Task 3- Research into a marketing package

The album I am going to evaluate in this post is Drake's 2011 album 'Take Care'.  This is a very famous album which completely took Drake fans by storm.  Each track on this album is love individually as many of them have been released as singles too.  Even 5 years later Take Care is still one of the best albums to come from an R&B rapper.  Drake, the Canadian hip-hop artist released Take Care as his second studio album and even though he has released albums since I believe Take Care is still seen as his best.  Drake released this album with record labels Young Money Entertainment, Cash Money Records and Republic Records which proves how big is album was.

Full playlist of album

One way drake promoted his album was to release singles that would be on it.  Drake released 8 singles before the whole album was released to the public.  Some of these singles include The Motto, Make Me Proud and Take Care itself.  These were just a taster of what the album had to offer.  By releasing some singles early, it means that Drake fans were more excited for the full album to be released and therefore when it was, it sold. According to Neilsen SoundScan as of August 2015, Take Care had sold 2,260,000 copies.

Digipak-

The front cover of Drake's album cover is him sat at a table looking serious.  This sets the base idea that the album itself is going to involve some deeper songs that will makes the listeners think.  There is fine art in the background hanging up on the walls in the picture which shows that Drake is a prestigious music artist.

There is an image of Drake on the inside of the cover of the ‘Take Care’ digipak which displays Drake smoking a cigar.  This portrays Drake in a certain way that he knows his audience likes, relaxed and care free.  The underlying colour of gold in this picture behind Drake in the foreground hints the ideas of wealth and status.  

The next part of the digipak is for business and legal reasons as it displays who took part in each song as well as the director and other details that aren’t particularly for the purpose of entertaining Drake’s audience.  The background picture of this side of the digipak is a well decorated mansion which also reiterates Drake’s wealth.

This side of the digipak is very text heavy.  It states all the people that’ve helped Drake and aided him in the making of this album and his career.  The extent of this list shows what a powerful artist Drake really is.  The background image is of an owl which is a prestigious and wise animal, which mimics Drake’s persona. 

This image displays Drake standing looking into a mirror.  This suggests that Take Care as an album is about reflection, whether that be on life choices or physically.  Drake has taken a different approach with Take Care and the images he uses supports this.  Again, the room Drake stands in appears to be rather plush which supports his rich personality.  

Here is another side of Drake’s ‘Take Care’ digipak which is purely for business purposes.  This represents Drake as a business man as well as a rapper/RnB artist.  

On the back of the digipak for Drake's album 'Take Care' there is a list of all the songs on the album.  This is set out in a sleek way with gold typing on a black mottled background.  This is very professional looking as the gold stands out against the black background.  Also, gold is seen as a colour representing wealth.




Posters-

This poster is very simplistic and uses the same kind of images as the digipak does.  The main focus on the poster is Drake, the name of the album and Drake's name.  It is very straight to the point and doesn't give much away.  Before 'Take Care' Drake was represented as having a 'bad boy' persona and would usually be seen looking directly into the camera for posters and photoshoots.  He usually has his head cocked upwards or sideways in a care free kind of manner.  Furthermore, Drake usually represents himself as one to watch and he looks slightly threatening when he looks right into the camera, a different approach has been used for 'Take Care'.  Drake is looking away from the camera and almost appears to be praying.  This shows this album is different to other material Drake has released. 









Magazines- 

Drake is introduced on the cover of Billboard, a well known magazine, as 'the new face of hip-hop'.  The serious photo of Drake in black and white makes him appear to be very mysterious and doesn't give much away.  Billboard is a big magazine in America so even getting on the cover is a big deal, therefore the fact that the reason for Drake’s magazine cover is to promote his album shows what a big deal it is.  By promoting himself on Billboard magazine it ensures that a large amount of people will see and read the magazine and therefore Drake’s album will be bought by many people.  

Filming cont. and Editing

In today's lesson we finished filming the shots we didn't get time to finish in our previous session.  There are some half a second shots that needed to be filmed so we quickly captured these.  The memory card we filmed with in the beginning quickly became full because of the amount of shots we had to film for our 60 second piece so we got a new card and carried on filming on this one.  We finished filming today.
Part of the filming we still had to complete involved some artwork or effects that we were unable to create due to the nature of them.  This involved clouds of smoke, burning letters and a rocket ship.  For obvious health and safety reasons with the smoke and letters and the difficulty of gathering footage of a rocket ship we decided to draw these on paper and insert them in this way instead.
Now that all the filming has been done we were able to start editing.  We inserted the whole Knock You Down video into Premier Pro and uploaded all our clips onto the computer from the SD cards.  We then began to insert the relevant clips in order into the document and started to cut and trim them down.  We found it difficult to start with to get the timing right but after a few clips were done it became easier to grasp.  
We were unsure on how to create the split screen effect which is used a lot in the video so we seeked the help of our teacher.  She was able to explain how this effect is achieved and we then carried on independently.  

We managed to get all of the editing done today as it didn't take that much time once we got the hang of it.

Filming for preliminary

Yesterday we started to film the footage for our preliminary.  Izzy, Tammy and I all arrived to college in full costume and filmed the bulk of the shots we needed to do.  Having a breakdown of each shot in our shot by shot analysis made it much easier to get the shots done because we could view our analysis and see who was in which shot, what they were doing, the lyrics they were singing at this moment in time and the camera angle that was used. 

Task 2- Research into other students' work- Jake Maud

Jake Maud

Research

very detailed in every post.

Jake created extra posts to show how he put a lot of effort in.

the of independent research to further understand

different ways have been used to present research 

Planning

detailed with attention to detail

various formats

explanation as to why it'll help in the long run

Music Video

the final music video that Jake created is of insanely high quality.  The final product could easily be mistaken for a professional music video.  His use of different lighting and exposure sets the scene perfectly in the video, for example the light coming through the window in the caravan and the light of the campfire on the beach. 

Digipak

the digipak for this blog echos the same professional vibe.  not only are the pictures of great quality but also the background is very aesthetically pleasing too.  again, lighting has been used in these shots to improve the quality of the final product.

Evaluation

the evaluation on this blog is very detailed.  the questions are perfectly executed and answered in full detail, missing nothing out.  the added use of pictures throughout the answers to the evaluation points enables it to be more easy to digest and easier to read, instead of a block of writing.

Task 2- Research into other students' work- Esha Bhogal

Esha Bhogal 



Positives-

Music Video-  All in all, Esha's final video is very impressive.  The lip syncing is perfectly timed throughout and the actor in the video is very dedicated.  He seems to be connecting with the lyrics with his body language, hand gestures and facial expressions.  The range of locations looks very effective in the final video as the shots swap and change very often which keeps the video looking interesting.  The editing in the video goes in time with the beat in the song which is sometimes quite fast pace which shows Esha's strong ability in this area.

Negatives- 

Some of the camera work appears to be slightly shaky.  This could've been improved by the use of a tripod.

Research- 

Positives-

This person has put a huge amount of detail into their blog.  Here is an image off of Esha's blog where they have gone into detail on the song they are going to use in their final piece.  The attention to detail here is perfectly displayed as she has analysed every single detail of the song she selected. The song Esha chose was 'Poet' by the band Bastille. Esha spoke about the band members, listed background information about the band themselves and inserted relevant pictures and videos relating to the song. 

Esha analysed posters promoting singles that artists have recently released.  Again, the amount of detail put into the analysis is impressive as it is clear that a lot of time and effort has been spent on these posts.  Everything on the poster in commeneted on at least once and a large amount of detail is said about each element.  This is a poster promoting the artist Gotye.

In the picture on the left Esha's blog shows how she analysed almost every single second of the music video for Gotye's song 'Somebody That I Used To Know'.  Doing this would've enabled Esha to see exactly what goes into a music video by a professional artist and a professional team who edited it.  This post is immensley detailed as well as being pretty lengthly.  This shows how much effort was put into the post.  Esha has specifically stated which seconds of the video she is speaking about in each paragraph and has made these bold so that it tands out more, making it easier to read.

Esha did some extra research on some theorists of media construction where she found some step by step tips on how to locate the key features of a music video.  This shows that she was serious about her media studies as well as highly interested in what she was doing about.  Using extra sources of research meant that Esha could get a deeper understanding into what she was working with.  This would've also given Esha an advantage when it came to her own video as she would have gathered extra knowledge.

Summary of positives- This blog is incredibly detailed with a range of formats used. Esha’s blog has a huge amount of information in the planning aspects of it.  The attention to detail of the music video analysis is very impressive as everything has been picked up on and everything has been commented on almost down to every second. It is clear from the planning posts alone that is candidate is interested in the work she is doing which means that the final video will hopefully echo this interest.

Negatives-

The only negative from the research section of posts from Esha's blogs is that some posts haven't been completed.  It seems as though she was meant to go back to her blog and make improvements but has forgotten to do so. This has meant she has missed out blog posts.

Planning-
Positives-

Esha has taken multiple shots of the locations she planned to film in.  This is a good idea because it sets the scene for how her final piece is going to look and by having this idea in her mind, she could base her other planning around this.  Visiting the locations she planned to use meant that she could get a feel for the place and get used to her surroundings ensuring it is what she wants.

Esha's detailed costume plan shows how she has thought in detail about how she wants the people in her video to be represented.  Using a visual mood board displaying ideas of costumes means that people looking at this post can picture themselves what kind of costume Esha aims to have in her video.  Writing about the costume as well as using images means that the idea is clearly displayed.





Brainstorming initial ideas in a spider diagram format means that it can be seen which ideas link with which others.  Getting all her ideas down onto paper meant that she could gather her thoughts and physically see what ideas she had to play with.  It also shows that she had a large amount of ideas in the first place.

Summary of positives-  Again, a lot of detail has been put into the planning in this blog.  Esha has made blog posts for each section of planning that would help her to gather her ideas together and create her video properly and to a high standard. 

Negatives- 

Again, Esha hasn't completed some blog posts.  She has left them half finished or with indications that she is going to go back to them and add in extra things or write more detail but has failed to do so. 

Digipak- 
Positives-

The overall digipak looks very professional and well put together.  The colours used are bright and go well with each other which makes it look very aesthetically pleasing.  Simple colours are used, red, black and white, which keeps the focus on the words and doesn't detract from the more importnant things on the digipak.  The digipak seems very uniformed in the sense that everything is well placed and put together in a way that appears planned and meaningful.  

Negatives-

Some of the text personally seems to be a little too large.  This covers the male's head a little too much on the front cover of the digipak which I believe brings down the overall execution of the digipak cover. Furthermore, the Virgin logo is directly copied from the actual logo.  This could have some complications for the copyright of the logo.

Magazine Advert-  This blog doesn't appear to have a magazine advert, so not much can be said about this.

Evaluation- 

From what has been written, Esha would've gone into a lot of detail in her evaluation but unfortunately it only went as far as a brief draft.  As with other sections of her blog, Esha has not managed to complete the evaluation section of her blog.  

I believe the problem throughout this blog is that perhaps too much time has been spent on certain posts and blogs so this has meant that important elements have been left out.  From this I have learnt that I need to keep an eye on timings and deadlines in order to get everything done to a high standard without leaving out parts.