Logo discussion

This is one of the ideas for the logo that we’ve decided to put on the back of the album cover. We choose to put a logo on the back of the album cover and the magazine advert because this will promote more consistency and synergy within the products and advertisement.

This logo features a photo of the Pro Era group that both Joey Bada$$ and Capital STEEZ belong to. But the photo has been cropped into the words PRO ERA.

We also found that with if we wanted to use this technique that the photo that we use is very important. When we were trying to learn this technique we used the odd future group as a practise but because the photo that we used was too bright we realised that the when using this technique are dark or any colour that isn’t too bright will work.

Treatment presentation

CD package presentation

A$AP ROCKY album cover

After we looked at all of our album cover case studies we decided that the kind of look that we wanted to go for was that of the Asap Rocky's latest album (LONG.LIVE.A$AP) cover because it features the bad TV effect that we used in our video and as it's is of the same genre as our music video. We will still look to follow some of the effects and layouts as shown in some of the other case studies but we decided to use this album cover as our main inspiration.

Blu and Exile Maybe one day magazine advert

 

 

The second case study is from Blu and Exile’s album: Give me flowers while I can still smell them. The layout of the advert is very simple showing the text on one side and a photo of the EP on the other. The text is all in the same font but in varying size with the letters EP being the biggest so that fans can tell the difference between that and the CD version. The background of the advert is black to match the EP cover and the use of bold white text makes the information stand out and easy to read.

 

The photo on the EP itself is of a flower blooming and dying at the same time. The image has been edited to look like one flower. The image connotes the same message as the album title: Give me flowers while I can still smell them.

 

I have also looked at a flyer for when Blu and Exile performed in London. The layout of this flyer has the EP cover with the names of Blu and Exile taking up the centre with the flowers edited to look like they’re weaving in and out of the text. The information for the show takes up the bottom of the flyer decreasing in font size the further away the text gets from the centre.  Also the colour of the text changes depending on the importance of the information i.e. very important information is in white and bold, secondary is in a yellowish colour and other information is in white but not bold.

 

The skills I have learnt from analysing the advert and flyer is use of a main image or photo that can be used throughout the whole advertising process. Also editing the image to look like the text is a part of the photo rather than just layering it on top.

 

Jay-Z Blueprint 3 magazine advert

The first case study for the magazine adverts that I shall be analysing I Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3. The layout of this advert is the album cover in the centre of the page and with text above and below the image. The photo itself has a selection of musical instruments and technology all spray painted white with three red stripes edited on top of the photo. The main text is the album title at the top of advert with a small text saying two singles that were released from the album. The use of colour in this photo with the white background and white instruments allows the three red stripes that represent the blueprint 3 stand out.

 

Two album covers that also show the same kind of effect is Wiley’s Playtime is over (bottom) and KO’s YES! (top). Playtime is over has a playground and some toys all spray painted back with him standing in an all-black track suit. YES! has KO’s painting the background in red whit him wearing a red and white drummer suite. 

The kind of skills that I would like to take away from this is the powerful use of colour to make the advert stand out. Also putting things in a colour that they shouldn’t be like both Playtime is over and The Blueprint three.

Gorilaz: Case Study

My Second case study for the CD cover and album art is the Gorillaz: Demon Days. The layout of the album cover is a take on The Beatles album cover for Let it be and this theme was continued for the album art for, Every planet we reach is dead! The way they are standing is the same positions from the album cover “HELP!” I feel that this connotes that the Gorillaz think that they are either The Beatles of this generation or that The Beatles inspire their music. There is also a simple use of text to at the top and bottom of the cover to compliment the simplicity of the cover.

On the back cover is the track list in the same font as the album cover to the left, there is also corporate jargon at the bottom as well as the Gorillaz website. There is also another picture of the Gorillaz on the right hand that is focus of the back. Unlike the cover and a lot of the album art, this image does not connote anything.

 

The CD has ellipsis of the Gorillaz from the cover. I feel that this image follows up on my idea of the Gorillaz-Beatles connotation. I also like how this keeps with the simplicity of the album cover and back cover. The text going round the outside of the CD is again more corporate jargon; the only relevant text to the consumer is the Gorillaz logo at the top of the CD. 

The album art is very different to that of the simplicity of the album front and back cover by being bold and all very different from each other. Each piece of album art is one of the tracks on the album and all of them connote something to do with the song or album as a whole. I feel that the most powerful images from there collection of album art are O Green World and Dirty Harry. The art for O Green World is of a landfill site with the song’s title at the top. The message put across by this image and the song is that the idea of a green planet is leaving us. Dirty Harry connotes that the need for a gun in America is not needed at all and that giving the general public weapons to protect them self is actually causing them more harm. By naming the song after the Client Eastwood, character “Dirty” Harry Callahan that was a shoot first and question later kind of cop well known for not shying away from killing criminals. 

The skill that I will be taking from this case study is that the album art should not only be good to look at but should also have some kind of reference to the song. This will be very good for my group’s song in particular because of the amount of metaphors involved in the lyrics. Another skill that I have learned from this case study is that a simple CD image can be just as effective as a complex image. So for my group’s CD image I will be trying to push forward the idea of a simple image.

Nas Life is good: Case Study

The final case study for the CD cover and album art is Nas’s album: Life is good. The image on the front of the album is of a bored looking Nas sitting on a sofa wearing his wedding suit and his ex-wife’s (Kelis Rogers) wedding dress. The denotation of the image completely contradicts the name of the album, Life is good because the images  denotes a photo of Nas at was most likely the worst part of his life, when his wife left him. What the image connotes is that Nas has gotten over the divorce, thus meaning the name of the album is appropriate. However, this could just be a cheap shot at his ex-wife.

The layout of the cover has the photo with text in the top left and bottom centre of the cover. In the top left is Nas’s logo of his name and the bottom text is the album title written in what look like a hand written font, maybe to connote class and pushing forward the idea of the image connoting the more pleasant idea of Nas getting over his divorce. The back cover just has the track list with the featuring artists and the “Bonus Tracks” title in a similar font to that of the album title on the front cover.

 

The CD Image is of the Nas logo “N” with shapes similar to the underline on the front cover. The background of the CD image looks similar to concrete or of old dark grey paper.

The album art for Life is good has a similar effect that Kid Cudi’s: Man on the moon 2 has i.e. the old paper effect. As well as this, the photos have been edited so that photos are mainly black and white with some objects having colour. I think that this give extra influence to some object and allows everything else to fade into the background.

I have learned from analysing this case study is the technique of putting some photos in black and white and only allowing key props to be in colour. This technique will add more meaning to some props that would have been overlooked if the whole photo were in colour. Also just like the Kid Cudi case study I would like to use the old paper effect to go with the use of Bad TV in the music video.

Kid Cudi: Case Study

My first case study for the cd case/ digi pack is Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. The layout of the cover is a very basic but stands out because of the boldness of the picture. The layout itself is just the album cover with no use of text but the case did come with a sticker on it saying the album name and some of the featuring artists. The little bit of text that is shown not only says featuring artist but also has a little bit of advertising, “The Highly anticipated return of Kid Cudi”. The target audience of this album is hip hop fans and because of the nature of the album and artwork it may also attract a rock and roll fans.

The inside art work for the album is meant to go with the overall story of the album. The layout of these artworks is: layering pictures over each other, putting multiple images on one page and putting the cracked, old paper effect on it. I feel that these effects add to the dark theme of the album and really suit the genre. Similarly to the album cover there is no use of text. The technique of not using any text connotes emotions or themes of horror, Gothicism and fear to the consumer.

What I would like to take away from this case study is the photographic effects used on the inside cover art i.e. the old, cracked paper. I think that this effect will suit our song because in the video we used the bad TV effect and the old paper is the somewhat alternative for a photo. 

Music Video

Video day schedule

Day 1 10th November 2012

Meet group 1 at 10:00 am outside Stratford station for the first shots in the morning scene / introduction of music video
(Group 1 consists of me, Connor and Matayo as well as the two main actors playing Joey Bada$$ and CAPITAL STEEZ) This has been done to avoid too many people being in Wazim’s house during the shoot so it is easy to go from room to room and as not to distract us while we are shooting the video.

Meet group 2 at 01:30 pm at Wazim’s house to begin the second shoot that is the skating scene (Group 2 consists of all of the extras in the video)

Head to the bridge to do our third scene as the sun is going down. As we don’t know the exact time the sun is going down but we have estimated it to be at about 03:30 pm or 04:00 pm.

End of first day at about 06:00 pm but we will try to get the most out of the sunlight at that time.

Day 2 11th November 2012

Meet all of the group 1 and 2 at Stratford station at 11:00 am and head down to the flat to do the first couple of shoots of the full song from them walking in the street and introducing the extras and over rapper.

At 01:00 pm, head to the park to try to get a couple of skating scenes and another shot for the song.

By 02:00 pm, lunch break.

Finish eating lunch and get a few more skating shots and another shot of the song on a long straight road at 03:00 pm

Hopefully by 05:00 pm it should be dark enough for us to do the warehouse shots and fully utilise the flash lights and setting.

End of second day, we should finish at around 07:00 pm

Group Decisions 3

Today in class we looked on the BBC website at what the weather would be like on the days that we are planning to shoot and found that it would be raining. We have decided to still shoot on this day in the hope that the rain is not too heavy but if it is then we plan to do all of the inside shots while it’s raining and then leave all of the outside shots for Sunday when it should be dryer.

 

 

Risk Assessment form

Talent Release form

Storyboard

 

Recces

1st Production Schedule for the video

Call Sheet

Joey Bada$$ - Killuminati

Photo shoot/ Call sheet

Date: Saturday, December 8 – 9, 2012

Timeline:

Tentative- subject to change

3.15- models arrive


3.20-3.30- models get ready


3.30-4.30- shoot time

Clients: Darel

Media: DSLR Camera


Concept- This shoot aims to depict a day in the life of an urban teenager who travels by skateboard to an abandoned warehouse where he meets up with his friends. On the way to the warehouse he walks from his house on a road, walks on a bridge, walks/skates in a park.

Photographer:
Matayo, Cameron and Connor

Special instructions:

The following requested items that Darel has for wardrobe
1. The rapper has to have a skateboard, in order to fit into the role of an urban artist.

Group Decisions 2

Today in class we did final checks on what we needed for our shoot which we plan to do from the upcoming Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We checked over props, location and made sure everybody is up to date. As well as this we also booked use for one of the college camera’s but as insurance, Connor has asked one of his friends if we can borrow his camera for the weekend for our filming.

Lyrics

This is the lyrics to the song Killuminati but I have highlighted the swear words in red because we have been told as a group that we can’t have any swear words in the song. I think that this is a good idea because this will expand our target market to a younger audience that may not have been allowed to view the video because of parental control. So Matatyo is going to edit out all of the swear words because he has experience with music production and has the soft wear at his home to this. Along with this at the bottom is a hyperlink to the website rap genius with the lyrics of the song fully explained; this for you to understand some of the lines in the song and metaphors.

 

[Verse 1: JOEY BADA$$]

I'm a beast with these flows
Two birds, one stoned, you get geese’d when trees rolled
They say I'm evil cause I trained my ego to see gold
See, no seagulls couldn't see these goals, please
It's the return of the beast coast
No cash, flash but the cheese still make teeth show
The cold needle, is how you move on a strip
What you trynna be Vito?, well there's rules to this shit
Don't get clapped, ya'll ain't real spitters, ya'll lips chapped
Better watch it, Mr. Nice watch, don't risk that
I got a 6 pack of bare skill that I spill like that
And everybody know (That shit crack!)
Ya'll niggas soft-spoken, down below token
The type to drop the soap when you soakin' in front of most men
It makes sense why you want beef with this frozen
It nuts for new school, in the tool, ya' kid hold him
Better shoot yourself Plaxico, because I'm next to go
The Progressive flows from New York to New Mexico
A lyrical span is what the fans demandin'
Step into my box and that's exactly what'chu standin'
Ain't no half steppin' 'round me
And you gotta drown a fish before you clown me
That young cop killer, I'm dat ill, so doc' will ya
Give me two shots for 2Pac killer....nigga

[Verse 2: Capital STEEZ]

Soul searchin' 'till my flows are perfect
I ain't trynna be a slave to grow old from workin'
Sorry BADA$$, you lucky that I peeped the second
Tell them niggas keep it steppin' with they beat selection
Check the melodies, it's so heavenly
That shit'll get your hips to move no 70's
Audi-opium, can I bust soliloquies
Got that shit mix and mastered both remedies
Grab a spoonful, we sturrin' up a pot
And you know we gotta serve it while it's hot
I'm flowin' like a volcano and drippin' verses off the top
Dirty cops still swervin' on the block
Lookin' for black kids, that spittin' up acid
It's in my jeans so don't worry where my parents is
Get with the script it's that ignorant shit
And they bound to get sick of us quick but I ain't sealin' my lips
It's a shift, I know you feel it man
We blowin' up like a ceiling fan
Droppin' off jewels like Killa Cam's man
When it comes to kickin' verses I'm Mr. Van Damme
Crushin' strawberries it's a jam
So throw up both hands if you can
Ironic how I'm killin' this shit, until they bury me
My volume is going in depth with longevity
Stupid’s


Rap genius - Killuminati