CD Digipak analysis of Drake 'Take Care'

Drake's 'Take Care'Album Cover 

This is the cover of Drake and Rihanna’s album called ‘Take Care’. The image used on the cover is a close up establishing shot showing Drake sitting alone on a table where he looks lonely, isolated and depressed. In the cover Drake is wearing gold chains and drinking out of a gold cup whist looking down showing us that he is miserable, depressed and upset. The audience can also see that Drake is wealthy from what he is wearing and the surroundings as he has a gold candle holder, gold cup and gold chains. However, it is clear that Drake is going through a break up which could be the reason why the album is called ‘Take Care’ as he says ‘bye’ to his girlfriend. As a result, from Drake's facial expressions and the surroundings the message that we receive is that money can buy you anything and everything apart from love, because it is priceless.

In the background we can see that there is a picture and gold figure of a bird which symbolises freedom. This connotes that he might have been trapped in a relationship as a result, himself and his girlfriend are now free to live their own lives how they want. The album ‘Take Care’ is about fighting for the person you love. In the cover we can see that Drake has lost the fight as he is sitting alone on a table. The fact that he has not shaved also suggests that he is going through severe depression. One of the main colours used in this cover is the colour gold in ‘Take Care’. The colour gold symbolises power and strength where we can see that Drake is rich and wealthy and has everything apart from his love who is Rihanna. Even though she is not in the album cover she is in the song hence he is telling her to take care of herself now that they have split up. Another colour used is black which symbolises sadness, unhappiness and wealth which is exactly what Drake is going through even though he is wealthy and capable enough to afford anything he wants.

From this album cover I would use a medium shot when creating the album cover of the music video myself and my group produce. This is because through a medium shot the audience can see what is inside the mise en scene as well as the artist’s facial expressions and emotions. I could also use the layout of this album cover as it breaks the convention of having the artists’ name on the front cover so that the audience know who the album belongs and who the artist is that sang the album.

Inside of cover of Drake's album

This is the inside cover of Drake’s album ‘Take Care’. This cover breaks the convention of having a person or artist as a centre image. The reason why there is a black printed background could be because it represents sadness, depression and power which is what the album is about. Also the inside cover is simple and consistent in comparison to the front album cover which makes the cover look successful.

The track listing in this cover is in the centre compared to Jay Sean’s ‘The Mistress’ whose is on the left. This makes it easier for the audience to read the track list as it is straightforward and simple. There is also the use of typography as the colour of the font is gold which is the same colour used on the album’s front cover hence symbolising power and strength which contrasts with the black. On the bottom of the inside cover case is a small paragraph of recognition from the artist to say who helped to create and produce the album which gives the audience the ideas who is part of it and have more information of the artist bringing them closer whilst knowing the artist is sincere. There is also the use of record labels which is shown on the bottom of the cover which allows the audience to see who helped to release the album and what record company the artist is signed to. In this case it is Cash Money Records and Universal Republic.

Some of the elements I would use from this inside cover is the use of colour and layout. This is because the inside cover does not have an image of the artist but is simple where the track list is listed in the middle which keeps it straightforward for the audience to read. The inside cover is also consistent as it uses the same colours which are on the album’s front cover. As a result I can use these ideas to make sure that the album covers me and my group members produce look professional and follow the conventions of a CD album.

Survey Monkey

After we produced our music video we used survey monkey to make a survey where we would gain feedback from people telling us if they liked our music video and whether the storyline was clear to understand. As a result this showed us if our music video was successful or not and who our target audience are. The link below is the survey we created.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WCLDJWN

Music Video

The following link is the music video myself and my group have produced for this coursework.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCB148pVcmI

Before editing

Before we start to edit and produce our music video we decided to watch all of our footage and select the best clips which we can use for our music video. As a result when we transferred our footage from the camera onto the IMac we opened final cut pro and created separate folders for our footages based on the level of quality. This will make it easier for us to edit as we will know where to find a particular footage as we have shot the same scene a number of times.

Day of the music video shoot

View from the Golden Jubilee Bridge in Westminster

Today, we went central London to shoot our music video. We reached at our filming location which was the Golden Jubilee Bridge in Westminster at around 3pm where we managed to get the perfect lighting we wanted which was sunset. Due to sunset some of the difficulties we faced today were that the sun blocked our actors in the camera as a result we had to wait for the sun to move so that we could get accurate and professional shots needed for our video. The bridge also got a lot busy during rush hour which made it harder to film as we had members of the public walk through the scenes whilst we were filming a particular verse. As a result we had to start from the beginning as we wanted to make sure our shots were realistic where tried to follow the convention of using a range of different camera angles and shots.

We finished shooting at 5pm where we managed to get all the shots needed from this location as a result it was good that we decided as a group not to choose Trafalgar square as our second location. This is because we lost daylight and the location was busier compared to the bridge as it’s a big tourist attraction making it harder for us to shoot our video.

Planning for the day of shoot

As a group this week we have been planning thoroughly for our shooting which is on the 14^th November in order to make sure that we are organised and know what kind of camera angles and shots we want for our music video. This will make it easier for us to shoot our music video as we will know what to do and how to position our actors. 

Planning for the music video shoot

This week I am carrying out some independent research to look at the clothing of artists in Hip Hop music videos. I looked at music video such as ‘Ouch’ by N Dubz as well as Jay Sean’s song ‘Where Do We Go’ where I have found that artists in Hip Hop music videos mostly dress in casual clothing. As a result, we will take into account the clothing worn in existing music videos to decide what the actor in our music video will wear.