CD/Digipack Cover Analysis.

Three CD promotion covers from your genre.
1) What is the genre of music?
2)How is the targeted audience? How are they targeted?
3)How successful is the iconography in promoting the artist?

The genre of Giggs' music is clearly rap, this is denoted by a stereotypical rebellion against authority, specifically the police forces; here the artist has chosen to embrace the over-all toughness and crime associated with this genre (Again, this is shown by a drawing of the artist over-powering the police force, who are also pictured). This genre is also connoted by the slang used in the album's name; Let 'Em 'Ave It. Typically, the audience of this genre are teenagers, arguably this is because these artists represent and rap about issues/rebellion that youths are faced with. This album cover promotes the artist successfully as it lends itself to stereotypes within the genre, promoting the artist as a part of the genre.




The genre of Eminem's music is also rap, however, this is not as clearly denoted as Giggs album cover, as an artist, Eminem relies on his fame, being quite recognisable even though his face isn't visible. If a consumer can't recognise the artist from behind, the album covers name Recovery has a backwards 'e', which is a well known part of Eminem's logo. This album cover is successful in promoting the audience using iconography such as the backward 'e' which Eminem has used through out his music career in his name. Due to the fact that Eminem is of the same genre as of music, his audience is also teenagers, and he too raps about specific issues (e.g. family problems, financial problems, aspirations etc) which speaks to the younger generation, and allows him to vent. For many, Eminem is genuine and this comes from his fairly long career.


The genre of Professor Green's music is also rap, again, this isn't as obvious as it is in Giggs album cover. The artist is pictured, (as with all three), and as with Giggs, is not smiling, promoting the 'bad-boy' stereotype. The iconography of this album cover is incredibly simple, using only three colours; white, grey, and green, this appeals to the audience due to the fact that it relates to the audience the simplicity of his music and makes him more relatable.










Both Giggs' and Eminem's CD covers appeal effectively to their target audience by using their existing fan-base (especially Eminem through out his long-lasting career) and using stereotypes to promote themselves (especially Giggs). These two artists are essentially in competition to have a consumer buy one album instead of the other, as they appeal to the same target audience due it being from the same genre. Personally, I think Eminem's cover is more effective in using its iconography simply because he is a widely known artist, cleverly using his fame and recognisable logo.

24.11.2010. First filming session.

Despite earlier complications, we managed to get ourselves more organised in the space we had between Friday and Wednesday, and our actors turned up, prepared. We arrived early so that we could make sure we were confident with what we were filming and could make sure we would get the best out of our actors. Permission slips were collected from our actors, as we travelled towards our chosen location, we explained to the actors what their role was in more detail.
First off, into filming, the process was quite slow, but once we got the actors more enthusiastic about their roles (with the help of Denzi, who provided a great amount of energy and basically put our instructions into physical movement) , we found that everything flowed a lot better and faster. We decided as a group to use both the HD camera and the smaller, hand-held one, in order to keep grasp of our idea of the video having a 'Documentary feel' to it (we had lost track of it getting establishing shots on the same Friday our filming didn't go ahead). We got a decent chunk of our video recorded on camera, the parts of Professor Green approaching the other territory and I'm particularly pleased with the outcome.

25th November Lesson Editing.

Due to the fact we shot a fair bit of footage the previous day, what we had on camera was transferred over to the Mac so that we could begin editing what we had. I was surprised by how good it looked because whilst filming I had a fair few doubts because of the amounts of re-shooting we did, however, this really did pay off.
As a group, we have completed part of the opening sequence for our video and I'm really looking forward to seeing it coming together (unlike last year). I really like the way our video has come out so far, and the creative, yet achievable concept which lead to our filming.

Professor Green's Official Jungle Video.

For this piece of coursework, we were set particular restrictions by our teacher, who requested that we made a video for a track which did not already have one. At the start of this course, we sought permission from Professor Green (Jemma being successful) to use his song and he gave it to us. Recently, the official version of Jungle has been shown on T.V and youtube. Here it is:






The start of this video shows a sort of funeral and gives the impression that these gangs are reacting to one another based on the death of this individual. Cleverly, when the beat drops, one of the actors boots the door through, which is quite an interesting choice when one notices it. A fair amount of the video is filmed on a tilt, which is only really noticeable when there is a long-shot. The variety of long-shots, dolly-shots, close-ups and mid-shots all work well together and helps illustrate the violence between these opposing gangs. The narrative within this video is fairly entwined with the performance between Professor Green and Maverick, showing them both with aggressive gangs. This video also shows gang violence - much like our own - and even someone with a silver mask, which doesn't seem to have much relevance. A fair few lyrics match the song's video, (for example, 'laughing like hyena's do' depicts someone laughing with sound effects and 'from young the way we're shown' includes a shot of a child). Professor Green takes a part in his own video, also giving off the 'bad-boy' persona, which is linked with this genre of music and with the events in the video. For the most part, this video is of good quality and illustrates the danger for those in gangs, however, I don't believe it is very effective as it seems to make more for an entertaining video rather than putting across any sort of message about the events.

When I compare this to the ideas we have and the shots we have filmed in our own music video for this song there are a few similarities. For example, we also depict two opposing gangs and entwine our narrative with the performance between Maverick and Professor Green, except we give the foremost a little more importance within the video. Whilst neither seem to take a part in the violence in the official video, in our own, they are the leaders of the two opposing gangs. We decided to use the title to make a major decision - giving our actors animal masks. Our video has a lot more of a message to it, seeing as the group of lions are much younger than the gorilla's, which, looks like the younger generation of gangs are rebelling against the older ones.

Scouting Locations.

During our two hour period, we couldn't film due to having our film set during the night. Insteaad, myself, Joe and Jemma decided to scout our locations to get a clearer idea of how they would look on camera. We took a fair few shots of our main locations and possible locations, however, we did not focus on the different angles as within our video, there are going to be a fair few.

Friday 19th

We have had to reschedule our filming twice due to our actors not being able to turn up, so instead, we decided to get some establishing shots. We filmed traffic, one of our actors (Joe) walking down the subway, a police car passing graffiti on a shop. We chose these because of their gritty appearance which coincides with the 'documentary' feel of our video. Despite their appearance, the fact we filmed this on a HD camera took away a lot of the rough feeling to it, when we film, we'll consider ways in which we can keep a grasp of this idea. Filming will go ahead on Wednesday 24th November.

Props.

Along with deciding the layout of our plan, we also decided on which props we would use. Seeing as our concept is quite a normal one we wanted to add a degree of surrealism into our video, we decided that the actors/actresses in our video would wear animal masks. Here is photographic evidence of the masks we have chosen:

Here's how members of our group look wearing these masks:

Lessons Discussion/Video Concept.

During our double lesson we discussed as a group what we were going to feature in our video. Considering the lyrics of our video and its title Jungle we decided use the concept of a concrete jungle and relate it to gang activity as the lyrics expose violence, and the way of life for some youths. We considered the title of the song when deciding how to add an abstract element to our video, we came to the decision that those who participate should wear animal masks, and that these masks would represent two separate, opposing gangs. We ordered our props,which were lioness and gorilla masks, that the lioness' would be younger teenagers (11-14) and the gorilla's would be older teens (16-18), thinking that this was symbolic of youths rebelling against authority (whether that is in adults or in those who are just older than them). The whole video will lead up to a climax which is these two gangs confronting one another. We decided that shots were a major part of our video and settled on a documentary feel for it, using a walk and talk shot through out, feeling that, because of the lyrics, the whole thing needed a 'gritty' feeling to it.

Shot list production and photographic evidence:

As a group, we decided that it was easier to use a shot list rather than a story board. Our shots were planned quite closely to the song itself, in our attempt to give the song a strong sense of meaning. As a group, we contributed our ideas and most of them were used, judging on their practicability, and how they would look on camera.

Permission.

Intentions.

For my banner design, I initially decided that I wanted alternating images, varying between four, each of which would attract the viewers and advertise, in terms of advertisement. My intentions are to have four images, one of which is a logo for Professor Green which I have designed, choosing from fonts on dafont.com, another is the artist preforming showing his growing renown, the artist portrayed clearly, and then his album cover. However, using gimp, I am going to attempt having the photos sliding when a viewer hovers their mouse over it.
Due to the lack of sufficient software, at home I am going to use an editing programme otherwise known as photoscape, causing the images to flash from one to another. This way, with the two separate banner designs, initially using the same photos, I am hopefully, giving myself more choice, I will print screen them both, analyse them and then choose the better of the two. Afterwards, I will then import one of them into iweb, where I am creating my website.

Banner Designs

First Banner Design:




More detailed:

How have you used web page conventions to create brand identity?

The function of a logo is to represent the site/product in such a way that viewers will remember it. My logo is placed at the top of my home-page for my website, as this is the first place viewers tend to look. The uniqueness and simplicity of the logo itself makes it quite likely that a viewer will remember the picture of an ear with an iPod speaker inside.

Final Logo Designs:

This is photographic evidence of my progress in making the decisions of what I would choose as my logo. As seen above, the page has three designs and all three are annotated with my opinions and the like.




My choice of the logo I would use turned out to be quite different to what I had drawn. I took the main principles from my first design, being of the ear. and the idea of a speaker from my third and combined the two. The positioning of the companies name (In The Ear) came from the idea of my second design, using lines to connote that the speakers are playing. Instead of a radio that would connect to the genre of music my group has chosen, I decided to use the speaker of an iPod headphones, which would appeal to the correct audience, considering their reliance on technology, plus the fact that the iPod headphones are obvious denotations of listening to music. Doing this also doesn't restrict the company to one particular genre of music. The logo itself, takes the companies name and directly relates to hearing something (i.e. music). The simplicity and uniqueness of this logo, I believe, would attract website viewers.

Photographic evidence of my mood-board and website design.

This is my initial idea of a webpage design: