Back Cover - Final

For our back cover we decided to take a shot in the recording booth while we were shooting for our test shoot. We used this shot as we didn't want another shot of Josh posing, we wanted a shot which looked natural and one that looked real. The track listing on the black paper on the wall was purely a random choice, we took a various amount of photos and decided to use this one. We had no idea that our track listing would go there. We are very happy with this as it looks as if it was all planned and looks like a good idea. From our draft digipak we have repositioned the barcode slightly inner than before. We thought it looked unfinished and very rough that the barcode was touching the edge of the cover. Also, from further digipak research we have found that their barcodes are slightly in from the corner. After doing our Record Label research we decided that Atlantic Records was going to be Iceburg's label. We added in the label to the left of the barcode as we had previously seen this done from other albums. We also added a copyright symbol to again, make it look more sleek and professional. Along with this, we have also decided to add the Dobly Digital logo in aswell as we have found this present in many other artists' albums similar to our artist.

We are proud and happy with our Digipak panels as they look professional and go well with the genre of our artist and style. The feedback we have received for our front and back panels of our digipak are that it looks professional and neat and that the shots have been well thought about and go really well with out target audience.

Front Cover - Final

Here is our finished front cover of our digipak. This image was taken against a plain white wall as we wanted it to look professional, we didn't want any unnecessary objects or designs in our front cover. This is because we want the focus to be on our artist Iceburg, his name, his style, and his look. This is because he is a brand new artist and we have to make him recognizable for his fans and genre. The changes we have made since our last edit are that we have moved the 'Parental Adivsory' logo to the left and we have also taken it in slightly so that it isn't touching the corner of the cover. Again, from our digipak reseach, we found that the Parental Advisory logo is always slightly brought in and is never touching the sides of the cover. Our feedback also suggested that the right side of the cover was 'too plain' and it would be better if we weren't covering half of Iceburg's body with the Parental Advisory sign. Our artist name and album name are clear and bold. We used the blueish colour to represent our 'icy' theme. We put the artist name beside the artists face, while the album name was much lower down towards his body. There was no particular reason for this, however people have gone on to say that this works well because if the artist and album name were closer together the cover would look more bland and that this way we fill in the gaps better. Overall we as a group are happy with our front cover as we believe it looks professional yet simple as we haven't done anything fancy because Iceburg is a debut artist and still needs to establish himself onto the scene.

Final Magazine Advert

We have made further and final changes to our magazine advert. We decided to change the old green font to a white font with a black outline. This makes it more readable and stand out more. The green was too 'ugly' and 'slimy' and totally ruined our advert. Now it looks much more 'sleek' and professional. We didn't change much but we did decide to change the 'twitter' logo. We used to have the twitter logo with a blue background. Now we have got a much more modern and professional looking icon. It is just a 't' with a white outline and a transparent background. 

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