4. As my chosen genre was HipHop and R&B , I focussed on inspirational
digipacks of artists such as Drake, J Cole and Paigey Cakey whom share
similar target audience then used my favourite aspects of each album cover
and inserted these ideas into my own. I made sure these conventions were
relative to the HipHop and R&B genre such as making it bright and eye
catching with a bold title as well as including the artist’s name and image if
they are new. I was particularly inspired by Paigey Cakey’s album cover as I
felt she, as an upcoming artist, used bright and eye catching colours which
appealed to both genders. However this could also be said for J Cole’s
album cover. I found inspiration for my title from J Cole’s mixtape “The
Come Up” as I believe this represented my artist very well as an upcoming
artist. I chose to place my main image in the centre as my artist needs to be
the focus of her album including a direct gaze to engage her audience. This
essentially creates audience recognitions and is very common convention
used in digipacks. However I subverted fro applying the Mulvey’s theory of
‘The Male Gaze’ and chose not to sexualize the look of my artist as she is
young and does not represent sexual appeal to her fans, conforming to
appropriation of her specific target audience.
5. In terms of typography I was inspired by Drake’s mixtape as I
found it quite different from the usual bold and plain font. In order
to make my own ‘different’, I used a font named ‘bromello’ for a
youthful and personal look. I also then created a 3D and colourful
look, inspired by Paigey Cakey’s album cover (previous slide). I did
this to create a ‘stand out’ look for my artist, being different yet
conforming to conventions of colour. For my artist’s logo I was
inspired by Drake’s ‘So Far Gone’ album cover, which included a
silhouette of a young boy reaching his dreams which is what I
wanted to portray for my artist’s brand recognition. However, the
concept of power which is displayed through J Cole’s ‘Born Sinner’
logo was also appealing. Therefore, I incorporated both ideas into
my very own, which resulted in being of a young girl with a crown
upon her head to symbolise my artist and the power she holds as a
strong and ambitious female.
Overall, I intended my digipack to look quite simplistic as I did not
want to confuse my audience by excessive text as this may create
disinterest, so I kept the focus on my artist and
her brand.
6. My artist’s costume was designed by myself and portrayed youthful high-street fashion,
and created a ‘fierce’ yet very ‘in’ look. The high neck sleeveless was top was purchased
from New Look at under £10, the earrings were £2 from a local Afro-Caribbean hair shop
alongside the £2 eyelashes. Make-up and hair were designed to a minimum as I did not
want my artist to look over materialised. The natural look was especially portrayed
through the braided hairstyle embracing youthful Afro-Caribbean looks that are now
iconic due to Kim K; someone again whose ‘followers’ are of the same age as my target
audience. I subverted to over sexualizing my artist which is a common convention
especially in the HipHop industry as I wanted digipack especially to be universal and
appropriate for young ages as it would be distributed publicly.
In terms of the inside of my digipack I chose a low angled mid-shot of my artist which
was an idea I came up with myself for originality, consisting of the same tone of blue as
used for my front section of my digipack. I was inspired by Frank Ocean’s ‘Channel
Orange’ album in which he included 2 paragraphs dedicated to his audience. I was really
fond of this idea and chose to include a smaller yet meaningful message from my artist
to her audience. This would consequently create pleasures for the audience as they will
feel appreciated.
7. In terms of the inside of my digipack I chose a low angled mid-shot of my artist which
was an idea I came up with myself for originality, consisting of the same tone of blue as
used for my front section of my digipack. The use of a low angle created a look as if to
say my artist was prompting her fans to keep their ‘chin up’ and be ambitious which is
exactly what I wanted her to portray, however this also created a powerful look for my
artist. I was inspired by Ed Sheeran’s ‘+’ album which he included a sad but meaningful
message dedicated to his manager who sadly passed. I was really fond of this idea and
chose to include a smaller yet meaningful message from my artist to her audience. This
would consequently create pleasures for the audience as they will feel appreciated. I then
included my artist’s brand recognition logo as a reminder of her brand for her fans.
8. Finally for the CD and back of my digipack I was inspired by Drake’s ‘Take Care’ album
especially when planning my production. I liked the simplicity and the consistency of
neutral and plain colours he uses. I then decided to use my consistent shade of blue yet
incorporate black into my CD design as it was simple, meaning the white font would
contrast and stand out. This is a common convention t keep the CD basic as artists such
as Drake, Frank Ocean and even Beyoncé have done.
I also included details of the producers and studios as well as copyright information as
this is done in the majority of digipacks whether it be on the disk or back of album. I kept
the back simple, yet included the album title as this is my artist’s first album; also
including her brand recognition logo.
10. I found inspiration for my music advert from both Rihanna’s ‘ANTI’
and ‘Unapologetic’ adverts, incorporating different aspects into my
own advert. I particularly liked the positioning of Rihanna, being
central and creating focus on her with her name and album title in
bold and a larger font around her; creating focus on these details I
also liked her posture as it created power within her look and this is
what I decided on doing with my artist. I conformed to the
conventions of placing my image in the centre, however my font was
not as bold and harsh as I wanted to keep it youthful for my target
audience of 14 years olds and upwards. I also kept both font and
colour scheme consistent to create recognition for the audience as
they are able to recognise the colours used in my digipack as well. In
terms of font it made sense to add a different font to distinguish the
individual texts in terms of importance and relativeness.
However, on Rihanna’s ‘Unapologetic’ advert I liked the idea of
including a strip of information at the bottom of my advert such as
release date, also including the use of convergence to promote my
artist through social networks such as twitter.
11. I also incorporated my own ideas as my artist is new to the industry with her album ‘The
Come Up’. I chose to promote my artist on 5 social networks to widen her target market,
also creating choice for the audience as well as easier accessibility, in which would
consequently create pleasure for them. I then included the option to pre order using 2
very common music distributors; this meaning the audience has more option in
purchasing the product, increasing the chances of sales for my upcoming artist.
As a music advert, I created it as though made for a magazine; therefore I included
reviews on my artist to promote her further increasing her target market audience. I
found this particularly pleasuring for the audience as new audience members may find
reviews reassuring and prompt them to listen and give my artist a chance. I made up
these reviews as it would have been impossible to retrieve real ones, yet I made them
sound as realistic as possible.
Another feature I found helpful in creating audience recognition for my artist was to
include a small image of the album to promote the product and to allow the audience to
recognise the product and understand the use of the music advert. This is done in
Rihanna’s ‘Unapologetic’ album but used to reassure customers it has already been
released and distributed. I incorporated this idea as I found t helpful especially as my
artist is upcoming and will need this promotion.
12. In terms of my artist’s persona in this music advert, I used the same costume design as
my digipack as I felt this would create further audience recognition but conforming to
the dress code conventions of the HipHop genre however also subverting from Mulvey’s
theory of ‘The Male Gaze’, as I chose not to sexualize the look of my artist.
I also chose my text to surround my artist conforming to typical magazine conventions,
yet subverting from the ways in which exemplar artists have chosen to position their text.
It is partly seen in Rihanna’s ‘ANTI’ advert as her name is positioned on 1 side of her
head and ‘World Tour’ on the other which inspired my own idea of surround reviews
around my artist.
My advert appeals to both young males and females, as I’ve used unisex colours and
have not focussed my artist on femininity. My artist wears make-up and costume features
such as hoop earrings to signify her “urban” look. This urban look then allows her to
appeal to boys as they will view her as ‘cool’ and girls as she portrays the idea that you
don’t have to be viewed from the ‘Male Gaze’ to appeal to society.
14. For the production of my group’s music video, we aimed to conform to the majority of
conventions of the HipHop and R&B genre. After watching music videos such as
Rihanna’s ‘Work’, which was a performance style video in comparison to Drake’s ‘Hold
On We’re going home’, which was then a narrative style video. We decided on creating a
music video, incorporating both ideas to portray emotion and story through
performance based clips. We also wanted to portray the artist as an icon, especially her
personality, confidence and her style. However we’ve chosen to keep costumes as
highstreet fashion looks to encourage younger fans to dress like our artist yet within
their budget.
In terms of mise-en-scene, we aimed to use as many free props as possible as our joint
budget only covered snacks for our group. We used props such as Janna’s laptop and
bedroom lights as well as dogs we were given permission to walk in the park. Other
aspects of mise-en-scene such as costume were all free aswell, as we decided on outfit
designs based on what we owned already which was easy to work with as we all shopped
according tot the same budget as our target audience.
15. We conformed to the convention of making the artist the centre focus, as seen in various
music artists’ videos such as Beyoncé, Rihanna and Drake. This is effective as it engages
the audience who’ve watched the video to see the artist, but we’ve also decided to
include a variety of shots and scenes to keep up this engagement.
In terms of editing, we took inspiration originally from music videos such as ‘Anaconda’
by Nicki Minaj and ‘Or Nah Remix’ by singer Kehlani and TiaNoMore conforming to
typical convention of the genre in terms of shot lengths and transitions. We incorporated
the fast transitions and 2-3 second shots as we wanted our music video to be fast paced
to an extent as it originally is a slow song. From ‘Anaconda’ we took the idea of changing
scenes through fast paced shots to exaggerate our variety of shots and scenes and
conform to this convention; which is also seen is Beyoncé's 7/11 hectic music video. This
is effective as it consistently engages the audience and is very eye catching.
16. We incorporated camera shot ideas we found
conformed to the genre well such as close ups of the
lips and a diverse range of mid-shots of the artist in
different scenes such as in a studio and in the bedroom
shot. We also came up with our own ideas such as shots
in different parks to make it more ‘realistic’ as unlike
Miley Cyrus we had no props such as wrecking balls and
only had our natural surroundings to improvise with.
Through research I learnt the meaning behind specific
shots and the impact they have on the music video for
example, close up and extreme close up shots are used
mainly for more emotional and intimate scenes whereas
mid-shots are best in exaggerating direct address
towards the audience and long shots are better for
exaggerating or showing the artist’s body language. We
hardly used establishing shots of our surroundings as
the main focus was our artist and wanted to continue to
engage our audience by focussing on her only.
