Lana Del Rey

Birth Name: Elizabeth Grant  

Stage Name: Lana Del Rey

Born: U.S.A, NY, June 21st 1985 (aged 30)

Early Life: Lana Del Rey attended a Catholic Elementary school, where she first started singing in the church choir. At 15 she was sent by her parents to Kent School in order to deal with her alcohol abuse and partying. After finally graduating high school, Lana took a gap year living on Long Island with her uncle who taught her to play the guitar; allowing her passion for music to blossom even further. Lana enrolled at Fordham University where she studied philosophy; while doing this she began writing and performing her own songs at many clubs around New York City.

Career: She began writing her own material at eighteen years old, initially being known as, her former stage name, ''Lizzie Grant''. She signed her first recording contract with 5 Points Records in 2007 and released her first digital album 'Lana Del Ray'. She later went on to buy herself out of the contract with 5 Points in April 2010 and then signed a joint contract with Interscope, Polydor and Stranger Records in July 2011. She released her second studio album 'Born to Die' in January 2012 which debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was the 5th bestselling album of 2012. A remix of her song 'Summertime Sadness' produced by Cedric Gervais was her highest charting track, reaching number 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100. She released the EP 'Paradise' in November 2012 which was an extension of Born to Die- it sold 67,000 copies in the first week of released and went straight to number 10. Ultraviolence was released in June 2014 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. Lastly, Lana is the most streamed woman in the U.S. on Spotify.

 

Record label permission letter

Copyright is the legal right given to the person who creates a piece of work. For example; an artists own the right over their own work and controls who can use it or reproduce it- E.g Lana Del Rey and her song 'Without You'. 

While creating our music video it was important to us that we needed to ask permission to use the song we had chosen before we carried on planning. Due to this we emailed Lana Del Rey's record label 'Stranger Records' to confirm that we can use her song 'Without You'. 

Below is a print screen of the email we sent to 'Stranger Records'. We stated clearly the purpose of use using the song and that if they don't reply we presume  that we're allowed to use the song. 

Why Lana Del Rey?

In this Prezi above we talked about our reasoning for choosing Lana Del Rey as our chosen artist. 

Artist Discussion

In the video below we had a discussion considering what genre and artist to use for our music video. Due to use sharing the same music taste and swaying towards the more alternative/indie vibe we decided this would be the correct genre for us. 

We started to look into and discuss female artists in this genre; narrowing it down to Lana Del Rey, Shannon Saunders, Florence and The Machine and Lily Allen.

What is a digipak?

Definition- "A type of packaging for CD's or DVDs, typically made from cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more disks".

For our coursework we have to create a digipak for our chosen artist and chosen song. Digipaks are very similar to regular albums, however, instead of being made out of plastic they are cardboard; also, they're more expensive than regular albums too. Digipaks open like a book (as you can see from the image above). Using this design it allows there to be more room for inserts: lyric books, multiple CDs, etc. When an artist releases a special album digipaks are usually the chosen packaging due to the more professional and lavish look they provide. 

When creating our digi-pack we need to consider things such as colour schemes, style, fonts and how it is going to represent our artist.

Choosing Our Group

     When deciding on what individuals to have in our group I thought very cautiously about it; making sure the people in it work and fit well together. My group includes- Kate, Millie and Tamzin. I believe that these are the right individuals to work with as each of us bring a different and good quality to the board. We worked together on the AS coursework and I feel that we created a very successful end product; as well as working together well without any issues through out all the stages.
   
    Each of us bring different skills to the team, mine being the mise en scene side of it- I like to think of myself as having quite an artistic eye and can choose appropriate and successful costume, setting, etc that fits perfectly with the context. Kate is great with organisation and keeps everything on track, she is able to control the groups dates and timings for filming allowing us never to fall behind. Millie is an amazing editor and is very careful with her work, she likes things to be done perfectly and allows no mistakes when it comes to editing- making our overall product look as refined as possible. Lastly, Tamzin is very successful with her camera work, she also has a steady hand and is very inventive when knowing what camera work suits best. As well as all the factors above we decided we'd work well together due to our similar music taste- being indie/alternative. This element allows us to have more of a similar vision to how we want our end product to look and will hopefully mean another successfully coursework piece from us.