Radio Interview

Focus Group

Positive feedback:
My idea was well thought out and fitted my artist's image well. The two contrasting type faces I had chosen also fits the image of my artist and the theme I had chosen well. The idea that I had set it in a similar style to a children's story book, but then contradicted that by using more adult images and styles within it.

Negative Feedback:
Could play on the fairytale theme more, by using Disney characters inside the booklet, maybe by having Nicki Minaj dressed up as these characters. Have the background of the front cover set up as a fairytale, so it all looks very pretty and magical, then when you turn to the back of the album have the back ground looking out onto Queens, so a very urban, rough back ground. This would continue my idea of the contrasting theme throughout the album booklet.

How this will effect my ideas:
This won't hugely effect any of my plans or ideas, all of the negative feedback was very helpful and I agreed with all of it and would like to use both of the suggestions made. So it really only effected my ideas positively, to make the final outcome a lot better and more interesting than my original idea.

 Back cover of Nicki Minaj Album

Back cover of Nicki Minaj album

Front cover Nicki Minaj album

Front cover Nicki Minaj album

Mood board

Mood board

Secondary Research - Artist Covers and Packaging

Album name and Track list

Album Name:
Raised in Queens


Track List:
1. I'm The Best
2. Roman's Revenge (featuring Eminem)
3. Did It On 'Em
4. Right Thru Me
5. Fly (featuring Rihanna)
6. Save Me
7. Moment 4 Life
8. Check It Out (featuring Will.i.am)
9. Blazin (featuring Kanye West)
10. Here I Am

Conventions of CD Packaging

Conventions:
-Institutional info - barcode/date/year
-Title
-Tray backing
-Track listing
-Booklet
-Sticker
-Image
-Spine
-Website
-Company name
-Artist name
-Logo
-Disc image
-Credits
-Parental advisory
-Lyrics
-Thanks

Research Report

Research-

Through out this unit I have been concentrating on the history and research of music videos. I chose to concentrate on a song by The Kooks called 'Already Miss You'. I wrote a treatment for a music video for this song and got feedback (focus group) to improve on my idea. Also I created a story board and then an anamatic to get an even clearer indication of my idea. I did these pieces of work to help towards the making of a music video as a director would.

Conclusions for primary research-

I viewed many of The Kooks previous music videos for primary research to help towards my idea for a music video. The reason I did this was to make sure I created a music video that fitted their style and audience. I found that on many of The Kooks music videos they used the lead singer as the main actor/character, but the rest of the band also tend to make an appearance in the video at some stages. Also they often have a narrative video, but use shots of the lead singer miming as well. The videos aren't over the top or full of bright colours because this wouldn't fit the genre of music or audience. I took these factors into account when thinking of my idea for a music video.

Conclusion for secondary research-

When I looked at artistes and bands from the same genre and who have a similar audience to The Kooks, I found that they also have a similar music video style. This confirmed my ideas of creating a video in the same style as The Kooks previous music videos, rather than breaking the mold and doing something very different. Although this can be popular with different artistes, I didn't feel it was necessary or appropriate in this case. Other bands similar to The Kooks also tend to use shots of the band and then focus on the lead singer. They also tend not to use bright colours or choreographed dance routines as this is more common in pop and R&B music videos. Most of the videos I researched had some sort of narrative running through the video, so I will also use a narrative structure, rather than a theme, like a club for a pop song.

Treatment

The Kooks - I Already Miss You

The opening shot will be of a young man sat in his room writing a letter which will be the first few lines of the first verse, ' I know you're feeling bitter, what I said last I didn't mean. And now that I'm a little better, this is what I meant to say.' The room will be dull, almost black and white, this will emphasis the loneliness and sadness he is feeling.  He will then put down his pen, grab his guitar and walk out of his house. It will then cut to a clip of him walking down the street, along the sea front, singing the next few lines of the song, ' Babe, I already miss you. Sweetheart, I already miss you. Sweet eyes, I already miss you. And you only just walked out the door.'

 

As the second verse begins, he will walk into a bar and walk over to the rest of his band. The colours will still be dull at this point. As he is greeting his friends he will look across the room where he see's his recently ex girlfriend. There will then be a close up of his face looking at her and then her face as she looks over at him. As he looks over to his ex girlfriend the colours will become brighter and warmer. 

The next shot will be of the band getting onto the stage as the chorus comes in again, he will be singing to her. And their will be a shot of his face as he sings to her and then a shot of her face. She will look over to him and smile, but her friend will pull her out of the bar as he sings the lyrics ' Sweet eyes, I already miss you. And you only just walked out the door.' There will then be a long shot of him and the band as they finish, the band being applauded and the rest of the band smiling and laughing. The final shot will be the camera zooming to his face as it drops seeing his ex girlfriend walk out of the bar. It will then fade back to the dull colours that were at the beginning of the music video.  

Evaluation

 I am evaluating my work throughout unit 2. I joined the media course a few months late, so this did effect my work, meaning I had things to catch up on as well as taking part in the current work.
 I work well under direction, I find I work better this way than independently because if I am told what to do, and understand it, I will just get on and do it. When working on things independently I sometimes struggle to keep up and understand what I am doing. With the more creative and artistic things, I work very well on my own and I really enjoy doing this, as I feel confident and comfortable in this area. But when it comes to articulating myself and doing the more technical side of the work, I struggle more. When I worked as part of a team, I found that sometimes I worked really well, but other times I wouldn't put in as much as I could. When doing the practical work, like filming I worked well within the group and got myself very involved. But when it came to the editing and computer work I would sometimes take a back seat and not contribute as much as I could have done.
 My creative skills are very good, I don't struggle for ideas and I really enjoy it, which I think shows in my work. So when working on something that involves artistic input and creative ability I will try my very best to make it as good as it can possibly be. Whereas when I am working on things that I am less confident with, the technology, I don't work as accurately, and I will settle for just getting it done to an acceptable standard, instead of doing my very best. This continues with meeting deadlines, although I would spend more time on the creative side of things, I would often miss deadlines for the less creative things. I was very much in my comfort zone with the materials we used for our music video, so the clothing and make up, I put lots of thought into and had a lot of ideas about. I was also fairly confident using the camera, tripod and lighting, which was vital to our video, as it was mainly filmed using a green screen.
 When it came to sharing tasks, for example, editing the music video, I could sometimes let the other person do the majority of the work, if I didn't feel comfortable in that area. But then if I felt it was something I could do I would work really well and share the work equally with whoever I was working with. I feel I did support other team members during this unit and evaluate their work, using constructive criticism and positive feedback.
 Towards the start of the course I had extra help to catch up and learn the skills that I needed, I felt this helped an awful lot. I learned a lot about the technical side to things, for example, setting up a tripod and attaching a camera to it. Also things like editing footage in Final Cut, and using effects on clips to create a final piece of work to a high standard. I think I could improve my media skills by spending some time learning how to use editing programs such as Final Cut in more detail. I could do this by watching tutorials on YouTube, also sitting by a classmate and watching how they use the programs would help me.

History of Music Video

We looked at key points in the history of the music video and each person in the class was given an artiste's music video to research and talk about to the class. I researched Madonna's music video for her song 'Vogue' and was recorded when talking to the class about the history of the video. 

Editing /Film skills

In this continuity exercise I learnt how to set up a tripod and attach the camera to it. I also learnt how to use a rage of different shots, close up and long shots and when they where necessary. Once I had all the shots I needed, I captured them and uploaded them onto Final Cut where I edited them. I cut out unnecessary bits and put the shots into the correct order. Finally I exported the movie to put on my blog. 

Print Skills

Magazine

Plan Information

Roles: Paige - Director/Actor
          Alex - Producer/Camera man
          Lily - Editor/ Actor
We thought that Alex would best suit the role of camera man and producer of the music video as he already has experience filming and using the camera equipment and also as he couldn't act in the video because we are using an all female cast. Paige and Lily both decided to act in the video as well as do another role, but we both felt confident enough in front of the camera to act appropriately for our video. Paige is also the director as she is organised and punctual. We chose Lily to be the editor as she has experience editing from her previous media course.
Our estimated time for production is... We plan to shoot the video over one to two days.
The estimated costs using professional rates would be around £560 per day to hire a studio. But as we are using locations that are free to use and keeping our spending to a minimum, we expect to spend around £10.
All of the locations for filming and editing are free to use as we are using Paige's house to film and the school computer suites to edit.