Production update 4

I have begun to tackle my Digi-Pack, I started this process by creating a template for the album cover both inside and outside. then using web sources such as DaFont.com and Google Images I looked for an appropriate font and Background for my album cover (see potential ancillary product for one example of my work.

After finding 2 texts - one italic and calligraphic style and one bold caps locked stile with a wave through it - i began to place the images i had selected and the texts i had written into their appropriate position. after deciding not to go for a white background i had to edit my images to remove the white background around them. I experimented with a number of different styles of background. including the cartoon skyline (again see potential ancillary product for reference).

I also began taking photographs for a poster, which is meant to be used as a source of advertising for the music video.

Production Update 3

Today i have started to edit the footage together to get the beginnings of my music video. This has included altering the position on the shot to minimize the amount of space above my artists head. have also  had to consider the mise-en-scene of my shots, this has meant thinking about the props i am using, if any, the fashion of my artist, the area the music video is being shot in and the general composition of the shot.

I have mainly focused on making sure my artists lips are synced up to the track. This is arguably the most important part of the music video as if they aren't synced it can completely ruin a music video for the audience as it makes the video difficult to watch. This has been helped by the fact that my artist is an aspiring rapper in real life as it has meant his is great at keeping himself in time with the music and making himself look absolutely believable in the music video.

Production Update 2

Today is the first day in which i have shot footage of y artist in his power clothing. the dinner jacket and bow tie. I have changed the location of my shooting to enhance my lighting and the position of my background.

Production Update 1

This is my first day of filming with my artist. i have decided to film part on a white background as it is conventional for there to be a number of shots where it is just the artist in the shot. I have decided to play around with lighting effects as I want to see the effect this has on my final product.

I have also taken a few photo's to start to formulate me idea's for both of my ancillary product. this has mainly been close up profile shots of the artist as well as long medium close ups and medium shots. I have made he pose in a number of different ways to see if there are any poses of changes in fashion that i decide would look good on my products.

Ancillary Product Possibility

Although this idea is very unique it does conform to many conventions of the Digi-pack, for example it has copyright messages, a track list, the website of the artist, the website of the record label, the record labels logo and the artists logo. I like the colour scheme as there is not too much of one colour. I have done this on purpose as sometimes if the album cover has too much of the same colour it wont catch the eye of the customers it is aimed at.

THINGS TO CHANGE

• The text used for the artists name and the albums title - I would like to change this as i feel it has too much of a military feel to it. Also it doesn't strike me a conventional to the Rap/Hip Hop genre.
• The background image used - Although I like the fact that the background image used has different colours than the image of my artist I do not think this will be the final image I will use as it isn't very eye-catching, something that is vitally important for the digi-pack  in order to entice the target audience.
• The layout of the track list - Firstly I will need to include more tracks as most albums do not usually consist of only 13 tracks, I also think that the track list needs to be positioned differently as it doesn't look right central. Finally I think that the text is the wrong type face for the genre I have decided to use.

Storyboard

Research for Ancillary Products

Digi-Pack 

The first Ancillary product I will produce is the Digi-pack for my chosen song 'Power Trip' by J.Cole. I will have to be extremely careful when creating my product due to the fact that many of other Digi-packs within my genre are extremely simplistic looking. This will be a problem as I will have to ensure that my product isn't so simple that it is uninteresting and doesn't catch the attention of my target market. There are quite a few generic conventions that go with Pop-Rap Digi-Packs such as Close ups of artists face, chains, snap-backs, images of the artist and they usually are kept relatively simple yet striking.
The Song I have chosen is a fairly generic song as it talks about many of the key themes within the genre such as women, money, cars, fashion and sex. Therefore it would be unusual for me to create a Digi-pack that does not follow many conventions for the genre of Pop-Rap.
The style I have chosen to go for will be similar to the G-Eazy Digi-pack  (bottom row 2nd from the right) as it may seem simplistic but is extremely eye catching. To ensure I create the most effective Digi-pack I will need to ensure that it is simplistic enough that it doesn't look like there is too much going on but also there needs to be enough going on that it doesn't look boring.

Promotion Poster

 The other ancillary product I will produce is a promotional poster for the album and Digi-pack I will produce. Promotion posters for Rap music are fairly unconventional as they usually do not promote their music in this way, instead they usually make posters for their tours or just they are usually just merchandise. Therefore I am going to have to look use their merchandise posters for inspiration whilst looking towards other genres such as pop to look for ways to promote my album using this method of advertising. Rap will usually use social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram as their predominant way of advertising now. Equally music channels such as VIVA are just as essential for Rap artist when it comes to advertising their product.

Pop is a genre that has arguably the highest degree of success when it comes to using Posters as an advertising product. Artist such as Justin beiber have used Posters do advertise many of their albums and singles. This has made them household names as their names are plastered over walls and billboards reinforcing their brand to their target audience.

This is why I have decided to use a combination of the Hip Hop style merchandise posters and the Pop advertising posters. combining the exciting style of Raps posters with the effective nature of pops advertising campaigns.