Draft 2

One of the main things about this draft that stands out to me is that the editing is not very fast paced and doesn't quite fit to the music. When we finish adding all the footage, we should make this a priority to make out music video the best it can be.

First Draft

This is the first draft for our film. The lip synching is a bit off, and there are lots of things we still need to film, but it's a start.

Photos

For one of our shots we are planning to have our artist looking through some old-fashioned photos. To do this I used the app Hipstamatic on my iPhone, which takes photos with a vintage camera effect. Here we took lots of photos of 'Ruby' and 'Ken' in London, to make it look like they have been on lots of dates. I also took some photos of other footage on our computer screen to show variety in the photos.

Filming in London

Today we managed to get our filming in London done. We had to go to three different locations, and we were really tired by the end of the day. We first went to Brixton, however we found that it wasn't really the kind of area that we were comfortable filming in, especially in the market as everyone started glaring at us when we took out the camera. We did get a few shots done in an alleyway next to the O2 Arena in Brixton, which we will definately use for our production, and we also got a few graffiti shots, however when we were filming this there was a woman nearby having a very loud, sweary conversation on her phone, which was a bit awkward filming wise, as we were trying not to laugh.

As Brixton wasn't as successful as we'd hoped, we went to our next location after lunch, which was Southbank. This was far more effective for graffiti shots, however the main graffiti area was the skate park and lots of people we skating so we didn't want to get in the way. Instead we decided to do some more walking shots, so we found lots of interesting backgrounds and filmed those. I also had the idea, when we were by big ben, to do some vintage-looking shots on my phone of Alice, the Ken doll and famous London locations. I used the app Hipstamatic to make these, and I later got them printed off at Boots. We decided we could use these in a shot that is similar to the concept of the Cher Lloyd 'Want U Back' video, which is the singer looking at photographs of her and her boyfriend.

Finally we did some filming in the tube, at the end of an escalator. This shot was quite difficult to co ordinate, as Alice had to go up and down the escalator two or three times and we didn't want to annoy anyone on the tube.

Overall we didn't get quite as much footage as we'd hoped for, but we did come up with some new ideas and took advantage of our locations.

Nicki Minaj - Stupid Hoe

This is the video for Singer Nicki Minaj's newest single, Stupid Hoe. It's hard to know where to begin with this female representation, but the use of the derogatory term 'hoe' in the title might give viewers a clue about the level of sexism in this video. The fact that it is used by a woman, as well, is possibly even worse than if it were used by a man as it shows conflict between women (in terms of the conflict vs. unity theory). The song is about Nicki's 'rap nemesis' L'il Kim, which again shows a childish and slightly pathetic attack on a fellow female with probably equal levels of talent, money and fame. The director, Hype Williams, is well known for being the director for videos such as Beyonce's 'Videophone' and Kanye West's 'Gold Digger', both examples of videos that very much focus on the male gaze, and feature women in skimpy outfits. Hype also has connections to the porn industry, having photographed Kim Kardashian for Playboy magazine.

One of the first shots of Nicki herself is her holding a seemingly impossible pose, that looks a bit like a dancer in a musical box. This links to the previous shot of her dancers playing with a skipping rope, showing there are a lot of childish references in the video. Other examples include her holding a 'barbie' logo, wearing a pink party dress and holding a lollipop, and the constant focus on her eyes. This shows her as 'innocent' despite her provocative dancing, and shows her as easy to manipulate, and the focus on her eyes makes her seem doll-like, again as innocent. Many of her poses are also held very still, which again make her seem like a doll. This shows her as having not much of a mind for herself, and instead complying to male's fantasies and desires, going against her obvious talent in rapping, and making it overshadowed by her representation. This could conform to the idea that men don't like a talented woman, as they feel threatened, so they promote her sexuality to make them feel more comfortable.

Another theme in the video is Nicki being 'caged', and transforming into an animal. This is again derogatory and shows her as merely a pet, and not a human with her own mind. The dancing on all fours in the cage also shows her as some kind of slave to men, again conforming to the submissive role females often take in videos of this genre.

Finally, the use of editing is very successful in portraying Minaj as some kind of unhinged schizophrenic, for example the very fast-paced shots that almost look as if they're showing two shots at once, as well as the incredibly creepy enlargement of  her eyes when she is standing on the oversized chair. This again adds to her image of submission, and shows males that she is easy to manipulate, adding a perverted side to this image of childlike innocence.

Overall, the video is a good example of how negatively women are portrayed in the media, and how, under the pretence of post-feminism, artists like Nicki Minaj are used in this way to sell records and increase video views on Vevo and YouTube.

Final Digipak design

Here is my final design for my digipak! The top half is the outside cover and the bottom half is the inside. The bottom right is where the CD would go, and the image printed on it would fit in to the background. I boosted the colour on the photos because I wanted the Digipak to be more vibrant and stand out, and as the theme for our artist is quite bold and stylish anyway I thought this would fit. I also used a brick background, as we use one in the video to put our scrabble pieces on, so it also fits with the music video.

Overall I'm really pleased with how this turned out, and I think it works well with the genre.

More Digipak designs

Yesterday I took a few more picture of the same background I used for the main photo, and I got home and had another play around with the look of the digipak.




















It's still not finished, as this is definitely not the font I'm using and I still need to do the inside of the case. However, I think this works a lot better as a cover compared to my first design. I'm also not sure about the edge of my case, as I think that using more brick wall looks a little bit busy. What I might do instead is maybe photograph a bit of the dress Alice is wearing in the photo and use that instead.

I also need to work out how to put writing down the edge in a vertical way, and I will probably not use this colour font. The background is hard to work with when it comes to font, as there are lots of different colours and tones going on.

I'm also not sure what to call the album. I know it's doesn't really matter, as it's more about the design, but I want to use something that goes with the theme of the digipak and the video. I might use one of the song titles as an album name, as I know this conforms to my brand, and I think 'London Boots' might be a good title, as we have lots of shots of London in the video, and the picture looks like it was taken in the city.