Shooting day 5-30/01/13

Today's shooting was mainly regarding two shots, with Angle and Wretch 23. As our chosen song has a feature in the actual things, who is Wretch 32, we felt it was obvious to have shots whit both artist in the frame, this is what we achieved and with some more very effective shots. {We shot this on the roof of the New Malden car park again, we  now regard this location as one of the most important location an establishing location, so throughout our final video, to bring back shots to this location, in regard to this topic of the car park and our constant use of it, i feel a little description why we use it is needed. I think that we do constantly use and shoot at this car park, as it is a high place and allows good background and scenery shots, this is one reasons and basis for it, but, another reason is that, it represents the level of the artist and comes in with Angle our artist being successful and going to a higher more better place, it shows power and that the person is hardworking, to reach to the top and to have retain that sense of achievement, is in a way described by having the artist at the top of a car park- a high, tall, partially dangerous place.}
Back to today's shooting, we got mainly all the two shots and a few shot with Wretch 23 that we needed, for cut aways for his verses. Below is an example of one of the shots we shot with the two artist, this particular shot, we had a shot were the camera tracks both artists around as they stand in one place.

Shooting day 4- 23/01/13

The shots we recorded today were all storyline shots, following the storyline and the actual part where the story of Angle is shown, of him starting low being bullied and than growing up, learning and trying his best and than finally to make it.
We have three new characters; firstly being our media group member- Ashad, now performing to represent the struggle and achievement of 'Angle', next is the 'bully'- Fahad he bullies and does later motivate Angle to do better and achieve his target of being an artist and finally, 'The girl'- Leianne, who is another motivator and is keen for Angle to succeed and as a classic ending Angle gets her as the girl in the end.

In addition i think we had a very productive shooting session, being able to cover all the storyline shots apart from one or two minor shots that we can do quickly, i feel that we covered a wide variety of angles and shots and overall have got very good shots for our video, we will place these shots in small segments in line with the lyrics and the performance shots ,this will be to try to add that professional touch that you see in very good main stream artist's videos.
I also think that the successful shooting day has been due to a number factors, and one major factor being the  extra cast, i think their acting is valuable and is very important for the storyline trying to best express our storyline to let others who will watch the video easily understand it, this is an important lesson for me personally.

Other important parts of the story we wished to cover included the connection and introduction of the girl(Leianne) and boy(Ashad) and the issues with the boy and the bully(Fahad).
For the girl, we had many contrast and close up shots with the boy, having his glaze always towards the girl, she is the attraction for him and he seems to later have a connection with her, we also show a little period where them two interact and overall this is to show the introduction of each other, later it comes to an attraction stage, where she is willing to actually help him succeed against the bully, she gives her pair of headphones in a method to motivate him to became, what he wants without anyone bringing him down such as the bully.
For the bully we had shots, where the boy tries to interact and in a way be friends with the bully, but the boy is the reject of the class and so is bullied instead. We had shots where the bully looks at his work and tries to copy but instead is found with the boy trying to write lyrics instead of the actual work happening in the lesson. Another shot is with the bully releasing the glaze the boy has on the girl and added with his anger of not being able to copy the boys work, the bully gets up in  annoyance and anger and slaps the boy, we than see a three shot where the bully its next to the girl and like a classic story for a while, the bully seems to have the girl, we than see the boy leave in sadness and frustration. We therefore see the bully mocking the boys lyrics, dissing him and De-motivating the boy to became and artist and also we have shots where he seems to lose out on the girl. After this the shots turn towards there being problem outside, as the bully is not satisfied with him slapping the boy in class. In another period the bully and his friends confront the boy, and take his headphones at this stage the girl comes to the rescue, we see the girl step in trying to help him, boosting his confidence, not only to connote him to have a new pair of headphones, but to denote him to follow up on his dream of being an artist and for him to have a chance to get the girl, she helps with both of these, all represented through the shots that we recorded today.

Website analysis -Angel

Below are two screenshots of the website, the screenshots are showing two main shows of the website, one being the homepage and the other being the being the news feed.

This shot shows the homepage, it is a persons first view of the website, it is also gives the impression of the artist and gives a good view of how the rest of the website will look. The website incorporates two main design layouts, with the top bar at the top and the page slider, meaning instead of one specific measured site with no scrolling necessary, in this case there are many more parts to the site, that are seen once scrolled down. After the top main menu bar, you see the large angel logo on a white background which stands out, on that is the social side, left side is the likes for the website and on the right are the other social networking sites. Underneath this is the promotion of his new album, with pictures and features including a link to download the album. After this is another section, showing the other boxes for; tweets, latest gigs, mailing list, music and photos sections in these boxes. The site has a dark theme, colours that match with the rest of the layout, pictures and theme colours. After this is the picture below and the description.

This is the second shot of the site, as you can see this part shows the news feed on the main homepage. This feels like another of the sites main and attractive features, this section is like an area for a blog, an area where the artist posts links, videos, pictures and comments to connect with his fans and website viewers. In this case due to the artist not being a major, major star and overall is still rising he probably passes on what he wants or even does this section by himself. More well known artists such as Akon, do get their record company or a specified person to upload the right stuff although other larger artists who are well known such as, Rhianna do upload themselves but she does have to talk to her manager or record company before posting some specific stuff- for both of these examples it could be for social sites or their own. Overall artist' websites are an area that an artist can represent themselves and show what they like and respect, similar to a social sites and blogs. In this particular shot you can see Tupac(2Pac), a very world re-known artist who has passed away, but is still very commonly remembered and known and for most people is known as the king of rap. Although back to Angel's post of a picture of a great rap artist, this could mean and possibly represent  that he is a great icon for Angel and maybe, someone who he respects greatly and would possibly like to get as big as Tupac was in the world for the music industry.
The font and pictures used throughout are provocative, bold and very attractive. Any person who stumbles onto the website will be very intrigued into searching around more, there is a mix of a street and pop artist here, with some dark side, colours are dull, mainly grayscale, with black and white. There are a lot random pictures, which show and give the sense of the artist's character which can be good, as this gives that sense of connection with the fans, they feel they are getting to know someone who they look up to and appreciate especially as an artist and maybe towards the person they really are, giving that behind the scenes feel.

Storyline Idea change

We previously had the idea of showing the change with two characters, Angle(Harris) and kid version of Angle(not set), as you can see not set, this is due to the kid, the smaller version which will show the transition of the change of life, age, surroundings and as a person. The smaller version of Angle was an issue as we needed someone who would be able to represent that change but also be able to give their time at the times we had to give, from here is where the problem started and after looking at our options and even trying to work against some of the times we could not really give, we still failed to have enough time with the smaller kid fro filming. Our conclusion after meeting and talking was to change our idea completely, but than again after re-considering with a media teacher we were told to change the original idea but not as much, something that still shows a change of life for the artist. The storyline idea we now as a group have decided to follow is below.

One of our group members, Ashad plays the character who is trying to improve his rapping skills-(trying to represent Angel and his life), whilst he is still learning there is a bully who keeps teasing and laughing at him, which will represent physical struggle but life itself.

There is a girl who Ashad seems to have a connection with and they keep locking eyes-(we felt to add this kind of classic story tale as it makes the whole life story representation that one more step better and also shows a boost in morale and confidence for the artist). We set Ashad's goals as him wanting to get better at rapping to impress the girl, after we represent this next bit for more struggle when the bully pushes Ashad, this tears his headphones and Ashad's crush then comes across the girl again and gives him her bigger and better ones and this inspires him even more to get better at rapping-also shows the move that the girl makes, she boosts his confidence and determines him to succeed by working harder and become a big artist.

He goes away and works hard to improve, we will show various situations where he is trying his best to master his craft-this will be through having a few cut-aways showing his progress. Eventually he manages to become very good, the bully admits this and is forced to accept his talent and shows him some respect, ends in Ashad getting the girl (she comes across and hugs him) and being successful as an artist.

This is a traditional storyline where the underdog rises up, becomes successful and gets the girl.

Props:

headphones: one small, one big, note pad and pen to write bars

cast needed : Ashad, one girl (Leianne) and one bully (Fahad)

Analysis: Ne Yo- One A Million

With the start of this video , there are white credits going acroos the screen including; entertainment company, picture company and the name of the actual song. You also realise that the beggining of the song, Ne Yo is actually speaking to the two other girls, while they are sitting on the backup dancers lap. This song is in particular related to other music videos, that all follow up on a story and him starting with speaking to the two girls, this doesnt make sense without watching the other videos that all create a full story.
Ne-Yo starts with a devious image, wearing a smart black and white outfit; with black trousers, and a white shirt, with a matching black tie and black hat, something that people relate to him with as it is a stuck to his image and helps for him to get related to.  The white in his outfit connotes innocence and purity but this is highly contrased with his black trousers that dennote darkness and devious intentions. These two are both a weird good and abd mic, something that is protrayed throughout the video, wiht him liking and flirting with the main girl but than moving his focus form the main girl to other girls and flirting with them.

There are female actors are overly galmorised in this genre, but in this case the main girl is in casula clothing not too much makeup and normal hair, keeping it real and to the level of normal people, not like other females in videos in this genre. although this is relaistic approach is taken, there is still a big attraction for the male gaze, as the natural real women factor is used and so she still does stand out, this is linked ot the lyrics with Ne-Yo saying 'makes your soul stand out from all the rest'. The main female actor is playin hard to get, with Ne-Yo having to constantly going after her. This story can be realted to real life., as throughtout there are female with a gaze on Ne-Yo, but the girl he is after pays no attention to him, tryin to act unintersted.

The set of this video, is mostly on a city street in either LA or NY. We find out very easily that it is set in the uSA as we go in the video, the cab, busy streets and the shops.
There are a few areas where some special effects ahve been added, suhc as when he gives her the flower, or when he stops in fornt of the cab, other movements include his hand movements whilst dancing.
Towards the end there is a fade to black, and ther there is the line of 'TO BE CONTINUED', this idea that is done by Ne-Yo, fro a subtle move from music video to just movie, as tehre are different sequences shwon in as music videos. This is a clever diea ot keep bringing back viewers, keeping them ready adn hooked onto the story so they will definately go onto the next video to watch it finihs on forward form the cliff hanger.

Promotion- Above the line + Below the line

There are many ways for promotion of a product or service, i will be talking about two in particular; above the line promotion and below the line promotion, i elaborate on the two below.

Starting with above the line promotion, this type of promotion focuses on using methods for mass media and aiming at a large/mass audience. Type of above the line promotion include; print, online media, television and even cinema advertising. An example is for the music industry, it is key for them as they need to let people know when the artists will release a new album or song. This is represented in many forms in terms of above the line. Recently the boost has been towards using Youtube and to have an advertisement on Youtube is effective, due to the website being a common place to listen to music from, channel such as VEVO, it allows advertisements before the actual video plays, banners, website promotions and even the creation of Youtube pages for the artist or band. All of the listed are forms of 'above the line promotion'. It is difficult to tailor a promotion to a specific group of people through above the line and this is because it is viewed by a mass audience will all different needs and demands making above the line very expensive as well.

Another form of promotion is 'Below the line', this is a more specific type of promotion and are memorable focused activities targeted to consumers, in  a way under the control of an organisation. Group which are defined group such as specific genre consumers e.g: rap, pop and rock. These are specified and clearly defined group, that are targeted specifically rather then mass targets These are consumers/people who have promotion towards them using above the line activity. Using these the purpose is to develop the brand by creating awareness and building a brand profile. Other below the line methods include; Sponsorship, telesales, direct marketing, public relations, sale promotions and personal selling.  An example of some sort could be towards the sales promotion which links in with direct selling. This is below the line and could be done by smaller artists who have less to spend on marketing, promotion. Using direct selling and promotion outside venues where music is related maybe a show is happening for a larger artist and their maybe a queue of some sort, the smaller artist could be going around to the people in the approaching them about their music or albums. This usually happens and occurs when the music genre of the artist with the concert is similar or the same to the artist that is smaller doing direct sales/promotion. E.g: rap artist is having a concert and there is a queue, smaller rap artist goes around trying to sell his albums or promote himself but usually both.

Shooting Day 3-19/12/12 Location-Highstreet

Today we went out planned to shoot a lot of the storyboard with numerous clips, this is what we achieved. We set out to Kingston and knew about a very good car park, again with roof being in use, although this car park had something different about it, it had one straight piller which figures out the main artist Angle(Harris) from the rest of the scenery and this was very effective, we used this in contrast to some locations which big name artist use in their videos, sometimes we could not entirely do but, achieved it in a similar but not the same manner and it was very effective. In addition for this shoot we used the tri-pod an effective accessory to the camera. At the roof a few different shots, we tried a panning shot, handheld and just keeping the artist center and tracking him around.

 We also went to the highstreet and tried a few differnet shots, we tried a panning shot, tracking shot and stills. Below is a shot where we wanted Angle to connect with the audeince, looking directly at them in a sense by him not looking any where else and he was very close up to the camera. These shots that i just spoke were those shot in the higstreet as you see below.

Lastly our final location was the Kingsoton, Bentalls shopping centre. We only got two shots here, something we could use as a cutaway as the shots were diffeicult to procede with, they were difficult due to the busy christmas shopping period and so a large amount of people were there, this meant taht even ahving a tripod in a space was hard to execute, so many people coming in the way and the tripod being in the way for some, so we had to resort to handheld shots. We got a POV-(point of view) shot that we could use, where we have a person walking past Angle whilst he is listnening.

Shooting Day 2

Shooting day 2 another few shots added, that can be used for the cut aways also performance shots. We did not have that much time, but got some good shots. We based the shots around Angle and we did get one or tow shots that may be unnecessary such as with him searching the actual song.

Shoot Day 1-05/12-Location: Rooftop

We had one of our important locations tested and shooted some of this footage, which possibly be used for the final video. This location was the rooftop of a car park, on New Malden high street. We have thought of some very good ideas for the final video, in addition we had previously learnt the importance of cut-away and so saw a major opportunity to shoot some today at the rooftop, we had learnt this from our research, where we could see a lot of cut-aways used which allowed and let the viewer piece by piece create the location of the particular shot.
We had also learnt something very important to look out for whilst doing this shoot, which was about the lighting, which could show your shadow, in addition is the, camera angle and which way the camera is facing.

You may just be able to see the shadow on the bottom left, this was one of the problems we realised instantly, the cameraman needs to be placed in accordance with the artist but somewhere that the artist is not deeply effected by the natural light in their eyes or the camera and the cameraman are not effected either, as the if the sunlight went into the shot, it destroys the surroundings in the shot, scenery and usually that frame or shot would go bright white and the camera struggles to focus, finding the right positions and angles was difficult but, in the end we were able to get good shots.We were able to find angles where neither factor would be effected, examples of this are shown below.

Analysis: K Koke- Turn back ft. Maverick Sabre

This video is by K Koke featuring Maverick Sabre and is called Turn Back, K Koke is a new artist in the main stream market, part of the USG group. This video is to do with the change that happens from being on the streets, acting out as a gangster carrying out wrong stuff, to now being quite successful and being well known and making money, it is there to show him leaving or trying to leave his old lifestyle.

The location used throughout is the broken down, typical mass estate in London, we can see his clothing being casual wear nothing to much, such as other people  living in the flats wearing; hoodies and tracksuits.
Throughout this video there is a story being told, where there is hardship, how he feels, what he went through and hat his mum went through, how he had to live his life when he was younger and how he lives it now.

K Koke uses an actor fro the role of a teenager, facing issues with drugs, gangsters, single parent, poverty and general struggles of life, this is a story being told, where metaphorically he is talking about his own lifestyle as a younger kid. In the video you can see the stereotype of estates, with hoodies, thieves, drugs, gangs, weapons and a tough life.