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Cast Members

Cast members

J Hustle the main artist we are using for our music video. His task is to sing the choruses and verses in the song How to love as this is the song we are using. He is supposed to be a an american hood artist who is releasing his new song. The reason behind his name beign J Hustle is that it fits the market criteria for hip hop as they use other names for their stage name rather than their real one.

Ben(left)- he is the abusive husband in the relationship who abuses his wife played by ama. his role is to bring out the emotion within the song and show actions of abuse to his wife. We used him because he looked suited for the role we wanted him to play. 

Ama- the wife to an abusive huband. who is pictured above. she has suffered years of abussed which is portrayed throught the scenes in the video. 

Faith- Faith has been subject to drug abuse and started taking them at an early age.  In the end she dies as the drugs had taken over her .

Production Diary

I have collected a production diary where I have recorded the events of what has occurred each time  we have made a significant advance in the filming and editing of our coursework


Memo no. 1- First Draft 17/01/2012


Well our group has just finished our first draft of our music video and I am really  impressed with the work our group found it increasingly hard to use final cut pro so we decided to work upon iMovie. We may have to change over later on the date however this is just a first draft. We have been getting all the footage in the right structure and we added some transitions but it is still in it's primitive stages. We will be scheduling a new photo shoot of the artist soon so we can begin the ancillary task  as a group as soon as our January exams are over... Over than that our work needs some DRASTIC improvement. 


Memo no. 2 - After the photo shoot 22/01/2012
Well that was a big success we managed to get some really good photos of the artist and his friends. I proposed an idea that we could create a sort of street team like in a magazine or something kind of reminiscent of a record label... Young Money, MMG money group and Bad Boys Records.

Overall today was quite successful in terms to starting our ancillary tasks, however it was so TIME CONSUMING! It took us a long time to get the characters to focus and plus many of them had such busy schedules it was very disruptive however we managed to get many shots so overall a good day

Memo 3 - Showcase day APPROACHES 31/03/2012

Well the final day for showcasing our video is approaching quite quickly I mean our third of our music video is nowhere near finished and our ancillary drastically needs to be improved. I went to the an Editing day at HRC which so effective. We've now switched over our music video to Final cut pro, I have introduced more complex transitions and rearranged the structure of the video. I even learned how to make the video  black and white which will be essential to final draft making it so much more stronger in terms to emotion, however I predict that we have about 2 weeks worth o editing to do this project! I mean our coursework group has jobs and everything and sometimes we ind it difficult to work together but we are always talking through skype as we work so we are always connected.

Memo 4 - Showcase day Success? NO!!!!! 17/04/2012

Well showcase day was a major flop for our group, some of our video was in the wrong direction and the sound quality was so poor at least we gained some useful feedback from the audience members though that will be key for question 3 of our evaluations. I can definitely see that our coursework video requires extensive editing and work. It's way to long 6:45 minutes is not regular for a music video definitely. The ending was absolutely abysmal, it just cut off and was not synced to the music I know that will cost us several marks if we are not careful. We definitely need to go over the video from start to finish. The good news is that my final draft of all the ancillary tasks are finished and just require analysis. We definitely gotta put our heads down.

Memo 5 - Final stages in progress! 30/04/2012 

We are finally finished the music video we have cut down the video from 6:45 minutes to 4:40 which is more regular for music videos. We now have the black white version all we have to do is post the colour version up on YouTube. I have finished all ancillary tasks and now just need to post all of them as they are still drafted on my dashboard. Other than that we are done here!

Memo 6 - TROUBLE LIES AHEAD! 01/05/2012

Well I have tried and tried to post the video upon YouTube but the video file is corrupted sadly. Our one minute extract seems to be booming put it up and a couple hours it had accumulated 67 views mostly from Americans which was predictable however I will have to speak with my media teacher to fix this problem.

Memo 7 - EVERYTHING IS DONE!!!!!!! - 11/05/2012

Well everything has been posted and analysed, I have focused upon the conventions of hip-hop in near on every post and I have posted all the final drafts of all the research and planning posts. I have just spent the last hours making sure the labels upon the posts are accurate and can be easily identifiable. The album advert, the album digi pak and the final music video all created and posted. Just finishing up the evaluation now I am finally done with media coursework!!!!!

Music Video Analysis

Kanye West feat. Chris Martin - Homecoming




We plan on using this video as inspiration, using the concepts of the colour scheme giving the video a documentary type theme as well as the heavy representation of Black people within the video which easily convert to the heavily black orientated Hip-Hop Culture 




A & B) How camera angles have been used to create an engaging videos/ develop narrative/ position of the viewer and What camera angles and movements have been used? 
The initial camera angles sow establishing shots of Chicago which is important to the narrative as the meaning of lyrics is an extended metaphor as an ode to Chicago. The black white coverage of Chicago depicts Chicago as a concrete jungle so we get the interpretation of what the song will be about. The showcasing of the city also plays on the conventions of Hip-Hop as it shows the ghetto areas in Chicago initially. 
We are also shown low angle tracking shots of the artist Kanye West so he appears bigger and more dominant in comparison to the setting, this is reflective of the track name as it is called 'Homecoming' so he seen to over a higher status and a hero. 
A use of over the shoulder shot of Kanye West as we follow him as he makes his 'homecoming' back to Chicago, it adds to the escapism as the audience is able to feel they are present within the video.


C) What is the prominent or main focus of the music video?
The main focus of the video is watch the artist return home to Chicago after leaving to make a name for himself nationwide. We watch the artist go through his hometown watching how desolate and poor areas of the city is and how the opportunity he received was very rare in his circumstance. 


D) How has the Editing been used to create an engaging video?
The editing used is mostly present when the featured artist is singing the chorus and bridge. This is done to hide his identity as he plays the piano and to promote realism through representation. Realistically the Chicago ghettos are most inhabited by African-Americans the removal of identity of featured singer who is a Caucasian done purposely to not deflect from the lifestyles of Black Americans


E) What transitions have been used and why?
The videos use flicker transitions reminiscent of a camera flicking, this done for the audiences behalf, the camera's eyeline is made to show the audience as a tourist being led by Kanye as he takes us through the city of Chicago.


F) How the Mise-en-Scene has been used to create an engaging video/develop the narrative/position the viewer
The mise-en-scene shows the acting to very natural as the extras almost ignore the camera go about their normal lives, this is to act a documentary/biographical story line again added realism to the narrative. The scale of buildings compared to the artist is to show that artist is now at the same levels of the buildings and setting to show his dominance. The costume is reflective of the Hip-Hop community where most of the characters are seen to be wearing black orientated street label brands. 


G) What happens in the video and is it an effective video  
Kanye comes home on a moving like float to show his arrival back home were the audience gets an insight to the poverty he comes back to. We see that with his newly found fame the artist has now built up a generation of followers. It is expressed that the town misses him dearly. 


H) Whether you think it is an effective video?
The video is an effective video as it shows kanye in a different light in comparison to his over past videos. The audience in given an insight to Kanye's background. This video appeases Kanye's target audience well.

Ancilliary Advert Analysis

Colour Scheme
We decided to follow the colour scheme preset within the album pack as we wanted to ensure consistency and start a branded colour. The audience would instantly be able to recognize the colour while flicking past a magazine. The constrast of red and white against a dark gray scale back bround is hugely effective as the information of the product instantly stands out. the connations associated with the album also reflect the persona of the artist, the use of black and the grayscale show that the artist is mysterious and dark in contrast to the red which shows the artist to be dominant and bold. The colour red is also quite reminscient of blood which is again reflective of the context of album, the Album name insights a battle where blood will be spilled.The colour white is to ensure that the text is not ignored as it contains the vital information.

Images
For the background I have used a skyline back ground which is reflective of the album name. 'Come and get me vol. 1', the artist will not be found as he will be well hidden in the concrete jungle. It also plays well with the conventions of Hip-Hop as the origins of Hip-Hops comes the streets of New York in particualar the Bronx. the skyline is a night as well promoting the darker themes that will be present within the album. The main image is dominant in sense were the bold red colour ensures you do not miss it. It is cropped from the album cover of the artist this is to ensure that when purchasing the album the buyer will know what to look for and is assured by the identity of the artist. The images merge well with eachother as it shows the sterotypicaly lifestyle of a traditonal hip-hop artist.

Typography
The scale of the typography works well as it is big and bold and limited therefore people will get the relevant information. The white text is heavily reflective of grafitti, an improtance aspect to the development of hip-hop culture therefore hip-hop fans will definitely be able to identify themselves with the advert. The red text is usually used in Gangster films and games, this again adds to the conventions of Hip-Hop culture which is recognised for it's heavy gang culture which is reflective of the meaning of the artist's name.The bold nature of the name in comparison to the image of the artist is very simular to ensure that the view knows who the artist is aswell as his name.

Institutions
I have introduced where the album can be subsequently downloaded using famous insitutions known for their music downloads. Apple is known for holding hosting the medium 'iTunes' which is a music library where the most famous artists allow their music to be bought. This would be very conducive to album sales as more and more people are buying apple products therefore they would be exposed to the advert.
I have also shown the company Amazon which hosts a live marketplace and have newly introduced a music library. The Amazon music library is heavily used however it wouldn't be as effective as iTunes as it is not a specialist in music sales, however more artists are feauturing their music upon that website.

These publications would be feautured in predominently music magazines such as NME however we would more like to focus are attention to American Hip-Hop Magazines such as 'King' and Vibe magazines. They are known for promoting new hip-hip artists and have long established an audience that is simular to our target audience. By using these magaiznes we would easily be able to reach target audience We would also look to the famous website 'World Star Hip-Hop' which is known for hosting videos of new upcomming hip-hop artist and hosts a user generated video website. It's there we would post our video to watched by existing hip-hop fans. They also have host spaces for advertisement there we would place our advert as well as creating a banner.  

Ancilliary - Adverts

Magazine Advert NO. 1

Magazine Advert - NO. 2

Advert Conventions

Magazine Advert No. 1

Magazine analysis colour the colour of this album magazine advert is quite abstract. 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 writting. The artist name and his album name stand out with the white writting underneath a luminous pink box to bring the colour out even more colour. 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 priveledge to see it properly. This is a great disadvantage as the audeince may not be able to see it properly and remeber what it looks like if they were to get it in a shop. Also the backgroud image seems to that has eyeline through the window, his title of the album 'the proximity effect' also relates to the album image as it is a close dissorted shot of the view of outside and this relates to the title text: typography, representation of the artists and appeal to the target audience.

Magazine Advert No.1

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 subte 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 incinuate drug usage which is quite  mature and adult rates. The font of the text is very contrasts to the coloyur 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 avaliable, however this is usually present with unsigned artists, therefore this information would be irrelevant to the final draft of ur product.

Final Drafts of the Music Video

Our coursework group decided that we wanted the Grayscale edition of our music video to be taken into consideration however we have provided the colour version below just a consideration of our viewers preferences 

Media Evaluation

Media Coursework evaluation of Final Draft pieces 


Media Evaluation