Ancillary Task 1: Album cover development.

I have recently been working on the cover for the 2013 album 'Yeezus' by Kanye West, the album where the song 'Blood On The Leaves' features, which is the song I am using for my music video.

I mainly work on Adobe Illustrator, as I am also a A level graphic design student, so I feel confident using this software, but I also use photoshop too, a software I have been using in my Photograohy classes. It really depends on the style I'm feeling for each mock up album cover I design. My experience in other creative areas is helpful as I understand how work goes into developing ideas to put forward to even be considered as a design as I am currently designing a new magazine for graphics.

These design are just some things which I wanted to digitise because they have been thoughts which have just popped into my head when listening to the song 'Blood on the leaves'.

This is something which I feel portrays the modern, rockstar type, feel of the album 'Yeezus'. It reminds of when a television has no signal and produces this type of technical error. I like this cover, however I do feel there is plenty of work to be done to develop this into a professional piece of design.

This is another one of my minimalistic designs, it is very simple yet has meaning to both the album and the artist. The texture in the back ground is actually Leopard seal skin, an unusual material to use in modern life, however this material has been used by the designer Martin Margeila for custom shoes for Kanye West himself, I also am really interested in the leopard like pattern on the fur.  

Filming 23rd December 2014.

Location: Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Western Cape, South Africa.

Kirstenbosch is known as one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, with a plethora of plant species and small animals, it is hard to not find something incredible. On visit I chose to bring my Nikon D3300 to take both establishing and filler shots for my music video, with an amazing back drop of Table Mountain National Park and an abundance of natural beauty I thought it was the best place to do this here in South Africa.

During my visit I also took plenty of photographs which I am considering to use for my artwork and ancillary tasks, the digipack cover and the magazine advertisement.

Ancillary Task 1 - Album Design for 'Yeezus'

Looking through a number of redesigns for the album 'Yeezus' By Kanye West, I feel that many designers have overcomplicated the cover design. They haven't taken into consideration the message of the American rapper, which is portrayed in the album. When creating something as important as a number one best selling album, you have to attempt to create near perfection. In my design, I want to capture on the one hand the rage and anger of Kanye's music, but on the other the simplification of sound and instrumentation, the highlighting of vocals and lyric.

Here you can see a design which has been overcomplicated, because the graphic elements cover the whole piece. There is a lack of negative space, which I feel, when used correctly, really compliments a piece of design. In my design I often favour the use of negative space for that reason.

Here is another cover design which I feel is failing to promote and communicate the message which the album is intending. The palette of colours featured in the design doesn't match the harsh lyrics and feel of the album. Using pink and blues are often found on albums for House/Dance genre, as they are colure associated with teens and partying.

Moving onto the cover which was used for the album. This one was design by Kanye West and his team. This leaves much to the imagination but also uses an incredibly minimalist approached, like nothing seen before. The only addition to the clear CD cover is a grain-textured red sticker. Red is often associated with anger and danger, which suits the albums message.

I do believe that attempting to redesign an album so brilliantly designed in the first place is a tough brief to partake in but I personally trust myself to create something which communicates the message of the album, yet also doesn't give away too much through over-clustering the design.

Inspiration for Digitpak.

Album cover inspiration for Kanye West album 'Yeezus' 2013.

I have looked at a number of album covers from the same genre category, Hip Hop/Rap. Something which I want to incorporate into my digipak design is the use of a minimalist style to direct the audiences focus onto the main item or logo of the album. To do this I won't clutter the page with writing, and I will preserve the negative space which features.

Above is a mixture of single and album covers, 'Born Sinner' by J Cole, 'My beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' By Kanye West, 'Lunch Money' by Pusha T and 'My Name Is My Name' also by by Pusha T. All of the digipaks above place the main element of the cover in the centre, and preserve the negative space around the edge.

CD cover conventions

        A CD cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio product.  Since the mid-1990s, the CD has become the most common form of physically-distributed music products.

The conventions of a pop CD cover are that bright colours such as pink and electric blues are often used as the target audience is usually young people. The bright colours and bold colourful sans-serif typeface reflect the fun lively dance beats of pop music that is listened to worldwide by many types of people.

The conventions of a rock CD cover are that dark colours like black and red are used, usually outlined with white against a dark background. Gothic and horror images are often used like skeletons, skulls and dark creatures which supports the idea that rock artists are mysterious and dangerous people. This would catch the attention of the target audience who would also show an interest of such things.

The conventions of a rap/hip-hop CD cover are that males are often displayed shirtless and showing of tattoos which shows the audience that they are attractive and masculine. Females are often shown wearing revealing clothes and both men and women often wear expensive looking jewellery which is often mentioned in rap lyrics. Most rap CD covers have an explicit content sign to warn the audience which shows that the target audience is young adults who use explicit language.

Production company logo 2.

Using Adobe Illustrator I designed a second potential production company logo. It consists of 3 overlapping W's, different sizes and colour opacities.

The W's represent 2 things. First W for 'Whitfield', the first letter of my second name. Secondly the 3 W's stand for 'World Wide Web', which was created in 1989 by Tim Burners Lee. It revolutionised the way audiences consumed content. Music Videos being one of the most watched piece of content on the internet, makes the logo fitting for the company.

Illustrator allows me to change colours, size, shape and opacity easily and also allows me to reverse the action if required.

By altering the opacity other colours or tones can be seen through, providing an interesting visual.

Purple Trio Logo.

Blue Trio Logo.

Red Trio Logo.

White Trio logo.

Each colour set for the logos could be used to each represent a certain music genre for the company. E.g. Red Trio logo for Rock, Blue Trio Logo for Pop, Purple Trio Logo for Rap/Hip Hop and the White Trio Logo for pop genre.

Production company logo.

I initially started off with some sketches, with an idea of having a speech bubble, encasing the name of the company 'COLEKT'.

I established the shape and refined my sketches in pencil.

I then went over the sketches with a fine liner pen to create a more defined image so it was ready to be scanned onto Illustrator.

When the image was scanned on I was able to play around with the lines and shapes of the logo.

Here is my final logo, finalised in Illustrator.

I then changed the colours to red and black, so it is more appropriate for the music video.

Here is my final production company. COLEKT PRODUCTIONS.

Preparation for filming: Wednesday 10th December

The aim of  tomorrow is to film mainly establishing shots and fillers for the music video and also to capture the intro to the music video, before the music actually begins, to set the scene and potentially add credits.

Location: Richmond Park

Time: 7:00am - 8:00am

Equipment: 

-Tripod

-Crane

-Slider

-Nikon D3300

-SD card X2

-Extra battery pack

I have chosen my equipment carefully to give me the best chance at creating a professional and visual enthral king piece of film. 

Location and timing:

I want to film in a remote are of the park, which seems to be scares of human activity, so no roads or card or people, just nature. I don't really mind if there are any animals in the shots, e.g. deer which inhabit the park, because they fit into the genre guidelines and have relevance to the lyrics and message of the song. I'm choosing to film at 7am, the opening time of the park, because I personally feel that the lighting is the best at that time to match the description of the song and the message. There might also be frost or dew on the grass, leaves and trees which add to this feel and image I want to portray. 

Costume for music video.

OCOSTUME:

Costume is an incredibly important part of both making the media production look suitable and professional and also helps reach your target audience, as they cant related or be interested in the clothing, I know this from personal experience and from asking my friends on their opinion.

This is Jamie, he is a 18 year old music tech student at the same school as me, over coffee on day we share a conversation over the effect of music videos on viewers, we both believed that the clothing heavily used and shown in the video heavily influences the viewer in what they wear.

For my video I will be be taking great detail in styling my male protagonist, Alberto Verme. Below are some images which are potentials clothing for the video. 

I am taking great care when choosing the costume, so I will decide each area of the costume very carefully. I do feel it is of that importance. I will cover all the areas, which I believe are important; footwear, Trousers, shirt/t shirt, sweatshirt/hoodie, jacket/coat and accessories.

For the bottom half i have collected dark coloured jeans, maybe with rips and tears on the knee, still unsure but I have some options.

For the top half I have research and collated a number of garments, which are of the very style suiting the genre and type of video.

Here are some hooded tops and sweatshirts which I have found and believe suit the aim of my costume target.

Olive ripped hoodie above.

I know that all these would work with the street 

style of the genre.

Here are some T shirts which are all suitable for the music video because of the connotations to street wear and also because of the dark colours.

The Camouflage T shirt is probably my favourite piece which I found, because of the simplicity of the pattern, as nowadays you see a lot of designers and companies altering the classic camo style to create a more of a tech camo.

Moving onto an always important part of an outfit, the outerwear jacket or coat, I have found 3 styles,  classic bomber jacket, new age bomber style with fur trim and a parker styled coat. They are all currently in high demand because of the popularity of the style.

Footwear is also always a statement item and a necessary item to complete an outfit, I have been looking at adidas for the outfit, because of their dominance in the fashion world being both sporting experts and fashion dominators.

I've broken it down to 3 pairs of shoes. Adidas Boost, Adidas Yeezy Boost and Adidas Stan Smiths. They are all very different styles of shoes, but they all offer style in simplicity of design, with low key colours and a focus on comfort.

Adidas Yeezy Boost.

Adidas Boost.

Adidas Original Stan Smith.

The final area of the outfit is accessories. For this video Im not following the usually flashy conventional rap style, which includes thick chains, designer sunglasses, diamond encrusted watches, backward hats and many other 'blingy' items.

I am including one item only, which is the most important part of the outfit, because of the importance of its use in the music video. It is a red balaclava ski mask, covering the the whole face, leaving only the eyes on show. I have mentioned many times that this is an item to remove any idea of stereotyping, classing someone as something from their looks, ethnicity, religion etc. It removes what a face is 'supposedly' meant to do in this modern world/ 

Equipment List

This is the checklist I used for the filming of my opening sequence. It is important to be organised on the day of filming because then you can follow your plan for filming and minimises the chance for mistake on set, which can be incredibly frustrating.

Shot Log

Casting.

For the role of the male protagonist in my music video.

This is Alberto, he is 18 years old and is also on my A2 media course. He fits my criteria for the male protagonist perfectly. I wanted someone of around 6ft 1, male, dark hair and eyes and dark/tanned skin. 

He would appeal to a younger audience because he is a younger age, because of his ethnicity he would appeal to a wider range of audience, from different countries.

This is Arthur Bean, he is 18 years old and is an up and coming Rapper. He is a very fashionable and stylish person, as you can see from his headshot. In someways he will suit the character for my music video because of his height, quite tall so shows power. However for this character I am looking to car someone with a darker skin tone - to both fit the character but also to reach a wider audience.

This is jasper, an 18 year old music producer from London, he is currently working on a music video for the dance/urban/house genre. Jasper is a well built, tall male, which would suit the Criteria.

However, I am searching for someone with a darker skin tone, to play the character, as it is targeting a more international audience.

Story Board for music video.

  To aid the filming process, I put together a story board detailed to shot types, camera direction movement and timings to make the filming as precise as possible and so it could run smoothly and as error free as it could be.

I used red arrows to indicate the direction of the camera pan, as a pan was used heavily in my filming for effect.