Rough Cut 2

 We listened to our feedback as much as we could. We zoomed out of the wire frame for the shot in the mirror and feel that this is a more suitable shot. We also listened to the feedback about including a shot of Josh's lips while rapping. We were unsure on the outcome of this and since doing so we have received a mixed reception for this shot.

 We finally got more footage to play around with. We included more of our artist in different locations, while walking, on the phone, dancing, drinking and rapping all from various types of angles.

 We also got more shots from the front of our artist to show his face. This shot has got a really good reception from our audience who have seen it so far.

 We also told Josh to perform more and we have included some shots of him dancing during the video to make it look that much more professional.

 We got more close ups of our artist as our main objective is to sell our artist.

This is our second rough cut for our video.

Rough Cut - Feedback

The initial feedback we received for our first rough cut of our video was that in the shot of our artist in the mirror, you could tell that we had zoomed in by using the wireframe. 

 In the shot above we can see our artist from the back and his reflection in the mirror. We decided that the shot was too long and therefore decided to zoom in half way during the shot to give our video more variety as we were lacking a sufficient amount of footage. On Final Cut however, it wasn't zoomed in this much, it was during the youtube upload that it was zoomed in this much.

As it was our first rough cut and lacked footage, our feedback was that some of the sequences in our footage could be shortened and we could add more from various locations.

A popular bit of feedback was that to get Matthew in the video performing with Josh as he is very confident and it could work well with two people working in a band. We however didn't take this bit of feedback on board as Matthew wasn't 100% confident in doing this type of video. We feel that we can still make our video as good with just one artist, as the reason people said this was because of Matthew's performance skills. We have now told Josh to over perform hoping for a better reaction in our second rough cut. This ties in well with another bit of feedback we received. We were told that Josh has to be more confident and perform more and just let loose to give our video a much better effect. 

From this shot you can't see Josh's face. This was another bit of feedback we received that there wasn't enough of our artists' face and to get more images from the front. One person told us to maybe add in a shot of Josh's lips up close while rapping to give a variety of shots instead of just standard types of shots.

Record Label Research

After much research on a various amount of record labels, we have found that the most suitable record label for our artist would be Atlantic Records. After our research we found that artists similar to ours were signed to this label. Ed Sheeran and Plan B were amongst the names that were signed to this label. These artists relate to ours as they both can rap and sing. We had a tough decision between Island Records and Atlantic Records as Island Records featured Rizzle Kicks themselves. However, Island Records had much more well known artists and we thought that as for a new artist this wouldn't be convenient.

Atlantic Records are owned by Warner Music Group. Warner are widely known and seen as the second biggest record label in the world. EMI, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group who are the other big labels that we have researched. However these labels didn't fit our criteria as they were too well known.

Atlantic Records was founded in 1947 Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. In 1967, Warner took full ownership of Atlantic Records. The label features many artists from the Rock and Roll and Jazz genre. Ever since being taken over by Warner they have widened their range of artists. They now feature artists from genres of Pop, Rock and Urban culture. Some of the most famous artists signed to Atlantic Records are 3OH!3, James Blunt, Chingy, Craig David, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Plan B, Sean Paul, T.I, Trey Songz and Wiz Khalifa.

Questionnaire Results

For our initial questionnaire we have gained responses from fifteen people from the 16-18 age range from eight boys and seven girls. We found that our audience listens a wide range of music and a variety of artists and genres. The majority of our audience listen to RnB and Rap/Hip-Hop and their favourite artists are mainly Ed Sheeran, Drake, 50 Cent and Rihanna. They watch a variety of music channels however, they mainly vary from the different MTV's and its genres with MTV Hits and MTV Base being the most popular. Our audience are also influenced by style as 8 people said they listen to Rihanna and 50 Cent because of their style and how they portray themselves. Nearly all but one of our audience said that they get their music from free while one said they purchase physical CD's.

From our audience research we have inferred that it will be better to release our song on iTunes as there is a decreased demand in CD's. Also, we can try to make our artists style unique and bold as people tend to listen to artists who have a wacky or weird style and sense of fashion.

This is our Questionnaire:
What is your gender?
Male or Female

What is your age?
13-15 16-18 19-21 22+

Name your favourite 3 artists/bands?

Which artist would you be most likely to listen to based on genre and style?
Arctic Monkeys Rihanna Foo Fighters Olly Murs JLS 50 Cent None

How would you define your favourite music genre?

Is there a particular sub-genre which you like more than other elements of the above genre?

What appeals to you about this genre/sub-genre?
Lyrics Beats/Instruments Fashion Culture It's Popular

Which music channels do you watch regularly?
I have have/watch music channels MTV Hits MTV Base MTV Rock MTV Dance MTV Classics

How do you consume music?
Free downloads Purchasing physical CDs Getting free CDs from festivals Online purchase and Download (iTunes etc)

How much would you estimate that you spend on music in an average year?
Nothing Less than £15 £16-30 £31-45 £46-70 £71-100 £100-150 £151-300 £301-500 £500-1000 Over £1000

Rough Cut so far..

Digipak Draft

For our draft version of our digipak we used a template which we were given aiding us with guidelines on how big/small each panel should be. We have gone for a 6-panel digipak with a front and back cover with four inner panels which reveal shots of our artist. The shot on the bottom left was the first image to be tampered with. Our feedback was that people in the background could be seen. We then decided to change around the contrast settings on photoshop to try and fade the people in the back. We then decided to do this for the other images as well for consistency and also because they looked plain and dull. Now they look as if they are glowing to give the shots a more professional look about them. It was randomly my idea that we could use the black piece of paper in the middle image on the top as the backing for where our track listing goes. We tried writing a few tracks on it to see if it would work, we feel that it does and have since gone further with this idea.

Updated Magazine Advert

We have once again amended our magazine advert! We have now changed the colour of our font. The artist name is now in blue while the album name is in green. This was due to the fact that our album is called 'Unorthodox' and wanted to reflect this in our theme. The artist name's colour is down to the fact he is called 'Iceburg', we wanted to reflect the name in the image by making it blue and look 'icy'. Our feedback stated that our icons on the bottom left were also too big and should be compressed further. We also changed the facebook and twitter part. Instead of having the whole URL for the facebook and twitter sites, we now have '/Iceburg' and '@Iceburg'. This was again from more album art research. We found that Ed Sheeran's '+''s magazine advert had just @EdSheeran and this change was inspired by our research. The feedback for this part has been positive as there's now less to read and therefore looks much more professional. The feedback received for our font colours have been mixed with some saying that it just doesn't go where as some have claimed they quite like the colour spectrum.

Updated Magazine Advert

We decided to update our magazine advert. From the feedback we received that our initial advert looked 'unprofessional' we changed our font. We found the font using a website called www.1001freefonts.com, we were very lucky to find this website as it gave us a numerous amount of options we could use. We decided to go with this font as it went with our advert well and looked most professional for our needs. We moved the release date to the right side of the shot just below his bent knee. We moved it like this as people thought that the advert looked too 'cramped' and should be 'spaced out' more. Also, our icons at the bottom left of our advert have been shrunk in size and moved down lower towards the corner. This was because before it look like a 'child had done it' and that this way look more professional. Also, from our Album advert research similar artists like Wretch 32 had the icons towards the corner and were very small. We decided to remove the 'in stores' bit after the 'available' as it looked as if there was too much writing going on in the advert.

Rough Magazine Advert

This is our magazine advert which we created in our group. We followed a similar structure to that of Wretch 32's debut album as we feel that our artists are similar. We have included the artist name, album name, a release date, places you can buy it from and his twitter and facebook website links. We edited the photo on photoshop by giving the image a light blue mist about it. The fonts that we used were just rough and used any that looked appropriate from the options on photoshop. We thought it would be right to put the website information at the bottom of the advert as from the research we had been doing, most of the artists and labels websites were near or at the bottom.

We decided to put two places of purchase on our poster, them being HMV and iTunes, we thought as its his first studio album, it would be unlikely for our artist to be available at places such as Spotify yet.

The shot of our artist for the advert isn't the album cover, which in some instances we found that artists mostly use their album art for adverts and just elongate them so they can include all the relevant information. We did this as we want our audience to see our artist first. What he dresses like, what he looks like and what's his style. From his pose we can infer that he may be a little laid back about life and is still young and enjoying his time. We believe over time that our artist will mature and hopefully become more established therefore being able to use album arts and album adverts not featuring a shot of our artist at all.

Magazine Advert

This magazine advert is of Wretch 32's first album called 'Wretchrospective'. The advert features where you can buy or download the album, a release date, featuring artists, the artist name, the artist name, a picture of the album cover with the artist. The advert also includes the myspace website of the artist and also features the name of the record label. Our magazine could be similar as this was the artists first studio album release, and follows quite a simple theme, with a silhouette background of a council estate which looks drawn by graffiti. It doesn't have any ratings or quotes, which you wouldn't expect on an artists debut album. My own magazine advert is done on paper and will be scanned in at a later time.

Possible Digipak Photos