A2 Research & Planning

Institutional Research As part of my research and planning I will be researching different music institutions. I will look at Sony, Diemon, and Rough Trade. These institutions will allow me to see a wide range of institutions ranging from independent to conglomerate and allow me to choose the best institution for my artist. This post helped me to establish three different types of music institutions to research for who would be best fit supporting my artist.

Audience Profiling (YouGov) I then went on YouGov in order to develop my audience profiling further. This website allows me to look at the demographics of my target audience. The first search I did was of the musician 'Birdy' because after research into her music and realising that it was the same genre and style of our artist I gathered that our target audience would be similar to that of 'Birdy'. Demographics Gender - Female This shows us that are primary target audience are female and we therefore must use the codes and conventions to attract a female audience. However I would also like to try to attract a male audience as well but understand that my main target audience are females. Age - 18-24 The age of Birdy's fans are what we expected to be targeting. Young adults; this shows us that our music video and artist advertising should be modern and stylistic therefore although some codes and conventions should be matched for gender a modern and youthfu...

Audience Profiling Survey Monkey -  We decided to convey a survey on survey monkey to gage a better understanding of our audience and their demographics. We also asked questions in order to gain an understanding of what our audience would want and expect from our music video so we can create a music video which attracts our target audience in order to generate hype and consequently sales around our single. Evaluating Survey Monkey Survey Q1- What is your gender? The responses from this display how the audience is neither male or female dominated. Although it is slightly male dominated the audience is broad meaning we don't have to be narrow when targeting our audience and have to target men and women.  Q2- What age group do you fit in? 84% of my survey place themselves in the 16-18 year old wage group. It is clear to see the audience in terms of age and further research will tell me which codes and conventions I must foll...

Final Album Cover Below is the final album cover for my artist (imagination station). I choose this because I loved the use of natural imagery and noticed that it was a common convention of other alternative albums. The simplicity of the album cover also allows the audience to understand the visual style of the artist. It is not complicated, it is simple and natural. The allure of the beautiful sky also takes emphasis away from the artists, the music is the selling point of the album and the natural and simple imagery will successfully draw the target audience in. What has this post taught me? From this process I learned that when creating the actual album cover for my digipak that it may take me a few attempts to master what I am looking far. I have also developed Photoshop techniques through this process.

Album Cover Photography After deciding that I wanted to focus on the Artists African-American heritage I started to do research into African art and photography. After some intensive research I came across the perfect work by an artist by the name of John Kenny. He was most notable for photography of people from different African tribes. The lighting he used made for an eye catching background for my album cover. I looked at many different photographs of multiple people and whilst they were all interesting there was one which really caught my eyes. The passion seen in the women's eyes was the passion which Imagine Station demonstrated in her music. It seems natural and beautiful. A demonstration of everything good with the music, full of passion and sincerity. Also the women's eyes help to draw the audience in because they feel as though they are directly addressed. Chosen Image: What has this post taught me? From this post I learned that a suc...

Creating An Album Cover As a practise task our teacher set us a task of creating an album cover just purely based on the name of the artist/band. Below is the list of artist names which we could choose from: Loveless Good Samaritan(s) Daisycutter Dirty Ballerina M1LK Imagination Station Cryptych Leon Smith Joleen Stone My choice I eventually choose Imagination Station to pursue. My first decision was to decide on what genre I thought this artist would fit into to.  Based on the name I concluded that the genre was Alternative Jazz/Funk. In order to even have an idea of an album cover I looked at common conventions of the genre's visual style. Upon research I looked at album covers which could help me base my visual style on. I noticed when looking at 'alternative' album covers I noticed a few common conventions. Their is a lot of natural imagery and they are often strange and out of the ordinary as demonstrated by ...

Masking Experimentation Although I felt as though my first attempt at making was successful wanted to really develop it so it became second nature. Also I knew that the masking tool was able to do so much more than just change hair colour, so I put a lot of time into practising and experimenting with the tool in the hope of learning new techniques to use in the future. Before After Before After From this experimentation not only helped me to perfect the technique but also let me push the techniques to the boundaries and see the different possibilities that the technique allowed me to test.  

MASKING PRACTISE 1. Firstly I duplicated my original image so that I could mask on this layer. Also it means my initial image is never edited so if I want to start again I can simply just delete the new layer which I had made to mask over. 2. Then make a mask on the layer you have just created. This mask is what you will be cutting out so that you can make the changed that you want to make. 3.  In this situation I wanted to change the colour of the hair so I painted over all of the parts I did not want to change the colour of in using the black paint brush. This method is particularly good because you can always go back and fix any mistakes by painting back over your erasing using the white paint brush. 4. Once you are happy with your cut out you can then begin to alter the colour because it will only alter the segment which you have masked. I tried to get as close as I could to the perfect cut out however in my actual albu...

Making The Ordinary Extraordinary Wiley - 'Chasing The Art' This pop video demonstrates how the ordinary can be presented as extraordinary. This is done through: camera shot, angle and movement lighting mise-en-scene editing performance Camera shots, angles and movement The wide camera lens used when the artist is riding his bike allows for an extraordinary view of the world. The shot in itself was already interesting but the camera lens adds for another interesting dimension. Another interesting technique used is close ups with a shallow focus which really gives the audience a close look at the artists face, perhaps seeing imperfections other artists would hide demonstrating his fans love for the 'art' being the music as apposed to him as a person which is what many artists sell themselves on.  The short clips of the graffiti at 0:10 have interesting camera movement. The camera is never static and makes for an interesting dimensio...

Deconstructing The Music This song features one long shot for the duration of the music video which is a concept which Childish Gambino has used before and after. He has established his own style and it is recognisable with the artist. Andrew Goodwin's music video theory can be applicable to this video. The relationship between the song and the visuals are clear. His flow throughout the song and also the beat remains the same throughout. His lack of progression is demonstrated through the fact the shot does not change throughout and also his facial expression remains the same throughout. The wheel rotating in a circle several times also demonstrates repetition. However the lack of editing contradicts the tempo of the song. This unconventional style goes against Goodwin's theory. Perhaps the producers did this to stand out and be different to the conventional hip-hop music video. This song is quite the opposite with the constant editing matching the fast tempo of the b...

Music Video Style Technical Codes: Cinematography Editing Mise-En-Scene Cinematography The cinematography has a really significant impact within a music video. Often music videos have a predominance of close ups. We must visualise in a different way and make the ordinary appear extraordinary, in TV dramas we usually use medium shots. The reasons behind this is because within a TV drama we aim to construct meaning whereas a pop video is to show off different dimensions. Music videos allow for more artistic licence. Different angles are used to create a more dynamic performance, the audience are therefore more engaged.  John Stuart of Oil factory states that he sees music videos as having the same aesthetics of a TV advert. There should be loads of close ups and lighting used most prominently on the artists face. Editing The most common form of editing associated is fast cut montages. Videos which are slow paced and have gentle transitions are often used to establis...