Updated Album Advert

This is a newer version of our album advert. Based on feedback we have compressed the icons in the bottom left to a smaller space, we have changed the colour of 'Unorthodox' to a more unorthodox colour, and we have made the font of 'Iceburg' blue so that it stands out more and so that it fits the name of the artist (icy theme).

First Rough Edit For Video

This cut is our first rough one which we did on final cut. We do not have all of our footage yet and are yet to fully decide on which shots to use for which parts of the track, but this is the first effort so far, which covers just past the first verse.

Updated Album Advert

We updated our advert by making the font look more professional. We also moved the title of the album lower down to clearly seperate it from the artist's name. We compressed the icons more as we saw this done in Wretch 32's album advert. We also assured that the 'December 12' was on one line to make it professional and clear. We also removed unnecessary words from this sentence to make the poster more bold, clear and simple. The artist name is transparent and it looked poor when we had the album name transparent too so we had to figure out how to change it and blend it as the same colour as the artist name at the top. We used www.1001freefonts.com to specifically find a good and professional font rather than the default and amateur looking ones we had before.

Goodwin Analysis: Snoop Dogg - Doggfather

What genre characteristics does this video display?

This music video is not typical of the urban US rap genre, as the mise-en-scene revolves around the idea that the video is set in the 1930-1950 era in America. The video however does show some characteristics of the genre as it focuses on the artist, and shows him in a position of power, as is the case with most the male figures who can mostly be seen sitting back smoking cigars, while the artist's character has the opportunity to appear even more powerful and masculine due to the way he treats the owner of the club, like he is an inferior being.

Is there a relationship between lyrics and visuals?

There is a massive relationship between the lyrics and visuals in this video as the chorus uses the word 'Doggfather' which is a play on words of 'Snoop Dogg' and 'Godfather', and in the video Snoop Dogg appears to be a powerful, wealthy, but dodgy looking man, similar to the protagonists in the Godfather movies, which follow the lives of mafia bosses. 

Is there a relationship between music and visuals?

The music and visuals hold a relationship to an extent as the video is mostly smooth and keeps with the pace of the track. There is a consistent pattern in the editing, where a new shot is used at the start of almost every line, and half way through the line, it cuts to another shot, however this is not always the case for the whole of the video. The visuals are usually neither sped up or slowed down as the song is not a particular slow or fast pace.

Is there lots of close ups of the artist and does the artist develop motifs which recur across their work?

The video contains many close-ups of the artist, and he is the only notable character throughout most of the video. Some motifs that recur across Snoop Dogg's work include him often appearing smoking (often he is seen smoking marijuana in videos, however he is seen smoking cigars here) and the fact that he is often portrayed as a powerful figure and worshipped as a wise man, something that is very notable here.

Is there frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly 

voyeuristic treatment of the female body?

There is frequent reference to the notion of looking in this video. One notable example is the way that Snoop Dogg sits down in the club and then observes the performance of the singer/rapper on stage (also played by Snoop Dogg). There are many cuts to close ups of Snoop's face as he watches the performer and we can see his reaction to the performance thanks to these shots. There is also evidence of voyeuristic treatment of the female body at 1:58 as one of the men in the club can be seen watching a lady from behind in a voyeuristic manner as she walks past him. 

Is there intertextual reference?

There is clear intertextual reference in this video, inspired by the name of the song. The song's name 'Doggfather' is a play on the word 'Godfather' (referring to 'The Godfather' movie trilogy) which allows for the video to parody the general mise-en-scene and behaviour of characters in this movie. As the Godfather movies were mafia movies set in 1930s America, the video is also set in a similar time period, as we can see from the mise-en-scene, with characters wearing clothing from that time period. This time period reference is made clearer by the fact that the video is in black and white, as all footage from that era was. The video also contains dancing similar to that which would be seen in that era, especially in movies and musicals, adding to the intertextual reference.

Mock Magazine Advert For Album (Rough)

This is our magazine advert to promote our artist's debut album. We used a large picture of the artist which shows his face and his style in fashion which allows fans to judge him based on his appearance and get an idea of what genre his music could be (jeans, trainers and baseball jacket are likely to represent urban pop or rap). This is conventional for a young urban artist who is not yet established, with such artists as Wretch 32 and Ed Sheeran using similar images.

We put the name of our artist at the top to clearly let people know, and the name of the album so that people can search it or identify it when they see it in stores or online. We wrote "Available in stores 12th December" as it is vital to let people know the release date so they know how new the album is and when they can get their hands on it. These conventions are also seen in the above adverts, and indeed apply to all genres.

This is followed by icons of HMV and iTunes as these are the top places to purchase the album, with HMV being a popular high-street store and also being popular as an online store where customers can order a physical copy of the album. iTunes is important in the modern music industry as it is the number one online music store, and by searching the iTunes store for the album, customers can purchase it digitally and immediately receive MP3 files of all the songs on the album as well as the artwork which appears when they play the song on their desktop, tablet or handheld device. A link to purchase the song on iTunes will also appear on the 'More info' section of the artist's music video when uploaded on Youtube. The main inspiration for this was Wretch 32's advert, as Ed Sheeran's placing of icons is less prominent, with just the iTunes logo appearing next to the price. The price was included in this advert as iTunes was the only store linked, however with Wretch 32's advert and our advert the different stores promoted could hold the product at different prices. The price is not always inserted into the make up of the advert anyway but is important to some people as it can affect whether they want to buy the album or not.

Below this we posted links to the artist's social networking pages on Facebook and Twitter respectively. This allows readers to visit the artist's page on their favourite sites and learn more about him and follow him directly on those sites which will allow direct promotion onto their homepages in many cases. We mainly used our initiative here, however Wretch 32 has one example of this in his advert as his Myspace URL is at the bottom of the advert.

General Update

This week we have mainly worked on our video. We have shot much more footage since our first shoot on October 17th and almost have enough to fill the 3 minutes of video, although we will have to watch all the footage and piece it together first before we can judge whether anymore footage is needed. We have also started work on our ancillary tasks, taking some photos on Monday which we will use for our digipak, and also on Thursday we started a rough edit of our magazine advert for our artist's album.

Artist Website Analysis

For this task I have analysed the website of UK Urban artist; Skepta. His website URL is www.doinitagain.co.uk as his catchphrase is "I'm doin' it again". This is unique as most artists just use their name or a variation of their name as their website URL.

This is what the website's homepage looks like.
When logging onto the website, the viewer immediately sees a big picture of the artist to promote his image, accompanied by his name clearly written in a grafiti style font to match his urban genre of music. The whole theme of the website is quite urban as this will appeal to his fans more. In the top right corner there is a small music player where the user can hear samples of his most popular tracks to give them a taster of what the artist sounds like. Underneath this is a much bigger clue of what the artist is like, as there is a video player which automatically plays his latest music video in full length. To the left of the music player are links to Skepta's profile on other popular social networking websites such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and Ping. This allows people to follow him on their favourite websites and means Skepta will constantly be appearing on their newsfeeds for these websites if they choose to follow him. This also means that fans can easily and conveniently recieve updates from these sites without logging onto Skepta's official website all the time.

On the left is the navigation panel. The 'News' option will take users to a page where Skepta's most recent important news and updates are displayed along with 'Headlines'. The 'Gigs' option will take users to a page where they can see details on any upcoming gigs Skepta may be performing at. The 'Releases' option takes users to a page where they can download Skepta's latest free mixtape. The 'Videos' option allows users to watch Skepta's official music videos and 'other videos' such as freestyles for the radio. The 'Gallery' option shows users other press pictures of Skepta. The 'Store' option takes users to a store where they can purchase Skepta related accessories, clothing and of course Skepta's CDs. Fans can even purchase signed copies of his latest mixtape on this page. The 'About' section provides users with an informative text-based page which tells the story of Skepta so far and also mentions many of his associated artists, which promotes them too. The 'Contact' section then allows people to personally send Skepta fan e-mail or ask him any questions they may have. It is however unlikely that Skepta personally replies to these messages, and more likely that he has a PA or agent to do it.

Towards the bottom left of the screengrab is an option to log-in or sign up to Skepta's website. This means that hardcore fans can become a member of Skepta's website which would give them added  benefits of recieving official update emails on such things as upcoming albums, gigs and general information. At the bottom of the screengrab are images of his most recent album and mixtape releases so that fans can easily see if they have missed any recent releases. This is accompanied by a 'News' section so that fans can easily see if they have missed any important updates about Skepta's personal life, plans for any gigs or tours, and information on any upcoming releases.

There is also a list of gigs with dates and locations in the bottom left although this is empty as his tour just finished a few weeks ago and he will not be doing gigs for a while. At the bottom there is a massive section called 'Skepta Social' which allows users to instantly 'like' his page on Facebook, and also shows all of his most recent and most popular tweets on Twitter.