Updated Digipak

Copyright Permission Letter

The Weeknd Copyright Letter

Lyrics - Analysis

 

After analysing the lyrics for the song together, Sarah and I managed to narrow down the fundamental ideas behind our music video and compile a list of the main scenes we wanted to include.We will be adding to this list as our ideas develop and may not include everything within it, however we feel as though we should include a range of clips to make the video look as professional and more importantly effective as possible.

• We have decided to use a projector to show flashbacks of the leading females past or career highlights where she is seen smiling and laughing or looking glamorous. We want to create a contrast in these scenes by then show the female distraught either leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor looking a mess whilst the projector plays. This will represent the images haunting her mind. 

• We will show her sat in front of a dressing table looking at her reflection at the beginning and end of the music video. We want to show her starting off looking nice and dressing up and then show her crying and drinking alcohol in front of the same mirror at the end before looking pretty again. She could be putting an expensive necklace on at the beginning or dressing up for a big event.

• We want to show clips of her pouring herself a drink at home recklessly whilst sipping gracefully on her drink outdoors. We will focus on her drinking at home and show bottles lying around her house and in her handbag etc.

• Linking to the last point, we will attempt creating a slow motion clip of a bottle of alcohol smashing. This will be aesthetically pleasing whilst also representing how alcohol is 'breaking' her.

• We will include a house party where 'hoes' or provocatively dressed women will be dancing with one another in a seductive way. Within this scene we will also be showing flashing shots of money, drugs and alcohol lying around. 

• We will show smoke coming out of her mouth as she smokes and show this in slow motion.

• We may also include a scene where she is being taken advantage of slightly but she doesn't mind because she's drunk and out of control and doesn't struggle. This will make her seem vulnerable and show a dark, seedy side to being glamorous and beautiful.

Digipak practise shots

Sarah and I have decided to continue with our black and white theme by using b&w imagery within our digipak, however we may be using slight splashes of color on the text if we feel that it looks good on the digipak and doesn't overtake the overall black and white effect we want to keep consistent.

This is another practice edit I did. I envisage this image being used as the back panel of the digipak as it shows her back and has been taken from an original angle. By not showing her face, the focus on the world around her and how she's standing alone in it. Also, her back is being shown in a girly dress which correlates with the girly, classy image we are trying to create.

Magazine Advertisement - First Draft

Digipak - Possible Images

Rough Digipak

In regards to my groups Digipak, we had various ideas which all included grainy black and white images. The reason we decided to do this is to keep the use of imagery and vagueness of the music video consistent in order to be able to identify the artists album easily.

The three images at the bottom are obviously all a part of the same photo however after conducting some research into professionally made digipaks, I found that spreading the images out in this style was not only aesthetically pleasing but also a good way of emphasizing a specific object or the artists face if this is being shown. As we are not showing our artists face, we are trying to create a digipak which is interesting and stands out, whilst not making the female used within the images look like she's the artist to someone who may not be aware that the singer is male.

Digipak Shoot

Today, Sarah and I spent roughly thirty minutes doing hair and make up in preparation for our digipak shoot before taking a range of photographs. We initially planned to spend fourty minutes taking the photographs to ensure that we had a good range of photographs to choose out of, however, we managed to finish within twenty minutes because we had prepared beforehand. All in all, a productive day!

Naming the artist

Initially, Sarah and I were going to change the name of the artist from 'The Weeknd' to 'Freddie J', however, after much deliberation, we decided that it would be more interesting and challenging to try to completely recreate the brand image using the same name. This would allow us to gain an insight into how the music industry works from a range of angles and would also enable us to work even harder to achieve a completely different brand image within the same genre.

Props and Equipment

Props:

• Vodka Bottle

• Wine Bottle

• Nightgown

• Cereal bowl

• Glass - for vodka

• Wine glass

Equipment

• Nikon camera

• Tripod

• Spare battery 

• Spare memory card

Moodboard

This mood board represents the ideas and style of imagery we wish to present through our music video. I chose to create a black and white mood board as our music video will be black and white. This creates a classy illusion and correlates with the infamous black and white images of Marilyn Monroe whom we are basing our music video on. The moodboard shows pictures of alcohol, drugs, lust, fame, sadness etc. as we want to focus on the rise and fall of a beautiful icon. We want to modernize the Marilyn Monroe concept by creating a more current, trashy environment in which our leading female falls rather than using mise-en-scene that represents the time in which Marilyn Monroe lived.

Our overall idea will be to show a contrast between how what seems like an unattainable female star can be so insecure and depressed behind closed doors. We want to make the video ooze class on one hand whilst representing the seedy, underground realities of being a celebrity.

We will show flashing imagery of her body parts e.g. her lips, her eyes and her hips to support Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory and to also show how females are sexualised and almost exploited in music videos or the media in general.

Locations

Here are some examples of the locations we used:

Representation

Representation is the way in which social groups are portrayed through music. Many artists like Tupac and Eminem mostly show negative portrayals through their music which include illegal activities and referring to women as 'bitches' or 'hoes'. Other artists like Taylor Swift often produce songs to do with love and having broken hearts which have both a positive and negative look on them. Katy Perry for example, has positive songs promoting independance and freedom.

Our artist, 'The Weeknd', generally has songs to do with love, sex, alcohol and drugs. Although this sounds negative, as he is a R&B artist and his songs are slow, they can be persued in a positive way. Here are a few lyrics from different songs which portray all the different types of topics he sings about:

High For This:

"You don't know what's in store

But you know what you're here for

Close your eyes

Lay yourself beside me

Hold tight for this ride

We don't need no protection

Come alone

We don't need attention

Open your hand

Take a glass

Don't be scared

I'm right here

Even though you don't roll

Trust me girl

You wanna be high for this

Take it off

You want it off"

Remember You:

"She’s about to earn some bragging rights

I’m ’bout to give it up like I’ve been holding back all night

Girl, take pride in what you wanna do

Even if that means a new man every night inside of you

Baby, I don’t mind

You can tell by how I roll

Cause my clique hot and my cup cold

My tongue slurred cause I’m so throwed

And I’m wiping sweat from my last show"

D.D:

"You’ll never make me stay

So take your weight off of me

I know your every move

So won’t you please let me be

I’ve been here times before

But I was to blind to see

That you seduce every man

This time you won’t seduce me"



Marilyn Monroe Mise-en-scene Inspiration

Add caption

Black And White Concept

For our music video, we have decided to go for a black and white theme but we will add a bit of colour now and then when we feel this will have a greater effect. We did our research and found quite a few successful music videos which have also followed through with the black and white concept. Beyonce, in particular, tends to have a lot of black and white videos which all manage to look good without boring the audience. Here a some of them:

Beyonce - Dance for you

Beyonce - If I were a boy

Beyonce - Diva

Beyonce - Single ladies

There are many other artists who also have videos in black and white:



Madonna - Vogue

Dondria - You're the one

Rihanna - You Da One

video I found during research was actually from our music video artist The Weeknd:

The Weeknd - Rolling Stone

Research - New Ideas

The Weeknd


The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) is a 22 year old Toronto born R&B singer/ rapper/ producer who has recently shot to fame despite having released two previous albums. He has had a modest start to his career and creates a distinctive style of music that is sometime nick-named 'zone out' music. He has collaberated with the likes of Drake and Juicy J and is recently becoming more mainstream in Britain.

The songs I am interested in by this artist are:

This song 'Dirty Diana' is based on Michael Jacksons famous song and I feel that we can use this to create an urban music video with a Jackson twist. This will enable us to merge genre's and create something unique. I envisage a jumpy video focusing one a female who is seductive and promiscuous however we can use her dress sense and facial expressions to express this. I would also use smoke and street/Jackson style dancing to make the video more astheatically pleasing.

This song, 'The Morning' takes a controversial approach to how women are almost destroyed by the media and the expectations of women. The lyrics describe how 'all that money, the money is the motive' whilst the video focuses on how each of the women sells their souls almost, to get what they want. For this song, I would deviate away from the concept of this video and focus more on one woman and how the lyrics can apply to her. I envisage a black and white video with a panoramic style. 



Frank Ocean


Frank Ocean (Christopher Francis Ocean) is an American singer/ songwriter from Louisiana. He has two albums and has also written songs for Brandy, Justin Bieber, and John Legend. . He released two singles: "Novacane" and 'Swim Good", which both achieved chart success and has also been nominated for several prestige music awards for his later released songs.

The song I was interested in is:

This song is what you could call a typical R&B love song in regards to the lyrics which would give us a lot to work with as we can use the conventional love songs to base our video around and take ideas from. By this, I mean that the popular genre and uncomplicated lyrics are broad enough for us to do anything with. Again, I want to create an urban style video where we will show a dark, British atmosphere. The only problem is the lyric 'in southern California' however I don't believe that this is a major problem. I envisage a male (the artist) falling asleep and dreaming/day dreaming about woman. This could be done in a split screen or just shown with a slight white haze/smoke as an effect to distinguish between what is real and what isn't.

New Song

Due to a lack of motivation, Sarah and I have decided to use a different song to create a video for. We feel as though the song we are currently working with isn't something we listen or like ourselves, therefore we are not enjoying the process and this is affecting our work. We are currently conducting research into several artists/songs e.g. The Weeknd or Frank Ocean and are looking into the songs 'Dirty Diana' and 'Thinking about you'. We have chosen these songs and several others because we enjoy them and can use our current footage within the video.

We understand that we do have time constraints which is why we will be filming throughout the christmas holiday and will edit in the following two weeks after school and during lunch to ensure our music video is of the best standard we can create.

Initial Ideas

The Song

We have decided to go with The Weeknd's song 'The Morning' to create our music video for as it is something we like and have come up with a strong concept for. We are going to focus on the idea of a star falling from fame and giving into the pressures of the 'hollywood' lifestyle. The lyrics (posted below) talk about how female's are sexualised and exploited by the media therefore we have tried to use the idea of Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' to base our video around. We will show female body parts and zoom in on them/linger on the curves which is a common feature of R&B videos. 

We also wants to take a sort of Marilyn Monroe approach by showing a trashy lifestyle against a classy background. This way, we can show her wealth and how she appears to be living the 'high life'  whilst the reality is completely different. 

Lyrics: 

Listen x2(Verse 1)From the morning to the eveningComplaints from the tenantsGot the walls kickin like they six months pregnantDrinking Alizé with our cereal for breakfastGirls calling cabs at dawn quarter to 7:00Skies getting coldflying from the northrockin with our city like a sold out showHouse full of hoes that specialize into hoeinMake that money rain as they takin off they clothesOrder plane ticketsCali is the missionVisit every month like I'm split life livingLet the world listen if a haters caught slipping then my ni**as stay tightGot my back like pimpinFast life grippinYeah we still tippinCodeine cups paint a picture so vividFakes try to mimicGet girls timidBut behind closed doors they get oh so rigid(Chorus)All that money the money is the motiveAll that money the money is the motiveAll that money the money she be foldinGirl put in work girl girl put in workGirl put in work girl girl put in work[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-morning-lyrics-the-weeknd.html ]Girl put in work(Verse 2)Push it to the limitPush it through the painI push it for the pleasure like the virgin to the gameA virgin to that moneyA virgin to the fameSo this my only chance and when I'm over only pray that I flow from the bottomCloser to the topThe higher that I climbThe harder I'ma dropThese pussy ass ni**as tryna hold on to their credit so I tell them use a debit watch they image start to lessenI warned 'em like discretionWhy these ni**as testingAlways fu**ing testingWhy these ni**as testingSh*t that I got them on straight bar hopping to the music of the ambianceGet sh*t poppingZombies of the nightNi**as aint talking if they hyping to the crew get it in like pocketsDowntown lovingWhen the moon comingOnly place to find base heads, and hot women(Chorus)Better slow downShe'll feel it in the morningAint the kind of girl you'll be seeing in the morningToo damn raw aint no ni**a worth her holdingAint no ni**a that she holding man her love is too damn foreign(Chorus x2) 

Effects

• We want to create an entirely black and white music video in order to create a classy/sleek atmosphere, however, we will be including elements of colour on certain pieces of clothing or on her lips for example. 

• We will be showing slow motion, fast motion and clips going backwards in order to make the video aesthetically pleasing to our audience as well as showing our editing skills. We also want to use these effects to go with the pace of the music.