2. For our music video, digipack and magazine advert, we are
working on an R’n’B genre as we selected the song ‘Love and
War’ by Rita Ora, which fits into that genre. Many songs in
R’n’B and Pop are about love and relationships, and this song
fit into these topics. We listened to the song carefully and
came up with brainstormed ideas we could do to illustrate the
song lyrics and the artists emotions in the video: fitting to the
R’n’B conventions.
Before starting our three products, we researched and looked
at different R’n’B artists and their products such as Rita Ora,
Rihanna and Beyonce to get inspiration and understanding of
what we needed to include in our work. When we filmed our
music video, we linked the digipack and magazine advert
together so the audience would be able to easily identify that
the three products are connected.

3. For our music video, we were dealing with a sad R’n’B song by a female
artist. In R’n’B, female artists are usually depicted voyeuristically to attract
male attention and emphasis their sexuality with little clothing and heavy
make-up and styled hair to create focus on their facial features (which is a
star persona for many artists such as Beyonce to make her look powerful,
eye-catching and alluring). Male artists also create a sexual approach to
music videos with topless bodies and baggy jeans to attract a female
audience, with jewellery to show off their wealth. However, in many sad R’n’B
songs, the female artists wear appropriate clothing from casual outfits to
elegant dresses to create grace and beauty. In our music video, we had
both artists wear dark casual clothing used in many sad R’n’B break up songs
to connote the depressed feelings felt by the artist’s.
Our main artist, Leksi, also had natural make-up and loose hair to show off her
natural beauty, and make her look innocent. She wears fashionable and
casual clothing to suit the current fashion trends
that will inspire the audience’s style. Our male
co-star Jake also wears trendy clothing to inspire
a male audience.

4. For solo female artists such as Lady gaga, Rihanna and Rita Ora,
they are the main focus in the products they produce. They take up
most of the camera time in music videos and have their own star
persona that the audience can relate to, so the artists are easily
recognisable and memorable. Solo female artists are mainly in the
Pop and R’n’B genres, and the song we choose was sung by a solo
female artist in the R’n’B genre, so we focused mainly on one artist in
our music video. In many R’n’B music videos, the main artists use
direct address towards the camera to engage the audience and
make them feel involved. A lot of close-ups are used on the artists
face so the audience focuses on them the most. We used a lot of
close-ups and direct address in our music video to suit the R’n’B
genre, as well as to show detail of emotions on the artists face to
show their sadness of the fighting in their relationship. We also used
this on the photos of our artist in the magazine advert and Digipack
to attract the audience to our artists image so that it will be
memorable of what Leksi looks like.

5. In many R’n’B and Pop music videos, there are a variety of colours used to
make the video’s eye-catching and entertaining: many R’n’B videos with a
female solo artist use bright colours to make the artist look powerful and
engaging to attract the audience. In our music video, Digipack and magazine
advert, we used bright colours to suit this convention, and portray our artist Leksi
as a strong and independent woman. In our music video on the song ‘Love
and War,’ the lyrics are portraying the feelings the artist has about her
relationship, so we used bright colours to make Leksi appear that she is standing
her ground as she is speaking up about the relationship to her partner (our
other male artist Jake in the video).
We edited the photo’s we took for the
digipack cover and magazine advert to
brighter colours we used in the music
video to link the 3 products together and
make all 3 eye-catching. The use of bright
colours are vibrant and youthful to attract our
target audience of teens and young adults.

6. However, saying this, we also used black and white colour overlays in our
video to add a soft tone to the song, and evoke the sadness Leksi is feeling
that there is fighting in her relationship. We used these effects on photos in
the digipack as well to link the video and digipack together, as well as
reflect and show the audience that there are sad songs on the album. The
sepia tone also associates with the past because of it’s dark and earthy
colours that were used alot in the Victorian times. Using the sepia tone on
footage of Leksi and Jake arguing and being loving shows the audience
snippets of the couples past. This footage makes the video appear more
realistic and believable that this is actually what the artist experienced. The
audience feel involved in the video as they are watching something they
feel they are not supposed to, and feel closer to the artist who is sharing their
feelings to them like a friend would. The audience members who also have
problems with relationships (particularly girls)
will be able to relate to the song
and feel closer to the artist as
they share the same issues.
Top half of our Digipack design

7. In our music video, we used some rapid editing in our work so the footage cut on
the beat of the song, and the video moved with the music: an example of this is
the part that builds up to the chorus with a unregular rhythm. In R’n’B music
videos, a lot of the upbeat songs use rapid editing throughout to fit with the music
and create a youthful energy for the teenage/young adult audience. However,
we also used some shots for longer durations to keep pace with the slow beat
and down key mood of the song to reflect that the artist feels sad.
Many R’n’B music video’s also use a lot of different effects and abstract ideas
created in a studio, especially fast and upbeat songs done by a female artist. Just
like we did in our music video, we filmed in a studio with a green screen and then
added different backgrounds, colours and lights with final cut. However, we
challenged the conventions of R’n’B here as our song was a sad one, and sad
R’n’B songs are normally filmed on locations like the beach with no effects added
after. The female artists are also normally in revealing clothing and exaggerated
make-up and hair to make them stand out from the coloured backgrounds. We
did the opposite in our music video and had casual and loose costume with
natural make-up to show the artist’s innocence and beauty: we aimed to use the
coloured backgrounds and effects to make her appear powerful. This proved a
problem however as the coloured backgrounds
did distract from our artist with the contrast of the
subtle artist image and dynamic colours.

8. In our music video, we included a small narrative to
illustrate the lyrics of the song. For example, in the lyric
‘can’t we just make love and not war,’ we did a split
screen effect where the artist is being loving with her
partner on one side, and fighting with him in the other.
Many slow R’n’B songs such as Beyoncé's ‘If I were a
Boy’ use a narrative to illustrate the problems or issues
the artist is facing or expressing. Saying this, many slow
R’n’B songs also use a lot of shots of only the artist, which
we also used in our music video with our artist Leksi (we
did the same for the co-star Jake, but focused on Leksi
as she is the main artist). We used a variety of different
camera shots and camera angles to make our video
look interesting.

9. In many other different R’n’B digipacks and magazine adverts,
they use close-up images of the artist. In our digipack and
magazine advert, we also used close-up photos of Leksi to
attract the audience’s eye to her first. We made the photos of
Leksi to a large scale in the digipack and magazine advert as
well, like they do in real ones. This makes the artists photo’s more
engaging and noticable so the audience will find it easier to
remember what the artist looks like.
We then also used another convention found in real digipacks
and adverts of making the artist’s name the biggest and boldest
text; composed beside the artist’s photo. This means the artist’s
name will stand out to the audience, and composing the text by
the artist’s face will clearly connect with the audience that this is
what the artist is known by. The artist’s picture and name are the
boldest elements in many digipacks and album covers.
Finally, we also included an image of the digipack front cover on
the album to link the two products, but mainly to advertise the
album on the advert so the audience would know what to look
for in the shops.
Our Magazine Advert
For those people who would have
already heard and enjoyed the song
‘Love and War’ and watched our
music video, we included thetext ‘Featuring the new hit single
‘Love and War’’ on the magazine advert. This would persuade
those who liked the song to buy the album to
listen to it, as well as listen to other songs by the
Our Digipack Design same artist that they might enjoy too.

10. We have used many conventions of the R’n’B genre with all 3
of our products so it is easy for the audience to identify which
type of music we are advertising and producing by simply
visuals. Based on the conventions, we came up with our own
ideas and thoughts through brainstorming and discussion to
create our own personal style and take on the song that we
felt appropriate. However, we also challenged some
conventions of the R’n’B genre to connote different ideas and
make our video more interesting and different to R’n’B
stereotypes. We made links between all 3 products to make it
clear to the audience that they are connected to the same
artist and song. Having finished the final products, the
audience were able to identify the genre we were working
with, and we are pleased to have successfully produce
products on our chosen genre.