Pitch

Pitch

For my music video I'm going to create a storyline which consists of a poker scene that causes a conflict between the victim and the artist which then makes the artist kidnap the victim. Through my music video I will make sure I use weapons such as baseball bat and a fake gun which links to the genre as these are items that you would associate with a criminal or an outlaw therefore a lot of artist in this genre are or have been involved in some illegal activities e.g 50 cent, Tupac and Snoop Dogg. Along with the music video we need to create a digipak and a advertisement poster for the digipak, our first thought was to keep all the elements in the same style to show the audience  consistency. 

 

Poker Scene

We have chosen to create and film the poker scene at the beginning of our music video because we think that it will create a better storyline and show the audience why the victim is being kidnapped in the first place. Also this scene adds a more dark atmosphere due to the fact of gambling and because we are planning to create a scene where there is a light above the poker table concentrating on the table and the players making the background dark and unknown.  We have chosen to place alcohol on the table in order to show that the players have power and are involved in some illegal activity. We planned to have all the players wearing dark clothing and we have included a different clothing for the main artist by having him wearing expensive brand clothing with a lot of jewellery and black shades in order to make him look like the leader that is in charge of the table and has a higher status than the players around him.

 

Digipak

Before we start to create the digipaks we will look at some examples of digipak and pick out the two that we think stand out and the style will link to our genre and music video. When we pick the two that we think are the best we will have to analyse them in detail in order to pick out the different techniques used in them to make them look how they are. After that we will need to pick appropriate font which links to the Hip Hop genre and the main factor of the storyline which is kidnapping. Most importantly we need to take a lot of pictures for the digipak, more pictures will be better so that we can have lots to choose from and wont need to take anymore later this is a good way of doing it so that we don't waste our time later on taking the pictures that we are missing and shows the examiner a good planning skills. After we put it all together we might need to include some effects that will make the digipak look dark and fit the look  and atmosphere of a kidnapping and our music video as a whole. We have considered using the concrete effect, where we take a image of concrete and faded it in our image making it look more rough which is what you might find in a room where you would keep the kidnapping victim, but this is just early stages so we might change our mind later on. 

 

Advertisement of Digipak

We have to create an advertisement for our Digipak. We will use the same research technique as for the digipak were we look at different examples and pick two that we think will fit our scene and genre of the music video. In our advertisement we where thinking to include thinks like the name both of the artist and the album but also the ratings from different music magazines that operate in our genre to show the audience that we are aware of the different music magazines and it shows good background research. We haven't thought about the style of the advertisement yet but in order to keep it consistent we were thinking of making it look darker but at the same time more sharp and clear and even thought of using the concrete effect again but we will have to create it first and gather more ideas as we go through the project. We will need to research different Hip Hop recording companies so that we can include one in our advertisement.

 

 

 

7/01/14
Today I have create a project pitch which shows my intentions for the project and the planning stage which will show the examiner what we are planning to do with each of our projects. The pitch was created by the mind map which we have done as a group and later on each of us have wrote it up on our blogs. It was done as a mind map in rough at first in order to get everyone's ideas together in order to create the best possible outcome. 

Project brief

 Project Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
 • a website homepage for the band;
• a digipak for the album’s release;
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak.



This is my project brief, it shows us The main objective which is a music promo video but also we need to pick additional two objectives from the three options. We have chosen to go with the Digipak and the advertisement as we feel that these two both include the fact of a digipak therefore it will be easier to create rather than the homepage for the website. We will gather all the ideas together using the project pitch later on, as its a good planning technique making sure we have a clear final idea and making sure we don't go off track while creating and filming.

Storyboard

Storyboard

In order to know what we are going to film and in what order we need to film it in we have created a storyboard. This is a detailed plan that includes the different shot types, editing and mise-en-scene, using this it will help us to get organised while filming and to find out in what order to film in and what to film and what shots to use in different scenes. next to the images showing what's happening in the scenes there is a detailed written information describing what is going on in the image to help recreate that. The Storyboard is an important part of the planning stage because its a detailed script which we will need to have with us everywhere we film. While creating the storyboard we had three drafts with three different storylines which we then clearly analysed as a group and have chosen the one we think will link to our genre the most and will be possible to film during the time we have.  

10/12/13 

Today we have finished creating a story board that will help use while filming as it will show us the detailed scenes and how to film them in order to keep on topic and not to film stuff that we don't need. This helps us to be more organised and finish our project on time. 

Examples of advertisment of digipak

Examples of advertisement for digipaks.

We have started to look at some digipak advertisement examples to give us some idea on what our poster should look like. we have singled out the two door cinema club poster as we think is the most effective out of the ones we saw and we found it the most eye catching. The band is not in our music genre therefore we will need to modify the look of it by adding darker colour and the effect of concrete the same one we used in our digipak covers to keep it all consistent. We liked the idea of the pictures in the background as it draws peoples attention to it straight away because it makes the audience curious about the representation of the pictures and the size of them makes it harder to see therefore people would want to pick up the poster and see closely. We are going to take few picture of the artist and put them in the same way into our poster but make them look more darker not forgetting about our genre of music which is dark and intimidating. this will make the poster look more professional. The poster has two rectangles that are faded in order to see the writing clearly but also to still see the pictures behind the writing but just slightly darker, this will show the audience the sense of consistency. At the bottom of the poster there is the record label in order to show what label the artist is signed to making the poster look more professional and more appealing to the audience.

5/12/13

today we have looked at some examples of digipak posters and we have chosen to use the two door cinema club example to help us create our poster and add the concrete effect to make it look consistent. To make it look more like a hip hop poster we have chosen to make the pictures more dark. We will use the same font as we did throughout our digipak to keep it all consistent.

Filming Schedule

Filming schedule 
week 1 (25/11/13) filming in industrial area.

Monday- Period 2 

Tuesday 

Wednesday - period 3&4 

Thursday

Friday - period 3&4 

Week 2 (2/12/13) filming in the college theatre.

Monday- Period 2 

Tuesday 

Wednesday - period 3&4 

Thursday

Friday - period 3&4

Week 3 (9/12/13) filming the artist rapping under the blue light.

Monday- Period 2 

Tuesday 

Wednesday - period 3&4 

Thursday

Friday - period 3&4

Week 4 (6/01/14) filming the poker scene.

Monday

Tuesday 

Wednesday  

Thursday

Friday - period 3&4

26/11/13

Today I have created a filming schedule were I put all the dates that I will spend filming in order to finish on time and stay on track, this helps me to keep organised and on top of the workload. 

Props and locations

Props
- Balaclavas - cover the faces of the kidnappers.

- Baseball bat - one of the weapons used by the kidnappers.

- Knuckle dusters - one of the weapons used by the kidnappers.

- Rope - used tie up the victim to the chair.

- Chain - used to chin up the victim.

- Duct tape - used to tape the victims hands.

- Fake gun - used as a weapon.

- Car - kidnap car.
- poker chips - used in the poker scene.
- bottles of alcohol - used in the poker scene.
- poker cards - used in the poker scene.

Locations

Industrial area - this is where we are going to film the kidnapping where the victim is going to get grabbed.

Inside of the car - kidnappers getting ready putting on balaclavas and driving behind the victim

College theatre - this is where we are going to film the next scene where the victim awakes and is tied up to a chair, also this is where the artist is rapping under a blue light.
College room - this is where we are going to film the poker scene with four people including the artist and the victim.

 

location Pictures

 

These are the pictures showing our two different locations that we are going to use when filming. The first one is a classroom where we are going to film our poker scene, in order to do this we will need to move the tables and use additional lighting that will concentrate on the table and will make the background look dark. The second picture is the college theatre where we  are going to film the artist rapping under different colour lightning and also the scene where the victim is tied up on a chair, when we are going to film we will close the curtains and turn on the lighting.

20/11/13

today I have created a props listed that we will need to bring in while filming and the different locations we will be filming at, this will help me as when we get to filming we will have all the locations we need to go to and we will have all the props we need. Also we have taken pictures of some locations that we are going to use for filming in order to show the examiner how we changed the look of the locations for our filming.

Actors

Actors 
Enayath Choudbury - Main artist

Imran Anwar - kidnapper 

Bart Rzepecki - kidnapper

James Carter - driver

Harry Adams - victim
Isa Rehman - card dealer
Gurminder Sangha - poker player

14/11/13

today I have thought about the name of our music video and have listed all the actors that will be used in our music video and their roles that they will play, this will help  the viewer know who's playing who.

Synopsis and name of music video

Synopsis
The artist is in a car with two other people and they are getting ready to kidnap someone because of his previous actions of cheating while in a poker game with the artist and two other people the victim cheated and won all the money but shortly after he didn't notice that he have dropped a card on the floor and one of the people saw it minutes later. the two people are putting balaclavas on and are armed with weapons such as baseball bat and knuckle dusters. The victim is walking along the pavement with his headphones in not expecting anything at the same time there is a grey car behind him driving slowly, he had a suspicious feeling but carried on walking, a few seconds later the car is overtaking him as he looks at it he sees one of the kidnappers roll his window down wearing a balaclava the victim freezes in shock while the car stops in front of him two kidnappers run out of the car and grab him and throw him inside the car as he starts to realise what's happening and tries to look around one of the kidnappers puts a bag on his head. Later on he opens his eyes and finds himself tied to a chair in an old theatre, then he hears footsteps and tries to get out but he looks up and sees the main artist pointing a gun at his head.

Name of music video

We have chosen to name our music video 'Ransom' because it hugely links to our story line which is the kidnapping, also the name hugely links to the genre as its a word linked to the lifestyle of the different artists and the criminal nature of the genre that is betrayed in the music videos. We also have done some background research that involves looking at different names of songs in the genre. we have found out names such as 'life's on the line' by 50 Cent and 'fuck the police' by NWA, those names suggest that the artist in this genre are not people that will follow the law however they tend to do a lot of illegal activities and are unlikely to call the police when needed help. Using this research we have carefully decided on our name and have had different ideas such as 'outlaw' and 'ghost' but we think that ransom will give the correct idea to the audience on what he's going to see while watching the music video.

07/11/13
today I have thought of our final story line for our music video and have wrote a synopsis where I have described all the events in order. This will help us to create a music video matching the storyline and making sure we don't go off topic while filming. Also we have had a think about our name of the song and have chosen the most appropriate and most effective name that will link to the storyline the best

Target Audience

Target Audience
The target audience for our music video are young adults, mostly people over the age of 18 because of the nature of the video and the storyline behind it which is the kidnapping and the aggression betrayed in the music video. People who listen to R&B/hip hop music listen to radio and TV stations such as MTV BASE, Radio1 Extra and Kiss. These stations play a lot of R&B and hip hop songs so this is why they are listened to by teenagers and young adults. They buy clothes from stores such as Nike, Adidas, Hugo Boss, Prada and Giorgio Armani. They wear stylish and high fashion clothes and so would like to see these type of clothes worn of the model on the front cover of the magazine. the suitable age group for hip hop music is 16-25 years old this is mostly because the genre shows a ideal lifestyle and easy money therefore the teenagers get inspired by this and want to be like that when they grow up. Also the genre gets a lot of TV coverage and its the  biggest and one of the popular genres out there this also links with the teenagers as they watch a lot of TV at this age and will more likely to see the music and start to enjoy it as its a fast pace rebellious type of music that will inspire the young by all the benefits that it brings with it such as money and power and those factors attracted the young. The age group we have chosen to aim our products at are young adults which means that the images will be important and making sure that we have more pictures than writing as at these ages teenagers tend to decide on what magazine to buy by the images shown on the front page.
25/11/13
Today I have looked at the target audience for our music video and have explained why I have chosen the specific target audience, this will help me while creating the music video as I have to make it suitable for the viewers. The target audience research is very important as it will show us who we are looking to aim our product at using this we will make sure every content is suitable and appropriate for those who we aim it at.

concrete effect

Concrete effect

This is the part that will make our work look different and more effective. We have chosen a picture of concrete and we will place it on our digipak covers and play around with the fill of the picture therefore this will make our cover look rusty and dark creating a claustrophobic feeling while looking at it which links to our story line of kidnap and almost presents the dirty and intimidating area that you would expect someone to be held at while kidnapped also this links to our genre of the music as it shows the power of the artist which is a common thing in many artists in this genre. The rusty and dirty look almost shows the tough and hard lifestyle of the artists in this genre, it shows the background that they have come up from into the big world and even though they are a role models to most young people they still have something from the past in them that creates fear in people and the use of the concrete effect will represent this perfectly. The concrete effect will make our digipak stand out on the shelves from all the other albums and by our background research we have discovered that not many albums use this, therefore we have chosen to bring something new and pay around with the different effects hoping for the best final outcome. 

 

20/10/13 

today we have decided to use the concrete effect in our digipak covers in order to add a more powerful effect making it stand out from other digipaks also this will make it look more professional which means that it will make it more eye catching and interesting to the viewer. people that are interested in our genre will want to look for dark stories like this one.

Digipak examples

Digipak Examples

Here there is some digipak examples of Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, as you can see the top one that represents gin and juice and is shown in a cartoon way which would back up the fact that its a laid back and a calm song, also it has the main character presented as a dog which is the way you would recognise the artist due to his popularity. The props in the image are also there for a reason, they show a certain lifestyle that the artist is living and hugely link to the props in the music video. On the second image you are shown the inside of a 50 Cent many men digipak, you already see the difference as it is laid out in a more serious way which also strongly links to the music video as you have a different more aggressive story line where the artist is being shot. The digipak has three sides and two are taken by the discs but one has a lot of writing describing his story and the life he has gone through. I will take this in consideration when making my digipak as I think its an effective and easy way to interest and intrigue the audience and on top of that it makes it look neat and in order. 

6/10/2013

Today I have looked at some examples of different digipaks in order to become more familiar with the task that I will be creating for my artist. I have noticed that the digipak cover and layout need to strongly link with the actual music video, therefore I have gathered that I should concentrate more on the 50 Cents one rather than the cartoon gin and juice one. I will include some background information about the artist inside the digipak as I think that it will make it look more professional and effective.

Inside of our digipak

While planning what the inside of our digipak should look like we came across an image that had four sides opening up so we had a plan to make ours look similar in the same layout. We have chosen to take photographs of our four characters including the artist, two kidnappers and the victim and place the images on the four sides. I think that this is an effective and interesting way of presenting a digipak as it is different than other digipaks also by having four different images as you open it you start to concentrate on all four rather than one and it becomes more interesting and your more likely to remember this digipak due to the specific design and layout that draws your attention. We have also had a second idea which included having four pictures of the main artist in different poses, we have thought that this will be easier as we could just take pictures of the artist and not all the characters which will take longer.
10/10/13
Today as a group we have concentrated on the inside of our digipak and have chosen a design that we like, after that we have planned that we will take pictures that we will include inside the digipak. also we have started to think how to make the main artist stand out more than the other characters and make him look more with power, therefore we have thought to wither have his name written above his image as our first thought but then we went on to think about having the three characters in black and white and the main artist in colour to make the audience know straight away who's the main artist and make him stand out. Next lesson we will concentrate on the back of our digipak.

Back of our digipak

We have started to look what we can have on the back of our digipak this part was not that hard as we knew we need the track list but the only tricky bit was choosing the main image. We had a few ideas such as an image of the car with the kidnappers inside it but we thought it would be too similar to our other images of the kidnappers so we thought why not have a dark dull image of the different weapons and tools that have been used in the video to make it look more scary and aggressive to the audience making them feel scared. I think this image will link to the genre very well as its a almost criminal world where most artist have experienced using those tools in some point of their life.

15/10/13

Today we have decide what we are going to have on the back of our digipak and have planned to bring in the needed equipment and take few images of it and in the end choose the best one. In this way we could carry the same style throughout  the whole of the digipak which is a dull but in the same moment effective design as it links hugely with our storyline and its not going to be colourful due to the criminal nature of the music video and the music genre.

Music Questionnaire

Music Questionnaire

 

The image above is showing our questionnaire that we have made and handed out to the appropriate target audience in order to get back an accurate results about what the audience want to see in the music video and our objective is to meet those needs in order to address our product to the right people. This is an important part of the planning stage as it tells us what we need to do, include and how to present the different scenes in the music video.

 

25/09/2013

today I have created a questionnaire that I will hand out to most of the students in my college.The aim of this is to find out what the audience (teenagers) expect to see from a modern Hip-Hop/Rap video. This will help me as it will indicate what I have to create and how it should be made in order to make it a successful music video. I will start to analyse the results next lesson.

Questionnaire answers

1.) 17 year old - 8,
18 year old - 2,
16 year old - 3
2.) 7 males
6 females
3.) yes - 8
no - 4
sometimes - 1
4.) Kanye West, Eminem, French Montana, Nicki Minaj and K Koke.
5.) most common answer was ' I don't like the genre'.
6.) most common answers were - drugs, alcohol, reviling woman, money.
7.) most common answers were - clubs, warehouse and streets.
8.) most common answers were - home and TV
9.) most common answers were - TV, computer and phone
10.) most common answers were - drugs, cars, weapons and jewellery.
11.) most common answers were - sexual scenes, a story line ( revenge, death) and violence.
12.) yes - 3
no - 10
13.) Devlin, Nicki Minaj and Drake.
14.)yes - 7
no - 5
depends - 1
15.) most common answer was - more variety.
29/09/2013
Today I have analysed all the answers from my questionnaire that we have handed out, we need this to help us know what people expected to see from a hip hop music video. we have used some of the answers as ideas for example people said that they want to see some kind of a story line and we have started to build our ideas on that.