CCR

M.I.A. CCR

Portfolio Project A Level

Music Video

Website

https://ariannaashakibi.wixsite.com/rawbabyk

Digipak

 

reflection

I’ve definitely learned a lot in the process of making my portfolio project. Working on it by myself for the first time was something I was quite nervous to do but in the end I’m very happy that I did. I chose to do the music video promotion for my project. I needed to create a website, digipak, and of course the music video.

For my artist I was initially going to use another friend of mine but he had bailed at the last minute. Thankfully, Koree said he would let me use him as my artist which was really nice of him since we had just met and weren’t friends at the time. Koree is a rap artist who goes by the name “Rawbabyk”. He already has his music on apple music and youtube. I chose to promote his new album Heartbreaker. I went through all of the songs from that album and I liked his song M.I.A. the best and he wanted to do a music video to that song as well. I knew that I wanted the music video to be more about that rapper lifestyle with their cars and possessions since that’s how Koree was already portraying himself as. I really wanted this music video to represent the brand he has for himself already since he’s more established with his music.

The next week we decided to go film at his house. I had the idea to film with two cameras instead of one so I can get two angles throughout the music video. One camera was going to be on my ronin (camera stabilizer) and the other one would be hand held and could get more close ups. My friend and I went to Koree’s house and filmed in a few locations around his house such as the pool and basketball court. It was a lot of fun and he had his friends there to be in the background of the music video. While we were filming I also got some pictures of him and his friends. After that was over I knew I wanted to film at Wynwood for my second location so I could get some more shots of him and the city. Unfortunately at this point, schools started to close down because of the corona virus. The corona virus heavily impacted everyone's project. However, we were still going to get this video done. I went through all of my footage and I did have a lot, so I was very fortunate to be able to just go and edit with the footage I already had.

Editing is my favorite part of creating content. When I grow up I would really like to specialize in editing. Editing is something I already have a lot of experience in. The software I use to edit my music video is called After Effects. I’ve been using After Effects for years so I’m already very comfortable with the software. I was editing in the span of two weeks. I would work on it for a few days one week and then work on it more the next week. Editing the music video was definitely a long process for me since I tend to be very critical of what I make and I just always want it to look perfect. I also had two angles of every scene and I had about four or five different locations around his house filmed, so syncing the videos with the song was kind of annoying. I really like to incorporate cool effects to get the viewers attention. My timeline on my software was super messy. I had over 200 layers. After I finished editing the music video I could now focus on my website and digipak.

I did have photos I could choose from since I took some pictures during the day of shooting. For my digipak I edited the photos on after effects and used the site canva to put all my photos together. When creating my digipak I wanted it to be more red themed since his album name is called “Heart Breaker” and I associate that word with the color red. I was able to use photoshop to change his neon green clothing to red. For the font of the text on the digipak I used a really bolded font. I could not find the font he originally had for the cover of his album so I went with the bold font. I had to edit the digipak several times. I moved around some photos and changed the placement of texts a few times before I finally got the look I wanted.

To create the website I used Wix. I wasn’t the most familiar with making a website but Wix was very easy to use. For his website I included a home page which contains his song, music video, contact, and an ‘about rawbabyk’ section. I then added three more pages which included the merchandise, showtimes, and a behind the scenes from filming the music video. For the merchandise I had originally wanted to use the shirts he had already created for his album but since the font that was on that shirt didn’t match the font I used on my digipak, I had to create my own shirts with the bolded font I had been using to keep the brand consistent. For the show times I just added in cities from Florida since that’s where he lives. Lastly, for the behind the scenes I added photos I took from the day I filmed.


Overall I am very happy with how everything turned out. I really tried my best and Koree also loves how the music video turned out. This project really helped me get out of my comfort zone.

Finishing up website

I just finished added the last few touches to my wesbite. I changed the cover photo on the home page to a photo of him wearing red instead of the neon green since the digipak had him wearing red. I also edited the show times sections and changed the locations to cities around Florida since that's where Koree lives.

I am finally done with everything and I'm very happy about it. I've come along way and I think everything looks really good.

Website improvements

I've been making some improvements on my website. For the home page I fixed the layout so my new picture could fit. I changed the photo to just a photo of him. Before I had it of him and his friends but it's better if the first thing you see is the artist himself. I then changed the background from white to these dark moving clouds that are more appealing. White was too bland

 I just made the sections under it  dark grey since it looks better than white. On the search bar I made it so that if you hover over the "home" the other sections such as music,video,about, and contact come up.

 For the "upcoming shows" tab I changed the background to the dark clouds. I did want to change the text to add locations in Florida but there is no option to do that. I've researched how to do it but there doesn't seem to be an option to change it unless you go to this other site and actually connect your artist on to there and create real show times which I can't do. I'm going to leave it like this for now.

 On my last tab I made a gallery page that consists of behind the scene photos from the music video shoot. I also changed the background from white to the dark clouds. 

That's my whole website and I think it looks pretty good.

merchandise editing

I had to change my merchandise because the font on the names of the original merchandise was different than the fonts I had been using throughout my digipak. I needed all the fonts to be the same so everything within the brand would remain consistent. I did try and ask Koree before what font his merchandise had and he said he didn't know and that he had found a png of the word "heartbreaker" and used that on his shirts. So i decided that I had to change the merchandise all together to add the bold font I've been using. I used Custom Ink to create my new merchandise. I still used Koree's design but the font is different and the heart is slightly different as well. I used all the same colors of his original shirts 

This is what the original shirts looked like. Both sets of these shirts are similar. I didn't want to make complete changes because I liked his design so all I really did was change the font to match the font I had been using throughout my project.

final digipack

I think I've finally finished my digipak. I changed the most of it. So for the first picture I changed the photo and the placement of the text. Before the work "breaker" was intertwined behind objects which made it hard to read and so here I placed it on the side with nothing over it so you can clearly see all the words. I changed the CD picture to the picture I had originally had for my cover and added who produced his music onto the CD. I decided that I didn't want to add any text to the second picture since it was a really nice close up so I added the information on who produced his music on the CD photo. Then finally I kept the last photo the same but changed the font of the text because I wanted everything to have the same font. 

Below is my final Digipak

more website editing

I began to edit his website a little more. I created his "about you" section that explains where Koree is from, how he got into rapping, and how hes confident in pursuing a career in the music industry. The 'for you' page is a great way where fans can go and find out more about who Koree is

the text on the website is quite small so I need to figure out how to fix that but this is what I have for that section 

I also uploaded the music video and I created a thumbnail for it to make it look more professional and more appealing. 

I kind of want to reorganize the website or just try and make it more appealing. I'm really new to making websites so I'm not the best at using them. I also was thinking about making a gallery tab and just use pictures that I took on the night of filming. After that I think I should be done with the website. I have added the merchandise, 'for you' section, contacts such as emails and phone numbers, the song, the music video, and tour dates section. I think I'm also going to add the digipak into it. Overall I think I almost done with the whole website

more digipak editing

My focus is now all on my digipak and website since I finished the music video. I started to create the interior

I'm thinking about using these two pictures as the interior

As I was going through actual CDs, not all of them have any writing in the interior. They only have the title on the cover and the songs on the back.

Here are some interiors of other CD packages.

So I think I want to do that same route as well of just putting the only text in the cover and in the back. I really want to use that close up of his face in the interior and I feel like any text over that picture would be distracting. I think if I were to put any text over it , it would just be a quote from his song like "I'm going M.I.A."

I'm also thinking about changing the back of the CD to this picture.

instead of this 

I just think the first one has a lot more room for text so it'll look nicer. 

DONE EDITING

Hi it's 5 am and i'm officially done editing my music video. I had been working on it for weeks and even though I couldn't get all the footage I wanted, I gave it my very best and I'm really proud with how it turned out. I texted Koree even though it was super late and he answered. I sent him the music video and he LOVED it.
 

He told me was watching it for 30 minutes straight. I ended with over 200 layers on my timeline and my software crashed maybe 3-5 times but in the end it still came out good. A lot of the music video is Koree and his friends dancing/ signing along to his song. I did not have the capability to get more B-roll because of the corona virus which sucked but I had to deal with what I had. I added some cool effects throughout the music video to keep it engaging. I don't like to just cut clips and leave it that way, it just seems bland with no effects added. I know that there are so many things that could've been improved on like the lack of footage and such but I know i did my best with the situation I was in. Of course I'm the hardest critic when it comes to my editing, I always feel like I could've done something better but Koree LOVES the video so that's really what I care about at the end of the day, if the person is happy with what I made for them. Anyway I'm super super happy that I'm done with the biggest part of this project. I can now relax a little and focus on finishing up the website and digipak.