Artist, Song and Album name?!

Now that I have started working on my ancillary tasks, I need to come up with a name for my artist, her song AND her album so that i can apply these onto both the digipak and magazine advert! My classmates have helped me come up with many... Now I will need to make some sort of survey to narrow the names down to one!

Photoshoot!

After researching album covers, I had a clear idea of how I wanted my digipak front cover to look. As I am also going to be designing a magazine advert to promote my artists album I figured that I would use the same/similar photos that I use for the digipak, this will be beneficial as it will help make the artist (who isn't very well known) more recognisable, as familiar pictures would be seen in various different places! I had also found this to be a trend for female R&B artists whilst researching for the ancillary tasks.  
I decided to shoot some photo's in the school's photography studio, where I will be filming the majority of my music video, that would be appropriate for both my digipak and magazine advert. I bared in mind the research I had done previously, which allowed me to figure out which angles I needed to shoot from and positons for the artist etc. Alice, my actress, has a friend who is very talented when it comes to makeup! She kindly agreed to do Alice's makeup for the photoshoot, and helped me to achieve a makeup look inspired by R&B artists! I now have picked up a few tips and tricks and feel confident about doing Alice's makeup when it comes to filming!

I was really pleased with the outcome of my photo's, however some of the full shot (long shot/medium close ups) made Alice look a bit more 'Rocker-chick' rather than an R&B artist which is the look I need to achieve! The outfit i chose to use is one that I am planning to use in the music video, I found this to be quite a popular style for R&B artists, but i think the red lips gave her the wrong look. I have learnt from this and know now not to include the red lips when filming! On the other hand, the extreme close ups of Alice's face are really effetcive! They are similar to the examples I found of R&B artists and with a bit of editing etc. I feel they will work really well for my ancillary tasks!

Album cover research!

As I have chosen to design a digipak for one of my ancillary tasks, I decided to research into other female R&B artist's album covers, in order to get some inspiration and make my digipak as authentic as possible!

From my research I have found that close ups of the artists face is very common, I particularly liked 'Loud' by Rhianna 'Here I Am' by Kelly Rowland and Alexis Jordan's. I am partial to the extreme close up of the face and the large, clear font of either/both the artists name and album name! However I also really like Jennifer Lopez's 'Como ama una mujer' I really like how the artist's name and album name is written slanted and diagonally down the side, this makes the cover a bit more interesting and different!    

I am really keen to create something similar and plan to shoot some photos to create a comparable and accurate effect! Depending on how my shoot turns out will determine the style of album cover that stimulates my ideas.       

H&M advertisement.

I have been inspired by the latest H&M advertisements, I really like the way they have used split screens. Since researching into R&B genre music videos, I have found split screens to be very popular! I will definitely be using this technique in my own video, and these adverts have given me a few ideas and inspiration! 

Mise en Scene- Hair and makeup research!

As my actress will be wearing five different outfits, I will need to create five different hair and makeup looks, which will contribute to making my footage more interesting.
I came across the female R&B artist Fergie and her music video 'Glamorous' which helps to back up my idea. Throughout this video she changes outfits numerous times, along with her hair style and makeup. Although not all of her costumes are similar to the ones that I have chosen, I have taken a lot of inspiration and ideas from her music video. 

The first two costumes are formal dresses, in the shots where these are worn I will need to incorporate an apropriate hair and makeup look which will fit the style of an R&B artist. I decided to do some more research on this style and the artists wearing formal dresses in their music video's tended to have a 'loosley curled' hair and quite dramatic makeup. I particularly like this look from Leona Lewis's music video 'Bleeding Love' and hope to re-create something similar for my artist (actress.)

The next look is more casual, and involves black high-wasted skinny jeans and lace. When researching costume, the two R&B artists i came across who were sporting this look (Pixie Lott and Alexandra Burke) both had straight hair with reasonably dramatic makeup. My next step was to find more examples of this look featured in R&B music videos, to give me a little more inspiration!
I really like the hair and makeup combo that Nicole Scherzinger is sporting in the Pussy Cat Dolls video to 'I hate this part'. The makeup is minimal compared to the previous look and the hair (although extremely long) is similar to what I am hoping to achieve!

The last two outfits our very casual, and will both involve minimal makeup, which is what i have found whilst researching costume. I have also found that when R&B artists wear the 'vest top and jeans' outfit or the 'leather jacket' their hair tends to be up, or un-styled. I will most likely keep the makeup the same for both outfits, but perhaps change the hairstyles to keep my footage as interesting as possible! Whilst researching, I found a couple of hair and makeup styles that inspired me! The 'Fishtail braid' seems to be a very popular trend for female R&B artists. Fergie, Leona Lewis, Rhianna, Jennifer Hudson, Cheryl Cole and Alisha Dixon or all R&B artists which have sported this look, therefore I know that this would be an accurate style to use in my music video! 

putting costumes together!

This afternoon Alice and I went through our wardrobes in order to create costumes that closely resemble the outfits i found whilst researching mise en scene (see here) I have decided that I will want at least 4 different outfits in order to make my music video more interesting! I needed to put together a formal dress, leather, casual and lace look, and these are my results!!

Next I need to create some hair and makeup looks which resemble to other female R&B artists!

Music Video Inspiration

During today's lesson a concern was raised about my prime location- The studio. As a lot of students will be using the school's photography studio in their videos, I feel the need to make it look unique and perhaps altered slightly, considering the majority of my footage will be taken in this location. 

I came across this music video by the former R&B girl band, The Pussycat Dolls- 'I don't need a man'. 

I am aware That this involves more than one artist, but it does predominantly concentrate on the main singer Nicole Scherzinger. I really like how the footage has been edited, the beat of the song is very quick and the editing meets the speed! The shot changes are very fast, and the footage has been edited with various tools such as a 'grainy effect' and also black and white.

I also really like the zooms throughout this video, and feel that this allows a lot more movement to the footage, without literally moving the camera. Although I will be doing this, I am inspired that I can also create movement when filming on the tripod (when it comes to editing.) These zooms are really fast creating a relationship between the music and the visuals (Goodwin's theory)

It also seems that certain shots have been cropped slightly during editing?

The whole video is shot in the same location, but adding these zooms and crops (along with the fast jump cuts and props!) makes it a lot more interesting! I really want to include a lot of these ideas in my own music video, although my track doesn't have quite as fast of a beat, i feel that i could work around the song and re-create these filming/editing techniques to fit the track  am using! I would also like to try changing the background colour, this could also make my video look different to others who are using the same location!