EVALUATION Q.1

1.In what ways does your media product follow the codes and conventions of similar media products?

the music video that we decided to do is "Worlds Greatest" by R Kelly. While doing this video we obviously thought that we would have a completely different video from its original music video but at the same time we wanted to have similar view and theme to the original music video. Like most music video, we also have a major of close-ups. the purpose of close-ups is for viewers to see the main artist singing, I also think the purpose of this is for the viewers to see the artist's feelings and the way they sing the song and that they put their heart and soul to the song. We wanted to achieve this in our music video because we didnt want our viewers to think that our main artist is just lip syncing the song but we wanted to give the impression that he puts his heart out while singing. Like most narrative music videos, our video has a story behind it. We made sure that our story relates and fits in well with the meaning of the lyrics of the song. We made our story very original but at the same time we also wanted to make it unique. A story about people who wants so much more in life and want to achieve something that they never achieved before. We believe Our story is very original as it is normal for any other song that has a meaning of never giving up and achieving something big, but we also believed that we did very well of making our story very unique as we combine it with the song. As we thought through the story, we didnt just want to put up a unique story but we also wanted to relate it to people. We wanted our viewers to see what it would feel like to be in the same situation and we also wanted to give an impression that we made this music video to relate to those that has a similar view or life.

As concluded, We did very well of making our music video and to make it similar to other RnB songs. But we are sure that we also achieved making our video very unique and to stand out from other same genre songs. Like most major hit songs, they would have ways of advertising them to their audience. In our blog we made our advert to be simple as possible but also persuasive enough to sell them to customers. We did research of techniques of how to sell your product through advertising and we learnt that most adverts for songs have very simple adverts because they know that viewers only want to focus on the actual artist and the song not other random things. This has helped us come to to final idea of making our advert very simple and we just want to give a simple message to all of our artist's fans out there as the very simple message our song gives, 'never give up'.

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our video fits in well with our other media based work as at the start of the video, the clothes that the main character is wearing (Solomon) we have also used within our digipak as well. The digipak which we created consisted of four panels; each of the panels had a picture of either the star image or the images of the locations we filmed in, which created continuity between the music video and each of the four panels. We created the link between the different media formats because it allowed them to tie in together with each other and shows the audience that the singer has a significant role in the video because he continuously visible on the digipack and the video.
















Many of the music CD/magazine which are available on the market today usually have the band or singer positioned on them, so we decided to follow this trend and to do something similar which would make our digipak fit in with the rest in hope that we could attract people into purchasing the album. To do this, we decided to take a more artistic approach towards creating the panels and we thought by making the pictures have a Sepia effect would create this certain mood and effect on the picture when the audience see it. We want the audience to feel calm and relaxed when looking at this. If we kept the pictures with their original colour we thought it wouldn’t be eye catching and the audience wouldn’t pay any attention to it.

On the back panel of the digipak and on the music advert, we decided to keep the sepia effect which shows that it is consistent through out each panel. We had someone in our group which was good at using Photoshop which was great because he was able to make our own logo which is positioned on the bottom left of the back panel. This logo will make our digipak unique. We also chose to put the record labels on as it makes the media products more realistic and authentic. These labels consisted of different versions of our music video; these were versions such as a remix by a different artist. We gave the digipak the similar aspect of the video, we believe that this would help us sell our product to an audience because the idea of the sepia effect on each panel very simple yet easily effective.


























Another way that advert and digipak compliment each other is was the font that was used while creating them. The font was consistent through out the creation of the magazine front cover and the cd panels.. This was done to create continuity between the products but also to create a house style for the artist of this song, His name has also got the same font, over time it will become more recognisable, distinctive and unique to the artist. Due to the music video being creative and different compared to other videos, we felt that we should do something just as innovative when creating the magazine advert.

Overall, as a group we feel that all of the media products which we produced are extremely creative and artistic but each of them are unique in their own way; we believe that all three off the different media formats all link together and compliment each other because of the consistency which they all have in them. I believe the audience would appreciate our products and by them because we put allot of time and effort creating our completed music video and digipak.

EVALUATION QUESTION 3

Audience Feedback Sheets:

Feedback Sheet 1:

Your overall response to the video:

Overall I liked it, i thought the editing was a real strong point in the film.

List 3 particular strengths of the video:

Lip syncing
Studio Shots
Slow motion shot to really give it a strong ending.
Write down one suggestion for improvement:
Use of scenery/Places

Choose one technical area: either camerawork, editing or mise en scene and give detailed feedback:

Mise En Scene - Location
Location's were in the college like most of the time, so the shots were not as effective as they could have been.

Feedback Sheet 2:

Your overall response to the video:
Good Shots
Lip syncing - On time
Good use of lighting
List 3 particular strengths of the video:

Many shots used at Different lengths
The use of the slow motion
Cropping images into other images
Write down one suggestion for improvement:
Should have used frames in other locations, not just the studio.

Choose one technical area: either camerawork, editing or mise en scene and give detailed feedback:

The editing was really cut on time, lots of fading that was really in sync to the music and video.

The question: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After getting feedback from a sample audience, our music video received some positive feedback. One typical comment was that the editing , and this immediately stimulated interest; and also the use of the cross fading, which we used throughout the video, also seemed to get really good feedback. On the negative side, however, the comment was made that it was detrimental doing all the video within the studio.
The audience’s overall response from the video was that our editing was really good and kept the audience interested and there eyes glued to the screen. The use of different types of shots encourages the audience watching the music video to perceive it in different ways, and also creates a successful and professional feel towards the music video. Another positive comment which was made was about the roof shot, many of the audience thought it was a really creative idea and showed the underlying meaning of being 'the worlds greatest' and trying to be the best and being on a high place such as the roof top really sets a great sense of superiority.
Other positive comments which we received were about the the lighting, for e.g when we took the shot of the pianist walking into the theater getting ready to play the piano. Another strength that was given was the lip-syncing, apart from one clip, people thought the lip-syncing was in time and matched the lyrics of the song perfectly. We found this bit exceptionally hard because i did not know all of the words so i had to use different clips and make it look like Ive got the words in perfect sync, and this ended up working well and most people could not tell the difference.
Some music videos that are created are not perfect, like many other videos ours is not perfect either, and with hindsight there are things within the video which could have been improved on and made better. The audience which viewed our music video, felt the biggest problem was the fact that we had done most of the music video in the studio and all of the video in the college grounds, we did this because we wanted certain lighting options and certain effect that we could of not been able to obtain anywhere else apart from either the college or the studio.
From our audience feedback we have learnt a lot, the audience feedback picks out both positives and negatives about the music video and it allows us to get an idea of what people think of it, and what can be done to make it better.

Question 4 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The first thing that we done for the project was to have a look and research into which song we was going to do, we done this by using the Mac’s by looking on YouTube through a variety of different videos until we found a video that we all agreed on and decided to do. Through the research stage of the task we mainly used the technology on the Internet, we looked at a number of different music videos in the same genre of our video and also music videos from different genres so that we would expand our knowledge of music videos. After we had decided what we was going to do in our video we had to decide on the locations that we were going to film at. We again mainly used the Internet to find out suitable locations for our video, we used the Google street view to look around and find some locations as it saves a lot of time rather than going round all the places which we thought may be suitable for the video.The research for the digipak and magazine cover we also used the internet to gain valuable research, we used Google images to search for CD covers and magazine covers from artists who are in the same genre as the artist who’s music video we had decided to do. Through the Internet we had access to thousands of different CD covers and magazine covers so that we could get ideas from them and ass them to our own ideas to make sure that we had a good professional looking CD cover that would also work well with the genre of song we had chosen. We looked at CD album covers from Bruno Mars, Chris Brown and Usher who are in the same genre as R Kelly and these shown that there can be many different CD covers but most of them promote the performers star image so we took this into consideration when designing our own CD cover.


Whilst filming the video we used a number of different technologies, we filmed part of our video using the green screen. We used the specialist cameras in the media suite so that we could get good quality close ups of Solomon performing as we though this sort of performance would suit the song. We also had two other parts to the video which we filmed with the normal camera’s, there is a difference in the quality of the shots between the two but you can get more of a variety of shots with the normal camera as you can get handheld shots and move around with the camera. After we had done our filming we edited the footage on a programme called ‘Final Cut Pro’. This was an essential part of out video because we had a lot of footage to choose from and had to bring it all into 3 and a half minutes for the video, we had to use a number of effects for the transition between all the shots in the video. One of the hardest parts when editing the video was making sure that the lip-syncing was in time with the song but through all the specialist tools in final cut pro we managed to successfully lip-sync the video.


When making the CD covers we used another type of technology, the digital stills camera. We used this to take a number of pictures of Solomon so that we had a variety of shots to choose from when making our final decision on the CD cover. After we had decided which picture we were going to use we used the programme ‘Adobe Photoshop’ to add effects and text to the picture. We had to crop the image so that it was 12cm by 12 cm and the same as a normal size CD case. We then decided to add the ‘sepia’ effect to the picture as it creates a mood that works well and is backed up by the song itself. We also added the text in Photoshop and went for fancy, stylish form of text as in the research of CD covers we seen that there wasn’t many plain text and all of them were unique to that one singer. The blog was also another major part of our project, as we had to regularly update it with screenshots, videos and other things throughout all the different stages of the project. The media technology helped us greatly in all areas of our project and without this we wouldn’t have been able to plan, research or make a successful music video.

OUTTAKESSSSS!!!

FINAL DESIGN: Magazine Advert

This is the final design of our Magazine advert. As you can see we kept the theme in our poster because we did not want different various styles in our advert. We also liked the idea of having a picture of the CD somewhere in the advert so our customers know what it looks like. We also kept the idea of having our music company logo in this from our first draft. The rating from a newspaper is kept, but we took away the comments. We also made that we kept the style of font fit together and not having random font styles on each writing. We wanted our poster to be as simple as possible but at the same time persuasive enough to sell our album nationwide.

ANALYSING MAGAZINE ADVERTS: Basement Jaxx

This is an advert for Basement jaxx. I think this is a quite simple advert but very effective. Its got the name of the artist in bold capital font so the viewers can see it clearly. Its also got events in at the bottom for information on concerts and events. This also has the music company name on it to advertise their music label. I think the picture of the bird is a good image for this theme, the colours also match the image of the bird and the font style in advert. Looking at this advert made us think and made sure that we keep the theme in the advert and not having random things on it.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The first thing that we done for the project was to have a look and research into which song we was going to do, we done this by using the Mac’s by looking on YouTube through a variety of different videos until we found a video that we all agreed on and decided to do. Through the research stage of the task we mainly used the technology on the Internet, we looked at a number of different music videos in the same genre of our video and also music videos from different genres so that we would expand our knowledge of music videos. After we had decided what we was going to do in our video we had to decide on the locations that we were going to film at. We again mainly used the Internet to find out suitable locations for our video, we used the Google street view to look around and find some locations as it saves a lot of time rather than going round all the places which we thought may be suitable for the video.

The research for the digipak and magazine cover we also used the internet to gain valuable research, we used Google images to search for CD covers and magazine covers from artists who are in the same genre as the artist who’s music video we had decided to do. Through the Internet we had access to thousands of different CD covers and magazine covers so that we could get ideas from them and ass them to our own ideas to make sure that we had a good professional looking CD cover that would also work well with the genre of song we had chosen. We looked at CD album covers from Bruno Mars, Chris Brown and Usher who are in the same genre as R Kelly and these shown that there can be many different CD covers but most of them promote the performers star image so we took this into consideration when designing our own CD cover.

Whilst filming the video we used a number of different technologies, we filmed part of our video using the green screen. We used the specialist cameras in the media suite so that we could get good quality close ups of Solomon performing as we though this sort of performance would suit the song. We also had two other parts to the video which we filmed with the normal camera’s, there is a difference in the quality of the shots between the two but you can get more of a variety of shots with the normal camera as you can get handheld shots and move around with the camera. After we had done our filming we edited the footage on a programme called ‘Final Cut Pro’. This was an essential part of out video because we had a lot of footage to choose from and had to bring it all into 3 and a half minutes for the video, we had to use a number of effects for the transition between all the shots in the video. One of the hardest parts when editing the video was making sure that the lip-syncing was in time with the song but through all the specialist tools in final cut pro we managed to successfully lip-sync the video.

When making the CD covers we used another type of technology, the digital stills camera. We used this to take a number of pictures of Solomon so that we had a variety of shots to choose from when making our final decision on the CD cover. After we had decided which picture we were going to use we used the programme ‘Adobe Photoshop’ to add effects and text to the picture. We had to crop the image so that it was 12cm by 12 cm and the same as a normal size CD case. We then decided to add the ‘sepia’ effect to the picture as it creates a mood that works well and is backed up by the song itself. We also added the text in Photoshop and went for fancy, stylish form of text as in the research of CD covers we seen that there wasn’t many plain text and all of them were unique to that one singer. The blog was also another major part of our project, as we had to regularly update it with screenshots, videos and other things throughout all the different stages of the project. The media technology helped us greatly in all areas of our project and without this we wouldn’t have been able to plan, research or make a successful music video.

ANALYSING MAGAZINE ADVERTS: Gwen Stefani

This is a magazine advert for Gwen Stefani's new album. Her name is in Big stylish wrting to make it clear for the viewers. Also, the font fits in very well to the style of the advert and the whole theme of the album. Some adverts normally just have a plain background that has a colour that fits in with the theme. But this one has an image of the artist, I think this is emphasise star icon. I also like the idea of having the picture of the album in the advert to turn to its original purpose to sell albums.

SHOT LIST: Final Ideas

LONG SHOT: We had a lot of long shots in our music video. This is because we wanted the viewers to know where the main setting is and what is mainly happening. We also made sure that our long shots arent just random shots but of settings and things that relates to our video. for e.g we had a long shot of the church in the begginning of our video because we wanted to let our viewers to know straight away where the first location is. In the end we have a long shot of Solomon raising his hands up high while hes in a roof of a building. We made sure that we get both our singer (Solomon) and the background in this shot because this emphasis the 'feel good factor' and also helps to create that certain joyous mood.

CLOSE-UP: We thought that this particular shot is very important in our music video so we made sure that we had plenty of it. In the beggning of the video we see Solomon sat down in a chair with the background plain black. We filmed this in the studio because it creates that certain effect. In these shots we made sure that most of them were close-up, because we wanted to make sure that our viewers clearly see him sing and to see that he put his heart and soul to the song. In the studio we also had mid-range shots because we wanted to see his actions as sometimes he raises his hands or leans back etc.

MID-SHOTS: Another shot that was important to us is the Mid-shot. Most of the times in the video Solomon and the other characters do a little or plenty of action for e.g raising there hands up, dancing etc. We wanted to let the viewers see the real feeling into the song as all of the our characters sing with their hearts. This is also to show that our character werent just lip syncing but to give the impression that we also plenty of joyful moments while filming this video and to achieve our main goal to 'get in the song'

DIGIPACK AND ADVERT DEVELOPMENT

For our CD cover, We have looked in various places to set the background images for our CD. While looking through various places, we made sure that we stick to the locations thats in our video and we also took different pictures from different angles or on different corners of the location to have a different view in the places that we already see in the video.





We thought to stay in the same place for our CD. As you can see, from all of the four panels of our CD they are all in the same place but in a different point of view. For e.g the front cover of our CD is a medium picture of the Altar with Solomon standing there with his hands raised. Inside of the CD on the left panel. The picture is of Solomon sitting in one of the benches looking up, I also included a bit of the lyrics of the song. This is because when I researched CDs most of them have lyrics inside, I think this is because they want to let the customer know straight away what is the true meaning of the song what its mainly about. The lyrics also makes a better effect on the Image of the left panel because the way I have edited it and with the style of writing combines really well and creates this certain mood in the image as you look at it.














For our magazine Advert we chosen to set it in a different place thats not included in the video. We figured it would be a fresh idea to have a different location for the advert. But we stuck to idea of having Solomon in the picture. But we also wanted the church in the background to show the main location of our video.

FIRST DRAFT: MAGAZINE ADVERT

This is the first draft of our magazine advert. As you can see we have inculded companies such as HMV and to iTunes to advertise and sell our Music video. When we were doing the research, we came across comments from famous icons in the advert. So I decided to put comments up from a famous music producer and well known Newspaper. I also included star ratings from the comments to make it a good response to our Music Video. At the bottom left, I also included our own production company (B D Produ.). This is because for people to know whos company has made this song and also to advertise our Music Production Company.

Our Final design for our CD

This is the front of our CD. We stuck with the idea of having the picture in Sepia because we wanted to create this certain mood and effect on the picture.




































This is on the left Panel inside Our CD. We came up with the idea of sticking with the colour for the whole CD outside and inside. We also wrote down the the chorus bit of the song in the picture for effect.





































This is were the CD will fit in. The first draft was that theres was gonna be a little sentence from the lyrics of the song in the middle. But We decided that we did not want that and that we should just keep the lyrics in the left panel of the CD case.





































This is the back of Our CD. I came up with a simple picture but very effective for the back. We also made our very own logo as you can see in the bottom left corner. I also made sure that the song list is easily seen vy our viewers.

A2 Production and AS Production

There are a lot of differences between the two productions but one of the major differences between the production of the music video in A2 and the film opening for AS is the amount of footage that you have to get whilst out filming. For the music video you need a wide array of shots, close ups, extreme close ups and many more different types of shots, this is because the standard frame time in the music video is very short, most shots are only on the screen briefly as there are a lot of quick sharp cuts that go into a music video. The main camera equipment we have used is the same as in AS which is the hand held camera which we have took most of our shots with, however we have also used the equipment in the studio in order to get better quality of shots. We used the studio cameras whilst filming parts of our video as we could get different shots of the performer from a variety of different angles simultaneously which has worked well in our video.

The editing process has been quite different as we have had to put more work into the editing of the music video, one of the most important and tricky things in the editing procedure is the lip syncing which takes time and has to be perfect to make the video look as professional as possible. Another difference between the music video and the film opening is that the film opening had to have continuity editing and had to follow a story line however the music video doesn't need this which gives us more freedom when editing the video. The editing process seems to take longer as you have to pay more attention to detail in order to make a good music video, another reason for the A2 editing taking longer is that there are a lot more shots to choose from and you have to make sure that what you are putting in the video fits with the clips around it and also the lyrics of the song.

Also in the A2 production we have had to do more work on the blogs and also make sure that the print based work is done. This has involved taking the pictures for the CD cover and magazine covers and editing them, this has been time consuming and we have had to make sure that we have been organized and knew what we are doing and when in order to get everything done for the deadline for the production. The major difference between the two has been the amount of footage that you have to get for the music video as it is essential to have a wide variety of shots to choose from for the video. However the biggest similarity between the two is the hard work that you have to put in in order to make a good quality music video/film opening.

Magazine Cover Analysis: 50 cent & Eminem

While looking at few magazines I have noticed the producers of the VIBE magazine consistently do throughout their various editions of magazine is that they will always use the large, bold and thick title VIBE, by doing this they are hitting two birds with one stone because as well as promoting the artists on the front cover they are also promoting their own magazine. This particular magazine the producers used two main artists 50 cent and Eminem for their front cover. They are both represented in an intimidating and aggressive way, with both artists leaning forwards, wearing plenty of shiny, most likely expensive jewelry with a hard stare into the lens of the camera. Eminem and 50 cent are very close artists, if anybody is a true hip-hop or rap fan, they should know that Eminem kicked off 50 cents career, this gives VIBE the right to say ‘A conversations between brothers’ – because with their target audience being fans of this genre of music, they should be aware what the subliminal message is with that text. VIBE always make the image of the artist/s the largest one on the magazine cover, this demonstrates that they want to make it clear to the reader to reader that they are the most important figures in the magazine. I think this type of magazine is not aimed at an older age band, I feel this magazine would be aimed at the 16-27 age groups. My reasoning for this is that 50 cent and Eminem are both artists of a recent era; this instantly shows us that the magazine is formed around that genre of music, and everybody knows what genre of music these artists perform.

Magazine Cover Analysis: J.Cole

After seeing this magazine cover i thought that it would be ideal for attracting our target audience. The colours used in the background of this artist is very good because of what he is wearing it makes him stand out, this suggests that the artist is the most important figure on the cover and further adds focus on him. J.Cole’s positioning at the front centre of the magazine is emphasising his importance as an artist. J. Cole’s body position is key in creating the right body language and attitude to the viewer. His hands are in his pockets which have connotations of a laid back demeanour and his attire is smart yet casual which still perhaps connects him to city life and so his potential music listeners. The artist looks right at the camera which reinforces a connection with the reader (target audience). This particular magazine is advertising the artist’s album but the artist itself which is why there is no information about his album. Instead by his stage name J.Cole in big yellow letters which instantly catches the audiences eyes suggesting his up and coming importance in the hip hop scene.

I think this a great example magazine cover we are planning on making because we want something that will catch the readers eyes and make them want to read more and find out about the album release date. We figured out that the key thing is to make artist look like he is the most important thing on this cover which makes our audience notice him. I think we should do a similar magazine cover with Solomon in clothes that make him stand out from the background.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated. One of the tasks we are required to do is to make a CD cover and Magazine which will consist of images, colours and graphical text. To use this piece of software you must have experience because the interface can be confusing for beginners because certain tasks need knowledge to be done. A member of my group called Juan has volunteered to do this task because he has alot more experience with Photoshop than any of us in the group. Using this software Juan was able to add alot of colours and textures aswell as graphical text which made the CD cover look professional.

Final Cut Pro

Once we have finished filming all the footage we needed for our music video it was time for us to edit everything together, which was all the footage and the soundtrack. We used a software called Final Cut Pro which is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. Final Cut Pro enabled us to do what we needed and add all sorts of effects such as cross dissolve. It has a freindly user interface so if you are a beginner you wont find any difficulties while using it. When we imported our clips onto the software, we edited them together on something called a timeline. In between the clips on the timeline we were able to add a filter or transition which we thought made our video look better because if we decided to not add transitions it would just be boring to watch.

FIRST DRAFT CD COVERS

These two pictures are the first ideas we came up with, together we combined ideas and made our first drafts. With the first image Solomon is from the waist up and the rest of the picture is the Altar. We wanted to have a balance between the Altar and Solomon. In the second picture, His body is right in the middle of the picture. This gives the idea of Star Icon, where we want our customers to focus on our main star.

Colour Ideas For Our CD Cover

IDEA 1: My first idea is to just increase the brightness and the contrast in the picture. This picture is fairly simple but I believe it still a powerful image. This picture has not been cropped and when I do, I will make sure that the center of the image is Solomon's body from the waist up, this is because we want to get the picture in the background. The picture in the background is very important to our video helps to bring out the meaning of our song and the whole idea of our music video.











IDEA 2: In this picture, I decided t0 edit it in Black and white. The colour of the picture creates a certain mood. This mood is quite gloomy and sad, but thats not the mood that were looking for. The mood that we are looking for us a certain positiveness and it will fit in better with our music video and our song.














idea 3: I was trying to go through the colours and I came across this one. This colour also creates a mood to the whole picture. But I dont think it is the mood that we are looking for. As this picture tells danger, hazard or rage because of its dark red colour. This wasnt a strong a contender compared to our other options, but I certainly think that something about it is really interesting.












IDEA 4: I think that this is the strongest option that we have. Simply because the colour really stands out from the rest of the colour sets that we have chosen to do. The Sepia colour creates and gives this certain effect that the other sets of colours did not create. Our song's main mood is about positiveness and this helps it bring it out and with a bit of other moods that goes with "going through challenges" there is a bit of the 3rd idea into this picture. With both effects combining to collaborate and achieve the mood that we are looking for.

FIRST DRAFT STORYBOARD: Singer scene


1. The first shot in this scenery is a long wide shot because we are starting a new scene and a new setting and we want our viewers to know straight away where it is and what is happening.











2. Second shot is a close up on the Singer playing the guitar. With this shot we aim to show our character's facial expression. We figured that we need to do a lot of shots were it shows emotions because our song relates to a lot of emotions and feelings.









3. In this shot the camera is in the singer's background.Our singer is in the audience to again present star icon. the whole place is dark to create a certain gloomy, calm mood.

FIRST DRAFT STORY BOARD: Dance Scene


1. First shot of the dance scene is a long shot of the studio with the camera just behind the judges and focused on our character.












2. Second shot is a wide shot of the whole scenery with Solomon in the background. The purpose of this shot again is to let our viewers know what is happening exactly. Also the idea of Solomon in the background is to present Star icon.










3. Next shot is that a close up on our dancer's face. to create tension. We also wanted to succeed capturing her facial expression and her feeling from this shot. We also wanted to do a close up on the judges face after this shot but we thought that we would do it after a couple more shots.









4. We wanted to have a wide shot of the bit where our dancer makes a mistake and trips over. The purpose of this shot again is to make our viewers know what is happening exactly at that very moment.










5. We now turn our attentions to Solomon to again show the idea of star icon. This shot comes up because our singer is mainly in the background, we made sure that we have not forgotten about representing our main star.










6. We go back to the main events in this scenery straight after from Solomon's shot. We wanted to make sure that we do not wanna get carried away of getting random shots in, so we made sure that stayed focused on the main events.










7. This we go back to the facial expressions to see her feelings and also to create this whole idea of tension and suspense. But we did not want too much suspense because it would not relate to our video because song is RnB.










8. We go back to this shot where we both see the judges facial expressions and the dancers improvement. This shot is very effective because the viewer will know that there has been changed in the whole mood of the scenery.

Creative Process

How we decided to do R- Kelly. I believe I Can Fly, we was just going through youtub eand then we came across it by accident, then I thought it would be a perfect song to do, easy melody, so it is not hard for us to memorise the lyrics and also a well know song, after we all put our heads together to come up with three different scenarios, which will be played out in our music video. The inspiration came from the lyrics of the song, 'I Believe I Can Fly', is suggesting that we could do anything if we really put our minds to it, so that is what aided us to come up with the scenario's we did.

Use of technology in filming

Whilst filming we have used a range of technology, from the camcorder, tripods and the apple mac's. Using a camcorder of that quality has its massive disadvantages, as for one it is hard for us to capture certain shot we intended on doing, like a long one shot of the piano, this could not be done because we needed a flash witch the camcorder did not have, but we ended up using stage-light with gave us a better shot that we even expected. An advantage of using the camcorder was that it gave us a chance to view our shots exactly as we recorded them, this is due to the memory card it uses, and when we look at our shots we can look and see there and then what we need to change or if we need to tweak certain shots. That really helped us in getting fast feedback from our team on if the shots were good enough to use or not. The apple mac's helped us to convert all our video's that we had on the memory card into files we can use on final cut pro, which then gave us a better view of the quality of recording we had.

Bruno Mars Album Cover Analysis

This album cover is for Bruno Mars’ album ‘Doo-Wops & Hooligans’, this is a very different album cover to the Usher and Chris Brown ones although they are in the same genre. Bruno Mars doesn’t feature on this cover as he has gone for a completely different style to Usher and Chris Brown in their albums. He has gone for a completely arty cover, which involves a rocket flying away and somebody walking on the same path as the rocket. The yellow in the cover really stands out and the colour yellow has connotations of joy and happiness. It is quite a simple cover with not too much going, although the image could have a meaning behind it. The name of the album doesn’t really stand out at all but the bold lettering of his name draws attention to this.

Locations Ideas

The locations we are thinking about shooting our video are places such as a basketball court, a studio and an audition room. We are you using these locations in our video because they are suitable because they fit in with the narrative of the song we have chosen to do. We have an idea of where we could find such locations, which we will be able to some filming.

We could use these locations for the filming for the dancer and the singer because its a suitable place both for music and performance. There is a piano there our singer could use to perform which would look good. We also have a dancer which will need to perform, this a suitable place because this room is also a dance performance room because there is a mirror which shows its professionnal.

THIS POST WAS MADE BY SOLOMON AND FATAH

Chris Brown Album Cover Analysis

This is the album cover for Chris Brown’s album ‘F.A.M.E’, he is from a similar genre to Usher and there are similarities between the two album covers as well as some big differences. Chris Brown like Usher uses his star image mainly for his album cover, but he is in bright and energetic colours. The bright energetic colours are in contrast to the colours in ushers album cover and are shown in the difference of meaning of the songs in the two albums, Chris Browns are more fun and lively songs, which is expressed in the choice of colours and style of the album cover. This is more of an arty cover compared to most other album covers in his genre of music with all the colourful images of him in the background. These colours make the cover stand out from most of the other album covers in this genre.

Usher Album Cover Analysis

This is the album cover for Usher’s album ‘Confessions’, which was released in March 2004. This album cover is quite typical for this genre, which is just simply a picture of the artist. This is playing on the star image of the artist, because he is such a big artist he can use this technique for his album cover whereas smaller artists may have to do something different for it to stand out. The picture of usher is of him looking fairly serious which is expressed in the songs from his album, especially the main song from the album that is ‘Confessions Part II’. The name of the album doesn’t really stand out on the cover but his name on the cover does, the brand of usher is clearly the main thing they are using to attract people to this album.

FIRST DRAFT STORY BOARD: Basketball scene

1.For our first idea, we thought that we should have a Long shot. The purpose of this is for our viewers to see the setting. And that they know what the main purpose of the shot is to establish a Basketball Player in a Basketball court.










2.We thought that this basketball scene would have many shots that would help establish one of our main characters. I think the purpose of this shot is to create this certain tension between the basketball player and the hoop.










3. In this shot we see the character thingking of his dream to be a famous basketball player one day. This shot links back to the purpose of our video and to the meaning of the lyrics of our song.











4. In this shot we see our star singer R Kelly (Solomon). We made sure that we dont get carried away by leaving our main star singer out ,so we decide to put him in every story in the background because he is our star icon.

5. In this shot we see the basketball player taking a shot. In this shot, we are hoping that it will also create a certain tension. This shot's purpose is to make the viewers think that would he make the shot or not.










6.We thought of getting a long shot while he takes the shot. We also thought that this could be in slow motion, to create drama.












7. We chosed to have a close-up shot of the ball going in the hoop. We also thought that we can do this shot in slow motion, also to create a dramatic scene.











8. In this shot we see a close-up of the Basketball player so we can get a look of his expression.

R - Kelly Background Information

Robert Sylvester Kelly (born January 8, 1967), known by his stage name R.Kelly, is an American R&B singer-songwriter, arranger, performer and record producer. A native of Chicago, Kelly began performing during the late 1980s and debuted in 1992 with the group Public Announcement. In 1993, Kelly went solo with the album 12 Play. He is known for a collection of major hit singles including "Bump n' Grind", "Your Body's Callin'", "I Believe I Can Fly", "Gotham City", "Ignition (Remix)", "If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time", "The World's Greatest", "I'm a Flirt", and the hip-hopera "Trapped in the Closet". In 1998, Kelly won three Grammy Awards for "I Believe I Can Fly".

Kelly has also written, produced and remixed songs for many artists including Ronald Isley and The Isley Brothers, Quincy Jones, Luther Vandross, N-Phase, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Maxwell, Gerald LeVert, Britney Spears, Usher, Ray J, B2K, Ciara, Mary J. Blige, and Jennifer Lopez among others.

Here is Kelly's discography's showing how much work he has put in since he went solo in 1993 :

12 Play (1993) R. Kelly (1995) R. (1998) TP-2.com (2000) Chocolate Factory (2003) Happy People/U Saved Me (2004) TP.3 Reloaded (2005) Double Up (2007) Untitled (2009) Love Letter (2010) Black Panties (2011)

Shot List - Not final ideas

Close Up;
A close up shot of the feet of the basket baller dribbling with the ball. We can use close ups on solomon in the studio. We can do this to show his facial expressions to the audience and get clear view of what he is saying. The close also can represent the star image and make the audience notice what the most important thing on that scene is.


Mid-Long Shot;
This shot is used to capture the atmosphere and mood that the basketball player shows. We can use this as a panning shot so that the viewer can get an insight of whats happening. We can use this when we are filming the part where we are on the roof the scene where our star image is performing. The shot shows the sun and buildings behind him.

High Angle shot;
This shot can be used when the singer is performing sat down on the piano and the camera looking down at him.

Tracking Shot:
This shot can be used as our lead singer is performing just following him around. This shot tracks solomon when he is doing the hook near the end of the song. This shot is useful because it makes our video a little bit more entertaining to watch.

Low angle shot;
This can be used on solomon as he performs because it suits the narrative of the video. This kind of shot will show that solomon is the most superior character on the scene because we are looking up. The narrative it to succeed in what you like and this kind of shot will show that the star image has fulfilled his dream which is singing.

Long shot;
This can be used on the on solomon when he is walking towards the church. This kind of shot would be good because it shows the star image and his surroundings. This gives the audience an idea of what kind of area solomon is. It also shows the church behind him.

Mid Shot;
On the dancer while in performance which shows her gestures to the audience. We can use this shot from different angles which will show the audience the dancers moves in different angles which could make the shots look more interesting.

Chosen Music Video

The song that we have decided to use for our music video is Worlds greatest by R-Kelly. We believe that it will be a fun choice to do because it will be an interesting song choice to make into our own music video. This video inspired us because we all thought that the narrative of the original video fit in with the narrative in our video. Here is the original video for the song we are going to use for production. The original video and the video we going to make for this song will have a similar narrative, which is people trying hard to succeed in what they enjoy doing. In the original video for the song the narrative is shown by a boxer which wins his fight. We can use this kind of narrative in our by showing a couple characters struggling to get what they want and then they perform and the succeed.

How did you use media technologies in the, planning stages?

How did you use media technologies in the, planning stages?

Google Maps : With the help of google maps & street viewer it helped us find a couple good potential spot to shoot our video, and we were also able to see the location in a 360 degree angle. the lyrics of our songs were also found on google which is also aiding us to learn the lyrics.

Youtube : Youtube played the biggest role in our planning of the video, without it we would have never been able to view the video we are looking to do & we wouldnt have got the videos that we analysed witch gave us the ideas on our final video project.

Ideas for the music video

Editing

The editing on our video is going to be slow paste. The scenes will include various camera shots, which will include different effects for the some scenes on our video. We will use quick cuts to make it seem like the video is cutting to the beat.

Blog

We all agreed to try and show every step into the creation of our music video. We will do this by analyzing real life videos and taking pictures of various locations and show our final edited video and make an evaluation to it.

Current ideas for the video

At this moment we only have few ideas on how the video will be like but we will make changes to it as we are filming. The style we are going with is an RnB song and we will make a video, which has a narrative. We would like to do something related from being a person with nothing to becoming successful and fulfilling your dream.

Ideas for magazine and CD pack design

The ideas we have so far is to make the magazine is to put a picture of the star image which is Solomon and text which will include release dates and such things.

Production Treatment

R Kelly – World’s Greatest

Duration of video – The duration of the official video is 5:15, but we are not having an introduction and going to fade the song out at around 3:30.

Audience – The main target audience is 15-25 year olds, male and female. However the song could be listened to by anyone of any age group, as it is an inspirational song that people could listen to and take something from.

The video will mostly be narrative with some performance attached. The narrative of the video will be about 3 people trying to achieve their dreams of becoming a basketballer, dancer and a singer. The video will show them going through auditions and training hard to make it in each of their professions and to reach their goals as this matches the lyrics of the song which is about, becoming the best you can be and becoming ‘the worlds greatest’.

Performance – Solomon will be performing the part of R Kelly in the video, there will be various shots of him, which will cut to at various points whilst the narrative performance in the video is taking place. The other performances in the video will be of the 3 people working for their dreams; this will be of a basketballer training and working hard until he gets signed at the end of the video. The dancer and singer will be doing the same but they will be going through auditions in order to achieve their dreams.

The key locations in the video will be in a gym for the basketball player, in a studio for the dancer and on the stage for the singer whilst they are all going through their auditions and trials to achieve their dreams. Also we will be shooting some of Solomon’s scenes around town in places that suit him and who he is in the video.

Recording days – We will be recording in all lessons (2 a week) for a number of weeks, also during times when we are all free in order to get a good variety of shots which we need to make an effective music video. After we have finished the filming we will spend a large amount of our time editing the video as we will have a number of different events happening that we will need to bring together through editing.

Looking Into The Meaning Of Our Song

Here is our chorus;
"I'm that star up in the sky
I'm that mountain peak up high
Hey, I made it
I'm the world's greatest
And I'm that little bit of hope
When my back's against the rooopes
I can feel it
I'm the world's greatest"

Our song's genre is RnB and normally these type of songs are calm-based songs and that they normally have a story behind there music videos. We decided that instead of having just one main story in the video, we decided to have a couple of storys in our video but they all have similiar stories in their lifes. Because our song is about not giving up, we based our stories in people's lifes where they face something thats hard to reach or achieve.

"I am a giant, I am an eagle, ohhhhh
I am a lion, down in the jungle
I am a marchin' band, I am the people, ohhhhh
I am a helping hand, I am a heroooo"

Above is one of the verse in the song. Cleary, its about being the best and being number one. In the stories in the video, we see people that are trying hard and struggling to reach their goal or whatever they are trying to achieve. in each story we see them attempting something they want to achieve but along the way, they struggle and start to let themsleves down and other people down. But in the end they srated believing in thereselves again and putting thereselves on the right track. Because the song is about achieving something, each story we see the characters achieving what they were attempting in the first place.

We believe that our music video is a good example of a good RnB based song because The video doesnt only have a performance bit but also we have a story behind it and that we made sure that the story links to our song.

Costume Research
We believe that the costume should link to the song and because our video has certain amount of actors including the star, as a group we decided that we need to have a good amount of individual costumes that represents their roles in the video. Our main star R Kelly (Solomon), has to have a costume that can link to the song genre for e.g. a rock song will have bands dressed in barbaric costume to represent and link to the song. Our song’s genre is RnB so we decided that our main Star should have casual clothing.

One of the main actors in our video is a Basketball player, for us this was really easy to decide what costume the character would wear. In the video there is a scene where he is training shooting hoops in a basketball court. We decided that he would be wearing shorts and t-shirt or a vest top.

Another character in the video is a female dancer auditioning in a dance competition. We decided that the character would have a Hip-Hop style of dancing so we thought that her costume would be linked to her style. That style of clothing will include loose jeans, jewellery, hat etc.

The last main character in this video is the singer trying to sing a song perfectly. We decided that this character would have more of an Indie but casual style of clothing. WE had brainstorm of ideas of what clothing he would wear in this video. At first we decided that he should just wear a normal casual type of clothing but we thought that it’s a bit dull and we wanted something that would link more to the whole idea of his role and so we came up with the following; A hat, casual shirt and skinny jeans.

We focused more on our main characters and our main star rather than coming up with ideas of what the ‘extras’ would wear. We came up with other ideas of clothing with each characters including the star from there, it helped us decide what is the right clothing (costume) to create that strong link to their styles and our main song.