draft designs for album cover

for this design i wanted to fill the front cover and try minimise empty spaces by making the buildings stretch across, this gave a more full and 'plenty' look. the reason for the censored sign across my mouth is because it is common for rap artists to feel 'silenced' and hushed down due to the stereotype of their anti social relationship with general society,police and the government.

draft designs or album cover

2nd draft

first draft

for my album cover i am aiming for only 2 colours that contrast and stand out when combined, this will give me a minimal and simple look which is what im looking to have. i also want to include an element seen in the video and relating to the genre, i.e the broad water farm estate i have put on the album cover, this may give a slight hint to what the songs in the album are about. for the writing i want to use a graffiti style font in bold capital letters, the reason for this is because graffiti is normally seen on street walls and rap/grime/hip-hop emerged from urban streets where graffiti is commonly seen.

album cover research- hip-hop/ grime

aspect of research,ancillary work,photoshop tutorial lesson.

final product

whilst editing, shown in screenshot are different layers

today we had to show our photoshop skills in lesson,we first watched a tutorial given to us by a media technician and then put our skills to the test by creating a digipak/album cover on a previously made layout. Because i already had previous experience working with photoshop and designing with photoshop i found this task quite simple, i already knew my taste in designs (simple but effective) so i had already planned what i was going to do next. i wanted to use colours that did not complement each other but actually clash and stand out from one another(causing the prominent/striking effect) so i combined a pure faded shade of grey with a rich full vivid colour,red, my choice was quite influenced by the artist kanye west's album cover of 808's and heartbreaks(which is in the same genre as my choice of music video and this test digipak) 

808's and heartbreaks album:Kanye west

by analysing many other digipaks i quickly came to the conclusion that convential digipaks often have the artists face at the front of the album cover (the face most of the time is a close up of the artist), and the artists name in big bold font at the top, with the album name in smaller font usually at the bottom of the cover. So going by this convention i chose to put a close up of my chosen artists face at the front of the cover (travis scott) and the artists name in bold large font above the image, the artists first letter of his name "t" is replaced with a cross associated with the religion christianity, not only did i choose to use this because of the cross looking like a T but because the artist has a few songs which are influenced by christianity, god and prayer, such as the first song on his album "days before the rodeo" "PRAYER", i found this quite effective and it showed some synergy and consistency on a deeper level.

for the back of the album cover i wanted to keep it simple, so i had the executuive producers name (giving him credit) and left the corporation (label) at the bottom with the artists website alongside it ( a space in between both) and the barcode on the bottom right hand side. overall i went for a uniform,symmetrical and consistent look which gave me what i intended to end up with, a simple but effective digipak.

(aspect of research) analysing the print work of 3 students

analysing group 28

analysing group 19

Analysis of the print work of 3 students

introduction to ancillary work-blog task 1

in the few weeks leading to january i will be individually producing a digipak for the album that my music video comes from and an advertisement for the release of it, to do this i will first conduct my research into other rap albums and analyse their album covers, i will then have a photo-shoot for my digipak and then go into the production of it.

Introduction to ancillary work

From now to sometime in January, I will be producing a digipak for my groups album along with a magazine advertisement to go along with it. I will research other digipaks and advertisements from the rap genre to become familiar with the conventions that I should use for my own.

Deadline Day Vlog

We are currently adding the finishing touches to our music video on deadline day by colour correcting and changing the widescreen filters for all of our shots.

Filming our last verse for ace cold and last chorus for DJ zed in Angel Islington

On Tuesday we filmed Ace Cold's last verse and DJ Zed's last chorus in areas close to our college in Angel Islington. We wanted to include shots with lots of movement in them as we thought that we were lacking in that area prior to filming. We also used the environment to our advantage when filming as we saw infastructure that we could interact with to make our video more unique. Some examoles include the shot where Ace Cold is sitting on a gate and the low angle shot of DJ Zed singing on a balcony.                                

 

 

Skills development

In terms of pre production, I have developed my skills in various ways. One way I done this was by learning how to use Timetoast in order to make our group's production schedule. I also learned how to use social media such as Twitter and Instagram, which I had no experience of using prior to A2.

My developed production skills include learning how to use the following: widescreen filter, colour correction and transitions. I learnt to use all of these features by watching the others in my group use them frequently and I understand their effects on video by observing the shots that we used them in.

Rough cut 2 feedback

Our rough cut shows that we have closely followed Goodwin's theory. One way that we done this was by using many shots where the performer breaks the fourth wall, which we used to help the viewer connect with the lyrics of our song. Our video also features amplification, which empasises our songs lyrics to the audience. An example of this is the shots of Blazer in a cage which combines with the lyirics to suggest that he is trapped. In addition to this, the use of this shot also relates to Goodwin's theory as it is repeated throughout the verse, thus making his confinement a recurring theme.

We have also implementes various aspects of Vernallis' theory into our video. An example of this is the special effects that we include such as: colour correction, transitions and slow motion which make our video more appealing visually. In addition to this, we have even more jump cuts when compared to our first rough cut to ensure that there is a wide varitaion of shots and maintain a high tempo.