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Final Music Video
This is our completed music video. This is our completed digipak. This is the link to our final website. Our Final Website ...
Moodboard
Website First Draft
I have now got to a stage with a website where I have a template for each page and every page has some content on it. The home page is finished and is only missing the final music video YouTube link. The store page has five products on it all priced with product details. The news page has a Blog setup on it with a few posts and a sidebar accompanying it.
To improve the website what we need to do now is add more content to the blog, about page and add another fifteen products to the store.
To improve the website what we need to do now is add more content to the blog, about page and add another fifteen products to the store.
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| Near-complete home page |
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| Store with the few products I have done so far |
Website Journey
This slide share explains visually the creation of the website we have put together for our artist iSO.
Potential Album Cover
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| Proposed Album Cover |
Interview Research
We weren't sure what would be the best form of interview to do for iSO. We narrowed it down to either a social media Q&A, magazine interview or a conventional video interview. So before deciding which one to do, we did some research as to what similar artists do to communicate with their fans.
Logic:
This is an interview that Logic recently did for 'HardKnockTV' it lasts for 17 minutes and is with an interviewer who had interviewed him many times. The interview stands out to me as it is very relaxed and appears more like a conversation between 2 friends than a commerical interview. The interview is mainly about his music and how it has progressed. However, the interviewer does ask a few questions about other artists and his personal life to try to create a headline.
The main thing we learnt from researching Logic's interviews is:
Logic:
This is an interview that Logic recently did for 'HardKnockTV' it lasts for 17 minutes and is with an interviewer who had interviewed him many times. The interview stands out to me as it is very relaxed and appears more like a conversation between 2 friends than a commerical interview. The interview is mainly about his music and how it has progressed. However, the interviewer does ask a few questions about other artists and his personal life to try to create a headline.
The main thing we learnt from researching Logic's interviews is:
- Logic's interview are all videos and a few magazine articles
- All the interviews have no background music in the video
- The interviews last for about ten minutes on average
- The interviews are very informal and relaxed
G-Eazy:
This is G-Eazy's interview, which was uploaded this week by Wild 94.1 radio station. As G-Eazy has only recently gained mainstream exposure the interview consists of his story, how he made it and what he represents more than talking about his music. The interview lasts for twenty minutes, which is more common among radio interviews. G-Eazy's interviews are much more useful than Logic's to us as he is not yet an established artist so his interviews will be our main source of inspiration.
What we learnt from researching G-Eazy's interviews:
- He is hugely loyal to the area he grew up in and does a lot of local radio interviews
- Like Logic, none of his interviews have background music
- G-Eazy's interviews consist of YouTube interviews and magazine articles
- As a newly breaking through artist, his story and who he represents is just as important to discuss in an interview as his music
After researching we decided that doing a conventional video interview and a magazine article will be best as they conform to the Hip-Hop genre the most. We will do our interviews taking inspiration mainly from G-Eazy but also Logic.
Shooting Schedule 3
Above is our shooting schedule that I created for our group to understand what our plan was in terms of shots we still wanted and at which locations.
Shooting Schedule 2
Shooting Schedule 1
Photoshop Editing Research
Before starting to make the Tour Dates poster on Photoshop, I thought I should watch some tutorials to get comfortable with the software. As I haven't used it since last year to make a film poster for AS Media, I decided to refresh my knowledge.
This tutorial was good for learning the basics such as layering and other tools:
This tutorial was good for learning the basics such as layering and other tools:
This tutorial showed me how to manipulate lighting effects which I will use at the bottom of the tour dates poster:
Video Inspiration #2
The first thirty seconds of this fan-made music video is what we want to try and replicate in our music video. The video starts with a time lapse of scenic forests and the sky. The shots are good because they are interesting in their own right but its much more effective as it fits the intro of the song perfectly.
Costume Research
We did some research into costumes for this music genre so that we could understand the types of clothing items our artist should wear in the music video and also in the photo shoot. Below are some items that we saw popular artists in the genre wearing:
From our research we found that clothing has a huge influence of the image of any rap artist and James did some further research into this. We learnt that clothing and brand labels are important in this industry and therefore we must choose carefully which brands iSO is seen to be wearing in both the music video and any other promotional photos. He found that Skepta, a relatively small UK grime artist, has helped increase Sports Direct sales. Below is an article from the Guardian explaining this;
Font Research
I did some font research as to which font would suit our artist for his website and album cover.
Artist Name Decision
We decided to go with the name 'iSO' for our artists name as Issak suggested this and felt confident that it would be unique and memorable to our fans. We then decided to ask our peers what they thought about the name and what genre it made them think of. Most people said it sounded like a rapper so we all agreed we would stick with that name. Issak drew up some text samples on Photoshop so that we could see what it would look like written down and so that we could later experiement with fonts to establish a brand for iSO.
Photo Shoot
Issak and James took some photos for our photo-shoot so that we had some pictures of Issak that we could use for our website and digipak and any other promotional product we decided to create. We will also use these images for social media purposes. Issak wore different outfits as these were the sorts of clothing we envisaged him wearing in the music video. A black hoodie is commonly worn in rap music videos which was supported by our research. He also wore his jacket as it can fit in with the conventions of the rap genre.
We then decided to place some effects onto these photos, however the quality of these pictures isn't all that good.
I prefer the photos which have the dark background behind Issak as I feel it fits better with our convention.
Robbie Williams Student Music Video
For this task we had to perform and film a remake of Robbie Williams' music video 'Let Me Entertain You' and then edit it. This meant we were able to learn and see first hand how to get many different angles and shots from one performance.
It helped me to understand how to get specific shots and that it was best to shoot the whole song when filming rather than just the part you need. It also made me realise that to get different angles and lots of footage to choose from when editing as we might have captured extra footage that is good enough to use.
A classmate decided to edit the footage we got as a group of all the different performers and put it all together to fit the music. He suggested some tips to us that he learnt when editing:
It helped me to understand how to get specific shots and that it was best to shoot the whole song when filming rather than just the part you need. It also made me realise that to get different angles and lots of footage to choose from when editing as we might have captured extra footage that is good enough to use.
A classmate decided to edit the footage we got as a group of all the different performers and put it all together to fit the music. He suggested some tips to us that he learnt when editing:
- fast cuts on parts of a track with many layers on it works positively for the viewing experience. With this in mind, I will use a large amount of cuts, when textually the track gets more layered.
- the importance of lip syncing is apparent in a music video. Sometimes, if the lip syncing was off or there was missing footage, it would work positively to use the performers actions which fitted the lyrics.
I will keep this in mind when editing our music video. Below is the final video of the edit he made...
Steal-o-matic
For this task Issak created a steal-o-matic which acted as a visual mood board. Within this he added different shots and moving images which were his initial inspiration for what he thought we could include in our music video. We aim to include all of these shots in our music video so that we have a variety of shots to make the video look interesting.
Planning Reflection #2
Today we had a talk from Pete Fraser and Jake Wynne in which we discussed our ideas for music videos and received feedback on them from Jake.
Pete went through his tips in order for us to succeed and told us about the things to do and to avoid for us to get top marks. I found this really useful as he highlighted really obvious points which reinstated them and made me remember in time for shooting our own music video. He told us to plan for everything, especially to shoot extra, this seems obvious but it reminded me to keep shooting everything and to aim to shoot early and not against a deadline. He reminded us to make sure we know our equipment in order to avoid any delays or mistakes when filming. He suggested we do test shots to experiment with different effects and to check any quirks of the camera as this may become useful to us and enable to get some shots we didn't plan for but still fit in. He told us that he recommended that we shoot the performance at least 10 times with different set ups to create a different effects and this enables us to change it around when editing and allows space for mistakes or wonky shots. He also said to experiment with extra angles and different lighting as this can vary our shots and make them interesting. When editing our music video he recommended to edit a rough cut and upload it to our blog so that we can receive feedback whilst we edit the final cut. Whilst editing he suggested we that we sync up the performance first so that we know if we're missing any shots or if any shots need to be re-done, then add effects in last. He gave us some links to a few really good student blogs so that we can look at theirs and take some inspiration and learn from theirs. He reminded us that we need to have constant evidence of learning and improvement and we can do this in the form of other photos, student videos, real music videos, real album covers and test shots.
We then had a talk from Jake Wynne about his journey through the media industry. He explained his initial interests in directing films and music videos. He then got his first job in the industry running at Rushes Post Production House and learned how to cut on non-linear editing systems. After working his way up through post-production and editing award winning commercials and promos at Final Cut in London for the likes of Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls, he joined up with fellow school friend Jim Canty to direct a video for Sony Music's Nojahoda in 1999. In December 2006, Jake and Jim went their seperate ways to explore new projects, with Jake joining Blue Post Productions as Director and senior Avid offline editor. In February this year Jake was lucky enough to win a number of awards in both New York and London for a Shelter charity film that he directed. Below you can see one of the music videos he edited.
In the afternoon, we got the opportunity to be directed by Jake. We used 5 cameras to get different shots and we had 5 performances. We had to wear dark clothing and paint our faces so that we looked similar to Robbie Williams in his 'Let Me Entertain You' music video. We then had the chance to perform the song several times through but with different people doing different roles. Jake made it clear to us that you should always run through the whole song rather than just filming the line you want and that you should have more than one camera filming at any time to capture the different angles.
Pete went through his tips in order for us to succeed and told us about the things to do and to avoid for us to get top marks. I found this really useful as he highlighted really obvious points which reinstated them and made me remember in time for shooting our own music video. He told us to plan for everything, especially to shoot extra, this seems obvious but it reminded me to keep shooting everything and to aim to shoot early and not against a deadline. He reminded us to make sure we know our equipment in order to avoid any delays or mistakes when filming. He suggested we do test shots to experiment with different effects and to check any quirks of the camera as this may become useful to us and enable to get some shots we didn't plan for but still fit in. He told us that he recommended that we shoot the performance at least 10 times with different set ups to create a different effects and this enables us to change it around when editing and allows space for mistakes or wonky shots. He also said to experiment with extra angles and different lighting as this can vary our shots and make them interesting. When editing our music video he recommended to edit a rough cut and upload it to our blog so that we can receive feedback whilst we edit the final cut. Whilst editing he suggested we that we sync up the performance first so that we know if we're missing any shots or if any shots need to be re-done, then add effects in last. He gave us some links to a few really good student blogs so that we can look at theirs and take some inspiration and learn from theirs. He reminded us that we need to have constant evidence of learning and improvement and we can do this in the form of other photos, student videos, real music videos, real album covers and test shots.
We then had a talk from Jake Wynne about his journey through the media industry. He explained his initial interests in directing films and music videos. He then got his first job in the industry running at Rushes Post Production House and learned how to cut on non-linear editing systems. After working his way up through post-production and editing award winning commercials and promos at Final Cut in London for the likes of Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls, he joined up with fellow school friend Jim Canty to direct a video for Sony Music's Nojahoda in 1999. In December 2006, Jake and Jim went their seperate ways to explore new projects, with Jake joining Blue Post Productions as Director and senior Avid offline editor. In February this year Jake was lucky enough to win a number of awards in both New York and London for a Shelter charity film that he directed. Below you can see one of the music videos he edited.
In the afternoon, we got the opportunity to be directed by Jake. We used 5 cameras to get different shots and we had 5 performances. We had to wear dark clothing and paint our faces so that we looked similar to Robbie Williams in his 'Let Me Entertain You' music video. We then had the chance to perform the song several times through but with different people doing different roles. Jake made it clear to us that you should always run through the whole song rather than just filming the line you want and that you should have more than one camera filming at any time to capture the different angles. 
Props and Location List
For this, I discussed with my group where we wanted to shoot and film and we came up with several locations and props. These fit to the lyrics and are described in more detail with the annotated lyrics as to which location we want to use for each shot.
Locations
Graveyard
Green Screen
Park
House
Bedroom
Props
Documents - Bank Statements
Bed
Shovel
Flower
Car
Locations
Graveyard
Green Screen
Park
House
Bedroom
Props
Documents - Bank Statements
Bed
Shovel
Flower
Car
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