Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4 on Prezi

Finished Main product

Choosing the song

The choice of song after deciding on the artist we were going to use was also difficult, There were many songs that we thought about such as 'trust issues' and 'wicked games'. Both of these songs are similar to the one we chose which ended up being 'Rolling stone'.
This song is about the artist talking about a girl that he cares about and needs. He appearss to be slightly depressed and the lyrics include him talking about 'weed' and 'serotonin' which fits in with the conventional drug issues we see in the R&B genre. We wanted to choose a song that we would be able to create a video to and target a certain demographic and by choosing this song we believe that wee are able to target the teenage demographic as it has certain elements of social identification in that some people may be able to relate themselves to.

If you look and listen to the lyrics of the song you can use imagery to create what you think the video will look like. The things to expect in our music video would be a main character playing the artist, a female, drugs and a frequent use of dark images to convey the depressing and dark feel of the song. Our main character will be dressed in a way that is symbolic of The Weeknds style.
This choice of artist and song was slightly easier to do as the songs and images of The Weeknd are more realsitic than the other R&B videos we analysed. With this song we would be able to local locations such as peoples houses and alleys giving it a lifelike look and making it relatable.

Evaluation Question 3

Media A2 on Prezi

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?

Throughout the whole project we have tried to link and relate the ancillary products to our main product, the music video. Starting out with our ancillary products we had to make a digipak and an advert poster that would be featured within a magazine. The way in which we designed our digipak was similar to the previous album covers of The Weeknd, adopting the style of the use of three colours for the colour scheme; however, we decided to put our own twist on it and challenge the usual conventions of The Weeknds use of dark colours and opt for a brighter more vibrant image. Although we did this it was still visible that the digipak we recreated was for the artist The Weeknd as the style of image mimicked this. Some of the images within the digipak have a black and white effect added to them which is more like the typical conventions of The Weend.

The advert poster within the magazine featured the same images used in  the digipak and also the album cover. The poster compliments the digipak as its in keeping with the idiosyncratic style adopted from The Weeknd. We also decided to include twitter and facebook pages of the artist that would enable people to follow them, promoting the ever growing social interaction websites which have become because of the development of web 2.0. This whole project was targeted mainly at the younger generation as they are more likely to appreciate the genre wee have chosen, this also inspired us to add the facebook and twitter pages as this generation are more technologically able.

The main man that features in our music video, Roger, is styled the same throughout and remains in the same clothes for the photos used for our ancillary products. This anchors our video to our ancillary products as we have kept the same theme and style throughout our project. The whole idiosyncratic style of The Weeknd is simple, black and white images with the occasional effect. The songs of The Weeknd often have heavy drug and alcohol abuse within them which is something we have included within our project. The song 'Rolling Stone' is a dark and depressing song which we have tried to reflect in our video as well as our ancillary products. The video itself is mainly shot in black and white using the 'bleach bypass' effect which makes the video look very realistic and similar to the style of the artist. There were many taboo topics included in the song such as drug and alcohol abuse, both of the ancilary products show this, with the girl smoking and the bottle of pills. In the video that main character lights a cigarette in keeping with the taboo topics.

Overall i believe that the combination of all three products produced were very effective. Although we slightly challenged the conventions by adapting the colours we managed to recreate something that was in keeping with the style of The Weeknd. With the song lyrics being fairly emotive i believe our music video is able to evoke feeling from an audience and maybe allow the audience to sympathise with the main artist.

Evaluation Question 1

Media A2 Evaluation on Prezi

The poster

This is the poster that we designed to be within a magazine, it is designed to promote and enhance the artists name by featuring their album cover and other photos of the artist. When looking at other examples we found that the posters often featured the artist and the album/single they had released. On the poster our group made we included the twitter and facebook page of The Weeknd which not only made it more contamporary but also suits the age group at which this genre and artist aims his music at. There is also a smartphone bar code that is available to scan allowing an app ono your phone. The poster also promotes the Brit Awards which is very popular with a variety of ages. The layout of the poster is simple and organised something that the original album covers of the artist evoke.

Digipak

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Images from the photo shoot

The images above are the images we took whilst doing our project, some are used within the digipak and the poster but some of the images are spare. We styled our main chacaracter in a similar style of clothing worn by The Weeknd to represent the artist. In particular the middle image juxtaposes the typical style of  The Weeknd as most images are balck and white, the red lips are an 'iconic' symbol of lust or temptation which fits in with the typical images associated with the artist The Weeknd. The use of cigarette smoke within the photos is important as we found this to be a recurring factor seen within the images of this artist.

The two images below have been recreated by our group. The image of the girls lips; however, to slightly change it up we didnt edit the photo we left the lips red. The profile shot of the artist was also recreated.

The Story Board

This is a simple outline of how we wish to structure our video.These shots and scenes we want to create fit with the style we are trying to apply to the video. Our group would often meet within the week to talk about new ideas we had to consider including within the video, this made the video easier to make as when it came to shooting it there was a clear vision of the video in our heads along with the style we were trying to recreate.

Choosing the Artist

Eugene, Callum and i had a small production meeting when thinking about what artist to decide upon we had already identified the most popular genre of music within our school sixth form and this was R&B. There were any artists we discussed such as Chris Brown, Usher, R Kelly, Ne-yo, Drake ect but we wanted to do something slightly different and look for an artist that maybe wasn't as well known as the iconic and well known R&B artists at this moment in time.
 By choosing The Weeknd we recognised this may be more challenging as he is a new and upcoming artist there was not much to anchor our ideas for the video to. This is slightly different to the typical R&B genre you would associate with someone such as Usher, we decided to break away from this and chose The Weeknd as its something contemporary and slightly more exciting, also the older R&B videos can sometimes be seen as slightly 'cheesy' something we don't want to create within our video.
The Weeknd often sings about different emotions which is very apparent in his songs. Slightly more risque and taboo topics are often featured within his lyrics such as drug and alcohol abuse and the problems they cause within day to day life and relationships.

The Weeknd Profile

The weeknd

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Official page- http://the-weeknd.com/

Twitter-https://twitter.com/#!/theweekndxo

The Weeknd Music Video- The Knowing

The Weeknd have actually only made one music video which you can see above so when choosing this artist we understood that it would be slightly more difficult to make a music video as there is not much from this artist to compare it too, thats why we looked at similar artists videos to compare ideas. The video seen above does not reflect the style in which we have made our video as this video is dominated by effects and we decided against using effects making the video more relatable also our video echos the lyrics and meaning behind the song something that is effective with the target audience. Instead we researched the artist, and pictures of the artist, giving us ideas of how to produce a music video that people wold be able to relate the actual artist to.

Similar Videos

This video is similar to The Weeknds style we would like to mimic within our A2 music video. The dark images and mise en scene is what we hope to create when shooting our video. The possible locations we have chosen reflect the style of the style of The Weeknd, the woods, graveyard settings and alley ways all create a good mis en scene for our video. Similar videos such as the one below also use the inside of a house within the video which may allow the audience to relate to the artist. Taboo topics such as drugs are also a heavy influence within these styles of video.
  I believe this style of R&B music videos are maybe more relatable opposed to the stereotypical ones with money being showered over women dancing at parties within huge masions at which a sports car is parked in the drive way.

Pictures of possible locations

A2

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R.Kelly duet with Usher- Same girl

Twitter- https://twitter.com/#!/KellZodiac

The mise en scene of this video is domewhat different to the revious videos i have looked at. The majority of the video features on the inside of houses, cars and even a private jet. The beginning of the video is set in both of the artists houses (Usher and R.Kelly), the houses are different yet both evoke a feeling of wealth, The dark mahogony wood office with rich colours and the apartment with a wall of windows and a simplistic white decor. Further on in the video there are scenes within a leather seated sports car aswell the cream interior of a private jet. Once the jet has landed you get a glimpse of the sparkling white exterior. The main women within the story line of the video is very pretty with a slender figure which she shows off by wearing a revealing black dress. She is edited in the video between and whilst the artists sing about her. Within this video there is also a hegemonic shot of two partys at which young and attractive women are dancing in stereotypical clothing whilst money is thrown in he air. This all symbolises wealth and may present the idea that money is able to buy everything from nice cars and jets to attractive women. The main women in the video proceed to further show off their bodies in underwear, in what seems to be an intimate scene between the artist. The Mise en Scene of the restaurant at the end of the video is elegantly decorated with plants and expensive looking tables and chairs, the restaurant has a wealthy and exclusive feeling. The clothing throughout the video is mainly dresses and suits with wrist watches, sunglasses and even cigars for props.

The camera shots vary within the video and range from close-ups to wide shots but we do see alot of the medium close-up shots. The first shot of the video is quite significant as its a wide shot of a cities skyline at night. There are also a sequence of extreme close-ups on the womans mouth and eyes followed by a close up of the face. The close-ups all the way through could represent beauty which is a frequent factor within most R&B videos. Some of the shots, particularly those of the main women, are full length shots i would think the main reason for thhese shots being full length are to show the womens figure off.

The editing of this video has something either of the other two do not have. During the video they have a split screen which shows both R.Kelly and Usher speaking on the phone to one another this then proceeds to split further, showing the two men and a woman, these shots are close-ups. There are also a series of wipes which are easily seen as its like a black screen coming from the top and bottom of the sceen.

With this video being about relationships there is a large amount of social identification, the audience may be able to realate to the position the artists are in. However, it can be argued that the images throughout, such as the expensive looking cars, gleaming jets, chunky wrist watches, parties at which it rains money and penthouse apartments are not something the public would be able to associate themselves with. But as i have mentioned modern day R&B videos have a heavy wealth influence within and present the idea that having money women and cars sorts out all problems in life.