Possible CD designs

In this blog post we're going to look at possible designs for our digi pack.

The Gatefold CD.

Our digi pack is going to be four sided and will consist of photo's of our star that are advertising his style and promoting his album. we could have either pictures that were taken from filming or pictures we have used of josh on our blog already. We as a group will make sure that the colour's and images all match and blend well together. Our aim is to make it look as professional as possible and to attract consumers to our product.

Star Persona

1.       What is your finalised star persona? Include a photograph of your star that best communicates their persona. Discuss what ideas/ideologies they communicate (materialism, rebellion, innocence, the cultural “ideal”, alternative to the “ideal” etc.). How do they communicate these ideas? How is their persona expressed visually? (costume, hair, makeup, bogy language, lighting, framing etc) How is it expressed through lyrics, genre?


Our star persona in our music video is Josh. Below are a couple photographs of him: 

As our original actor could not be in our music due to an accident which resulted to a broken leg, we had to re-think who we could use that would fit well into our music video. As a group we decided to use Josh. We want our star persona to be 'cool' and 'hip' however we want to move away from the stereotypical 'ganster' which is used in most rap videos; we wanted to think outside the box. We've not used violence and drugs which is used in most rap videos also. 

To achieve this, we want our star persona to be well groomed, stylish branded clothes and confident care free body language. We took this all into consideration and i think we achieved our goal. 
Even though we would of preferred to use a black guy as this would of fit into our genre better, we only had a few days to sort a new actor, and it was quiet hard finding another black person who could do it, so josh was our plan B. 

The lighting used in our music video also emphasizes our star persona. We have used a variety of different bright colors to highlight the atmosphere for our music video; 'cool' and 'swag'

Comments about feedback

Overall we were very pleased with the feedback we got from the other groups about our music video. From the feedback, we now know what we need to improve on, for example, we were told that we should add more lip singing in towards the end of the music video; this is very true and we will work on this next time we film. Also we were told to improve on some shots as they came across shakey.

Filming Part 2

On the  week back from half-term, 5th November commencing we knew we had to re-film some of the music video to fill the content of our video. We once again used the same space as last time. This was a sound proof drama studio. We blocked out all natural lights again and used the effects of artificial light. Doing this gives the feel of being in a music studio. Josh had learned the lyrics  of by heart this time round, so when recording he flowed much better with the lyrics, and looked much more genuine. Additionally this was useful for editing. Not solo relying on lip syncing as a technique in post filming. He raps it so well we don't deem it  necessary. In the first session of filming we had Josh rapping fine, but the lighting set up was the same in all of a long duration shot. The camera height and angel was the same throughout. Taking this into consideration on the second time we wanted to make the video more dynamic. We done this by josh rapping the entire song 3 times. But at different angels and heights. Also every song we would but colored filters over the studio light we used to create a nice affect. Last thing we did was the mise-en-scene. Josh changing t-shirts in the different run troughs.

This a similar kind of set up we used when filming. Using a big tall light, reflectors, blacked out background. But in addition to these we put colored filters over the lights to liven up the frame when shooting.

Our star Josh Oosterhuis

Lil wayne



Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. (born September 27, 1982), better known by his stage name Lil Wayne is an American rapper. He is portrayed as a rebellious character, this is because of his image, with the tattoo's, and with his gold and platinum diamond studded crowns on his teeth, these are what the audience think when watching his music video's or interiews etc.
Even though he is not the best looking star, because of his charm and probably the amount of money he has the ladies love him, in our video the star (Josh) is using his own charm to attract the opposite sex, for instance when he is wiping his shoulder in our rough cut musi video its showing how he knows he's powerful.

Rough Cut Feedback

Feedback from other groups

Marking Criteria

Social Networking and Star Persona

Social networking is an important tool for getting your music out to potential listeners. To show how important a tool it can be, we have taken some screenshots of the social networks of Kanye West, a successful rapper similar to our star persona.

Twitter

Kanye West's Twitter features his musings on day to day life, as well as a link to his official website. As you can see, with almost 9,000,000 followers he has been quite successful on this front.

Facebook

A quick search on Facebook reveals no official Kanye West page, but hundreds of unofficial, fan-made pages, ranging from thousands of likes to hundreds of thousands of likes.

Official Website

Kanye West's official website goes for quite a minimalist theme, featuring no information about the artist other than featuring a collection of his newest songs and videos to stream, along with links to buy the tracks, and invitations to share on Facebook and Twitter.

Last.fm

Kanye West's Last.fm page shows an impressive amount of 'scrobbles' - effectively a play count - and listeners. The profile also features photos and a biography of West, allowing us an insight into his persona.