Evaluation Question 4

     

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Tripod - I used a tripod to record in the majority of the music video. This is to keep the camera steady and makes it easier for me to Pan and adjust the camera to the way I directed my shots. My tripod also played a very important part in my masking shots, without the camera being still it would’ve made the masking almost near impossible to do in after effects.

Nikon DS3200 – I used this DSLR camera because I wanted crisp clear images and I needed a camera that could receive light really well as my music video is majorly inside a house, with not much natural light. It also made it easier for me records my time lapse and base tracks, as the recording limit for each video is 17 minutes.  It also consists of 24.2 megapixels, which helps attract the audience, as the images are really clear, and HD.

LED Work Light – I used he work light every shot except for a few where I sued a wave projector instead. I used tinted plastic sheets of different colours to change the lighting. This is shown in some of the lip syncs

where I used the yellow tinted sheet. The lighting help me delivered clear shots, and helped create an atmosphere that I wanted to provide in the music video.

Wave Projector – I used the wave projector for the photo-shoot and music video. It helped set an ambient mood for my music video and provided aid to narrate the story of my music video.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge – I used my phone to help obtain feedback and also play the song throughout the music video shoot. It also helped for spontaneous research, and was handy for me to type in the memo pad whenever I wanted to note down ideas, or plan a schedule for my shoot, and keep reminders.

Blogger – I was familiar with using blogger for my AS coursework so I felt comfortable using it this year as a platform for my A2 coursework. It’s easy to upload pictures and embed videos and express all my research and planning on here.

Final Cut Express  - I was unfamiliar with final cut as I never used it before but it wasn’t long till I adjusted well to it. It was very easy to use to help cut shots and edit my video. I used the chop tool and the snap mode, as well as colour correction. It provided the tools to help cut to the beat, and lower opacity when I overlayed shots. Final cut also had a variety of video effects that I had the opportunity to use. I used the bad TV effect throughout the music video during the lip-syncs where my artist ha d grey Hollister jumper.

Adobe After Effects -  Adobe after effects were used for all my masking shots. It was easy to use but took a lot of time and effort and masking wasn’t easy, as it seemed. However adobe after effects delivered a great platform to edit my masking shots frame by frame.

Photoshop CS4 – I was slightly familiar with other Photoshop softwares such as GIMP, yet I haven’t used such a program for a few years. So I felt like a beginner, but Photoshop was easy and quick to learn. I used it to produce my digipak and magazine advert. It inhibited me with the power to create what I envisioned my digipak and magazine advert to become.

YouTube -  YouTube was used as a platform to display my draft videos, and to explore other music videos that I can draw inspiration from. However I had problems with uploading my final edit of the music video. This was because it filtered down the quality, and increased the brightness. This is when I decided to explore other video sharing sites to upload my video onto.

Vimeo -  Vimeo was the platform I used to display my final version of my music video. Even though Vimeo is a French platform for movies, after researching for other platforms, this was the only one that was easily accessible to upload my video with no issues or hassle.

Whatsapp – I used Whatsapp to gather feedback from my friends, family and peers. It was useful as it’s is really popular and almost everyone uses whatsapp to keep in touch with their family and friends. I was familiar with the software; ad gave me easy access to reach people directly to gain feedback as soon as possible.

Twitter – During my research, I used twitter to discover what appeals to the hip-hop audience, and to see what demographics listen to certain type of artist and where they are mostly located. I searched hashtags, and discovered the results of polls that were taken by other twitter hip hop officials on twitter. Using twitter as easy for me as a twitter user myself I already knew how to work the social network, and find what the information I wanted.

Google Chrome – This was the Internet explorer and search engine I used to browse the web and find my research. I’m really familiar with the web surfer as I use it myself. It gave me many advantages including being able to access my blogger with ease as it’s already connected to my Google account. With the link to my Google account I could also access my YouTube Channel.

Audacity – This was the software used to convert my explicit version of the song into a clean version that could be used in the music video. Other audio softwares were too hard to understand how to use, and this software was widely known and gave me the opportunity to look for YouTube tutorials to achieve the sound I wanted. I tried different methods of making a radio edit version of the song; I used the reverse technique, and replacing the explicit language with sounds. However after trial and error, I felt that these techniques didn’t aid me at all, as I just caused a distraction from my music video. Then I found a way to just mute the vocals at the points where explicit language was used without losing the instrumental sound. This took me a while but at the end it was worth it, as it gave me the sound I wanted, and it suited what I wanted to portray in my music video.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3 from nezzy365

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

              

Final Music Video

                     
                          Nasser - Killers from Nesreen on Vimeo.

Please be advised that this music video contains FLASHING IMAGES.

Final Magazine Ad

Rough Draft 2

                

Rough Draft

Digipak Final

Poster

Music Video Pitch

          


Here is a presentation where I walk through all the details of my music video.




           
             

Vernallis

                              
Here in this clip I demonstrate what my blog talks through about Vernallis, and my understanding  of her theories.

Poster Inspiration

Digipak

Song Update

Since the song I chose (J. Cole's Killers) is from an old mixtape, is quite rare to find on YouTube. So it was even more harder to find a clean version. The clean versions that I came across weren't the ones that I wanted to use. One of them had the reversing technique, which I found very distracting, The other clean version was edited the way I wanted but it was too low of quality, and only edited a few of  the words. After searching for more clean versions, which I didn't find, I decided that it was best if I made a clean version from scratch. So I decided to use Audacity, I imported the song and did a few trials of different editing techniques which were to either cut out the vocals at the right time, or to replace them with another word, or sound. I thought it sounded better if he vocal was just cut out and you just hear the instrumental. This was because it felt more natural, and wasn't distracting and it didn't make a whole difference to the song so listeners can still enjoy it.

Preliminary (Lip Sync)

               

Me and my colleague have doe a preliminary lip sync exercise. This was my first experience filming a music video and lip syncing. It was a lot of hard work and made me realise that producing a music video isn't as easy as it seems. I also learnt from the lip sync hat it's very important to know the lyrics before hand and that having a goo performer brings he music video to life. Overall I am pleased with the video, as it was my first try, one thing that we could've added to the video were shots of the surrounding environment.

Fonts

Rappers also tend to have their own style of font. For example, The game has the same exact font for 3 of his albums.



                                     

The game affiliates with the Compton gang Bloods. He represents his set wherever he goes, and it's evident through his albums where a hint of red is  vividly apparent. This could be something I can consider, my artist doesn't affiliate with any gangs however something he represents could be presented and it could be shown within the font of his name. The Game's title is always somewhere in the top of the cover.

Another rapper that his own font is Nas, who has the a  and the s joined and his name is usually located on the top right of his album.

Nas' title has the reoccurring theme of appearing on the top
throughout the majority of his albums.

50 cent also has his own font/label.It's always bold and n the top right of the cover, with colours vrying from alum o album. The big and bold font reflect his character as an artist.

Wale also has a particular font, it has an italic feel to it and appears somewhere at the top. The font also reflects wale's characteristics as a rapper, his flow is very fluent, and his lyrics are very poetic. The font gives me the vibe that this is his signature, and every album he's signing off, as if to say, it's a gift from him personally to you as a fan.

This made me think about my artist, and his font. What do i want to achieve n showing, do i want to show that my artist is stylish? Or show what he represents and stand for, or show his characteristics? Or all three? One thing i do know for certain is that i want it to be unique, and  because my digipak cover doesn't reveal my artist's face i want the font to be bold, to add to the ambiguity of my artist.

Target Audience

"Who are hip-hop fans? Nielsen’s Audience Insights report on hip-hop music reveals fanship among males 18-24 shows the largest lift relative to the general population. Hispanics and African-Americans are also more likely to be fans than the general population. Geographically, a quarter of fans live in the West, with 27% more fans in the region than the U.S. average." -

"This love of community applies online as well; hip hop fans show a particular affinity for engaging on social media—especially on Instagram, Snapchat and Vine. The good news for marketers is that this young, large and growing hip-hop audience is very responsive to various forms of engagement across multiple digital channels. For instance, 28% of fans show increased favorability when a brand sponsors a live chat via a social network (i.e., Twitter or Goggle+) with an artist."

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/hip-hop-nation-how-the-genre-is-turning-up-in-2015.html

https://sharonasmediacoursework.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/vibe-audience-profile-2011.pdf

https://sharonasmediacoursework.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/vibe-audience-profile-2011.pdf

To research my target audience I decided to look at hip hop magazines and their audience profiles. I found that the major it of their readers are male and and black/african american descent. I also found that the majority of the readers are in their early 20's. I expected beforehand that the majority of the audience would be students, however i have to take into account tat these statistics are based on  the people who buy these magazines. This makes the statistics limited as it excludes the fans who don't buy these magazine but are still endorsed into the hip hop music and culture. Under 18s may also be avid hip hop listeners but can't afford to buy these magazines as they may not be working. Moreover, these magazines are focused on the American population so it doesn't include the rest of the world, thus making it limited. The years that these demographics were made makes it invalid to now, as a lot has changed in 2016 since 2011.

I've learnt from this research that the hip hop audience, the majority or in their early 20's, but there is not much differences in the percentile of other age groups. I also learnt that the majority of the audience are African Americans males and that hip hop listeners also listen a range of other types of music such alternative, r&b and jazz as well as Rock. Taking this into account, i have to make sure that my artist attracts the hip hop audience through my digipak, and poster.