Work update.

After looking through our footage, our group has decided to heavily change the order of certain shots. This will mean that our final piece will look considerably different to our animatic posted several posts before.

animatic

This was made to show that our ideas are starting to take shape, its not the finished article.

Work Update 29.11.10

At the moment we are trying to complete our animatic, its almost there, but the editing and cutting is so much harder than first expected! We have all the images ready to upload for our storyboard. Then once we've done all that, we will be ready to commence filming.

possible album back cover.

This album cover that I have created using an image found on google inserting the same layers as in the other draft that has been made. although we cannot use the image above, we may choose to recreate it to get the same effect. We used 'The Pretty Reckless' - Light Me Up's album cover as inspiration. This is because both covers use shocking images that are meant to provoke outrage.

Artist Update.

Kaneo has recently become part of Wiz Khalifa's musical entourage, Taylor Gang, named after the Converse Chuck Taylor shoes. Due to this, we are looking to incorporate elements of their style into the video if possible, due to the large influence he has had on our artist.

Digipak amendments.

Because it is not possible to use a non-original image as part of our work, we can't use the album back cover that we have mentioned in the post below. We intend to recreate it, to the best of our ability due to the fact that we believe that it is perfect for the artist and the message we are trying to portray.

New Ideas for video.

Throughout the video, there will be a narrative alongside some interspersed random images. these random images may not as random as first thought with their being some sort of correlation with them and the lyrics of the song. We thought as a group that the protagonist should be in front of a line of women that were masked, apart from one whose face is showing. In the beginning of the film he will be shown talking to one of the masked women and then throughout the rest of the film, he will make his way down the line to the unmasked woman.

1st draft of the back cover

This is the first effort of our back cover which has the tracklist on it featuring all the songs on the cd inside. It also has the hyperlink to the artist's facebook channel on it; this is due to the fact that he is an artist that uses viral methods to his advantage a large portion of the time. It also has the parental advisory label on it, his music has swearing and features mainly adult themes throughout.

Mid Production Evaluation.

Conventions -

The genre of R&B music videos are similar to hip hop in the way that many often portray women in revealing clothing in simple settings. The videos also generally portray wealth and power through the use of jewellery, clothing and flash cars.

Main production task and ancillary tasks

The different parts of our task that we will do needs to have a coherent theme throughout whether it be the same colour palette or the same theme as in the case of Janelle Monae with the ArchAndroid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ArchAndroid_(Suites_II_and_III)

In our instance, we have decided to use black and white in our video and also incorporate it into our marketing and advertising with our magazine advert and album digipak.

Media technologies

At this early stage, no video editing software has been used, but will feature heavily later on in the project. at this point, we have focused on using Photoshop and similar products. 

Update

To save any confusion, the song we have chosen (Next) has recently been given a new name by the artist, 'I Can't Do This Anymore'. We presumed it was called 'Next' as on the mixtape it was named this, but we soon discovered the video on youtube for exactly the same song, with a different title.

Our Chosen Song.

New Ideas for Video.

The general outline is that we'll be cutting from the performance of the piano, to random and abstract images. We have also decided our video will be following a rough narrative, the story of a guy who is heartboken and needs to move on, but cant let the girl go. This means our video will now consist of three sections; The narrative, piano playing, and Abstract shots. These three sections will intercut with each other.
Here are a few of our initial ideas for shots and filming:

• Shot of missed calls from him, on girls mobile.
• Location idea- sea front at night time, lights, the sea washing in and out, promanade.
• Shot out of window of the landscape at night, streetlights, town lit up, establishing.
• Ideas for types of shots for piano- side, revolve around, from high above, music sheets, just fingers or hands, shots of singer.
• Slow motion- walking down stairs.
• Shot of a door shutting as if she's left him.
• Water tap dropping (tears)
• Board with dice rolling (reference to games)

Lyrics.

I don't, 
wanna talk it all out i'd rather just forget, 
you got alot to say but i'm not listening, 
please spare me the tears 
cos they have no effect
and everything we had instead
i should of seen it coming. 
(Yeah) You had me dived by these disguise and i couldn't see
the way you played your game with your tricks you had me deceived, 
but now im over it 
I'm so down to taking that step,
I'm leaving i guess i gotta move on to the next.


[Chorus]
Oh i, 
don't wanna stay in love and live with this regret, 
please, i gotta take this of my chest, 
baby i, cant give anymore
when there is nothing left, im leaving..
I guess i've have gotta move on to the next.

You know, 
you got alot of nerve saying that its my fault, 
we should of thought twice 
before we got involved, 
everything thing you do, 
you let it fall, 
baby you were the cause, 
you didn't care at all! 
Don't tell me that you gave me your best 
you know that aint true, 
be real babe you set us up to fail with all that you do
but now im over it, 
i'm so done now im taking that step im leaving
i guess i gotta move on to the next.

[Chorus]
Oh and i, 
don't wanna stay in love and live with this regret, 
please i gotta take this of my chest, 
baby i cant give anymore 
if there is nothing left, im leaving.. 
I guess i've gotta move on to the next.

Digipak Draft 4.

Draft 4.

This is our final draft, and i think we've definately got it perfect. We found a font again from the site 'DaFont', and changed it completely so that it fits with the new background, and its more graffiti and urban, than the last one. We feel that writing the word 'Trademark' is more clear to the buyers that that's the name of the album, rather that just the letters 'TM'. Overall we feel our final album cover really reflects and represents our artists image.

Digipak Draft 3.

Draft 3. 

We changed the background to a more urban style theme, to try and portray the style and genre of music of our artist to a fuller extent.

Digipak Draft 2.

Draft 2.

Here you can see the modifcations we made to draft 1. We changed the background, and gave it a more marble effect. We think this looks a lot more professional, but we think it portrays our artist in the wrong way - style, music, image etc. it portrays more of a 'soul' image, and this contrasts the image we wanted for our artist. We also changed the colour of the font, so that it stood out more.

Digipak Drafts.

Draft 1.

This is our first attempt at a digipak/album cover. We started by cutting out a picture of our artist 'Kaneo' from the background of the original picture on Photoshop. We used a sketch filter to create the pencil effect on him. Next, we added a shadow behind him, and used a 'glow' to the edges of the outline of his body. We then duplicated the shadow, so that it staggers behind the original cut, decreasing in size and shade/darkness of colour. The style in which the picture starts small and light and increases gradually is to represent his climb to fame. The small light shaddow represents how he saw himself before, small and insignificant, and the large coloured one shows his new found importance and his climb to stardom - very much 'the bigger picture'. We used the gradient tool to add a simple background, of black to white. We then chose a font from the website 'DaFont', which as you can see is fluent and looks professional. Then we finally added a 'TM' symbol, as the album name is 'Trademark' as we thought this was a clever way to portray the album name.

 In the end we decided the background for this draft was too plain and simple, therefore thought we'd try and adapt this. See Draft 2 for further modifications.

Song Choice Update.

Just an update to let everyone know, we've decided to change our song choice. As we found the whole image of our artist is completely different to his actual music. There is some rap, like we thought, but a lot of it is smooth, soulful, and romantic. So our treatment for our video is also going to be changing.

The song we have now chosen is called, 'Next'.
It is on the music player that we uploaded previously of his mixtape.

Existing Media Influence.

Using inspiration from this video, we would like to incorparate the theme of break ups and pianos playing within our piece. The smooth romantic theme of our new song choice, would fit perfectly with this idea, keeping the black & white theme we decided on earlier.

Treatment

Lighting - Using inventive ways of creating light, eg phones, we hope to create a feel of complete contrast using black and white (this is taking inspiration from Jay-Z's On to the Next One video)

Props - We hope to use of different props that mirror the lyrics in the song with also some abstract images that are there for artistic merit alone.

Location - this is a factor that matters the least, due to the focus on certain objects as supposed to the surrounding area. This is due to the lack of narrative we intend to portray.

Actors/Extras? - This could be pretty much anyone, due to the fact that we don't plan to show who they are.

Digipak - The album cover will be an amalgamation of the ideas in our album cover posts earlier on the blog.

Music Video Inspiration.

Both of these videos use something that is an intriguing concept of having both slow and normal motion in the same frame at the same time. The effect of it is quite incredible. I like the look of the Radiohead one because it is in black and white as well as having the slow motion, so is hopefully more like our final piece.

Buzz videos.

Our artist is one to use new technologies, these include YouTube. He creates 'videos' that he posted on his personal channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ItzKaneo

These videos are just the audio with a little animation of the title and artist but are only there to be another way to listen to his music and spread the word of it. Simple and effective. These are whats known as 'Buzz videos'.

Other Simular Artists.

We looked at other artists to try and find one with the most similarities to ours. we chose Kanye West for many reasons. Kanye is a world renowned MC, singer and record producer. Kaneo is someone who is also known as a 'triple threat' (being able to do the major things above) he hasn't quite hit the heights that Kanye has, but has massive potential to do so. We believe that in the music industry our artist would share many of Kanyes characteristics, ie. style, music genre and image.
Jay sean is another example of a similar artist to ours, taking a slightly more 'pop' spin on hip hop, much like some of Kaneos work.

Artist Audience.

https://www.facebook.com/Kaneo.music

This is the artist's facebook page with constant updates on new songs. It is also full of status updates that show his character and help to portray his personality, as well as using it as a way to communicate and promote himself to his fans. Status updates also provide his fans with the means to find out what he is doing, and when/where he is performing.

Artist Mixtape. (Choice of Song)

Download Mixtape | Free Mixtapes Provided by DatPiff.com

Our choice of song from our artist's album above for our video is track 9. Have a listen.

Artist Mood Board.

This is a collection of images that best describe our artist and his background, look and inspiration, created using Photoshop.

More album covers that inspire us.

These album covers inspire us due to their simplistic effect. We also like the use of basic colours which add to the overall tone of the pieces. We may use these techniques ourselves when creating our own digipak, advertising our artists.

Potential Video Idea.

This a typical example of what we are trying to achieve. The black and white effects, the lighting, dancing, club scene, urban, grimy, and lo-fi.

General Overview of Ideas so far.

Potential Location.

The urban setting of a car park is good for our genre of music. However it is fairly dark, and drab in this video, we would use the car park setting but in a lighter way, in the daytime. We have a local NCP multistory car park that we could use, at an easy distance to us.

Existing Album Covers

These album covers are by artists that are similar in many respects to ours, these include: their genre, their style of deliverance, their image, and marketing. We could draw from these when producing our artist promo pack, which includes: an album cover, magazine advert and interior album artwork.

Target Audience

This video shows the archetypal image of the target audience of our product and the artist involved. However, this is a generalisation and not all of his fans may be this extreme. His music may also appeal to a more universal audience, such as us. We expect that our product may be aimed towards 14-24 year olds, but again, this is a sweeping statement, so could also appeal to older or younger audiences.

Our Artist - Kaneo Elias Rees

This is Kaneo Elias Rees, an upcoming artist originating from Boston, NY, America. We would describe his music as 'Electro Hip Hip' or 'R&B'. We've got his permission to use one of his songs as part of our project, and promote him. He's worked with some huge music names, such as Drake, Nicki Minaj, 50 Cent, David Guetta, and many more. He also writes and produces for other artists., including Pretty Ricky.

Influences from existing media.

We'd love to use some of the ideas from this video. Using the mise-en-scene to show visual representation of the lyrics. Its more creative and unique than the usual video. The tape on the table works well, but may be too hard for us to achieve.

Potential influences from existing media.

This video has a few ideas that intrigue us and could feature in our production. These ideas include, the black and white theme, the abstract use of images and shots, the quick cuts, the random/spontaneous shots used, and the idea of cults and the Illuminati.

Our choice of music and proof of copyright.

Our choice of music is the artist of Kaneo Elias Rees -

http://bln.kr/-Kaneo.music/ (a selection of his music)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlkWIhvhG18 - I Hope You Cry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20emTCPtYKY&feature=related - I Will Fight For Us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y3YkOyA-mU - Nasty [Ft. Shanell]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HEKVje_M54 - It Will Be Okay [Ft. Drake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrPdxg7gXHU&feature=channel - Brighter Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyFJg5tEUbs&feature=channel - Breathe Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66RuosDgzEs&feature=channel - Whatever You Want

http://www.datpiff.com/pop-mixtape-player.php?id=md57f6ca&tid=13 - Kaneo's Album 'It Will Be Okay'

These aren't all the songs that he has and I have more to choose from. My two favourites that don't have videos already made for it; official or fan made, are 'False Hope' or 'Nothing Left To Say'