A2 Media Evaluation
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Thursday 7 January 2010
Thursday 17 December 2009
Ancillary Tasks
We have been given two tasks to complete. We were given a few options but quickly came to a joint decision where we decided create an album digipack and also a poster promoting our Album/Artist. After looking at a number of different images we decided that we needed to advertise the artist in the Album cover. This is typical of most R&B Albums, where the album cover features a large picture, normally focussed on the Artist themselves.
Task #1
Album Digipack
For our digipack we have to design all the album artwork for our Album. We used Adobe Photoshop on the MacBook we used. None of us had previously used Photoshop so we found it really hard at first getting used to the software, but after a while of some trial and error we finally got used to the different tools that are available. This was our first draft.
We decided to go for the star, as this has a direct link with the lyrics "I'm that star up in the sky" in our main video, which is the main song on the Album itself. We had a picture of the same boxing gloves that we used throughout the video and we also used some effects on Photoshop to create what we thought was a "cartoon" effect. We thought this would go well as R Kelly appeals mostly to young males. If he was trying to attract an older, more serious audience we wouldn't have used it. We have also used boxing gloves, as most this is quite masculine and would appear to more males. It also shows that the artist is quite masculine and this fits in well with R Kelly's profile.
We had some positive and negative feedback from people when we showed them the Album front cover. Some people thought that the Font worked well, as it stood out, you could clearly see R Kelly. It is at the top of the cover and this is getting the message across about the album. They thought it was good that we included the star and the boxing gloves. But everyone we asked wondered why we didn't have a picture of our main character Toby on the front cover. We went back and re-designed the front cover and this is what we came up with.
We were happy with the final cover, as we got to include everything we wanted. When going back and asking the people about what they thought of the changes. They thought that the inclusion of Toby as the main picture was a good change. They also thought that keeping the cartoon effect on Toby's picture worked well.
This was the main cover, but we still had to complete the other 3 sides of the cover to complete.
Here is the first inside cover..
Here you can see we have decided to use another picture of Toby. Here you can see him recording the track. It is also a screenshot from the music video. We this would be good to use as it promotes the artist performing his track. It shows Toby singing and performing an action of pointing to the sky. We have also used the cartoon effect as we are trying to create a consistency throughout the album artwork.
The other inside cover.. (This is to go behind the CD)
This is the artwork that goes behind the CD. We have looked at a number of album's and the artwork that they have, and more often than not, the cover on the inside behind the CD is blank, or it is very plain. We have decided to put an image of Toby with his boxing gloves and hoody for training on. Although we have used the cartoon effect in this picture to keep continuity between the other images in the artwork. We thought this would be a good image to use, as this is the final shot in music video, where we zoom into a still image of Toby.
The back cover..
This is the back cover of the album artwork. Once again we used an image from the video. It shows one of the locations that we shot in. We used the cartoon effect once again to keep the consistency amongst the overall artwork. We have also used a similar colour for the font when we list the songs on the current album. We had a look at some back covers in the R&B music genre. They are all fairly simple and just show a list of the song titles. We have used this approach and have just slightly moved them as we have gone down. It's quite simple, but we think it works well.
Task #2
For our second task we were asked to create a poster that advertised the artist and the music video we had just created. We used Adobe Photoshop once again to create the poster as we thought it would be good as we all had some experience and quite a lot of success when we used the software to create our first ancillary task, the album artwork. Although we didn't have as quick success as before, we had tried many different designs, different images in different positions. The main problem we had was that we were trying to inflict more than one message on the poster. In our initial copy we were trying to promote an upcoming tour aswell as the artist and the album. This meant that none of them really stood out. After talking to a few people to see what they thought about our poster we decided to go for a simple effect. We had the picture of Toby on the page. Then we also included the front cover of the album. We decided to mention the tour, but as it wasn't the main feature of the poster.
Here you can see we have kept the cartoon effect throughout both ancillary tasks. We have also used bold yellow font to stand out. The album is also on the poster as the creates a link with it and promotes the album so people know what to look out for and can relate to the album cover when it becomes available to buy.
Task #1
Album Digipack
For our digipack we have to design all the album artwork for our Album. We used Adobe Photoshop on the MacBook we used. None of us had previously used Photoshop so we found it really hard at first getting used to the software, but after a while of some trial and error we finally got used to the different tools that are available. This was our first draft.
We decided to go for the star, as this has a direct link with the lyrics "I'm that star up in the sky" in our main video, which is the main song on the Album itself. We had a picture of the same boxing gloves that we used throughout the video and we also used some effects on Photoshop to create what we thought was a "cartoon" effect. We thought this would go well as R Kelly appeals mostly to young males. If he was trying to attract an older, more serious audience we wouldn't have used it. We have also used boxing gloves, as most this is quite masculine and would appear to more males. It also shows that the artist is quite masculine and this fits in well with R Kelly's profile.
We had some positive and negative feedback from people when we showed them the Album front cover. Some people thought that the Font worked well, as it stood out, you could clearly see R Kelly. It is at the top of the cover and this is getting the message across about the album. They thought it was good that we included the star and the boxing gloves. But everyone we asked wondered why we didn't have a picture of our main character Toby on the front cover. We went back and re-designed the front cover and this is what we came up with.
We were happy with the final cover, as we got to include everything we wanted. When going back and asking the people about what they thought of the changes. They thought that the inclusion of Toby as the main picture was a good change. They also thought that keeping the cartoon effect on Toby's picture worked well.
This was the main cover, but we still had to complete the other 3 sides of the cover to complete.
Here is the first inside cover..
Here you can see we have decided to use another picture of Toby. Here you can see him recording the track. It is also a screenshot from the music video. We this would be good to use as it promotes the artist performing his track. It shows Toby singing and performing an action of pointing to the sky. We have also used the cartoon effect as we are trying to create a consistency throughout the album artwork.The other inside cover.. (This is to go behind the CD)
This is the artwork that goes behind the CD. We have looked at a number of album's and the artwork that they have, and more often than not, the cover on the inside behind the CD is blank, or it is very plain. We have decided to put an image of Toby with his boxing gloves and hoody for training on. Although we have used the cartoon effect in this picture to keep continuity between the other images in the artwork. We thought this would be a good image to use, as this is the final shot in music video, where we zoom into a still image of Toby.
The back cover..
This is the back cover of the album artwork. Once again we used an image from the video. It shows one of the locations that we shot in. We used the cartoon effect once again to keep the consistency amongst the overall artwork. We have also used a similar colour for the font when we list the songs on the current album. We had a look at some back covers in the R&B music genre. They are all fairly simple and just show a list of the song titles. We have used this approach and have just slightly moved them as we have gone down. It's quite simple, but we think it works well.
Task #2
For our second task we were asked to create a poster that advertised the artist and the music video we had just created. We used Adobe Photoshop once again to create the poster as we thought it would be good as we all had some experience and quite a lot of success when we used the software to create our first ancillary task, the album artwork. Although we didn't have as quick success as before, we had tried many different designs, different images in different positions. The main problem we had was that we were trying to inflict more than one message on the poster. In our initial copy we were trying to promote an upcoming tour aswell as the artist and the album. This meant that none of them really stood out. After talking to a few people to see what they thought about our poster we decided to go for a simple effect. We had the picture of Toby on the page. Then we also included the front cover of the album. We decided to mention the tour, but as it wasn't the main feature of the poster.
Here you can see we have kept the cartoon effect throughout both ancillary tasks. We have also used bold yellow font to stand out. The album is also on the poster as the creates a link with it and promotes the album so people know what to look out for and can relate to the album cover when it becomes available to buy.
Thursday 10 December 2009
R&B Album Covers
As one of our tasks, we have to design the album cover to the music video that we are recreating. This is just one of the tasks that we have to do, but to get some help with where to start, I have decided to look at a lot of other artist's album covers that work in the same genre just to see if there is any reoccurances. After looking through about 10 different covers, it was quickly noticable that all of the album covers are trying to, in some way advertise the artist. The artist was consistently on the front cover, and more often than not, he/she was the main focus within the picture. I have put some together for you to see what I mean here..
Here, I am going to go through the album covers and talk about the similarities and differences in each one.
Tha Carter III - This Album cover has one main picture on it. It is a baby that has some characteristics of the artist that it is trying to portray. Lil Wayne has these tattoos on his face and the use of a baby in the picture could be used to make Lil Wayne seem youthful or maybe even try and give him some sense of innocence. He bases his style of rapping and his artist image on being unique and this certainly fits the description of a unique album cover. You can clearly see his name and the album name next to the picture.
Here I Stand - This album cover shows Usher seemingly walking away from a car. He is standing up, which is relevant to the name of the album. The album cover once again is there to advertise his image. He is walking away from the car, and the text showing his name and the album name is clear for everyone to see. Another thing I noticed was that the text is similar although the "Usher, Here I" is Red, and the "Stand" part of the lettering is black. I don't know if there is a reason for this, as when artists change the text, it is normally to make their own name stand out.
Double Up - This is an album by R Kelly. He also performs our song choice for our video. He has quite a mixed style. He has appeared as a gospel like singer, a rapper, but perhaps has had his best success as an R&B/Hip Hop artist. This album cover is from his R&B days where he completed a double up album with other artists featuring in most of the songs. The album cover typically focuses on him and shows him as a successful performer who appears to be wealthy. This happens in many album covers as rappers and R&B artists have the image of having lots of money. The text is also in the same colour as jewellery that he is also wearing.
Paper Trail - This is probably the simplest album cover I have looked at so far. It simply has T.I.'s face in the middle of the album cover. It uses an effect to add a bit of colour to the image. The font in the album artwork is simple but gets the message across. It is black bold writing simply saying the artist's name and the album name. As T.I. has been around the Hip Hop scene for some time now, he doesn't have to do too much to be noticed. This artwork is simple but effective.
Comeback Season - This is Drake's first album since he joined the same rap label as Lil Wayne. He has burst onto the scene and was basically an international superstar before he released his first official solo album. It shows a picture of him, with his name above him in the picture in big bold writing, the album name is below, but it is quite surprising to see this in such small writing. This might be because the album cover could be trying to advertise Drake as an artist and not so much focussing on the album itself.
Catch 22 - This is Tinchy Stryder's best selling album by a country mile. He has become one of the UK's leading artists in the last couple of years. This album shows him on the album cover. He is wearing a "Star in the Hood" t-shirt. This is his own brand and he is trying to advertise this on the side of the album itself. You can see they have used an effect in the background of the main image of him to try and mix up the album cover a tiny bit. Although once again, he is the main advertisement and this album cover is all about portraying the artist.
Curtis - This album cover is probably the album cover out of all of them that simply is trying to advertise the rapper. 50 cent is so well known across the world, he hasn't even put his name on the album cover. Although he is wearing a bracelet with "50" encrusted on it. He has simply used a photo of himself, with the album name "curtis" in small white writing at the bottom of the image. This is simply, but from the picture you can see that maybe the album is going to be quite interesting as the image shows the artist thinking hard about something.
The Documentary - This is The Game's first official solo album. It is basically advertising him, he is the main picture on the screen. I am not too sure why he is sitting on two wheels. He is wearing a necklace, which is typical of most rappers who like to have things such as money, girls and "bling". The font of his name is much more noticable than the font of the album name. This has become quite a common occurance amongst people releasing their debut Albums. It was the same in Drake's album earlier in the presentation.
I Am Sasha Fierce - By the time this album came out, Beyoncé was already a world famous singer. The album cover is still focussed on her. But the font is quite small, it is more classy than most of the other ones. The lettering seems more professional and the main thing is simply a picture of her. This is portraying her using her Beauty, but as everyone knows who she is, she doesn't have to put her name in massive writing across the cover.
From looking at all of the album covers, I have decided, that in some way, we need to put Toby on our album cover, and he will possibly be the main focus point of the cover, although we need to try and advertise some other things in the album cover. We are going to use a larger font than most of these covers use as we feel it will be quite important for everyone to see what the album name is and especially the artist name.
Album Covers
View more presentations from adamsutherland8.
Here, I am going to go through the album covers and talk about the similarities and differences in each one.
Tha Carter III - This Album cover has one main picture on it. It is a baby that has some characteristics of the artist that it is trying to portray. Lil Wayne has these tattoos on his face and the use of a baby in the picture could be used to make Lil Wayne seem youthful or maybe even try and give him some sense of innocence. He bases his style of rapping and his artist image on being unique and this certainly fits the description of a unique album cover. You can clearly see his name and the album name next to the picture.
Here I Stand - This album cover shows Usher seemingly walking away from a car. He is standing up, which is relevant to the name of the album. The album cover once again is there to advertise his image. He is walking away from the car, and the text showing his name and the album name is clear for everyone to see. Another thing I noticed was that the text is similar although the "Usher, Here I" is Red, and the "Stand" part of the lettering is black. I don't know if there is a reason for this, as when artists change the text, it is normally to make their own name stand out.
Double Up - This is an album by R Kelly. He also performs our song choice for our video. He has quite a mixed style. He has appeared as a gospel like singer, a rapper, but perhaps has had his best success as an R&B/Hip Hop artist. This album cover is from his R&B days where he completed a double up album with other artists featuring in most of the songs. The album cover typically focuses on him and shows him as a successful performer who appears to be wealthy. This happens in many album covers as rappers and R&B artists have the image of having lots of money. The text is also in the same colour as jewellery that he is also wearing.
Paper Trail - This is probably the simplest album cover I have looked at so far. It simply has T.I.'s face in the middle of the album cover. It uses an effect to add a bit of colour to the image. The font in the album artwork is simple but gets the message across. It is black bold writing simply saying the artist's name and the album name. As T.I. has been around the Hip Hop scene for some time now, he doesn't have to do too much to be noticed. This artwork is simple but effective.
Comeback Season - This is Drake's first album since he joined the same rap label as Lil Wayne. He has burst onto the scene and was basically an international superstar before he released his first official solo album. It shows a picture of him, with his name above him in the picture in big bold writing, the album name is below, but it is quite surprising to see this in such small writing. This might be because the album cover could be trying to advertise Drake as an artist and not so much focussing on the album itself.
Catch 22 - This is Tinchy Stryder's best selling album by a country mile. He has become one of the UK's leading artists in the last couple of years. This album shows him on the album cover. He is wearing a "Star in the Hood" t-shirt. This is his own brand and he is trying to advertise this on the side of the album itself. You can see they have used an effect in the background of the main image of him to try and mix up the album cover a tiny bit. Although once again, he is the main advertisement and this album cover is all about portraying the artist.
Curtis - This album cover is probably the album cover out of all of them that simply is trying to advertise the rapper. 50 cent is so well known across the world, he hasn't even put his name on the album cover. Although he is wearing a bracelet with "50" encrusted on it. He has simply used a photo of himself, with the album name "curtis" in small white writing at the bottom of the image. This is simply, but from the picture you can see that maybe the album is going to be quite interesting as the image shows the artist thinking hard about something.
The Documentary - This is The Game's first official solo album. It is basically advertising him, he is the main picture on the screen. I am not too sure why he is sitting on two wheels. He is wearing a necklace, which is typical of most rappers who like to have things such as money, girls and "bling". The font of his name is much more noticable than the font of the album name. This has become quite a common occurance amongst people releasing their debut Albums. It was the same in Drake's album earlier in the presentation.
I Am Sasha Fierce - By the time this album came out, Beyoncé was already a world famous singer. The album cover is still focussed on her. But the font is quite small, it is more classy than most of the other ones. The lettering seems more professional and the main thing is simply a picture of her. This is portraying her using her Beauty, but as everyone knows who she is, she doesn't have to put her name in massive writing across the cover.
From looking at all of the album covers, I have decided, that in some way, we need to put Toby on our album cover, and he will possibly be the main focus point of the cover, although we need to try and advertise some other things in the album cover. We are going to use a larger font than most of these covers use as we feel it will be quite important for everyone to see what the album name is and especially the artist name.
Tuesday 13 October 2009
Evaluation of Filming
I am going to use this post to evaluate all filming as we go through it. So far we have been filming 3 times. I will add more analysis of how the filming goes in the next few weeks.
Day 1
Our first day of filming went very well. We got all of the shots we felt we wanted from the places we needed to go. This could have been hard as we filmed in a variety of different places across the area. The whole filming session was based on Toby (Main Character) training and running. We filmed a sequence of Toby running through Ward Royal. We tried using a variety of different shots and we were happy with the final outcome. Not all shots made the final cut into the video but had enough easily to fill up the bits we wanted. We also filmed at an underpass that is local to the school. This was to try and show Toby training in a rundown area. This worked well and we got another good sequence with a number of different medium/long range shots of Toby. We basically just follow him jogging through a number of different places. The last place we shot was at the Windsor Great Park. We decided to use this location as it is quite an open area and it is also a public area. It would be realistic for someone who was in the same position as the one we are trying to portray our character as being in, to come and run and train in this public area. The hardest part of filming was the time schedule. We wanted to film at a time where it was getting quite dark. We filmed around 7.30pm as this was the time it started to get dark, it worked well as the continuity of the shots seems to be fine.
Here is an image of one of the shots we took at the Great Park, after some thought we have decided that it is a possibility to be the last shot in our music video.
Editing
Editing the gym parts proved to be harder than first expected. We also found out that some of the shots we used wouldn't be able to go into the Final Cut. We took some shots of Toby training and working on his boxing combinations. This looked good in the first place, but once we imported the footage onto the Mac, you could see that Tom was laughing througout the shot. One of the shots was okay to use but most of them we couldn't use. Another problem was the amount of mirrors within the gym. We didn't realise but in a number of shots. We all were in the shot, as we were reflecting from a mirror. I was in a couple of shots of the facilities that we used. Although a majority of the shots were fine and we put together a sequence of what we could use. The sequence looked quite good and it showed a variety that our teacher asked for. We also got Toby doing a lot of different exercises so we could fill out quite a bit of the song using this.
Day 3
Filming on the third day was quite easy. As we knew exactly what we wanted from the mistakes we made in the week before. Ricky, Toby's brother stepped in as Toby's trainer. So we re-shot all of the shots with Toby doing Boxing combinations. We also got some shots of Toby doing different exercises including press-ups and a few push-ups. We got Toby working on the boxing bag aswell which came out really well. I got a chance to redeem myself from the error I made on the previous filming day where I took a picture and actually filmed quite a lot in this filming session. The filming went really well and we were happy with what we got. To the extent that we are not going to return and film any more of the shots at the gym.
This is an image that we took of Toby working on the pads with his new trainer Ricky. This shot might appear on a poster we are using to promote another part of the video.
Editing
Whilst editing these shots. We had an idea of what we wanted to do. So we didn't have the task of sorting out what was going to go where. First of all we linked all of the boxing shots, first the part on the boxing bag and secondly we linked the combo part with the pads. Once we had cut the shots down and put them together they looked quite professional, we also used the slow down effect in the boxing shots. It gives the sequence some variety and also draws the attention to the boxing, we thought this was a good idea as Toby is working towards a boxing match at the end of our video. The shots of Toby working out in the gym look good, and after a few checks we are happy with everything that we have filmed in the gym. We made good use of the mirrors in the end. Using them in a few shots and we have also filmed Toby doing various exercises with other objects in the way and from a variety of different angles. The video is starting to come together.
Our next filming is going to be sometime this week in the music studio we have at school. We tried to book it for a lesson on Wednesday but unfortunately lessons were being taught in there all day. We were going to film last thursday but our main character couldn't make it as he had to work. We are going to hopefully film our main character Toby miming some words of the song to put in the video. We are also hoping to use the performance studio in school and film a scene where the Spotlight is on Toby and he is celebrating his victory in the Fight at the end of the video.
We have not got the facilities to film a boxing match so we have created a poster using Adobe Photoshop. This is promoting the fight, we had some problems at first, as none of us in the group have used the program before. But we have almost completed what we feel is a decent poster to feature in parts of the video. Promoting and showing the lead up to the fight. We needed an opponent for Toby so we tried some of the bigger/scarier teachers in the school. Due to some poor picture taking on both my part and some poor posing from the teachers we had to ask 4 teachers to do it. But we have come to a final decision on who is going to be in the poster.
We used this as a template for our poster, but of course our poster won't be as professional as the ones used for Mayweather fights. But we are going to use the same kind of idea of showing the two fighters, having the title, date and time, sponsors and maybe a slogan.
Day 1
Our first day of filming went very well. We got all of the shots we felt we wanted from the places we needed to go. This could have been hard as we filmed in a variety of different places across the area. The whole filming session was based on Toby (Main Character) training and running. We filmed a sequence of Toby running through Ward Royal. We tried using a variety of different shots and we were happy with the final outcome. Not all shots made the final cut into the video but had enough easily to fill up the bits we wanted. We also filmed at an underpass that is local to the school. This was to try and show Toby training in a rundown area. This worked well and we got another good sequence with a number of different medium/long range shots of Toby. We basically just follow him jogging through a number of different places. The last place we shot was at the Windsor Great Park. We decided to use this location as it is quite an open area and it is also a public area. It would be realistic for someone who was in the same position as the one we are trying to portray our character as being in, to come and run and train in this public area. The hardest part of filming was the time schedule. We wanted to film at a time where it was getting quite dark. We filmed around 7.30pm as this was the time it started to get dark, it worked well as the continuity of the shots seems to be fine.
Here is an image of one of the shots we took at the Great Park, after some thought we have decided that it is a possibility to be the last shot in our music video.
Editing
I was at home the next morning as I had a spot of illness. But when I had come into school, the other members of my group had edited the shots that we had taken the night before. The sequences looked quite good. The shots went together well, and after some discussion with our teacher. We decided that we were happy with the shot sequences, the Ward Royal sequence and the Underpass sequence. We also decided to use an effect on the Ward Royal sequence, this slowed down the shot. We used this to show Toby doing press-ups and then quickly running off. Using slow motion on the shot emphasises the speed that he runs off in. It also shows a close up of the character. The only thing that we lacked in the first shots we took was a shot variety. All of our shots were medium long shots and we didn't really mix it up with some close ups and shots through objects. We used Final Cut Express to import the footage on an Apple Macbook. After we finished with the sequences, we imported the song that we are using. We were happy with the results, as the shots seemed to be improved just by the inclusion of the song.
Day 2
Initially, we thought our second day of filming went really well. We took Toby and another character playing as Toby's trainer for the film. We took our new actor Tom to the Braywick Gym and filmed a load of shots. We took shots of Toby benching weights, completing pull ups and a series of boxing shots. We tried to incorporate what our teacher had spoken to us, and had shot through objects such as other gym machines. We took most shots in more than one angle so we could try and edit the footage and be able to link them together. This worked with a few things. We had a limited amount of time in the gym as we started filming at 9.30pm and they had to lock up at 10pm. We did however get all the shots we thought we needed, although there was an embarrasing moment for myself as I went to film and took a picture instead, this is an action I may never live down with my group members. We took a couple of shots in mirrors to try and show Toby looking in the mirror and trying to work hard whilst training to become, "The World's Greatest".
This is an image of our main character Toby having a rest after a few shots of him training. This was taken in the Braywick Gym.
I was at home the next morning as I had a spot of illness. But when I had come into school, the other members of my group had edited the shots that we had taken the night before. The sequences looked quite good. The shots went together well, and after some discussion with our teacher. We decided that we were happy with the shot sequences, the Ward Royal sequence and the Underpass sequence. We also decided to use an effect on the Ward Royal sequence, this slowed down the shot. We used this to show Toby doing press-ups and then quickly running off. Using slow motion on the shot emphasises the speed that he runs off in. It also shows a close up of the character. The only thing that we lacked in the first shots we took was a shot variety. All of our shots were medium long shots and we didn't really mix it up with some close ups and shots through objects. We used Final Cut Express to import the footage on an Apple Macbook. After we finished with the sequences, we imported the song that we are using. We were happy with the results, as the shots seemed to be improved just by the inclusion of the song.
Day 2
Initially, we thought our second day of filming went really well. We took Toby and another character playing as Toby's trainer for the film. We took our new actor Tom to the Braywick Gym and filmed a load of shots. We took shots of Toby benching weights, completing pull ups and a series of boxing shots. We tried to incorporate what our teacher had spoken to us, and had shot through objects such as other gym machines. We took most shots in more than one angle so we could try and edit the footage and be able to link them together. This worked with a few things. We had a limited amount of time in the gym as we started filming at 9.30pm and they had to lock up at 10pm. We did however get all the shots we thought we needed, although there was an embarrasing moment for myself as I went to film and took a picture instead, this is an action I may never live down with my group members. We took a couple of shots in mirrors to try and show Toby looking in the mirror and trying to work hard whilst training to become, "The World's Greatest".
This is an image of our main character Toby having a rest after a few shots of him training. This was taken in the Braywick Gym.
EditingEditing the gym parts proved to be harder than first expected. We also found out that some of the shots we used wouldn't be able to go into the Final Cut. We took some shots of Toby training and working on his boxing combinations. This looked good in the first place, but once we imported the footage onto the Mac, you could see that Tom was laughing througout the shot. One of the shots was okay to use but most of them we couldn't use. Another problem was the amount of mirrors within the gym. We didn't realise but in a number of shots. We all were in the shot, as we were reflecting from a mirror. I was in a couple of shots of the facilities that we used. Although a majority of the shots were fine and we put together a sequence of what we could use. The sequence looked quite good and it showed a variety that our teacher asked for. We also got Toby doing a lot of different exercises so we could fill out quite a bit of the song using this.
Day 3
Filming on the third day was quite easy. As we knew exactly what we wanted from the mistakes we made in the week before. Ricky, Toby's brother stepped in as Toby's trainer. So we re-shot all of the shots with Toby doing Boxing combinations. We also got some shots of Toby doing different exercises including press-ups and a few push-ups. We got Toby working on the boxing bag aswell which came out really well. I got a chance to redeem myself from the error I made on the previous filming day where I took a picture and actually filmed quite a lot in this filming session. The filming went really well and we were happy with what we got. To the extent that we are not going to return and film any more of the shots at the gym.
This is an image that we took of Toby working on the pads with his new trainer Ricky. This shot might appear on a poster we are using to promote another part of the video.
Editing
Whilst editing these shots. We had an idea of what we wanted to do. So we didn't have the task of sorting out what was going to go where. First of all we linked all of the boxing shots, first the part on the boxing bag and secondly we linked the combo part with the pads. Once we had cut the shots down and put them together they looked quite professional, we also used the slow down effect in the boxing shots. It gives the sequence some variety and also draws the attention to the boxing, we thought this was a good idea as Toby is working towards a boxing match at the end of our video. The shots of Toby working out in the gym look good, and after a few checks we are happy with everything that we have filmed in the gym. We made good use of the mirrors in the end. Using them in a few shots and we have also filmed Toby doing various exercises with other objects in the way and from a variety of different angles. The video is starting to come together.
Our next filming is going to be sometime this week in the music studio we have at school. We tried to book it for a lesson on Wednesday but unfortunately lessons were being taught in there all day. We were going to film last thursday but our main character couldn't make it as he had to work. We are going to hopefully film our main character Toby miming some words of the song to put in the video. We are also hoping to use the performance studio in school and film a scene where the Spotlight is on Toby and he is celebrating his victory in the Fight at the end of the video.
We have not got the facilities to film a boxing match so we have created a poster using Adobe Photoshop. This is promoting the fight, we had some problems at first, as none of us in the group have used the program before. But we have almost completed what we feel is a decent poster to feature in parts of the video. Promoting and showing the lead up to the fight. We needed an opponent for Toby so we tried some of the bigger/scarier teachers in the school. Due to some poor picture taking on both my part and some poor posing from the teachers we had to ask 4 teachers to do it. But we have come to a final decision on who is going to be in the poster.
We used this as a template for our poster, but of course our poster won't be as professional as the ones used for Mayweather fights. But we are going to use the same kind of idea of showing the two fighters, having the title, date and time, sponsors and maybe a slogan.
Day 4
After finally being able to use the recording studio, we had to make do with having a limited amount of time as it is quite busy. Loads of people use the studio at the school and other groups wanted to use the studio during the week. We were quite happy initially with what we had filmed, as we got a lot of different shots of Toby singing. We used our poster that we created on Adobe Photoshop and put it in the background, this has relevance to further through the music video, as it builds up a fight that we are trying to advertise towards the end of the music video. Although we got a lot of shots, as we were rushed to get them and some of them we really were not happy with. So we had to go back and refilm.
Friday 9 October 2009
Filming Update
We have carried on with our filming since our last update. We have finished all filming we need inside the gym now and have over half of the filming we need, we have asked if we can use the performance studio and the recording studio to film some more parts of the music video. Hopefully this will be able to be finished in the early days of next week as we are going to try and edit and put the video together next week. From this we will see any bits that need reshooting. However we have put some sequences of shots together and they are looking good for the final draft.
Sunday 27 September 2009
Textual Analysis: If I Could Turn - R Kelly
1998 hit, "If I Could Turn" is a song performed by Hip-Hop Artist R Kelly. It was the 5th song release from his album "R..", the song gained much success and is still known today as one of his most famous songs. The song possesses a slow tempo which is typical of Kelly's style during his early career. The song not only received praise from his homeland, it also had international success peaking in the UK Chart at no. 2, aswell as making a top 10 place in the charts in 11 countries outside of the US.
This is one of Kelly's early more inspirational songs that we spoke about when we researched him earlier in the project. The theme of the song, is one of which many people can relate too. It also advertises his profile as a good guy working in the Hip-Hop/R&B genre. Showing his deep regret for past mistakes. The slow style of the song, brings out the emotional lyrics and this is a reason the song is so popular.
The relationship between the lyrics and visuals is easy to notice from almost the start of the song. As this is an emotional ballad. It is a perfect chance for the video to portray the artist as a multi-talented soul singer/rap artist. This is how he gains his unique "good guy" character despite working in the rap industry, where all artists are stereotypically involved with drugs and guns etc. The start of the video shows a lot of quick cuts including a close up shot showing the girl looking at a picture of herself and R Kelly and then a close up of her face follows, showing her crying. The rest appears to be flashbacks of the past times that have put him in the situation he currently finds himself. It shows him going with his friends and not answering the phone from a girl he is seeing. This shows R Kelly to be youthful and make mistakes, but also be able to admit his mistakes and try to make up for them. It also shows that he is not a player, like his R&B style shows him to be in most of his videos.
There is a long pan shot of him singing, this is in sync with the music and the long cut shows him writing whilst he is singing. This could have been included into the video, as he wrote the song himself, and he would have wanted others to know of his writing skills. This shows that he is not only a singer but he is capable of songwriting aswell. From here a series of shots which have been edited are shown in the video. It shows him doing simple things that he normally does, but backward. This promotes the idea of the song title. By seemingly having the power to turn back the hands of time. There are a wide range of shots showing R Kelly alone singing, this shows his loyalty to the girl involved in the video, and also that he is thinking whilst he is alone, about trying to persuade the girl to be his again. The video uses the style of him doing things backwards throughout the duration of the song. The cutting of the song is quite slow as the song is slow and it doesn't have to keep up with a fast beat. It mainly shows him on his own thinking about past mistakes.
In conclusion, this video is a great video as it is trying to construct the artist as a "good guy". It shows his other talents rather than a R&B artist, by showing him singing a slow ballad, and advertising the fact he can also write songs. This song appeals to a much more mainstream audience, showed by his international success with it. The lyrics and tempo of the song go back to his routes of soul singing at church. But shows that he can do it as a solo artist. It portrays his inspirational and sensitive side as a person. This video is very clever and shows you some of the talents of R Kelly that you might not originally think he had.
Tuesday 22 September 2009
Lyrics and Song Original Video
I am a mountain.
I am a tall tree.
Oh I am a swift wind sweeping the country.
I am river down in the valley.
Oh I am a vision, I can see clearly.
If any one asks you who I am just stand up tall look them in the face and say..
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it, mm
Im the worlds greatest.
I am a giant.
I am a egale.
Oh I am a lion down in the jungle
I am a marching band
I am the people
I am heaving head
I am a hero
If any one asks you who I am just stand up tall look them in the face and say..
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Ohh
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Here is the original video with the lyrics to the song so you can compare when we prepare our final piece. We have taken some small ideas from the video and incorporated them with our own ideas. Here you can see R Kelly with one of his inspirational song performances that we spoke about in the presentation we constucted about him when we were researching his career.
I am a tall tree.
Oh I am a swift wind sweeping the country.
I am river down in the valley.
Oh I am a vision, I can see clearly.
If any one asks you who I am just stand up tall look them in the face and say..
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it, mm
Im the worlds greatest.
I am a giant.
I am a egale.
Oh I am a lion down in the jungle
I am a marching band
I am the people
I am heaving head
I am a hero
If any one asks you who I am just stand up tall look them in the face and say..
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Ohh
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Im that star up in the sky
Im that moutain deep up high.
Hey you made it
Im the worlds greatest
Im that little bit of hope in my backs against the rope I can feel it.
Im the worlds greatest.
Here is the original video with the lyrics to the song so you can compare when we prepare our final piece. We have taken some small ideas from the video and incorporated them with our own ideas. Here you can see R Kelly with one of his inspirational song performances that we spoke about in the presentation we constucted about him when we were researching his career.
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