Copyright Permission - Miguel Adorn

Before we can use the song Miguel - Adorn we had to seek permission from Sony Entertainment as the video and the song is copyrighted. We had to write up a letter asking for permission to use this song and email it to them. Prince took the responsibility of emailing Sony Entertainment, and created this email:

 

Dear Copyright Holders at Sony Music Entertainment,
We are A-level Media Studies students from Wilmington Grammar School for Boys in Wilmington, Kent, United Kingdom. We are writing to request your permission to use one of the tracks from Miguel's latest album Kaleidoscope Dream'. The track we wish to use is track number 1, titled Adorn.
With your permission this track will be used in out current A-level Media Studies Project. which involves creating a music video for a popular music track as well as producing and advertising a digipak, which will include a magazine front cover and album artwork. If we receive your permission to use this track, it would only be used in a educational context and be view by our media class, our media studies teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. It will not be released to are large audience or uploaded to any public video websites. The artist and your company would of course be fully recognised throughout the pre-production and the final video itself. A copyright notice with wording supplied from you can be included in the recording project. If this is required please send full details.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Prince Obode, Sathurshan Gunaratnam, Jessica Obiorah and Seun Osho

 

 

 In our copyright permission email we ensured to highlight:

- What track we wanted to use,

- What we will be using the track for,

- Where we are from,

- Who will be seeing the video,

- We will not be using the video for any profitable reasons,

By highlighting all this in our copyright permission email we are hoping that they would believe that it is a legitimate email not a fraud/scam.

Miguel Adorn - Shot Analysis

My knowledge of camera shots in music videos, are that they are shots used as tools to shape the look and feel of a music video. A camera shots is a powerful way in which our group could communicate our vision to our audience.
To gain more understanding on shots used in music videos, we used the music video of our song choice 'Miguel - Adorn'; analysing all the shots that make up the shots. 

Create and captured by Prince

- Medium Shots

This was one of the shots consistently throughout the music video; medium shots of both artist and dancers. What we obtained from this is that the medium shot are used to focus attention on an interaction between artists. 

- Medium Close-ups

What we notice was that medium close up were used to focus fully on Miguel's facial expression, it was also used frequently throughout the music video (not as much as the medium shots).

- Long Shots

This is another shot that was used several times during the music video,throughout the music video. Through the use of long shots Miguel's expression as well as the message of affection he is trying to put across to his female audience, is exemplified. 

- Close Ups

Mainly used to enhance Miguel's expression and to create a connection between Miguel and his audience. 

Miguel Adorn - Animatic (Prince, Sath and Seun)

In order to give ourselves a quick preview of the outcome of our music video, we created an animatic. The animatic consisted of drawing up a story board and placing it into final cuts - an animatic version of our music video.

This has not given us an idea of what are music video would look like but also what we could and need to change to make it look better.

Here is our animatic version of our music video:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Opening - Staircase Scene (Practice)

In order to avoid wasting time we practiced are opening scene several times, therefore we would prepare for our first filming. Once we had gotten enough footage, I then used Youtube to find a footstep effect. Having both the footage and footstep effect I placed into Final Cuts and altered them both to make them in sync with one another. I used this as an opportunity to explore the different effects and video filters that Final Cuts have to offer. One filter that I found quite interesting was the 'Sharpen', the more i clicked on the 'Sharpen' the more sharper the footage became. 

Here is a practice footage of our opening clip:

As you are able to tell the sound of the footsteps replicate the sound of high heels and I am wearing wellies, as well as the fact that two different shoes are used in the clip. This is all because we used this as a test, to not only test our editing skills but who within our team is more skillful in handling the camera in handled position. It also helped us to understand in what way and angle the camera should be held, along with how the individual holding the camera would have to follow the artist up the stairs. 

Also as you can see during the clip I used the 'Sharpen' filter to give myself and idea of how the filter could effect our footage.  

Album DigiPack (Seun)

Album Digipak Research

An album digipak is a form of packaging often used for album cover and in recent years its contents. It has been patented by the company AGI - Shorewood, a holdings company.

All about Digipaks
An album digipak would consist of the features such as:

Have a type of thick paperboard or card which would have been folded into a book style

Card outer binding, to bring the lyric sideline book together.

Two or more side trays which are capable of holding the CD to the case

Has a protective UV coating on the paper to ensure longevity and durability

The teeth of the packaging are brittle to allow the digipak to remain light.

In the diagram above, it shows the different sides of an album digipak and how it would fit around a CD.
The two end sides show where the CD would be placed and the little details such as the teeth and ridges that would be holding it in place.
These places would be see through as it would allow the accompanying leaflet to slot inside.
The accompanying leaflet would often consist of:
Notes of how the album first came together
A note from the artist themselves, often addressing their fans
The album track list
Lyrics to the singles that will be released
Contact details such as phone number, management, record company etc.
Sometimes it might be a photoshoot of the artist in the background of these spreads.

Some have even tried to make them recyclable by having them made out of renewable materials such as sugar cane and made ridges with the back packaging to get rid of the use of teeth.

Here some examples of digipaks that have become iconic to both the masses and in R&B.

Our Chosen Song

Here is the chosen song our group has decided to base our music video on:

Miguel - Adorn

Target Audience

The whole essence of music videos is to satisfy people, our target audience and to succeed in doing this we must hear and understand the opinions/ideas of our target audience.To further understand our target audience we interviewed three different people with different characteristics (some brighter than others). The interview contained a variety of questions ranging from 'what genre of music' they like to their perception of how music videos are promoted.

From this interview we have understood that our target audience looks at every detailed of a music video

"You know when like the little doggies running around"

By Elliot Stedman

Here is 6 minute clip of us interviewing our target audience. We are hoping from gaining this knowledge, our music video will be as professional as possible; including all that our target audience expects from a music video of a R'n'B genre.

Quoted from one of our target audience

"People running around for no reason"

This is what we would certainly try to avoid and make sure throughout our music video  Andrew Goodwin's theory would be shown.