Final- Media A2 Music Video- "The Weeknd-Rolling Stone"

Final- Advert/Poster

We researched many contemporary poster/adverts. We found many typical conventions that were visible in all. For example a large or large images of the artist, also featuring the digipak. The same layout and font that the artist uses and inclusion of different modes of electronic media such as smart phones with the "barcode". They also influenced social interaction by adding facebook and twitter links so people could "follow" the artist, comment and see the latest productions of the artist. To avoid confusion and to add emphasis we kept the same layout throughout our project, in the digipak, poster and the music video. 

Final- Digipak

This is our final digipak. As you can see with followed the same 3 tone colour scheme and layout all the way through which links to the Weeknd's own album artwork. We juxtaposed his conventions by adding vibrant colours to our work of our artists. We followed the taboo ideologies by including props such as cigarettes. We used a domestic location so that it was more applicable to our target audiences lifestyle, the teenage demographic.

Here we added other songs of the Weeknd's mixtape as this is a convention that we found when creating digipaks. "Lonley star" is in fact the name of the song and isn't a spelling mistake. This may be a convention the Weeknd uses to link to his idiosyncrasy and irregularity as he also excluded the "e" in his artist name the Weeknd. (Weekend)

Conclusion of Evaluation

Conclusion of Evalutation on Prezi

Evaluation- Question 4

This is a video created through the use of a software called Camtasia. It enables you to record the screen and narrate upon what you are doing. This was my first attempt at using this new software.

Evaluation- Question 3

Evaluation- Question 3 on Prezi

Evaluation- Question 2

How affective is your combination of your main product and ancillary texts?


Throughout our creation of the music video and the ancillary products we tried to overlap and intertwine the products. For example, throughout the project our actor Roger, representing the Weeknd, is dressed in the same clothing, this is to put emphasis on him being the main character. This is visible in the music video as well as the images included in the digipak and advert.

We feel that our products link very closely together as we used the same theme and style throughout, the style predominately adopted from the original artist with a few adjustments to make it idiosyncratic to our selves. For example we followed the three tone colour scheme, but instead we used vibrant colours. This is visible in the video as we used black and white effects as well as an effect called "bleach bypass" which actually darkens the lighting giving a chiaroscuro effect but it also enhances the colours. This is then visible in the digipak as we used dark colours such as black and garnet of which is then juxtaposed by the strong vibrant colours in the images such as the girls lipstick for example.

When designing our products we adopted the Weeknd's style by following the conventions found in his album artwork, imagery and posters. We tried to capture the techniques he used to give our own work a professional look.

The advert and digipak are very closely linked, the music video is probably slightly different in techniques used as we tried to create an "enigmatic" appearance anchoring the lyrics to the video. The song deals with taboo ideologies such as drug abuse so we used dark lighting and sometimes abstract imagery to represent this. On the other hand, in the imagery of our digipak and advert, we wanted the images to be very clear so that our target audience, the teenage demographic could clearly identify who the artist was. We tried to imply the same layout throughout also so that our target audience would also identify the artist through the way.

The images on the poster and digipak include very vibrant colours with medium, close up, and extreme closeups to give different effects and representations to our work. The vibrant colours opposes typical conventions of the Weeknd. We also insisted an escapist approach by showing our actors blowing out smoke representing youth, drug abuse and the high life.

We decided to try and adapt our work to predominately appeal to the teenage demographic by including the mode of the internet into the advert. We believe that stereotypically, youths will be more technologically literate and therefore we included things such as a website, twitter and a scanning barcode for smart phones. This then represents the technological advancement of web 2.0 and influencing social interaction.

 Example of chiaroscuro lighting that we tried to adopt in our music video.

Example of the type of imagery and the layout that we tried to adopt in our digipak and poster.

Everything we have done in our music video, digipak and advert/poster was very carefully chosen to target a specific minority or represent something in a certain way. We tried to interlink them as much as we could without creating the same product across the border.

Evaluation- Question 1

Research + Helpful Resources

Apple Mac help forums and YouTube as well as guidance from my teacher provided the essential information to transform Eugene, Elise and I from Mac beginners to intermediates using Apple software.

On a very basic note, i watched YouTube videos on how to edit videos using iMovie learning the basic tools and techniques. I then furthered the tutorials on to more advanced techniques to try and help me music video to look more professional.

This is just a basic example of what help there is on YouTube.

Note: i didn't solely get my knowledge from these YouTube videos, they are helpful but they also are limited. My teacher provided a lot of help also as well as asking my piers for guidance.

Editing (During)

Uploading footage and beginning to link videos with the music and adding transitions. Learning the basic tools needed to create a professional music video.

Removing and cutting useless

footage and creating a storyline accor

ding to our storyboards. Following our storyboards very closely so it gives us a professional structure. Here i am adding a dissolve transition to the music video, throughout i also learnt

how to edit lighting and change it to black and white to follow the conventions and imagery we wish to create.

On location when filming, playing with natural lighting creating chiaroscuro effects to meet the conventions of our music video/artist.

This low angle shot represents the character to be very powerful with him looking down on the camera. It also creates an enigmatic effect as you can't see his face only a silhouette of his body, but you can still easily see his clothing. The bright lampost lighting almost creates the effect of the sun also with "organge" lighting.

In this picture we used the natural lighting from the lampost and positioned our actor directly under so it gave a spotlight effect. Once again we didn't show his face to create a mysterious effect linking to the typical conventions of the Weeknd. We also included in the backdrop a metal railing and the dotted lights from the town, this then insists the urban setting.

Possible Locations

Media A2

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We decided not to use the graveyard location as it was too hard to get bright lighting and our actor wasn't visible on camera, also the contrast and exposure of the shot didn't look very professional.

 

Outdoor Locations

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We decided to use the alleys and the outdoor locations as we thought they linked very well with the song and had natural lighting (lamposts) so the quality of the shot was of a good standard.
Signifiers such as the bridge and lampost had connotations of an urbans setting which then links to the conventions of the R&B genre. The natural lighting from the lampost gave an effect of almost a "down light" or a spot light on our main character making him the emphasis of the shot. The metallic railings and the leafless trees also convey the harshness of an urban lifestyle. The lampost and the bridge created a large shadow underneath the bridge creating a sense of light/dark, good/evil if you will in terms of connotations of colours.

Locations

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The domestic location we tried to make as ordinary and simplistic as possible so that it would be applicable to the target audience. So that they could emophasise with the main character and his way of living. Props on screen are very basic such as a bed, mirror, laptop, products on the window and a bag on the floor. This is what you'd expect in a teenagers room. All of these things insist an ordinary but comfortable environment.

The Weeknd Music Video

This is the first video that the Weeknd has constructed for one of his newest songs. Here you can see the artists idiosyncrasy compared to other R&B artists as well as the enigmatic video approach. This is not a conventional music video, its got a mysterious reading to the audience and creates a sense of "being on drugs".

In terms of how it relates to videos today, it still includes a girl and an intimate moment occurring, the rest is trying to portray that he is on drugs hence the "weird" images.

The story to the video links with how Haile Selassie was overthrown by his own people during his reign of Ethiopia. It's symbolism for how The Weeknd was betrayed by his girl.

This is just an example of the type of music and representations the Weeknd portrays, we aren't going to be following his footsteps in terms of this video, but we will be using very dark lighting and some unusual images in our own music video to try and meet the conventions of the Weeknds music.

Story board of music video.

These are pictures of ideas in a storyboard form we managed to elicit from our ideas, we had regular meetings as a group so that everyone could "have a say" and try and merge their thoughts and ideas into our work essentially to construct our music video the best of our abilities, along with an idiosyncratic style. The continuous meetings aided creativity as each member of the group constantly had an idea to put forward from camera shots and movement to mise en scene and location. Each member had a big part to play in the creativity and production of our music video, and ancillary products.

Photoshoot- Main character & featured women in our music video

Presentation of photoshoot

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Here is a quick montage of images we took of our main character. We are using this character clothing throughout our project so that it doesn'tconfuse the audience and puts main emphasis on this character. The clothing is also contemporary and stereotypical to the R&B genre with the denim jacket and baseball cap (snapback) for example. We also chose a young black arractive male to play the lead real which also follows conventions of typical R&B videos.

We photographed images of him smoking to anchor the artist to the Weeknd's lyrics containing ideologies of drug and alcohol abuse, love, and a party lifestyle.

Lastly, we subverted tyical conventions with the use of our female. Stereotypical females in R&B videos are dressed provacitvely and have blonde hair and tanned skinned with blue eyes for example. Our character has a pale complexion with ginger hair, so here we have purposely subverted conventions and stereotypes of R&B videos to make this idiosyncratic to our own project. In terms of costume, we used red lipstick, as you can see on the extreme closeup image. The red lipstick conveys promiscuity and elegance aswell as the fur jacket.

The Weeknd- Character Profile

Abel Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), better known by his stage name The Weeknd, is a Canadian recording artist and record producer of Ethi

opian descent. Though the identity of the individual behind the project was initially unknown as intended as it brought a mysterious vibe to who was actually producing this music. The Weeknd released a nine-song free album, House Of Balloons, on 21 March 2011. This album is a part of a trilogy which includes Thursday and Echoes Of Silence.

The Weeknd is signed to a record label of a contemporary, and very popular Hip Hop & R&B artist "Drake", This is also what fuelled the phenomenon. Due to Drakes popularity, they wanted to know who the artist was who was signed to his record label "OVO XO". By the third mixtape The Weeknd's popularity was visible due to The Weeknd's official site crashing due to a high demand of downloads.

, and Echoes Of Silence, released on 21 December 2011. On July 6. Tesfaye recently released his highly anticipate

Since hitting the scene, The Weeknd has recei

ved praise from a number of musical publications, including those of MTV, BET, Rolling Stone, XXL, The Source and 2DopeBoyz, who have all dubbed him the "Songbird of his Generation", as well as the "best musical talent since Michael Jackson" (John Norris, MTV).

The Weeknd's lyrical content is very dark and shows a juxtaposed side to life that other R&B artists percieve. He talks about many taboo subjects, predominately drugs, sex and alcohol. He creates a serial world that many can't empathise with, talking about mind sets and situations caused by drugs and linking it in with his r

ise in fame and beginning to live the "High Life".

This is an example of the images he released to hide his identity. This is cocaine shaped in the lettering of his record label.

Final Choice Of Song- The Weeknd

After concluding that we are going to follow the Weeknd in terms of song choice. We researched all of his songs and came to a final choice of the song we are going to use.

In this song he talks about a girl but mostly about smoking and taking drugs and relates himself to a rolling stone. He also includes powerful imagery in the lyrics:

"So i take another hit,

kill another serotonin,

hand full of beans,

chest full of weed"

This is very powerful as a lack of serotonin often leads to depression which may be a theme in this song as he talks about a girl and drug abuse. It also relates to contemporary illnesses.

With this song we aim to create a dark video which includes a person abusing drugs and suffering from depression. In term of techniques and actually constructing it, we will edit the video in black and white and use powerful and specific camera shots and chiascuro lighting in order to create a "dark" and tense atmosphere to our music video. We will use "derelict" locations to represent loneliness and depression also to represent an "empty mind" due to the effects of the drugs. We will use empty streets, under ground, tunnels, bridges and inside houses.

The Weeknd for all of his songs released has purposefully not created music video's as he would like to remain mysterious and thought about towards his fans. However, he does have one video to the song called 'The kowing', off of his first mixtape 'The House Of Balloons', in which it's more of a clever slideshow of images and dreams put together to create a un-surreal world and vision http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPp5Ty9EE6k

The Weeknd within his music is very emotionally tied, talking about taboo subject's such as Alcohol, Drugs and very commonly women. his lyrics are very deep and dark making his listener zone out to what is known as 'High Music'.

"I as a listener and fan of his music find it rather entertaining and inciteful as he sings and describes a dark world he lives in that many of us can only wonder about. his music being very viral has had a dramatic affect on his status as a musician raising awareness of him self to many big musicians and important people in the music industry."- Eugene Bongo

Lyrics- http://www.metrolyrics.com/rolling-stone-lyrics-the-weeknd.html

Example:The Weeknd- Wicked Games

This is an example of The Weeknd.

In this song he sings about taboo subjects such as sex, drugs and false love etc.

Production Meeting- Deciding On Song/Breakdown

Eugene, Elise and I held a production meeting planning on what we are going to create in our music video. We came up with a variety of different artists of which we would like our actor to mime to. Many songs, in terms of lyrics, told a story to do with some sort of relationship with a women.

We decided to juxtapose this idea and go for a contemporary new upcoming artist THE WEEKND. In terms of his lyrical content, females and hard relationships are present, but he also sings about a lot of taboo subjects such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse and sometimes suicidal thoughts. He expresses his emotions through lyrics representing predominantly when he is "high" off of a drug. His lyrics and videos are very "dark" in terms of semantics and connotations of the word.

"XO" is the logo of R&B singer 'The Weeknd" which stands for the drug ecstasy and also oxycodone, both very powerful drugs in terms of effect. "XO" can represent many things such as contemporary technological lexis "1337" or Leet language, "xo" often means hugs and kisses in text messages. This may represent him to be a kind and caring person unlike the other ways other artists represent themselves as sex icons.

He is signed by a contemporary Hip Hop and R&B icon Drake.

The Weeknd Twitter- https://twitter.com/#!/theweekndxo

As we came to a conclusion to settle on a Weeknd song, we decided to follow him in terms of mise en scene, heres a quick run through of what to expect in our video.

costumer/character- "rough look" (unshaven/tired), contemporary clothing (denim, snapback),

locations- streets, interior houses (bathroom, bedroom, kitchen), major city (London), interior/exterior of a car etc...

props- some sort of weapon, representation of drugs and alcohol, female company, car, mobile phone etc.

THE WEEKND HIGH FOR THIS LYRICS- http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/weeknd/highforthis.html

In terms of what we are trying to achieve links to Carole Vernallis theory on music videos. Vernallis says "Music video presents a range all the way from extremely abstract videos emphasizing colour and movement to those that convey a story."

We have decided that we are going to correlate the video in terms of the lyrics to convey a story. We have not yet chosen a song to do yet but this will be decided through another discussion.

In terms of target audience we are going to aid the gratifications of entertainment through the mellow beat and the lyrics, it can give them the effect that the listener is "zoning out" to the tune relating to drug effects. Relating to Dyers theory gives the audience a sense of escapism and could encourage audiences who are suffering from exhaustion from every day-to-day life to feel energised and exhillarated, giving them another reason to watch. Lastly, we wish to enable social interaction via posting it on facebook, twitter and youtube of which targets our specific audience of which is teenagers who predominately use social media websites.

To follow the conventions of the artist and his dark lyrical content, we are going to do the video in black and white, we also researched videos of which we can follow the typical conventions and make our video looks as professional as possible.

We found one example, although its a hip hop song, we ignored the song and looked at the video and its what we are aiming to achieve but obviously with our own touch and twist on the video. We will just be guided by the video in terms of what to expect of shots, colour, lighting, costume and storyline.

Here is a video of a brainstorm that Eugene and I created, this was to get down the main points such as song choice, location, camera angles, mise en scene etc. This allowed me and Eugene to get down the main points of which we could then decide upon to add into our music video and ancillary products.

Audience Research- Music Video

Genre Questionnaire

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Audience Research on Prezi

Contemporary R&B Artists

Some Contemporary R&B Artists

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