Magazine analysis

Colour
The colour of this album magazine advert is quiet out there. And the background seems like it is a shipwrecked picture and the contrast has been changed into a dark and sea blue colour to show this. Like many magazine adverts the most informative like the part that says album out now has been put in big black and white writing. The artist name and his album name stand out with the white writing underneath a luminous pink box to bring the colour out even more.
 Image
The only image used is the Digi pak album cover and it has been placed in the middle of the advert but it is very small not giving us the privilege to see it properly. This is a great disadvantage as the audience may not be able to see it properly and remember what it looks like if they were to get it in a shop. The background image has been shot from inside a room looking out a window . His title of the album 'the proximity effect' also relates to the album image as it is a close distorted shot of the view of outside and this relates to the title. 
The fonts used within the text are not normal fonts on Microsoft but fonts created in a special software. The whole effect of this album was to make it look unusual. As stated before. The text is really small at the bottom but it is readable.

The colour scheme shows a lot of greens reflective of meaning of the typography. The convention of the colour green promotes naturalistic theme and It's associated with the new growth of spring, prosperity, and clean, fresh air. The subtle gesture upon the artist's face shows that the content upon the album will be quite mellow and calm. The typography and the main image are juxtapositions as were the picture is suitable for all ages the meaning of the typograpghy insinuate drug usage which is quite  mature and adult rates. The font of the text is very contrasts to the colour scheme well therefore the name of the album is presented clearly to the view. With no image of the album cover it makes it difficult for the album to look for the actual product showing a advertisement flaw.   The advert seems to be very informational in sense where the artist's contact information is available, however this is usually present with unsigned artists, therefore this information would be irrelevant to the final draft of our product.

Drafting Analysis (Save a Copy)
This is another table I have conducted showing how many drafts i did and what changes me and my group had to do in order to complete the music vicdeo. (As writing is very small please clicke the link to see the writing bigger).

Ancillary task

MAGAZINE COVER

ADVERTISEMENT IN MAGAZINE FOR ALBUM

Colour

I didnt want to use so much colour in my magazine advert due to the fact that the digi pak had alot of colour in it and it was rather bright. So i resulted in using three main colour red,black and white and other colours for the official logos. Using a dark background and then a bright colour for the text was a good idea so that if a person was flicking through the magazine then they would straight away see the white writing and read what it says. I outlined the important information in white which was key for the audience to see. i ensured that the background of my page was something that would go well with the colour of the text and boxes. I made sure that i faded the boxes so that you could see the background behind it. so the boxes were see though but still had colour at the same time.  added a shaddow effect to the text and the digi pak to make it look more bolder.

Images

This is the image i used as a background for the magazine advert for the digi pak I then added boxes over the background for the text then added white text so that i could show through and be clear. to make the bacground colour co ordinate with the text and boxes i changed the colour of the image to black and white then also changef the contrast and brightness of it to make it really dark . i did this because it represents a street and hip hop theme with a dingy back street which might mean different things to people. i wanted it to look 'hood' and gangster type to show where my artist background is from. the original picture looks rather artistic and posh so i had to change it up to make it seem like what i wanted to.  the digi pak was also importatnt toput on the advert to show what the album was and how it looked so maybe the audeicne where able to purchase it.

Typography

There is little text used in this advert for a good reason which is that the focus of the advert was the digi pak and new album. if there was more text it would not be as straight up. i only added the key and important parts that an advert needs which was where to buy it from and what the album included. I was able to get the logos of different music shops and put them on the advert t show where they can get it from online and in store. I wanted to use basic colours for my digi pak and advert so that it can easily stand out from the page. the shapes of the boxes were just regular squares as i tried to keep it as simple as possible but with an edgy background. the most important features of the album were made larger like the size of the digi pak and where it was placed.

my artist appeals more to a hip hop/ pop group. there are many different magazines that it could go in from the most popular being rolling stone and vibe black male magazine. most of the target markets that buy these magazines would definitely look through every page and see what my artist is promoting.

The target audience has remained the same through out the production of my coursework. the features i have added to my advert are just the same as it would be in a typical music magazine. this could also increase sales of my album as new customers may  arise everyday as he is a new up coming artist.

Here are the results we obtained from our questionnaire of 20 people and the feedback used to lead to many of our decisions for our album


Question1: Are you male or female? 

1. Male  10
2. Female 10
   

   we decided to give the questionnaire to 10 girls and 10 boys so that we could get a general opinion on what we wanted. 

Question 2: what age group do you fall into? 

1. Under 15 1
2. 16-21 9
3. 22-26 7
4. 27+ 3
   We also gave the questionnaire to different age groups. 16-21year olds had answered the questionnaire the most which gave us the idea of the age group we would cater to.

Question 3: what genre of music do you most prefer? 

1. Pop 2
2. Hip hop/ RnB12
3. Soul  3
4. Classic 0
5. Jazz  0
6. Country 0
7. Indie  3
8. Other _____________ 
   we found that hip hop and RnB was the most popular genre which was followed by soul and indie music. classic and jazz scored zero which gave us the idea that  the age group we wanted to target didn't like such music because maybe it was not during their time.

Question 4: what name do you feel will be more suitable for the hip hop artist? 

1. J Hustle 17
2. Joey stacks  1
3. Killer 1
4. Lil JJ  1
5. Other _________________ 0
   Another important question we wanted to ask the group is the name of what our artist will be. we combined a list of obvious hip hop names that people give themselves and used that on our questionnaire . J Hustle was the most popular which had 17/20 of the people wanting it as our artist name.

Question 5: we have decided to use a  track of Lil Wayne – which song of his songs do you think will represent our Artist? 

1. Stole  2
2. How to love 14
3. Love lost 2
4. Hope 2
5. Other _______________ 
   To complete some of the features of creating a new artist we asked which on of these track titles would be used. How to love was the most popular and we then used this to set a scene for our music video. 

Question 6: which name do you feel is best suited with a hip hop artist album? 

1. Catch me  if you can volume 7
2. Better than ever 3
3. Come and get me  5
4. How you like me now 5
   The album name was also something we wanted to create so that it will relate to the track song and we used come and get me instead of the top scored one catch me if you can. Come and get me sounds like something new which would scream out as an album name if it was put on shelves. 

Question 7: what artist in the hip hop music industry do you feel is best suited to play out role of our music artist? 

1. Jay z 2
2. Lil wayne 7
3. Bird man  3
4. 50 cent 6
5. Tinie tempah  2
6. Other_______________
   
    

Audience feedback

After a night of the audience watching the A2 students music video there was a lot of positive and negative criticism that they gave us. We have used this criticism and tried to finish off our video and make any changes to it. it was good that we had a live audience because this way we were able to get a good response in order to make it better. There is also a table that i created on a spread sheet to show many of the questions that were asked on the night and the responses given. overal

Copy of Audience Feedback Finaql Copy

Digi pak

DIGI PAK FRONT COVER

CD cover

  Back of Digi Pak

How have you used colour to appeal to the audience / create a suitable essence for the artist?

The colour used in the digi pak i have created is quiet vibrant and eye catching. Aesthetic requirements are always important to use in media and other forms of creativeness so the target audience is intrigued and also interested in what you try and sell to them. so the colours i have used will definitely catch the eyes of my target audience and hopefully an extended audience. i have used the 3 main primary colours a lot and they really do bring the did pak to life.

How have you used written codes for the same ends?
As i have ready stated the written codes used were the album name come and get me as it relates to the image of my artist. my artist name has been showed on each side of my digi pak as initial branding is also important to audiences know who exactly he is.

How have you used typography to do these things?
i have used typography on every side of my digi pack to keep it informative and display the track names on the album at the back of the digi pak. i tried to relate the album to the main track which was 'how to love' by adding red colour to a lot of the features of the did pak like the hearts and spots of blood i created on fireworks.
How have you used image as well?

the image to create my digi pak was no a decision i planned. i took a collection of different images of my artist and found that one of the pictures related to the album title i chose which was 'come and get me'  as he had his arms out and it looked like he was saying come and get me. I then decided to use this image for my front cover and changed the colours of it into red green and blue. i also used a block of flats as its a stereotypical image of a rapper on the cd itself. i then used created a vintage love heart at the back of the album cover which relates to the song we recreated 'how to love'

How have you used shot types also?

There are no major shot types but the one I used was cropped from a long distance shot taken in an open field.

Change in editing

I will be using the same blog post to update any work that my group and i have done during the shooting weeks. I will also upload a few videos to show what we have filmed.

14th March

This is the 1st day of editing and we have been able to shoot the scene in the bath room where Faith has died and fallen on the floor. We tried to capture a number of shots of this so we were able to get the best ones for our video. 

21st March

we have left it too long to film but we have had to change the filming as the costumes used are not the same. We went to the bridge at cheshunt to film Amina scene of where she has stand by the bridge as if she is attempting suicide. We had to shoot this a few times due to the fact there was a lot of people walking past.

28th March

We wanted to shoot the couples seen taking a stroll in the park and this was a bit tricky as there were dogs and people walking about whilst we were shooting. We did eventually get a few good shots.

29th april

Today we need to get the photoshoot done of the artist and any other members of the record label.

3rd April

Faith scene needs to be urgently filmed due to the time  we have for using the MAC room. We did it and had to due it a few times due to Ama not knowing what to press on the camera. We had to bring some props to school and get them authorized by our teacher because we had alcohol bottles.

4th April

As we have just had a lesson at Cheshunt school we were able to go to the burial ground and shoot the scene where amina has died. We had to bring our own props which were some candles and a photo of her. 

5th April

Today we were able to shoot the scenes where we all run away whilst looking at the camera.

12th April

today was dedicated to getting multiple scenes of the  artist jason so we could have different shots of him in the video

16th April

 We have most of the scenes edited and we just want to get a few more scene to build up the time for the video. I went outside with ama to film her running scene in an open park area

20th April

a few random shots of Amina were taken getting bullied by some girls we used. She also recorded herself touching her face  at a real close up shot.

25th April

We used our school entrance as a hospital scene so it would look like ama was waiting for her results. we also filmed Ben abusing her 

26th April

 Webcammmm !! today we sprung up with such a great idea about shooting ourselves via webcam to create a personal affect to the video. As a group we have decided to add a few extra pieces to our video, our video is quiet on the emotional side of things, we wanted to give it a personal touch. So at the ending part of it we are going to do an effect where we each talk to the web cam about why we are in the position we have come to and what it has resulted to. we will be muting the sound track so you can actually hear what we are saying.We talked for about 2 mins each about the experiences and situations we are in.

27th April

Faith story line was not so clear so we wanted to shoot another scene of her actually taking drugs so we used baby powder to create this effect.

1st May

More editing was done and we then had time to add effects to our video e.g. heartbeats  and transitions.

3rd May 

:( looks like we have lost our work  and have to put the scenes back in place BUT we had it on a friends usb and the video was restored and completed. !!!!

Editing and video production

As we started filming and editing quiet late to our due date, a lot of time and effort had to be put into our video as we have little tie left to produce it. Amina has helped us a lot by learning how to use Final cut pro properly whilst me and Ama are in charge of making sure filming gets done. we have tried to accomplish shooting a majority of 3 scenes a day n order to get it done and loaded onto the MAC computers quickly. Because of us starting late we have lost our work 2 times due to us not backing it up onto another USB . Many of the things within our music video have not all been to plan , but we have found ways to sort this out in order for our actual video to look good. As Amina has been learning how to use final cut pro, she has also grasped how to do different effects on the video which actually work to our benefit.
Will be posting more about how our editing is coming along !

Advertising prices

Here is a little research into costing for advertising in various magazines spreads for our album

NME

NME Readers are entertainment enthusiasts!
• 80% of NME readers feel that music is an important
part of their lives
• 79% of NME readers like to listen to new bands
• 63% specially choose to listen to indie/guitar bands
• 49% specially choose to listen to live bands in studio
• 52% are interested in taking a musical
course/qualification
• 36% are thinking of buying a musical instrument in the
next year

Prices for advertising in magazines

Full Page £ 3,920
Half Page £ 1,960
Quarter Page (4 columns) £ 1,120
Quarter Page (3 columns) £ 845
SCC rate £ 28.00
(Minimum of 3 cm X 1 column box)
New & Unsigned
Full Page £ 950 220 mm X 140 mm
Half Page £ 500 101 mm X 140 mm
Quarter page £ 275 101 mm X 75 mm
Sixth page £ 175 60 mm X 75 mm
Twelfth page £ 95 30 mm X 75 mm
Free colour is offered on all adverts
Discounts
4 weeks 5 %
12 weeks 7.5 %
26 weeks 12.5 %
52 weeks 25 %

Rolling Stone

Full page			191,910		163,124
2/3 page			153,526		130,497
1/2 page			115,147		97,875
1/3 page			76,763		65,249

Black & White Rates

			Gross		Net
Full page			172,720		146,812
2/3 page			138,178		117,451
1/2 page			103,631		88,086
1/3 page			69,089		58,726

Initial Branding

As a group we have decided what exactly we would our Artist album name and and track to be called. we also conducted a short survey for 10 people to give us a few ideas on what we would like to be featured in our album. 

Album name : COME AND GET ME

we decided to called the album name this because we thought it would be catchy as our artist is relatively new we thought by calling it come and get me it was a hidden message that may want other producers to come and get him as he wanted to b the best of the best. Also if some one would see 'Come and Get me' on a shelf in a store they would automatically go straight to it and purchase it as it is appealing to their mind.

Track name: HOW TO LOVE

As we are re creating the original song 'how to love' we have decided to keep the same name for our own video as it directly relates to the scenes in our video that we are making.

Artist name : J HUSTLE

many rapers to day have unique gangster type names and they have no meaning behind it, but our artist real name is Jason so we used his initial as a stepping stone into getting the artist name and decided to add hustle to it.

Advert conventions (print) 2

Colour and Text

Like the first advertising post i created, this one has the same kind of colour scheme to it. Only two colours have been used which are pink and black. The artist name has been placed in a bold pink text to show that the magazine will show a large chunk of information on him. The important parts of the article are in pink the eye catching parts that they want audiences to see. As the text becomes smaller it shows less significant information within the article. The magazine name obviously being the biggest art of the text on the cover.

Image

Lil Wayne is pictured in the center of the magazine and his picture takes u most of the space. His army print jacket also goes with the colour scheme for the magazine and the have probably done this on purpose. like other articles Lil Wayne is half naked with his tattoos on show and him wearing heavy jewelry which is normally gold or silver.His trousers are half way down with his boxers showing and a belt with heavy gold writing on it. He also has gold watches and bracelets around his arms. i will defiantly be using a photo shoot like this for my cover to capture my target audience.

Appeal to audience

This magazine cover definitely has a better appeal to a female audience because of his posing he is half naked and the colours used. Vibe magazine is also popular for featuring the most famous artist in their magazine so it is ideal they keep their appearance up.

Advert Conventions (print)

As one of my final pieces i will be creating a magazine cover to go along with my product. As my artist is working for a hip hop company i have chosen Lil Wayne to do . As Lil Wayne is a hip hop artist it is normal for them to show all their tattoos and jewelry and also have there trousers down as that is the typical hip hop artist.

Colour and Text

There is little colour used as it is on a plain white background , the only colour used is the magazine logo which is situated behind the image of him and a few of other artist names around the magazine. the most predominant colouring is the black writing which is all over the front page. On the front cover there is little text but the text that is more important is in a much larger size and font than the rest. The bit that is very ye catching is the part that says 'I AM NOT HOT. I'M GREAT' most people will agree to this as Lil Wayne is not an attractive artist but most people love him for his ego and music. the font used is quiet hip hop type with a graffiti style font which many rappers use on their albums and advertising.

Image

Lil Wayne's picture takes up most of the page and when artist feature on the front page of a magazine cover it more or less means there must be an article about them . Lil wanes posture and posing seems rather scary and has a defiant look on his face to show popularity and confidence. he also seems to be holding a piece of his clothing which could be a gesture in which he wants to show his tattoo art. like other rappers his trousers are half down and this is symbolism of 'the gangster' type in America. His hair is also not groomed and he has dread locks which a lot of black rappers have these days. Its not v very clear but we can see that he is wearing a long silver chain another item which a lot of rappers wear in videos and photo shoots.

Appeal to audience 

when an audience has a favorite icon be it raper or singer the first thing they would look for i a magazine is if they are in it. and at most times people will buy the magazine if their favorite artist is there. This is how advertisers have to create an engaging front cover for it to capture the eyes of the target audience. In my own print advertising i will be creating a cover like this where my artist will be on the front cover and will be the main thing that captures the audiences eyes.

Music video analysis

The song N**gas in Paris was sung by Jay Z and Kanye West with a video to the song as well. The 2 made a joint hip hop album together entitled Watch The Throne. The song has been one of the most popular videos of 2012 and i believe that it will remain popular for a lot of years to come. in an interview with Kanye west he told us what the song was about "I am where art meets commercial. The sweet spot between the hood and Hollywood. Having a conversation with Karl Lagerfeld and Jay-Z within the same hour. When we’re in Paris dressing all crazy at fashion shows, we listening to Jeezy. Jeezy in Paris, that’s what it is."

Camera Angles
The video has only 1 main angle which is a close mid shot. The only shot that is quiet close is when the camera rotates around the performers Kanye and Jay Z. Also the audience videoed in the video aslo are included in the mid shot which mostly shows their hand and not their full bodies.You can also see their facial expressions which shows that the shots are quiet close. There is only one long shot camera view which is when the artist are on the stage far away with the arena f audience in it.

Editing
This has to be one of the most edited videos in video making history and the graphics used are similar to that of a kaleidoscope . the video has a split screen where you see double of everything and when the 2 sides merge together then it creates the effect that we are looking through a kaleidoscope .There are also a lot of laser lights that go through the video and i believe the sole aim of the video was to make it seem that they were in a live concert in Paris. They have also added writing to the video at parts where they are singing they added some of the lyrics. They did this because it were part that fans would remember and when people do this just by saying one word they would know what iconic song it was.

Mise-en-scene
As the video is played out in their real life concert, the artists have little props apart from their microphones. Kanye west costume is rather unusual he wears a skirt and boots which is not like his regular style. Jay Z however sticks to what her normally wears which is a leather jacket and baseball cap. The lighting in the video bright with a lot of flashing lights . As the back drop of the arena is pitch black like all concerts are the lighting is rather affective as we can see in the video a lot of bright blue has been used.  Stage light and flashes from editing are used to stimulate the kaleidoscope effect. The setting in the video is in an arena where they performed one of their concerts. This is a rather unusual setting but more and more artist are starting to do this. the only thing unique about this video is the fact they prepared for it in advance rather than getting various clips from different concerts and merging them together. The only make up used is that of the audience which are the girls in the video.

Although there is only one significant camera angle in this video, the way the producers have managed to get different effects and shots within that angle has been very affective in a sense that we are looking at many different visuals at the same time. If there were no effects within this video for example the kaleidoscope and mirror effect it would not be engaging the audience. There is no real story being developed through the video because of the story of it being set as a concert.
The prominent focus of the video are the two artists Kanye west and Jay Z. as they are the main characters in the music video it is important they feature in it so we get an idea of what the song and video is about.
There are many transitions that have been used throughout this whole video and the man one would be the fact that the lights flash all the way through to change to a different setting. Also there is a mirror effect where the artist faces appear in one shot multiple times in different shapes.
This video is very effective as the use of editing with effects is very smart and keeps the audiences captivated and attached to it. The video currently has just over 17.1 million views which shows have popular it is.

Questionaire

I will be giving this questionnaire to 20 students and i will post the results to make out final decision

Question1: Are you male or female? 

1. Male 
2. Female 

Question 2: what age group do you fall into? 

1. Under 15 
2. 16-21 
3. 22-26 
4. 27+ 

Question 3: what genre of music do you most prefer? 

1. Pop 
2. Hip hop/ RnB 
3. Soul  
4. Classic 
5. Jazz  
6. Country  
7. Indie  
8. Other _____________ 

If ticked answer B please go to question 4 

For our media coursework we have decided to create a Hip Hop music video. 

Question 4: what name do you feel will be more suitable for the hip hop artist? 

1. J Hussle 
2. Joey stacks  
3. Killer 
4. Lil JJ  
5. Other _________________ 

Question 5: we have decided to use the track of Lil Wayne – How to love what title do you feel will be best suited for the song? 

1. Stole  
2. How to love  
3. Love lost  
4. Hope 
5. Other _______________ 

Question 6: which name do you feel is best suited with a hip hop artist album? 

1. Catch me  if you can volume 1 
2. Better than ever 
3. Good weed, white wine  
4. How you like me now  

Question 7: what artist in the hip hop music industry do you feel is best suited to play out role of our music artist? 

1. Jay z  
2. Lil b 
3. Bird man  
4. 50 cent  
5. Tinie tempah  
6. Other_______________