Evaluation Planning

Evaluation 1

Evaluation 3-Script

Evaluation 4 

Album Name and Track List

For my digipak I have decided to choose the title ‘Out Here’ as I felt that is captures the artists’ songs well and is all about life experiences he has faced/dealt with.Therefore the name of the digipak represents the artists songs as a whole.

For my track list, I created a total of 10 songs, as I found that most digipaks usually have between this and 12 songs. My track list is as follows:

1.I Need A Dollar

2. Struttin Her Stuff

3.Virtue

4.Love Goes On

5. Femme Fatale

6.Oh Honey

7.Riot in My Heart

8.Trouble

9.Damned If I Do

10.Baby Blues

I chose these titles for the tracks as they all share the aspect of being an experience that my artist Eden has dealt with and are personal songs,which gives the audience an insight into his life and conveys the conflicted feelings of the artist.

In addition to this the themes of love,hardships,religion  are foreshadowed within my songs as this was the typical narratives that early soul sang about.

Digipack and Magazine Advert Font

For my ancillary tasks,I am using the application Paint.Net to create my digipak and magazine advert.



I decided to look at fonts on the website Dafont.com as I wanted something more simplistic and that had a sophisticated look to it.



Some fonts that I particularly liked were:

Sexy Queen-I liked that this had the letters joint together and had a hand written look to it giving it a more personal look.

Rakoon- For this font,I thought the curvy font gave a retro soul feel and would be ideal if i was to have a more abstract and artistic cover which would resemble 70's Soul digipaks .

Hammer Keys-The typewriter effect gave a minimalist and aged feel and fit in with the old school look.Also the ease of reading this font was also a feature I considered.

Conclusion:
I have decided to choose the 'Sexy Queen' font as I personally preferred the look it gave to my promotional material and fit in well with the look we were going for in our music video as well as combining a contemporary and classic aesthetic of the soul genre.

Magazine Advert Analysis

I looked and analysed another digipak today from the artist Plan B advertising his album "The Defamation of Strickland Banks"

Below are the notes I made:

Magazine Advert Analysis

I need to create a magazine advert to support both my digipak and final music video, therefore it is important to look at real-life examples from artists within my genre to gain a clear understanding of the conventions used in advertising soul genre artists and challenge or conform to these when creating my ancillary task.

I first looked at Adele's '21' album magazine advert and familiarised myself with particular details added such as availability,singer's other accomplishments and the use of synergy.

Having done this I have established a better understanding of elements that a magazine advert would typically have and also the importance of synergy between my products.

Theories in Our Music Video

It was important for me to consider theories in my music video and decide whether we wanted to challenge or conform to them in our final product.

We decided to confirm to Goodwin’s theory which consists of visuals and lyrics supporting one another. We did this as we felt that we could not make the shots too ambiguous as the lyric were  specific and the narrative was clear cut, and meant that we had less freedom when deciding on the narrative of our music video. Also we felt that we could play on particular lyrics in our shots and use lip-syncing to improve the viewing experience for the audience such as when our protagonist gets fired as we hear the lyrics:

"I had a job but the boss man let me go

He said
I'm sorry but I won't be needing your help no more
I said
Please mister boss man I need this job more than you know"

However we challenged Laura Mulvey’s idea f the male gaze as we wanted to give a realistic representation of women therefore we did have our protagonists costume consisting of tight dresses, makeup and heels as we did not want her to be sexualised and in some ways make this relatable to my target audience.

Richard Dyer’s star quality theory does also not apply to our product as  we do not create an image of our artist to the public in order for them to appeal to them and generate revenue. In fact within my final music video and the promotional material such as the digipak and magazine advert, I have made the decision not have the artist present within my products as I felt that the narrative should be entirely focused on the narrative and by having the artist present this can take away from this.

Representation of Groups in our Music Video

In our music video,it was important to consider representations of  particular social groups and decide whether we would challenge the stereotypes or conform to them in our product.

We have decided to challenge gender portrayals in our music video as our protagonist is a female and is the main focus as we chose not to have the male singer present in the shots.By doing so we allow her to lead the narrative in our music video and allow her to be an active participant rather than passive. I have also considered Laura Mulvey's concept of the Male Gaze in my music video and have decided to challenge this through the choice of our mis-en-scene as her clothes are modest and not skin-tight or accentuating her body,which allows our character to not succumb to an over-sexualised portrayal of herself,overall challenging the soul genre as women usually wear tight dresses to draw attention.

We have also considered ethnicity in our music video as our main character is a person of colour and we have in some ways conformed to stereotypical from a less wealthy background and not being financially stable,yet we do not convey her as a criminal or being a threat to society.

Lastly, we have considered ageism within our music video and have challenged the conventional image of young adults as they are deemed as irresponsible and reckless as well as a threat to society but we see our protagonist who is concerned with paying her bills and finances and we introduce the idea of a bildungsroman as she is forced to grow up which is a realistic portrayal for our targeted demographic.

How are artists from your genre promoted?

Artists within my genre are typically promoted through many ways such as magazine covers,billboards,and interviews.

Overall I felt that the 'style'in which my artists were promoted was more magazine  and interview based and although there were some like 'Adele' and 'Amy Winehouse' who had billboards as a way to promote themselves and I think this was due to the fact that they are popular with the mainstream audience was an influencing fact as the smaller artists did not advertise in such a way.
Also the artists use the idea of star quality in order to appeal to their audience and adopt a unique image.

Here are some examples I found.. 

Magazine Covers:

Billboards:

Interviews:

Digipak Inspiration

For my digipak  gained inspiration from real media products from artist within my genre such as the ones below..

Some conventions I noticed were:

• Dark/Light Colour Pallete
• Monochrome Effect on images
• Bold fonts making focus on artist
• Simple/Minimalist fonts 
• Low key lighting 
• Simple locations like streets 
• Sophisticated look
• Simple designs and not too intricate
• Close-up shots of the artist

My Audience

After having completed all my audience research I have decided to make my demographic for my music video adults ranging from 17-25 years old devised of both male and females, as our song has a catchy beat and the concept of struggles surrounding finances would predominantly appeal to this age range as they will be entering adulthood and likely in university creating a familiarity and relatability to our protagonist. 

As my artist is British and the song will be released in Britain,a Caucasian audience is quite likely to make up a large percentage of the audience,however as the Soul genre has it's roots from Afro-American origin,this will also have a large influence on the target audience that my music video will appeal and interest.
The individuals that we aim to target will have an interest in music outside of work or studies and musical taste will consist of Amy Winehouse,Adele,Marvin Gaye,Lionel Richie and Leon Bridges and moving away from the soul genre they would also like the Beatles,Pharell Williams and Jorja Smith.My target is to reach people who like to listen to less mainstream genres like pop and RnB and have a diverse taste in music.

Final Music Video

Showcase Feedback Alterations.

As a result of one of feedback comments saying that they thought we should cut the duration of our protagonist putting away the sticks in B&Q  as it was too long and felt repetitive. 
Having gained this feedback we decided to alter and change this shot duration as it would improve our final product.

Having had this feedback proved beneficial for us as we were able to make any last minute touches to our final product and get fix anything that we may not have realised whilst editing

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is a way in which one media text is referred to in another.
Intertextuality is usually used in music videos to create a familiarity with the video to the audience making the new product equally as recognisable and familiar
.
Intertextuality is also a way of showing admiration toward an artist or their work.

An example of intertexuality can be seen in Robbie Williams music video 'You Know Me' as the visuals show the singer's mis-en-scene include him dressed as a rabbit which links to 'Alice in Wonderland'.By doing so the artist creates a link between the two media products which the audience will become familiar with.

Final Feedback For Music Video:Showcase

As we have finished editing our music video,we wanted to have a class showcase and utilized this as an opportunity to gain suggestions for improvement and queries they may have had surrounding our music video.In addition to this we were able to truly understand whether features like the narrative appealed to them and was something that was obvious to understand from the shots.

Before viewing the video we prepped a few questions for our audience to think about whilst watching our final product which were..

• What did you understand from the narrative?
• Do you think the music video fits the soul genre?
• What age group would you say the product appeals to?
• Are there any changes you would make to the video?

Below are the responses we received ..

To summarise the main points of criticism were..

• The shots of Jana putting the sticks away in B&Q were too long 
• Was Jana lips-syncing in the darker shots in B&Q?

By having a focus group we collected essential feedback which will aid in benefiting our final product.We will use this to move forward and add further improvements to our final music video.