This is the final magazine cover i produced using the template of the hip-hop magazine 'VIBE'. I tired to incorporate fonts which are close enough to the real thing to give a realistic feel, I went with a strict colour scheme of red, white and black, which grabs the attention of the potential consumer with a large red title and a mixture of big and small fonts after i researched into real magazine covers which also have the same thing. I used an image which hasn't been used before to publicise Kanye West in magazines to give the magazine a more original feel. As 'VIBE' magazine doesn't have a tagline i didn't use one, but all the other conventions of 'VIBE' magazine I have incorporated into the final design.
This is the original image, I had to adjust the picture from the original, I had to darken it to make it look more blended with the black background of the final cover. I had to cut Kanye West out and put it on the black background for the final cover, darkening the left side of his face to make the image look like it was taken for my magazine cover originally.
This is an original cover made for VIBE magazine featuring Kanye west, i took inspiration from this.
During the production process in creating our music video, we created a number of ancillary texts, including a CD cover (front and back) to accompany our music video and to help promote it to a wider audience. I used our previous research into a number of other Kanye West CD covers, and found a number of conventions to hip-hop music CD covers, which we tried to include on our own CD cover:
Here are the results of our music video questionnaire that we carried out as part of our research into audience expectations of and feelings towards modern day Hip-hop music videos. The results give us an idea as to what young people's favourite types of music video are, and ideas that we could include in our own music video, which we may have been unaware of if we had not carried out this questionnaire as part of our planning process.
Expected Hip-hop Music Video Conventions: girls guns money cars fresh clothes big houses
Favourite Artist/Band: Alicia Keys Giggs Vybez Cartel Drake Beyonce x 2 Blink 182 JLS
We found that Pop music videos were favoured the most, with 4 people choosing it as their favourite type of music video, closely followed by Hip-hop with 3 votes, and RnB and Grime being the least popular with 2 votes.
However, this changed slightly when it came to favourite music genre, as Funky music was the most popular with 3 votes, which was not seen as a favourite music video genre at all, closely followed by Folk and RnB with 2 votes, with Grime and Pop being the least favoured genre with 1 vote each, compared with Pop being the favourite music video genre and Hip-hop gaining no votes as a favourite music genre at all.
We also found that the theme of relationship was not a popular theme for music videos, with 6 voting against the idea and 3 for it. We found that we should also avoid including any shaky camera work in our video, as again 6 people claimed they did not enjoy this technique, compared to 3 who favoured it.
Analysis of two existing Kanye West CD covers (front and back analysis) as part of the process of creating our own CD cover for the Kanye West track Bittersweet. The first CD cover I analysed was 'Graduation' by Kanye West released in September 2007. The second CD cover I analysed was 'The College Dropout', another Kanye West CD released in Febraury 2004. This analysis gave us an insight into the codes and conventions of modern day Hip-hop CD covers, providing us with ideas on what to include on our own CD cover.
I will be analyzing this music video to get some ideas on different camera shots and editing effects that will help us in the making of our own video, which is based on Kanye West's track 'Bittersweet', and to understand the codes and conventions of modern day hip-hop music videos.
The video starts with quick shots and mid-range panning shots of a city landscape (Chicago), including skyscrapers, underground trains and streets shadowed by tall buildings, which set the scene of the video straight away, and suggests the tone for the rest of the video. The use of black and white effects helps to focus our attention on Kanye as he stands out from the stark backdrop. The black and white effect also suggests a bleak and grainy setting, implying a potential hard life for the people in the video including Kanye.
The video moves on to show Kanye walking the streets of his hometown of Chicago, which is a typical image of a rapper trying to make it big in the city. The mise-en-scene, especially the clothing that Kanye is wearing, a duffel coat and balaclava, reinforces the stereotypical image of a gangster in a city, as these clothes are usually associated with this group. Also towards the end of the video Kanye can be seen wearing jewellery that looks expensive and suggests that he is rich compared to the other people shown in the video, who in contrast appear to be poor and to be living a completely different life.
The close-up shots of Chris Martin playing the piano switch our focus on to him and his pure instrumental and vocal role in the video. The audience see Martin as the backing man, whereas the main focus and story of the video is played out by Kanye through his homecoming. The use of ambient lighting in Martin’s scenes and the fireworks in the background suggest that Kanye’s homecoming is the big event, as in the foreground Martin barely appears visible, with the fireworks in the background signifying Kanye’s homecoming.
At the end of the video the use of a mid-range shot of Kanye in the foreground, and a gang in the background, places him as the central person in the scene, as the people in the background appear blurred and out of focus. This scene also reinforces the stereotypical image of a rapper as being part of a gang in an urban environment, and the life that this entails. The video then moves on to a mid-shot of Kanye walking through the streets with this gang, with the other members of the gang dressed in typical clothing, e.g. hoods and baseball caps. The last few panning mid-range shots show Kanye looking up at the city landscape, giving the impression that the city is much bigger than him. The camera then cuts to a close-up of a young child looking up with a dummy in its mouth just about to start his life in the city. The camera then cuts back to Kanye (low-angle shot) with him looking down at the camera, giving us the impression that he is looking at the child, suggesting that this child is in the same situation as Kanye was before he had grown up and come home.
The video is edited in such a way that helps the video to flow from scene to scene ensuring continuity. For example, the beginning of the video flows smoothly from the city landscape to a highway, giving us a different perspective on the city without jolting cuts. The use of camera shots and effects reinforce the story the video is trying to tell, for example, the mid-range shots and panning shots successfully highlight the video’s setting, Kanye’s hometown and sets the tone and pace for the entire video.
The first thing we see in this music video is the use of computer enhanced images and cartoon like background, this is not typical of the hip-hop genre but Kanye Wests music videos are not really typical of the genre but they still show some codes and conventions. For example in this video we see comic like images of fast cars, champagne, money and there is also a pretty girl dancing in the video which is of course a convention of hip-hop music videos.
The editing for this video was obviously very important to the success of the music video, as i have already said, the background images are all cartoon like and the way in which Kanye West and T-Pain react to the images behind them is cleverly done as this was obviously done behind a green screen. Editing is fast cuts and nothing more for continuity. There are a mixture of shots including close ups, mid shots and long shots, complimented by a mixture of low angle shots to show Kanye Wests power in society as a succesful rapper, and also high angle shots to show that he isnt always so well respected and powerful.
This is the original image, I had to adjust the picture from the original, I had to darken it to make it look more blended with the black background of the final cover. I had to cut Kanye West out and put it on the black background for the final cover, darkening the left side of his face to make the image look like it was taken for my magazine cover originally.
