) focusing on your artist and on gender representations, or maybe representations of youth.

Our video will be for the rap song 'I'm 17' by Rizzle Kicks. We plan to create a video which is based on narrative and performance. The video will mainly contain our yet to be named artist, as we create visual interpretations of the lyrics to the song, which talk about a 17 year old going about his everyday life.

In our video, gender will not be represented stereotypically as the main character is not overly masculine or aggressive, but will come across as a calm and fun young man, contrary to most rap videos. Many rap videos show a stereotypical image of a masculine male artist, who is shown to have sex appeal in the eyes of women, and also comes across as a powerful alpha male figure, and sometimes a violent person. Our video will not succumb to these gender representations, although granted our song is a softer rap, rather than hardcore 'gangsta rap'. The females in this video will not be seen as sex objects as they are in many videos of similar rap/pop genres, but instead will behave and dress realistically and only aid the narrative rather than perform a function of fulfilling the male gaze.

Although our video will stay clear of gender stereotypes, the representation of youth will be fairly stereotypical. The narrative will show the main character going to college and socialising rather than showing him learning and working in class. The video will also show the main character going out to a club with a fake ID. This is stereotypical as many young people do these things and as a result there are labels attached to youth such as 'mischevious' and 'lazy', words which sum up the character's behaviour in the video quite accurately.

Overall it seems that our video will follow some stereotypes in representations of youth, but will represent gender rather neutrally and with no particular focus.

Monday 10 October 2011

Digipak Design




 The top left panel is the design for the front cover. It shows our artist as we believe it would be good to promote our artist's image for his first album as he is unknown and this will then allow people to get used to his image and in turn make him more recognisable. There is a parental advisory warning in the bottom left corner of the cover as our artist would use mild and occasional swear words in his songs which some people may find innapropriate. The artists name is in big writing at the top and then the album name is smaller and at the bottom, as it is more important to promote the artist as a whole than just one album, and it is the name of an artist that attracts people and that people identify with, rather than the name of the album. The top and bottom panels on the right are extra photos for the 4 panel digipak to further promote the artist's image. The panel on the bottom left is the back cover which shows a full track listing including the song we are using (I'm 17) and is accompanied by the copyright logo and the name of the label in the bottom right corner of the panel.

 

Sunday 9 October 2011

Questionnaire

I created the following questionnaire to gain information about the preferences of our target audience. We used mostly closed questions as they gain easy to analyse, quantitative data, however for a more in depth look which we can draw our own interpretations of, we used a few open questions. We used an open question for genre as it is difficult to categorise with so many popular sub-genres and hybrid genres in existence now.

1. Select your gender
Male     Female

2. Select your age
13-15     16-18     19-21     22+

3. Name your favourite 3 artists/bands? 

4. Which artist would you be MOST LIKELY to listen to based on genre and style?
Arctic Monkeys     Rihanna     Foo Fighters     Olly Murs     JLS     50 Cent     None

5. How would you define your favourite music genre?

6. Is there a particular sub-genre which you like more than other elements of the above genre?

7. What appeals to you about this genre/sub-genre?
Lyrics     Beats/Instruments     Fashion     Culture     It's popular

8. Which music channels do you watch regularly?
I don't have/watch music channels     MTV Hits     MTV Base     MTV Rock     MTV Dance          MTV Classics    

9. How do you consume music?
Free downloads     Purchasing physical CDs     Getting free CDs from festivals                            Online Purchase and Download (iTunes etc)

10. How much would you estimate that you spend on music in an average year?
Nothing     Less than £15     £16-30     £31-45     £46-70     £71-£100     £100-150     £151-300     £301-500     £500-1000     Over £1000



We plan to distribute our surveys in our college by printing them out and giving them to willing participants in the common room. We will also create an online version of the survey which will be posted on Facebook and Twitter.