Feedback

Your response is detailed and through and you have been creative with your blogs, I particularly like the use of headings with good layout and designYou have a secure knowledge and understanding of who you want your artist to be signed to; perhaps you could link this further by stressing the advantages that your artist has signed to the particular record label.  Your clearly identify your target audience and have profiled them well, but could develop this with the use of VALS.  Good research into CD covers and you have a wide range of examples, and this would be developed further if you can link the real product to how it will influence your own designs.

Target Audience

Our main target audience is from the ages of 16-25 as the song is indie/rock and therefore will appeal to this age the most. Also this age is mainly students who will most likely be the ones to listen to our artist. However, the secondary audience will be 25 plus because of the sexual context which is present in our music video.

The Vibe

We decided on a simple but effective name for our band: The Vibe.

I think this name is suitable as even though there is no underlying meaning or anything, it is simple so it will attract people more to the music that the band plays rather than their name or image they give off which is what we want.

We began to design a CD cover using some images from google and photoshopping them together. This will obviously be re-done with the actual band that we have casted nearer the time and is just a first idea. Here it is:

 

We would like it to be a simple CD cover where the name of the band stands out but also have the band on the front so that audiences can establish what kind of band they are and also so the audience can feel closer to them and like they know them better.

An album cover that really does this well is The Rolling Stones:

I like the way that they are all at different distances and it is simple but effective, which is what we are trying to get at. However, ours is more mysterious which I hope will intrigue the audience.

Feedback

Your response is sound and you have been creative with your blogs, I particularly like the use of images, which  could be developed into a presentation.  You do need to blog more influences from CD cover designs- it is important you show how your concept developed.

You have a secure knowledge and understanding of who you want your artist to be signed to; perhaps you could link this further by stressing the advantages that your artist has signed profiled them well.  to the particular record label.  Your target audience needs to be identified?

Deciding on a CD cover.

I think our CD cover should be quite edgy and strange, similar to those of Muse.







However, unlike the muse CD covers I think we need to have a picture of our band on there as they are a new band and therefore people will need to establish who they are and what they are like. Therefore it should be a mix of that edgy side of Muse with just a shot of the band which bands like Razorlight and The Libertines do.

Deciding on a record company for our band.

The song that we are doing is by Muse. Despite the success of their second EP, British record companies were reluctant to sign Muse. It was after a trip to New York's CMJ Festival that an American record label flew them to Los Angeles to showcase. Nanci Walker, then Sr. Director of A&R at Columbia Records, flew Muse to the U.S. to showcase for Columbia Records' then-Senior Vice President of A&R, Tim Devine, as well as for American Recording's Rick Rubin. It was during this trip, on 24 December 1998, that Muse signed a deal with Maverick Records.

Maverick Recording Company is an American record label owned and operated by Warner Music Group, and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.

I feel like our video is quite extreme and therefore our band would be owned by the actual Warner Music itself rather than a smaller company that is owned and operated by it. Warner Music Group (WMG) is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies.

The current incarnation of the company as Warner Music Group was formed in 2004 when it was spun off and made completely separate from Time Warner; as a result Time Warner no longer retains any ownership whatsoever in the Warner Music Group, despite its name.

The Music Industry.

The record companies roles are to manufacture, distribute and promote new products in order to make a profit which can then be used to invest in other artists and produce new music from existing artists.


The Majors

1.  EMI
2. Universal
3. Warner Music
4. Sony BMG

 These are the four major record companies who all own a collection of smaller record labels. Universal music, for example, is made up of record  labels such as Island Def Jam music group, Polydor records, Geffen records and Mercury records amongst others. Within these labels the Universal Music Group have signed Bon Jovi, Blink 182, Eminem, Dr.Dre, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, U2, The Hives, Scissor Sisters and Snow Patrol, again, amongst others. On top of this, they own the back catalogues for artists ranging from Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, The Supremes, Buddy Holly and The Who.

AOL Time Warner (the parent company of Warner Music) own a substantial slice of Hollywood film production in addition to CNN, Cartoon Network, TNT, HBO amongst others. This synergy assists in the promotion of music within other media formats. A Warner film soundtrack will naturally serve as a promotional tool for existing and new music owned by the music 'arm' of the corporation.

The music industry's product (the artist and their music) is costly to initially secure (artists like Madonna and Robbie Williams sign multi-million pound 'deals' with their companies) but the reproduction of the product on CD/DVD due to new technologies, is cheap to manufacture. However, a record company cannot always guarantee that new artists and their music will appeal to a wide-enough market to make a profit.


Cultural theorist Theodor Adorno and The Frankfurt School wrote about popular culture in 1941 and criticised the production and consumption of popular music. Songs follow a formulaic template that he called 'standardisation', with a few novelty flourishes referred to as 'pseudo-individualisation' - disguising the standard structure and duping listeners into thinking they were hearing something new.

If an artist's style of music becomes popular then companies will often sign a range of similar sounding artists who can then be sold on their connection to other bands. This explains certain musical 'trends' for particular genres like Metal, Britpop, Grunge, EMO.

Genres are marketed to existing audiences via 'niche' advertising strategies. A company wishing to promote a new Goth/Metal band would advertise in Kerrang! magazine and showcase the track and video on the Kerrang! music station.

The notion of prioritising the commercial over the creative creates tension between arists and their labels. The major labels have the image as the villains who have trapped artists. There are many tales of artists unable to release new material because their labels are critical of a change in musical direction. The prioritising of sales targets results in artists being pressurised into producing music that is a guaranteed seller.

Decision made.

We think we are going to stick with the song 'Feeling Good' by Muse. (see previous blog)

We're going to start of with a light on a keyboard player/ singer and have a tracking shot coming up from his feet on the keyboard pedals, to his face singing into the microphone. This is then going to interchange with shots of the husband (who in the narrative is a violent drunk towards his wife) grabbing his coat and leaving the house. As he leaves the house we see over his shoulder and there will be a focus pull of the wife on the floor crying or looking very upset. Therefore the narrative has started at the end of the story. After this we will continue interchanging the shots of the singer (as there are no instruments apart from keyboard present in the song at this point) with shots of the wife walking through the house very angry until she comes to a family/couple picture and picked it up and looks at it. At this point, there will be a shot of her dropping and smashing the picture at the same time as the music drops and the instruments come in. The lights will then come on all the other band members and we will have shots of the band members and the instruments as the music speeds up. We will then go back to the story showing the break up of the couples relationship.





We are hoping to shoot everything in this studio as this would allow us to get as many shots as possible on our shoot day rather than chasing around finding locations. Furthermore, we can dress the set however we would like and light it however we want.

 We are currently re-designing the storyboards as we have now changed a lot of things. They should be on my blog by next week. 

Ideas for tracks for music video.

We have been thinking about different songs that will go with the same concept that we had before. However, we are looking for a more upbeat, less boring song that doesn't drag on. We listened to the song 'Feeling Good' by 'Muse' and thought that it could sound quite good:

It has big beats that good look good when there are fights or things being smashed in the video. We like the way that this song is very instrumental as this makes it more interesting to cross cut the performance with the narrative and we could have a whole band with many instruments. We could also have a montage of the couple being intimate crossed with them fighting over a period of time. They use a montage similar to this in the video 'Time' by chase and status, which I talked about in my previous blog:

This video looks at the breaking up of a couple's relationship from the point of view of their daughter. We have not yet decided for sure who's point of view we are going to do ours from but we thought it may be a good idea to do it from a son/daughter's point of view so that it is from an outsider and therefore more interesting and less biased.

Group Ideas

Last week I was on a film academy trip in Italy and got back on Tuesday night. Whilst I was away my group decided on an idea for our music video. My group consists of William Edgely, Abbey Douetil, Lizzy Ward Thomas and myself.

The idea they decided on was a music video that consists of both narrative and performance. The narrative would consist of a broken family where a husband is violent towards his wife. It will basically show the change from when they were happy until now and the pain that each one of them is going through.

The song my group members decided on was a song by Savage Gardens called 'Two beds and a coffee machine':



When my group confronted me with the idea, I thought the narrative was a good idea and could work really well. The only problem I saw was firstly the song is very slow and drags on a lot so the audience would get bored very quickly and seeing as what is going on in the video isn't extremely interesting it just wouldn't work. On top of that, the song only has a piano and a violin in terms of instruments so there would not be a lot to film inbetween the narrative.

Today I confronted them about the song choice, and how I personally thought it would work better with a more upbeat song to keep the audience interested. It turned out that the rest of the group felt the same so we decided we would start looking at more upbeat songs that would work with the same idea.

The song 'Time' by Chase and Status ft. Delilah came to mind as it has a similar story line to what we want to do:



This song is faster and more upbeat and so would work in terms of that. However, the only problem is that we want to film instruments and the song on this is done by mixers and does not involve classic instruments like guitars or drum kits.

I am going to keep searching for songs that would work and we are all going to come together in our group tomorrow and hopefully decide on a song.  

Feedback

Isabel - hope Italy and the film academy went well.  Please comlpete your blog by Wednesday.  You have excellent blogging skils and have researched existing artists well. Do keep linking concepts and ideas to real MV examples and apply with theory to the concept that you and you group have produced.  It may well be worth blogging who your group is.

Initial Ideas.

We have still not been put into our groups and therefore have not been able to co-operatively come up with some initial ideas. However, over the summer I came up with a few ideas to sell to the group. These are a couple rough ideas that, once I'm in my group, we may be able to take bits from.

EXAMPLE ONE

Name of artist/band and track: Bloc Party - Helicopter.

What is the star image of the artist/band?:
Bloc Party are a British indie rock band. Their star image consists less of superficial things used by other artists such as Britney/Lady Gaga. Instead, like most indie bands, their videos consist more of their instruments and talents. Rather than being eccentric, their videos consist mainly of them just playing live in large empty spaces and this puts emphasis on their music rather than their image. A lot of their videos are in black and white which makes them even simpler and we are not distracted from the music by bright colours or crazy objects.


For example, their video for the song 'Two More Years' is completely set in a big open space with them just playing live, apart from a short scene at the beginning of a TV with white noise. All the colours are dull grey's or blacks, and whites.

Treatment for music video: A band playing the song in a simple, big open space. However, I would like some different shots too. The screen could be cut in half, then quarters, then eighths and so on. An example of when this has been used in a video before is the song 'The Bucket' by the Kings of Leon:



However, something that they don't do in this video, I would like to cut the screen in half first of all and then have maybe a wide-shot of the whole band in the top half of the screen and a close-up of certain instruments in the bottom half. An example of when this has been used (although not with instruments, instead with cars) is in the opening of this video by DJ Khaled:



Those halves could then turn into quarters and each member of the band (of which there will be 4 members) will appear in each corner of the screen. I would also like a tracking shot in there, maybe tracking right and then stopping so you see half of the lead singers body (who would be at the front) and then back the other way. Another shot could be getting the badn members to stand in a ciercle and then tracking around them but as the camera gets to every member it slows down and has a shallow focus so the rest of the band members are blurred.


EXAMPLE TWO
Name of artist/band and track: Arctic Monkeys - Old yellow bricks.

What is the star image of the artist/band?:
They are an English Indie Rock band who come from Sheffield. Even though they are extremely popular and famous, with their debut album being the fastest selling debut album in British music history, they will never let go of their roots. They give off the image that they are just average Sheffield boys and most of their videos are focused on their instruments and live sets or their average life in Sheffield. They are appealing to a large audience as people can relate to them, unlike videos with superficial things like expensive cars which common people cannot relate to, people can relate to going to the pub and having fun with their friends etc.

Treatment for music video:
A kind of 'day in the life'. The music video will be consisting mostly of hand held camera techniques and darkish, sepia or black and white effects. Filming the band doing normal things like going to the pub, driving around, getting a taxi, smoking, drinking beer etc. It will all be set at night. Inbetween the 'home camera' shots, there would be shots of the band on stage at a small gig and then finally showing them backstage and walking onto the stage onto where the shots of the 'gig' have been coming from.

I got influence from the video by Arctic Monkeys to 'fake tales of San Francisco' which is set in Sheffield:

A2 MEDIA: Advanced Production - The Brief.

Today we received the brief for our A2 Advanced Production work (so basically, our coursework for this year).

THE BRIEF

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

a website homepage for the band;
a cover for its release as part of a digipak;
a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

(I will be doing the later two)

All material for all tasks to be produced by the candidates with the exception of acknowledged non-original sound or image material used in a limited way in video/radio work. Further guidance will be available in the support materials. For music video, permission should be sought from the artist for use of the audio track. 

The centre will be expected to allocate marks according to four levels for each of three categories:

1. Research and planning
2. Construction
3. Evaluation

In arriving at a level for each category, teachers are advised to look for evidence of 'best fit'. It is possible both for a candidate to be placed in different levels for each of the three categories and to receive quite different marks from other members of the same group responsible for producing an artefact, according to his/her contribution. Teachers are asked to support marks with written comments under the three categories on the assessment sheet. 

So.. What is a music video?

To many people a music video is simply just a video with music.
However, music videos have a much greater significance and major role in the industry.

Andrew Goodwin claimed that 'Music video is not primarily a commodity form but a promotional one'.

Keith Negus agrees with this claiming that music videos are a promotional tool. The record label use the band to create an image linked in with the song. This image sells the song to the audience which are the fans/consumers. Therefore, this becomes a major marketing technique.

For example, the arctic monkeys sell the image of normal sheffield lad's as this is how they get through to their audience who respect them for being down to earth. Thus, in most of their videos they are showing their casual life in Sheffield. This video below, a song called 'Teddy Picker', shows them mainly in their local studio recording the song. However, it also shows them walking along the street in Sheffield, entering a local pub and even counting their coins to buy a pint of beer.


 

Music videos can also be used to tell a narrative and therefore make the song more interesting or even explain the reasons for the lyrics in the song. Another Arctic Monkey's video, which does not even have them in it, is that of 'Leave Before The Lights Come On'. This video tells the story of a girl who is standing on a building 'about to commit suicide' (or that is what it seems) and proceeds to drop her shoe 'accidentally'. A guy walking below sees the shoe drop looks up, and therefore runs all the way to the top of the building to stop the girl from jumping. She is easily convinced and they go for a coffee. She tries to make a move on him and he tells her he is married and leaves but then she follows him home and is very persistent. In the end he shouts at her and tells her to leave him alone. She then runs all the way to the building from the beginning of the video clip and runs to the top and stands there once more as if she is going to jump again. We then see another guy walking below and she drops her shoe again. This shows that this girl is obviously just using this 'suicide' tactic to try and find a man. I find this video clip very clever and interesting. This is one of many examples of how such a clever narrative can be pursued in such a short amount of time. This also shows how this tactic of narrative music video makes the video (and therefore the song) very memorable. So, after all that, here is the video:



However, music videos do not always have to have some other meaning or other promoting reason behind them, a music video can also just be a creative artefact of interest in itself. An artistic and creative video attracts people and wheels them in to watch the video and once they have watched it, if it is creative enough, then the audience will remember the video and therefore remember the song. For example, the video clip for the song Gold Lion by Yeah Yeah Yeah's sticks in my head since the day I saw it. First of all, it is very different as they are playing the instruments on a beach as if it is a stage. Also, she had many different outfits that stand out and her unique make up and hair gives of a crazy image which the video just emphasises. By the end of the video she is standing in a ring of fire. Here it is:



Music videos can also be used at advertisement to advertise a product. The artist in the video is then associated with this product and visa-versa, marketing both things, the artist and the product. It is a something very effective that comes out of music videos. In many of 50 cents videos he is wearing NY hats, or other hats made by the company 'New Era'. This advertises their hats to everyone who is watching these music videos and therefore there is another purpose to the video apart from advertising 50. This is one of many:



Synergy is also another way that video clips can be used. Some songs are made for films and therefore the video clips are based around the film, with either clips from the film or that and the artist together. Either way, the film will be advertised in some way and that is synergy as both the film and the song are being advertised by the music video, therefore 2 media products are being marketed. There are many examples of these, including a song by N-Dubz and Chipmunk for the film 'StreetDance 3D', many James Bond songs such as 'Madonna - Die Another Day' and 'Alicia Keys & Jack White - Another Way To Die'. A very famous example is 'Aerosmith - I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing' which was written for the film 'Armageddon':



Music video's are also part of the construction of the image of a particular band and performer and part of the process of constructing stardom. Lady Gaga started constructing her image right from when she began her road to fame, and she now has one of the most recognisable star image's around. However, none of that could be done without music videos as we would not have seen her crazy strange image had we only of heard her music and not have seen her videos. Here is her video for a reason song, 'Edge of Glory' - one of her most normal videos (scarily):




They are also the chief raison d'etre for music television channels. Without music videos, music channels such as MTV, KERRANG, NME and more would not exist. Music channels not only get the songs out to their rightful audiences, kerrang getting out the more metal/rock songs, mtv the more mainstream and nme the more alternative stuff. Beyond this, they are entertainment for people, just as any other TV channel is. When I watch TV I tend to watch music video channels more than any other.
Furthermore, not only TV Channels as nowadays YOUTUBE is a much more common way of watching music channels. YouTube would not be anywhere near as popular if it weren't for music videos as these are a main purpose of people watching things on the website.