Shooting 2

After another trip to London, I had more oppurtunities to get some footage of busy streets and lots of modes of travel for my music video. For this shoot I wanted to capture well known settings in London for quite a long time with the camera being still, and then speeding this up in my editing. I thought this would be quite an interesting effect to help create my mood of travel and the London rush. I decided to incorporate this as short shots to establish location and busy, active modes of travel. 

Shooting 1

Shooting my video seemed to go quicker than expected as not all of my places will be re-shot because of my idea. This meant that when I had filmed the first half of my video, it didn't seem to take up too much time. Firstly this worried me I wouldn't have enough footage to fill all of my music so as a result of this I had started to add in extra shots which still have significance but would help fill the time. Even though I panicked about this at the time of me shooting when I returned home I checked my storyboard once again and all the lengths of my shots, and I was on a correct schedule presuming my other shots in the rest of my video go to plan. So, at least I know I have these extra few shots as a back up. 
One problem which put me a few days behind shooting has been the weather, it stays true to its British self being unpredictable and doubtful and I needed a bright day/morning to indicate the main character getting up.

Brand identity in similar products

Using a similar sounding artist to relate my music to is important as I will be able to see how they have successfully identified themselves as artists and how their products have been promoted. I decided to look at Paloma Faith, as she has a similar loose voice that can compare to the voice of Evelyn's. 

Pitching my video

Pitching my video to a class of A level media students happened to be really useful when I needed feedback about my initial idea of my video. They all filled out a short form which they expressed their thoughts on what would work well, and how they think it might be even better. The most frequent compliment I received was that lots of people thought my idea of matching the lyrics to visuals was a good idea. Also they said that my idea of point of view shots was a good,creative idea.
I also got some ideas about adding in some colourisation to make my video more distinguishable and add in a small image motif to again show the video is related to the artist. I took on all these comments and have started to rethink some bits of my video.  

Shooting schedule

I have to plan how and when my filming is going to take place as I do not want to get confused about what parts of my video I will be filming and when. As you can see most of filming will be taking place over one weekend as the first half of my routine section will be filmed in my house so this can be possible at any time with suitable lighting. 

Location shots

Here are some location shots of my music video. This is the start location of my video which is in my house. As you can see there are no lighting problems in any of these photos, as I purposely chose the parts that were most suitable to a daily routine and also brightly lit. The start of my video will be in the morning so the lighting will be similar to shown in the pictures. It is hard to show any others as they will all be different places, and the house is where the most amount of shots will be held. I am going to be filming in regular places and modes of travel such as offices, buses and trains. But I need to be careful that I have permission to do so.

Camerawork and Editing

• With the use of camerawork I am going to try to achieve the effect of the camera actually being the main character in the video so the audience feels very much a part of the music and storyline.
• This is the main reason why most of it will be in a point of view shot, to emphasise this but I will be using other shots such as medium-long shots of a person standing still in a busy walkway etc..
• This means I will be filming this shot for a longer period of time (30 seconds - a minute) and then speeding it up on the Editing section. This kind of shot is mostly editing but in order for it to be succesful I need the person standiong to be very still.
• Almost all of my filming is going to be handheld as they are going to be very quick cuts moving around as is it were stuck to a person's chest.
• My video is going to be a narrative based video, as this type tells a story the most, which is what the track by Evelyn seems to do. 
• My niche is going to be routine. As the lyrics of the song tell us of the person wanting to 'get away' and see new places, I want to show the main character getting up in two mornings, the first, a boring day at work and the second them waking up and having a lot of fun. This would be as if they were breaking out of the routine. 
• I am going to be using a lot of creative and fun transitions which will be shown at the end which illustrate the contrast between the fun and boring day. Things like punching a hole punch and then doing the same action in a different setting. 

Textual Analysis

Analysing the features in music videos using Goodwin's principals. 


Artist: Rihanna 
Name of track: Te Amo
Director: Anthony Mandler


What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?

There seems to be a relationship between lyrics and visuals throughout the video, even though some of the timings are slightly off. One example that showed a good relationship was 2 minutes 22 seconds into the video where she sang "let me go" and the way she was standing up against the wall wriggling illustrated that she may have been tied up in some way. This was only a very short shot duration as most of the video has very high speed shots so it lasted a second but it still had enough time to show the link between the visuals and lyrics. 


What is the relationship between music and visuals?
The director has executed this relationship very well, including lots of very fast shots in the first 3 minutes of the track. He has put a shot on every beat in the chorus, which is very fast, too fast to even count, but he has done this very successfully. In the last full minute of the song, I managed to roughly count 51 different shots. 


Are there any close-ups of the artist and star image motifs? 

There are quite a few close-up shots of Rihanna, and just as many of the supermodel who is also included in the video. I think there are so many close-up shots because she is the star image motif, and that could be the reason why I didn't find one throughout the video. But here is a good example of a close-up shot that is 1 minute and 26 seconds into the video.


Is there any reference to the notion of looking? 
There seems to be constant shots of the eyes in particular. This could be the notion of looking, from Goodwin's theory. 


Are there any intertextual references? 
As far as I could see I couldn't make out any intertextual references throughout the duration of the video. For others who watch it they may think differently as they could have seen more types of media that could relate to it. 


Is it based mainly on performance, narrative or a concept? 

This video is mainly more narrative than anything else, as it tells a story. The acting of Rihanna and the model in the video gives the audience the sex appeal that they seem to ask for. 

The Online Revolution

The online marketplace and revolution of this has had an astounding effect on the music industry and how bands and artists promote their material. This contrasts greatly with more traditional forms of promotion. This is because the internet is more accessible than ever which can take you to sites such as Spotify or streaming sites like Youtube. This means more and more people are gaining access to free music (usually illegally) and they are able to download from them. This is costing the music industry massive amounts.

Online ways to promote:

There are quite a few ways to promote using the online tactic; and this is seen as a very modern for some artists, and even some of the audience. Youtube is becoming one of the most successful ways to reach your music out to fans for free, with it instantly streaming, and being able to listen or watch an unlimited amount of times. Spotify is also another way to listen to music an unlimited amount of times, but it is also fighting to keep some of the revenues for the artists, charging the user £9.99 a month for unlimited usage. This is also a good way

for artists to promote their music, as the free version has interrupted playback in

cluding advertisements. An artist could fill a spot to promote their work. Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are well known social networking sites, used by many people and are very successful ways to promote to the younger generations, with an artist easily being able to build up a fan base.

How has the internet changed the promotion of music:

The internet has made its extremely easy for anybody independent to build up an audience by uploading their music to a site. As the internet is the new way of promoting virtually all music, it is the most successful way to be seen or spotted by a record label. It allows the audience for an artist to be instantly connected with them, as they can see when they will be playing live, and they feel as though they can be part of their lives, knowing where they have just been, or what they are about to do.

Esmee Denters

Esmee made it successfully as an artist due to this sudden online revolution as she capitalised on it. Back in 2006 Esmee covered

popular songs regularly from artists including Justin Timberlake and Natasha Bedingfield. She then posted these to Youtube which became very popular and she was scouted and introduced eventually to Justin Timberlake by a manager of a label. Justin then signed her to his label, the first artist to be on Tennman Records. She released a debut album, and a single which peaked at #7 in the UK charts. She was also on tour with Justin opening for him on his 10 destinations of his 2007 tour. According to several magazines, Denters is the first unsigned singer in history to go directly from person.

Van Morrison

The Northern Irish musician is considered one of the greatest artists. He has won 6 Grammy Awards, been inducted to the hall of fame for Rock and Roll and also Songwriters. He is very

successful, with 2 major studio albums both gaining awards and many, many singles that were very successful. He was at his peak in the early 70’s right through to the 80’s when he was still creating inspiring pieces of music. This was at a time when the internet was not about, so Van would have relied heavily on more physical types of promoting his work. This would have included leaflets, word of mouth, and especially radio. This seemed to have been very successful for him because at the time, this was the most efficient way of reaching fans, but if those tactics were to be used nowadays, e would not be quite so successful.

Overall, there are many different ways to promote your music if you are an artist, and the most recent one being the 'online revolution'. There was a time where the radio would have been the revolution for promoting, and posters too. It's just the online revolution has more critics because it is a more evolved and interactive way of promoting. This is all helped by web 2.0 which is used to interact more socially and with more efficiency.

Websites

I have analysed 3 different websites from 3 different genres and artists on their promotional material and how the sites displays this.

Websites Analysis

View more presentations from Declan.

Digipacks

A digipack is an alternative version of an album. It is usually made out of thick

paper and typically fold out like a book with plastic a plastic tray holding the CD. They seem to be more exclusive than a normal album, often including bonus material. The 'Digi-Pak' was originally trademarked and manufactured by MeadWestvaco but in the early 00's they became increasingly popular and the term 'digipack' was used to describe all soft CD packaging.

Pros:

• Many bands and artists want to use them solely for aesthetic reasons, as they look nice.
• It opens up more room, as the design is slightly different to traditional plastic cases.
• They don't crack like the traditional plastic cases.
• They can be environmentally friendly, often being made out of recycled paper.

Cons:

• The plastic trays can often break, as they not protected by anything else than paper on the exterior.
• As they are more open, the CD can more easily fall out.
• The paper will eventually begin to peel or separate.

Digipacks do look great, but if starting out with a tight budget, it

is best to stick to more traditional cases as these are cheaper and you can't really just get digipacks because they are aesthetically pleasing to you.

Taking all this into consideration, I am going to have some guidelines to make my digipack by. Foals' Antidotes is quite a simple yet effective album, with it being partly their own creations, all expressed in an artistic way. This is through small drawings and scribbles that help to make this album what it is.

When I create mine, I want to take into account:

• My artist and their personality
• The genre
• How to make it look interesting.

Branding

Branding can be seen by a lot of bands and artists and is a great way to promote the artist. This is because it can be seen on a lot of merchandise and products that they sell. Branding is used the same way as a designer, which means putting the logo or name on items to increase sales. Some of these items could include badges, t-shirts, posters, stickers and pens.

The Ministry Of Sound isn't strictly one artist or band, but the association with their logo is incredible.

This branding can be seen all over the world, especially on compilation

albums, but also on playstation games, nightclubs, bags, tents and even alcoholic drink.

They have clearly tried and successfully spread out their name and reputation as much abroad as in the UK, where their main nightclub is based. This is a great example of how branding can be used to sell more items.

But for a more specific version, 'The Killers' have a simple, yet memorable and easy to associate design as their branding marketing tool. Products that have this design on them can be mainly sold on the promoters website store if they have one. The whole reason for branding is mainly promotional, but it can mean something to the customer that it is a sign of support for the artist. This can be very powerful as people will soon learn to associate the logo with the artist.

I think overall, branding is a great way to merchandise and promote an artist as the audience can instantly recognise who it is.

Niche Markets

A niche market is very important for the music industry as it can define and include anything that is in sale. That means that every single product that is on sale is affected by its niche and can be defined by it. There can be very specific niche artists where a brand new artist can see a gap in the business and offer something very unique and different, and there is mainstream niche where the products are aimed at a very wide audience resulting in there being a low price due to high demand. It is very important if an artist can create a specific niche because they will gain a strong audience and usually very successful.

Lily Allen is a great example of how someone seemed to create a new market within music. Her very different sound of talk-singing was interesting. I was all very casual as she seemed to address her audience directly through the camera as if talking to them. Not many people had heard of her as her record label didn't giver her much support, they were preoccupied with albums like X&Y (Coldplay) and Demon Days (Gorillaz). She created a Myspace account which got thousands of hits on the few recordings she had uploaded.

Her first bit of interest was from The Observer Music Monthly, a magazine from The Observer. She gained the cover story of the magazine shortly after which was her first mainstream coverage. Her label then allowed her to have more creative control over her tracks and she was allowed to use songs she had written not forcing her to work with mainstream producers. Lily finished her album within two weeks and it started to be a hit with people interested in this new style.

I am going to try to use this for my album to help promote it as it it successful. I tried to find an artist with a distinct niche when I was searching, and that is why I chose a female solo artist because hopefully I will use this as a guidance.

"Unless you have a niche you won't successfully sell an album".

CD cover analysis

I have analysed 5 CD covers on their imagery, colour and typography.

This is for when I come to make my own CD cover, I can illustrate what I have learnt from analysing these. When making mine, i will need to also make it suitable for my audience and the genre of my music.

CD Covers Analysis

View more presentations from Declan.

Target Audience: Ellie Goulding

Ellie Goulding:

• Ellie's style and unique sound has helped her attract a wide audience ranging from 10-25.
• This is very successful for a brand new artist as she shook up the music business with something new and different, which the audience seemed to have been waiting for.
• She is the new electronic pop sensation and her fan base continues to grow.
• I think Ellie may have targeted her music especially at the middle age teenage years because this would have been when she was most interested in her music and actually starting to make a career out of it.
• As she took a gap year from university to pursue a career as a singer-songwriter like advised, she started to develop her electronic sound initially with the help of Frankmusic on the track 'Wish I Stayed'.
• Later, she was helped by Starsmith, who went on to be her chief collaborator and primary producer on her debut album 'Lights'. This then meant she left university and moved to West London.
• Her debut album was promoted very well with the help of national television and news, after she won the 2010 BRIT awards Critcs' Choice, all before her album had even been released.
• This would mean her album would be eagerly awaited, and attracted a new audience that may have not previously heard of her.
• To add to this she also topped the BBC Sound Of 2010 poll, which showcases the top choices for rising stars in the coming year.
• I believe this mainstream publicity really helped her to kickstart her career and which is why she has such a widespread range of audience.
• Ellie's first single 'Under The Sheets' was played on Radio 1 on 30th September 2009 and since then has gained heavy airplay.
• Now she is on tour promoting her 'Lights' album more and has played at some of the biggest festivals of the year with success. Including V Festival and Glastonbury Festival.
• Her website promotes her even more with links to a store where you can buy her songs, and a;so any events she may be undertaking like a run for The British Heart Foundation.
• I think her ways of releasing and promoting her album have been very successful as she looks one of the rising stars for the future to come.

Target Audience: Dizzee Rascal

Dizzee Rascal:

• Dizzee Rascal's audience has grown and grown as he is ever more plunged into the mainstream media eye from his musically underground origin.
• His style or genre is a mixture of garage, rap, grime and electronic music.
• This kind of genre would usually mean he would be part of the underground scene but he signed to a record company early which meant the release of albums and singles and appearances on a few of the companies tracks. This is a kind of promoting but very subtle, keeping his name within the genre and followers just to build a fan base.
• After his first solo album 'Boy in Da corner' was critically acclaimed in August 2003 reaching a peak of number 23 in the album charts. In September, Dizzee was awarded the Mercury Prize for best album of 2003 and the youngest person to do so at only 19. It was also chosen as number 1 album of the year by Planet Sound.
• Winning these titles would have really helped promote him form a young age and especially because it was his first album. It may have made he news which would widen his audience and obviously start to bring him into mainstream.
• As well as this, Boy in da corner was chosen as one of t top 50 albums for the year 2004 by Rolling Stone (the magazine). Joining the likes of Eminem, Mos Def and Kanye West.
• His unique style, as "words pour out at a high pitch and pace, as if syllables are the only thing that can hold back a scream," has given him a sound that can make hip hop embrace as something new and original in the hip hop scene.
• Dizzee has now released a total of four albums, and won a number of awards including the Best British Male in the 2010 BRIT awards.
• This has meant his target audience has dramatically increased as he seems to now be the link between mainstream and underground.
• Dizzee Rascal hasn't really used particular promotional ideas for his music but importantly he has won awards and featured on big tracks with big artists which have all helped to gain a name for himself and get into the public eye.
• Below is a screen grab of his website, which is set out slightly differently to Foals' with there being lots and lots of scrolling down through many videos of him at events or anything he has participated in. There is no section for merchandise or materials with his logos on, just links to artists, videos and photos. There is however at the top of the page there is a flashing image/slideshow of various things to promote and get out to his audience.
• I think his way of promoting and target audience is very successful now being one of the best British artists whether it was planned or helped.

Target Audience: Foals

Foals' Second album: Total Life Forever

• The target audience for Foals is between 15 and 24 mainly aimed at students at university as they were at places like Oxford University whilst making their music.
• This target audience of students can influence their music in a way that means their style is more unique.
• Their style is generally known as Math Rock or Funk Rock. It is more unique and less commercialised which is why they have such a specific set of fans and followers.
• Foals's second album named Total Life Forever was released on May 10th 2010 which was awaited eagerly by fans.
• On their Facebook and Myspace blogs the band confirmed when the album would be released after play.com and zavvi.co.uk claimed.
• When doing this they also mentioned of a a new song from their forthcoming album being played on the radio.
• On March 1st 2010 the promotional single 'Spanish Sahara' was first played on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show at 7:30 pm. Following this, Foals' new website was updated that night with the release of a video for the track. This would have helped them a lot as Zane Lowe is a fan and that particular show has a wide audience, this would have been good to maybe attract more people to listen to their music.
• On March 6th 2010 the Total Life Forever Site was officially launched with puzzles revealing images, lyrics, and sound clips from the album.
• The whole new Foals website was launched March 13th and illustrated a whole new art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos.
• The album Total Life Forever was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Music Prize.
• "The spiky, angular guitars of the first album gave way to a much richer sound, particularly on songs like Spanish Sahara." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10685005
• Foals have a dedicated area on their website which links to their online store to buy merchandise. http://foals.firebrandlive.com/
• Some of the things they sell are t shirts mainly, and bags and posters.

• I think Foals' promoting has been different to a more commercialised band and their specific audience is why this is. But I think that the way they have got this out to listeners is quite successful. They have widened their audience a little with national radio, intrigued fans with new sites and ways to interact with them. On their site they have direct links to their music, and a gallery of photos and videos.

Different types of music videos

There are different types of music videos that can all have a different purpose. There are narrative based videos, which tell a story, performance based videos where the bans or artist is playing, and concept based videos which can just be random.

Here is an example of a narrative based music video:

Paramore - Brick By Boring Brick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A63VwWz1ij0

• This video is very surreal and tells a story of the lyrics
• it has been cleverly edited to seem like a fairytale land with use of colour tints and camera blur
• The song starts straight away, with the camera following a little girl trying to get away from her tragic life at home.
• There are constant shots of a man digging a grave/hole which seem to link to the lyrics 'bury the castle'.
• This video also seems to emphasise the narrative type of video with the lead singer telling the story of this fairytale.
• When she sings about her life is tragic so she built up a world of magic the mise en scene seems to change from a yellow/orange to a very dark grey with things out to get her so she runs away.
• There seems to be a lot of shots where the camera is actually following the little girl as if they were behind her, which reflects the notion of story telling again, where you follow characters.
• This is a good example of a narrative video because it takes it literally and seems to tell a story with the lyrics.
• There doesn't seem to be a notion of looking which could go against Goodwin's theory of music videos, but close-up shots of the eyes which are considered as looking so his theory is correct this time. 

Here is a performance based music video:

Razorlight - America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9NhncU5_CE

• This is quite a simple music video which starts off with a very slow zoom into quite a compact room where it looks the band may practice or even record.
• The first shot is very long for a music video and this reflects the start of the song as it is quite slow and calm.
• The whole video seems to include a lot of close up shots with only half of the face of the lead singer in the frame. I am not sure why this is but it may be just to give a different perspective. But this is also going to be the notion of looking, showing the eyes.
• One thing that is very obvious is that it is only the lead singer that looks directly into the camera and no-one else. This can be seen in a lot performance based music videos and can give a sense of superiority and leadership over other members.
• Performance based videos are usually quite simple with sometimes including clever editing techniques to be more creative but most if the time there are just a wide variety of quick shots of the instruments and bands.
• There seems to be a lot of pictures and shots of very complicated and big roads which is quite strange but I think there is a hidden message somewhere.
• The band have included a simple sign of their logo and recognisable band name at the very start of the video where it is still quite calm.
• Overall this is quite a typical performance based video which has features of Goodwin's theory.

Concept based music video (random):

Bombay Bicycle Club - Evening/Morning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC_FseOub7I

• This is an example of a random or concept based music video which can sometimes have no meaning at all and just be a bit of fun.
• The video starts off slowly again with a short pan across what seems to be a park to a man in a panda suit sitting on a bench.
• The shot then changes to him looking round at two men staring at him who then start to chase him
• and as the beat kicks in along with the drums the shot changes to the panda running round a corner with these men chasing him. This is good relationship between music and visuals by the director Ben Newman. 
• All of this has been slightly slowed down maybe to be seen better or maybe just as an effect.
• Then he borrows a young girl's bike as these men are still chasing him, all whilst singing along to the lyrics
• He then changes out of this panda costume for a quick performance clip with his band in the middle of a street where the rest of the members clothes colours keep swapping with each other.
• Then he is chased again throughout streets and finally it comes to a climax of the band doing star jumps with the little girl wearing the panda head and dancing.
• It can be labelled random to say the least with no indications at all as to why he was running with a panda suit
• There is not much else to say apart form the fact it is quite interesting and keeps the audience watching to see what happens.

First ideas for video

First idea for music video

· The song ‘Travel Song’ by Evelyn Burke. http://www.myspace.com/evelynburke

· Link lyrics to video.

· Point of View shots just travelling all over the place.

· Cuts from one place to another, so getting on a train, then getting off, and another cut to a high street maybe.

· Major lyrics to visuals relationship with ‘travelling’

· Maybe at the end of the video show the person whose eyes you have been seeing through.

· Start off waking up with fingers over lens technique and maybe take a long video and speed it up?

· Cut half way through song with video carrying on, or maybe a delayed start.

· Maybe cuts to singing girl just walking down the street following her walking past people. (like Coldplay)

Second idea for music video

· Same song and artist

· Same point of view shot, same idea just instead of lots of different modes of travel, go through a daily routine of normal things.

· So, getting up, eating breakfast, choosing clothes to wear, travelling to work, what you see from the car, etc..

· Maybe do this a few times in the video, as if a week, to really emphasize the idea of ‘routine’. But with different clothes or a shot of a calendar to show it is a different day.

· Possibly start with the end, and replay to work your way back to this ending. Here is a great example of this overall idea. http://vimeo.com/6535918

Finding An Artist

One of the first things I needed to do was find and contact an artist to use their music for the video. As I am basing the video on the track and artist, rather than having an idea, and then trying to find a suitable artist. So I searched through the 'unsigned' section on www.myspace.com/music where unsigned artists can post their music in hope of somebody noticing it and helping them to a record deal. After searching through a few artists and tracks I decided I really liked someone called Evelyn Burke. She is a solo artist from Liverpool/Middlesbrough specialising in Indie, Pop and Alternative. She has quite a unique voice, almost fragile. But I really liked the last track in her queue of songs on her Myspace profile. This song is called 'Travel Song'. I privately messaged her through Myspace and shereplied a few days later. Here are screen shots of the emails. The bottom being the oldest.