Planning: Storyboard

Planning: Outline of Narrative.

Our group had the task was to identify the parts of the song that had narrative, concept or performance within them. This was done so that it was easier to figure out what specific scenes and edits we want to include for each verse and chorus.This will help with the production stage because it will allow us to plan what we need to improve on and what we can add.
Annotated Lyrics...







































Application of Theory...

Goodwin: •       Relationship between lyrics and visuals: Visuals will reflect the lyrics e.g. “she don’t want to be saved” will show him leaving her and not trying any more.
•       Relationship between music and visuals: There will be slow edits/motion to portray the slow pace of the song.
•       Intertextual Reference: There will be references to George Bush and a quote of his will be mentioned.
•        Notion of looking: There will be close-ups of the younger female character when the artist first sees her, and also at the end when the artist meets her again after several years to portray the lust.
•        Star image motif: There will be close-ups of the artist as he performs the song in his bedroom where the full focus will be on him.
•       Performance, narrative, concept? Our music video will be narrative and performance based.

Mulvey: 
•        Mulvey’s theory doesn’t really apply, but the slight attraction of the girl may cause a ‘male gaze’.
Dyer:
•       In our video, “star image” will be emphasised through the focus on J-Cole as he performs the song/rap.

Adorno: 
Relation to audience through narrative of people being heartbroken which is a mainstream idea. This applies to the majority of the public as the theme of heartbreak is common in society.
Our idea also applies to Dyer's 'Star Image' theory. We say this because in our music video we want to represent both of the male characters in our music video as 'stars' by using this theory. For this to be successful we will have to make sure our 'stars' will be able to sell to a mass target audience.
Andrew Goodwin's theory relates to our music video because we want to create a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. We will make sure that specific lyrics match with the visuals that we create. An example of this would be that when the lyrics mention money and wealth the visuals will correlate and show nice cars, clothing and gold chains. Doing this will emphasise the themes we want to use within our music videos. It will also show the significance that the themes have to the hip-hop genre.

Video Narrative:
Starts off with artist performance on their own, in a simplistic white room. The artist reminisces on his high school days and how he loved a girl. Realised he had to give up because “she don’t want be saved” from the way she is acting around males. After reminiscing on the relationship that they shared she finds herself in a toxic relationship with a different man. The young lady realises that the artist now has money, fame and happiness and now wants him back; however, the artist is no longer interested. The older version of the girl will return at the end to J-Cole and they are standing face to face expressionless. Both the younger and older characters will wear similar clothing in order to portray the representation. There will be a clear use in Todorov’s theory with the equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium. 
Overall, annotating our lyrics helped significantly as we were able to discuss what we wanted to shoot for each line in the song. As a group we were able to discuss angles, shots and movement with also the different edits we plan to use which helped us create a vision for the music video.

Research and planning – Digipak: Creative brief

Date: 11/12/2015

Album Title/Artist: ‘Tribulations’ by Lamarr Carter

Project Manager: Katie Yiacoumi and Emine Ibrahim

Release Date: 5th February 2016

Product Overview: Who are they?

Lamarr Carter is a young German/African-American born rapper who was brought up in north Carolina America. His career started as a young man rapping for fun in high school. Lamarr realised that people started to enjoy listening to the music he was creating, this drove him into doing everything he could to make it in the music industry. Along with his passion new born passion for music, Lamarr came out with two mix tapes in one year which went viral all over the internet. This captured the attention of representatives at record label ‘Roc Nation’ and also led to him being signed and releasing his first album. The album did just as well as both the mix tapes and brought him a larger fan base. There is a high demand for new music from Lamarr since his success has brought new listeners who cant wait to hear what he has to say.

The magazine advert concept: What it is?

For our artist Lamarr Carter we need a magazine advert which will attract the audience immediately. With the star image being the main focus of the advert, it will help the audience to understand  who he is and what he is promoting. The simplicity of the advert will give the audience the idea that Lamarr Carter is quite transparent artist who is able to reflect his views freely. The use of cold colours will enable us to portray this image.

Why are we doing it?

Due to his first album being released over a year ago, his second album is in high demand which suggests the significance of this magazine advert. This will be an important stage in Lamar’s career as he will need to be more successful with his second album, than he was with the first. This advert will promote Lamarr Carter’s album on a large scale ensuring success.

Comparable products:

Both these adverts can compare to what I plan to create for my final advert. This is because they both include dark colours and the artist is the main focus in this. The biggest writing on the advert is the artist's name, the album name and the release date. This suggests that the artist does not need to promote anything else as they already have a loyal fan base. Therefore, I hope that our advert is able to be clear and simple for our audience to understand the main focus.

Audience:

We hope that the audience will clearly understand the representation of our artist. We hope to attract a positive reaction from the audience and for our artist to gain a successful career from this. Also, we want to create a loyal fanbase who will understand this genre of music and is able to relate with the artist.

How will we know it worked?

This will be evident through the number of sales our artist gains. By looking at the figures it will be clear if our artist has been successful. Also, the media will play a huge role in this as they will be writing articles and following our artist around which will prove that our artist has become successful. Also, the number of followers our artist will gain on social media will show how much publicity our artist has gained. 

Launch dates:

Press campaign: 10th January 2016

TV Launch: 30th January 2016

Album Release: 5th February 2016

Research and planning – advert: Digipak information

     Artist name: Lamarr Carter
We decided on this name as this is the artist's real name suggesting he has no alter ego and is just a humble innocent young rapper aiming to be successful. We believe this name suggests his true personality and characteristics by showing his true self to his fans.

Album Name: Tribulations 
We decided on this album name as Tribulations means a cause of great trouble of suffering. In this album he will reveal the struggle he has been through to get where he is today. The album will show the audience his life story and what he has been through, therefore, building a relationship and connection with his fans.
Track list: 
1. No Role Modelz 
2. Loose ends 
3. Blurred lies 
4. Convenient 
5. Bad for you 
6. Give back  
7. Do it for my n*ggas 
8. Holy Metaphor 
9. Kaya’s Interlude 
10. Back Home 
11. $’s 
12. Morphine
13. Tale untold  

 Music Institution:
We have chosen Sony Music as our media institution as this institution consists of diverse genres and have signed record labels such as Arista Records and Columbia Records. It is a extremely popular music institution which are extremely successful. The benefit of having a variety of genres in the record label gives them a greater chance in being able to work with loads of different artists which is why my artist will be suitable for this institution. Chris Brown is an example of an artist I would like to follow when making my music video and he is signed to Sony Music and has become extremely successful.

Production Company: Slay Productions  

Explicit label:
We have decided to add a explicit label to the album as there will be explicit language involving swearing of sexual content. This will not be suitable for the audiences younger than 18, however, will be able to purchase a clean version of the album.

Planning: Lighting and Colour

Lighting and colour is important to consider when creating a music video because you need to set a certain tone and atmosphere to suit the various elements in different genres of music. The type of lighting you use will define certain conventions of each genre. For example, Rock and Heavy metal music will use dark lighting and a lot of flashing lights, to create a mysterious feel and to also connote danger and fear. They will also use colours such as black, red and grey; these colours are quite depressing and dark which fit in with the genre. Our task was to both analyse the lighting and colour in a music video each...

Katie's Analysis: Drake - "Marvin's Room"

Lighting:

The lighting in this music video is low-key creating a darker atmosphere where it portrays his feelings. The narrative of this music video is negative as he is feeling lost and has just been through a break up. There is also a heavy use in top lighting as this is used to only focus on the main character and his emotions.

Colour:

The colours in this music video are mostly blacks, browns and dark oranges. The lamps play a huge role in creating the orangey colour of the room where it looks like the vibe is negative. The dark colours are also conventional to a Hip-Hop/Rap music video.

My Analysis: 

Rihanna - "Disturbia"

Lighting:

The lighting in this music video is also low-key which creates the dark and spooky atmosphere. The narrative matches the low-key lighting as there is a thriller vibe to this music video. There is also lamps which give a top-lighting effect suggesting the main focus again is the artist.

Colour

The colours used in this music video are also dark, consisting of blacks, greys, and greens. The lamps also give an orangey effect giving the room a darker atmosphere. The greys and greens also suggest the uneasy atmosphere.

To conclude i would say that my group is going to stay quite close to using low-key lighting, however we might use high-key lighting to contrast and create dramatic effects. We also want to stay quite close to the genre conventions and will do our best to do so. 

Planning: Characters

Character 1:

Name: Khaled Jaffer

Age: 21

Ethnicity: Mixed Race

Costume: He will be wearing a plain T-shirt, (white) to portray purity and innocence. Gold chain round his neck and trainers to follow the convention of a Hip-Hop/Rap music video.

Gender stereotype of role: He will portray the artist stereotypical to the Hip-Hop/Rap genre. He will be masculine and confident also.

Body language and facial expressions: This artist will have confident body language whilst rapping and also be confident around females. He will stand upright to portray his masculinity. The facial expressions in the music video will be quite laid back and cheeky as we want the audience to see his presence as something that is naturally effective and dominant, meaning that he is in control. 

Role within music video: He will play the main artist who is interested in the female however, she is not interested in him. He then finds another female at the end of the video.

Character 2:

Name: Denise Dogan

Age: 21


Ethnicity:  Turkish


Gender stereotype of role: She will be portrayed as an attractive female who is classy and smart. 


Costume: She will also be wearing plain clothes like a crop top and jeans with trainers and also glasses to show she is clever.


Body language and facial expression: The body language of this character will also be confident as she knows she is his only interest. She will stand upright to show she is classy and also have a sharp facial expression. She will not be wearing much make-up to show her natural beauty along with her natural curly hair.


Role within music video: She will play the artist's main love interest.






Character 3:


Name:


Age: 15


Ethnicity: Mixed Race


Gender stereotype of role: Attractive younger version of the artist and will portray some of the same stereotypes as the older version. However, will not be as confidently portrayed as the older version.


Costume: He will be wearing similar clothes to the older version so the representation is clear. T-shirt, jeans and trainers.


Body language and facial expression: His body language will be humble and more shy than the current version. His facial expressions will be innocent as he will have a much younger mentality.


Role within music video: Younger version of the artist (Khaled). Portraying how he was when he was younger.






Character 4:


Name:


Age: 15


Ethnicity: Turkish


Gender stereotype of role: Attractive young girl, however, enjoys hanging with a different boy each day. Portrayed as unloyal.


Costume: She will be wearing a crop top and jeans to also portray simplicity. More revealing clothes to show her intentions.


Body language and facial expression: Her body language will be confident around the male as she knows how to act around males. Also, she will give off a flirty impression to all the other males. Her facial expressions will be cheeky to also portray her intentions of being with different males.


Role within music video: The girl the artist was once in love with, but she did not want him.