Analysis of A2 music video

'Pray' music video:

1) What did you like/dislike about the range of shot choices/locations?

I liked the location of this music video, it was set in an abandoned house. It also reflected the mood of the song. As well of this, there was a variation in different shots from close-ups to wide shots. 

2) Does the music video sell the artists image? If so, how?

Yes, the music video sells the artist as rebellious. This is through the use of the graffiti on the walls in an abandoned house.

3) What is the narrative about? Is it clear? If not, what do you think it's about?

The narrative of this group wasn't very clear, but what i understood is that she was in charge of her group and rebelling against society. This could create a stereotypical image of teenagers as they are against authority.

4) Does the music video reflect the genre of the song and image of the artist?

The genre does reflect the image of the artist, it sells the artist as a rebellious young adult in the pop genre. 

5) How has this inspired your ideas for your music video and artist/band ?

I really liked how the video was cut to the beat and the editing techniques used of the fast paced zooms and close ups. 

Creating an album cover

For this task, we were given instructions and a step by step guide on how to create an album cover. Firstly, we clicked on a link that was a generator of Wikipedia pages, from which we got the band name for the album cover. Then, we clicked on the second link which was a quotes generator that we could use for the album title, from which i selected one i thought would fit and look the most appropriate. Then we clicked on another link which gave us the album cover photograph.

Once i had collected all these, i then used power point and tried to create an album cover. To start with, i inserted the photo as the background, then i added the band name and album title. I then tried to find a suitable font to use for the album cover.

This task has helped me gather a basic knowldge of how to create an album cover, and how to make a simple cover effective for the target audience.

First time caller- White Lies analysis

Synopsis is an overview of the narrative. It is a breakdown for the director to be bale to inform the artists about their ideas when selling the product to them. It is clear from the music video that the narrative a warped relationship based in East London. It is regarding a couple that are young, bored and restless. Through the use of dark colours, we can get the sense of the tone of the artist and the music video and through the concrete environment we can learn that the band want to be taken seriously. Through the use of instruments in the in the deserted warehouse you can tell that they are an organic band. Through the narrative of several people working out and the use of the council estates as a backdrop, we get a sense that the bands star image is one of being edgy and anti-authoritarian. Furthermore, there are intertextual references to films such as 'A clockwork orange' and 'This is England 86'. 

Camera and Editing techniques in Stranger Things

Explain what you liked and why?

From the Stranger Things video, I liked the quick cuts and the close ups of the characters as it created tension in the scenes. I also though that the fast to slow paced zooms were very effective on the audience as well as the quick cuts between scenes. 

How it can/will influence your music video ideas
The techniques that I analysed from the Stranger Things video could be used in my music video. The video gave us inspiration on different editing techniques and various camera techniques. We could try these when filming our to try and make a more professional and exciting video.

Explain how you can integrate any of the creative ideas into your music videos
We could use some of these techniques that we watched in our music videos. For example, we could use a close up to display peoples emotions or a wide shot to establish the location.

Explain and evaluate how this will improve you music video and your creativity.

This will make our music video seem more interesting and exciting. This will also improve our video in order to capture the audiences attention. The use of specific camera and editing techniques could highlight certain important parts of the video so it is clear to the audience what is going on.

How a stars image develops over time

Star Image- Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer is a British media theorist, who discussed a star's special place in the audiences' lives.
He suggests that a star's narrative impact on the consumption by the audience. He argued that the stars image is manufactured and artificial and that individual stars have their own unique selling point (brand values) in order to grab and hold our attention e.g. Justin Bieber's hair, JLS' colour codes.

The Paradox of the star 
Dyers' central idea was that the star image could be discussed using 2 key paradoxes (a statement that contradicts itself). Dyer suggested that a star image simultaneously has 2 contradictory representations.

'...a star is both ordinary & extraordinary'

Dyer suggested that a star must be represented simultaneously as, just like us (the audience/regular people), but also at the same time possess something we do not have something that makes them special, different, extraordinary etc. This might mean that they are more talented, gifted, confident, passionate, artistic, sensitive, carefree or sexy; But this might also mean that they are allowed to be rebellious, anti-social or angry. They are the idealised version of humanity... idols.

'...a star is both present & absent'

Dyer also thought that the audience struggles with another paradox; this being that the star is simultaneously present in our lives, be this in our social groups chat, our style, our identity, and our consumption habits. However, they are also absent, something that we perceive as out of reach, on a pedestal, and not actually there.

Dyer argued that as an audience we strive to complete the star image through consuming their products, shows, merchandise etc. A star will strive to complicate things by constantly changing their image over their career, this is essential if the artist is to have long term success as they need to continually strive to both keep their audience entertained and widen the audience as fans often get bored with repetition.

Synthetic vs Organic CD Cover

After learning the difference between a synthetic and organic artist, i decided to find the difference for myself so i researched into different artists' CD covers.



Little mix album cover

-Bright background suggests summer time

-Summer time connotes the themes of fun a friendship which appeals to young girls

-Playful font

-Quite 'girly' and 'teenager aimed' which is very synthetic

-All wearing provocative clothing

-This appeals to the male teenager audience

George Ezra album cover

-No animations, Just him in a crowd with his name in the corner.

-No photo editing or photoshop.

-Quite regular blanc colours appeal to a more mature target group, very different to that of Little Mix.

-Highlights him to be an organic artist

Ideologies of the music industry

Keith Negus - In his 1989 book producing pop proposing that there are 2 types of music artists

1. Organic
2. Synthetic
He proposed that the music industry works in 2 distinct ways to promote itself. The first is to promote long-term success and the second method relies on short-term hits.
Organic artists

• Develop a career initially independently of the music industry

• Tend to write and play most of the instruments on their songs

• Develop through playing live venues before singing with a record label

• Have more freedom initially to chose their image and songs for release

• May start their career independently

Examples:

- Ed Sheeran 

- Taylor Swift

- Arctic Monkeys

- The Beatles

- Kasabian

- Queen

- Kings Of Leon

- Oasis

- The Killers

- Coldplay

- Lana Del Rey

Synthetic artists

• Manufactured by the record labels and TV demands

• Generally have an image that is directed towards a tailor made audience e.g. a boy band dress to impress young girls

• Begin their careers recording songs either written for them or chosen by a record company

• Limited freedom of choice

Examples:

- One Direction

- JLS

- Girls Aloud

- Destiny's Child

- Louisa Johnson

- Cher Lloyd

- Union J

- Little Mix

- James Arthur

- Black Eyed Peas

- Ariana Grande 

The organic ideology of creativity

• A 'Naturalistic' approach to artists

• The seeds of success are within the artists, who have to be 'nurtured' by the record company

• The image of the artist is 'enhanced' by the record company

• The artist is given time to evolve and progress through their career 

• Whereas a synthetic artist is given limited time to build a fanbase and career and if success is not immediately forthcoming they are 'dropped' by the label

Lip Syncing

In order to practise for our music video, we did a lip syncing task, this involved practising a song and then filming people singing it and then cutting it to the music. The purpose of this is to give us an opportunity to rehearse lip syncing, choosing a song, matching the visuals to the sound, and creating a narrative. This is good practise for our main project in September. We decided to chose the songs 'Touch' by little mix. We chose this particular song because it is a very well known and everybody knew the lyrics for it, this made the lip syncing much easier as we all knew the song prior to filming. Trying make sure that the timings were correct and that they accurately matched the words coming out of the mouth. In order to make sure that we knew the lyrics, we rehearsed the lines before filming.  In order to cut to the beat, we had to think creatively in order to use different locations that would match the song. Also, because we knew the song, we knew where the song verses changes, this meant we knew where to cut each clip. We also used different singers so that it was easier to cut to the beat. We used a variety of effects as we were experimenting in this task. We used many colourful effects to make the video seem more fun and creative. As well as this, it seemed more interesting than using the same plain effects. I would make sure to film more close-ups of each singer to add more variety to the video, due to most clips being filmed wide shot. Andrew Goodman states that the use of close-ups is vital in order to sell star image, if we had featured more of these, we would have been more successful in selling our video. I would also use a wider variety of locations to ensure that our video was as interesting as possible. I would make sure that each singer is more familiar with the lyrics to save time by spending as little time rehearsing. I would also use different locations, in order to create variety and keep the audience interested. Therefore we will need to make sure that our lip syncing is in time, we need to add a variety of shot choices and locations.

Narrative theories

Tzvetan Todorov-  He proposed that all narratives have 5 stages, this occurs in films, TV, literature as well as other media texts.

→Equilibrium- Normality at the beginning, when everything appears as it should. 

→Disruption- When something happens to upset the normality. 

→Acknowledgement- When the main protagonist realises that something has happened, and has decided to act upon it.

→Attempt to restore- Trying to attempt to get thing back to normality.

→New equilibrium- Everything is back to the new version of normality.

Band of Horses- 'Dilly'

→Equilibrium- Bikers ride into town, oblivious to the fact that the local people will be against them and take offence to their presence.

→Disruption- In the bar, when it is clear that both groups of people have a mutual dislike of one another, and the bikers react by shooting their fingers at people.

→Acknowledgement- This occurs when the policeman picks up the phone to call for back-up to help deal with the threat from the bikers

→Attempt to restore- The bikers are stoped from leaving town and there is a shoot-out to determine who wins.

→New equilibrium- Bikers depart after the shoot-out and they go on the run from the law whilst the townspeople struggle to recover from the devastation of the attack.

Enrique Iglesias- 'Hero'

→Equilibrium- The couple are on the run with stolen money, riding off into the sunset.

→Disruption- You see the villain , and rather than the couple running away, they run into trouble.

→Acknowledgement- When Enrique realises he can't escape from the villain anymore and he has to fight.

→Attempt to restore- When Enrique fights for his women and his money as he punches the villain.

→New equilibrium- Enrique dies at the end and pays for what he did, the villain is arrested and the women survives and leaves with all the money.

Taylor Swift- 'You belong with me'

→Equilibrium-  The boy and girl and neighbours and are communicating by notes through their windows.

→Disruption- Taylor see's that the boy has a girlfriend who is completely different to her, as she's a cheerleader and Taylor is very unpopular.

→Acknowledgement- Taylor see's the boy have an argument with his girlfriend in the middle of the football game, and he storms off.

→Attempt to restore- Taylor see's the boy leave his house to go the prom, as she stays in her room upset.

→New equilibrium- The boy and girl meet in the middle of the dance floor as everyone watches them dance together at prom.

Ed Sheeran- 'Galway Girl' analysis

This music video is from Ed's comeback album after taking a year off social media. Galway Girl reached number 1 and stayed in the top 40 for several months after it being released. The song is about a girl that Ed meets in Ireland, while he's out in a bar. The whole video is filmed from his perspective so all that features of him in the video is his arm. It follows his travels around an Irish city at night.
The video mainly features wide shots, however unlike many music videos, there is no lip syncing which usually plays a large part in most music videos. Many people do feature in this video to try and create a buzzing atmosphere.
The video also features many pans, being that the camera is believed to be a GoPro, and it is attached to Ed's head. This makes this music video different to many others.
As well as this, the music video has an underlying narrative of Ed falling in love.

Lady Gaga- 'Telephone' analysis

The music video is cut to the beat by using quick-cuts and rhythmic editing as Lady Gaga picks up the phone and the singing starts.

The relationship between the lyrics and visuals is shown through relationship between the lyrics and visuals as when the lyrics 'pick up the telephone' are sung, the phone rings and Lady Gaga picks up the telephone.

The relationship between the music and the visuals is shown through the numerous examples of jump cuts that are used to signify the break in the song, and used to provide a visual representation of the dance routines. Further to this, the colour is bright and vibrant which matches the upbeat nature of the song. 

Close ups are predominantly used during the lip syncing, whereas wide shots are used for the dance routines, close ups are used to express the emotion on the artists face and sell their star image.

The notions of voyeurism are displayed through the use of CCTV cameras, which enables us to watch what is going on through a third eye. As well as this, the way the camera is held and positioned throughout gives the audience the sense that they are being watched without the characters being aware. We are absent from the room and are acting as voyeurs 

The narrative is at first set in a prison and her release, then the performance is the dance routine and the theatrical acting throughout. 

The intertextual references are when one media text e.g. a music video, pays reference to or looks like another media text. The song 'Telephone' pays reference to numerous films such as 'Kill Bill', with the use of the 'pussy wagon', Another film that is pays a reference to is 'Natural Born Killers', with the murder sequence in an old fashioned American drama. The third reference is to 'Thelma and Louise' when they hold hands at the end and drive off the cliff together.

Music Video Analysis

Characteristics of a music video:
-A music video is a visual equivalent to the music
-Must encourage repeated consumption
-It should encourage identification or desirability for the artist
-It should provide an open, polysemic experience for the viewer

Often contains a number of different elements:
-Performance
-Narrative
-Thematic
-Symbolic

-They are visually stylish, 'artistic' mise-en-scene
-'Rhythmic' montage, fragmented style
-Intercutting
-Experimental use of camera/editing
-Fast paced
-Conspicuous lighting and cinematography
-Often break the rules of continuity in editing

Andrew Goodwin- Media theorist
Conventions of the music video:
-Cut to the beat
-There should be a relationship between the visuals and music
-There should be a relationship between the lyrics and visuals
-Close-ups of the artist/band, lip syncing and playing instruments
-References to the notion of looking (scopophilia)
-Some form of narrative and performance element
-Intertextual references

The promotional brief for year 13

1) A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video.
2) A website homepage for the artist/bind
3) A cover and 4 sides including the spine for its release as part of a digipack (CD/DVD package)

What are you looking forward to and what possible problems may you face?
→I'm looking forward to creating a website homepage to promote the artist, I feel that i will be able to learn new skills through this that can be useful. I'm also looking forward to shooting the music video in order to develop on my filming and camera skills from last
→I think that editing a music video and keeping the audience interested for 3 minuets will be difficult. This is because this is a long amount of time and i'm worried i may not be able to use enough editing techniques to keep the audience interested. I'm also worried that I might struggle creating CD cover as I'm not very artistic.

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