Diversity of a Music Video

Music videos stick to certain conventions within a genre. For example, within a rock music video, it is highly likely to see a band performing either on stage, or in a recluse location. So when someone watches a music channel that shows rock, i.e. Kerrang! they will expect to see this in most music videos.

However, when things break these conventions, it is known as diversity. For example, this could be something simple, like bright colours in a heavy metal video. Usually, a convention of heavy metal would be dark colours, and dark themes. However, a good example of this being broken, is in Marilyn Manson's version of 'Tainted Love'. We can see the gothic colours of the black on his completely pale white skin, showing the dark connotations, however, he finds himself in a bright pink coloured
bedroom.

Something that our class looked at together as a group was two different directors that both use diversity in their music videos, however they both use them differently. The first of these directors is a man called Chris Cunnigham. Cunnigham presents some sort of 'horror' aspect to the videos he produces. The other director we have looked at is Michel Gondry. Gondry is a french director that has done top films such as The Green Hornet. He has also produced music videos for bands such as Daft Punk, The Vines and Radiohead.

Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy

The music video to this is something that is completely diverse to any genre, as its theme acts as a nightmare/horror film. This sort of video does not conform to any of the music genre stereotypes, as the only genre that would come close to using this would be a heavy metal. This video shows midgets with photo-shopped faces. They have mens faces that are made up like womens, and have been digitally modified. There is also a slightly different start to the story line that involves an old women and her dog. She finds a TV on the council estate, and this is where the small characters are first introduced. Later on, we then see the old woman with a mutant being that is screaming at her, which again tries to add the element of fear.

When reviewing Cunninghams thoughts on the production and creation of this video, he displayed that although this was funny to create, it was also very tedious work and some of the prosthetics used in the videos could take hours to apply, and with such intense music having to fit the video, it took months to finish producing. The problem was also making sure everyone on set could make filming times as half of the crew were simply friends of Cunningham's, and had other jobs to hold down, so could not work full time on the short film.

Chris Cunningham also implied that the video has nothing to do with conventions. He believes that its people that make music such as this that allow him to continue making videos in the style in which he does. He feels that his videos push on the boundaries of short films/music videos, and in order for these videos and thoughts to be put into production, he needs artists such as this to keep producing brand new types of music. Therefore showing that he feels this is a genre of music that really does fit to his ideas, despite what society would generally say.



The White Stripes - The Hardest Button to Button

This is the 3rd of 4 music videos that Michel Gondry has directed for the alternative rock band the White Stripes.

The video utilizes pixilation animation to create the effect of dozens of drum kits and guitar amplifiers multiplying to the rhythm of the song as Jack and Meg perform. For example, in one sequence, Meg is seen playing the bass drum at a train station. On every beat, a new drum materializes just ahead of her and she instantly appears behind it to play that beat, leaving all the previous drums vacant. This effect was achieved by first setting up a trail of bass drums. Then, Meg would be filmed performing a single beat on the last drum in the line, which would then be removed; she would move back one drum, play another beat, and so on. The final video is edited to include the drum beats with the sequence reversed, making it appear as if the drums are being added to the beat, appearing out of thin air. Gondry used 32 identical Ludwig drum kits, 32 identical amplifiers, and 16 identical microphone stands during the shoot. The drum kits were donated to a music school after the shoot.

Gondry shows throughout this video that he prefers a simplistic type of music video, and that he finds this may be more effective than that of the style of Chris Cunningham.

Goodwins music video theory

Goodwin's music video theory says things follow a generic code, and that each videio will/should follow the guidelines that he has stated.

The points that Goodwin believed are followed are as shown below:

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics

This states that depending on the genre and style of the band, there is generally a repeated characteristic/motif that each band will use when filming a music video, i.e. for a heavy metal band, this will be a stage performance, and for a boy/girl band, a dance routine of some sort.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visual

This part of the theory states that the lyrics will correlate with what we see on screen. So therefore when an artist may be talking about pain, or suffering, then we may see something such as physical pain, or something like a break-up of a relationship that may cause emotional pain. Or if we are to sense happy connotations within the lyrics, and the video has bright colours, it will help represent the correlation of happiness.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals

This obviously links in with the last point, as it has the same sort of effect, however this isn't about what is said, this is more about the speed, and beat of the music depicting what occurs on screen. For example, with a song that may have a heavy bass drum, that plays a pivotal roll in timing and feel throughout the song, it may be that every time it is heard, the video then cuts to something else, or there may be some effect that occurs every time it is heard.

Some of things that were noted by Goodwin are slightly different and are more subjective, so therefore rely more on the record labels point of view rather than anything else:

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist, that may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often inter textual reference to films, tv programmes, and other media areas.

7. Whether the video is primarily performance based, narrative based or completely a concept based video, and how each element in it is used.

Magazine advert analysis

Magazine advert analysis

Objective: to analyse the conventions of a magazine advert

Outcomes:
All: will be able to anlayse 3 conventions with examples (Grade E)

Most: will be able to anlayse the advert and make excellent reference to the music conventions and target audience with examples (Grade C)

Some: will be able to use the analysis as inspirations and create a conventional magazine advert (Grade A)

Starter:

1)    What is the purpose of a magazine advert?

      The purpose of a magazine advert is to help advertise a performer to people reading the magazine. By advertising in a magazine, it allows more people to see what is being advertised. For example, people buying an album are usually already fans awaiting that albums release, however if the release of the album is made more public and obvious, sales will increase, as it has been publicised more.

Task 1:
Analyse the following magazine advert. Ensure that your analysis is detailed and that you have included excellent examples to support the points that you have made. Also relate back to the music conventions and the target audience.

·               Representation of music artist

The representation of the music artist in this poster shows individuality. Ordinarily, someone in the charts would not use a stereotypical 'gothic' look in order to win over fans of pop culture. However it would appear that it is these types of factors that present her uniqueness, and help to sell her as an artist in general.

·               Connotations of the advert

As mentioned before, the whole gothic look, mixed with the title 'who you are' connotes that she wants everyone to express themselves, and not simply fall into the common trap of today's media. The media states how everyone should be, and they try to make everyone conform to certain categories of people, however, although being in the pop culture, it is clear that Jessie J believes in something completely different.

·               Colours

The colours on this poster are definitely juxtaposed. The lack colouring coming from the hair, lipstick, and top, work completely in opposition to a more 'glamorous' colour of silver. The silver detracts from the gothic look, by trying to add some style to it. The writing that says Jessie J is in silver, and is perfectly positioned in a way that it could look like a necklace. This is where we realise that she does still conform to some popular stereotypes, as normally, if someone was truly gothic, they would most likely not wear jewelry such as that.

·               Design/layout

The layout and design shows clearly who the artist is, and how she wants to be represented. It then works well to show the information which is being advertised on the bottom half of the advert. IT gives information clearly and rpecisely, and stands out from the picture above making the whole advert very effective.
·               Choice of images

·               Typography

·               Style of language

·               How does the advert promote the music genre?

·               How does the advert promote the artist?

·               How does the advert attract an audience?

Task 2:
Analyse 2 magazine adverts, one for your chosen artist and one for a similar artist, using the same bullet points above.
Include a summary at the end of your blog to show how you will use your research to inform your planning and creating your own advert for your own artist.

Record Labels

There are many different record labels throughout both Britain, America, and many other countries throughout the world. In this post, I will be looking at some of the most recognised and world renowned record companies.

To start with, one of the biggest music companies known to date, is the recording studios of Abbey Road. Now although these are simply a recording 'studio' I felt it was key to add these in, as it is possibly one of the most iconic features of music recording, as the Beatles made it famous in the 1960's, as they took a picture for their album cover, whilst walking across the zebra crossing outside the studios in which they were recording in.



Now for the first actual recording company, I am looking at the Swan Song records. This record company is probably not known by most, but it was created by Led Zeppelin in 1974, after they finished their contract with Atlantic record  in '73.
Swan Song records produced the rest of Led Zeppelin's music, and also produced some solo records for Jimmy Page and Robert plant, the guitarist and the singer for the band.
Another big band at the time who used their record company was 'Bad Company', a band created by two-fourths of the previously successful band 'Free'.

Another recording studio is Universal Records. Universal were founded in 1995, and have produced many of the biggest songs and artists in recent music history. In its first year of existence, it was named 'Rising Tide Records' but was shortly after renamed to Universal, and it was this point in which it really kicked off.
Universal have had success with many different genres of music, throughout their years of existence. People such as Akon, Jack Johnson, 3 Doors Down, and Lil' Wayne have all succeeded using this record company, and the company continues to grow larger each year, especially as they receive more publicity due to things that tenuously relate to it, such as Universal films, and the theme parks in America.

Magazine Advert Analysis - 2

In my first attempted magazine advert, I decided to try and keep the theme simple, as this a characteristic that we tried to apply throughout the video. I felt if I tried to add too many elements to a simple advert, that it would take away from the effect that we were trying to create.

To start with, I used a simple black background, as I felt this would be a good canvas to start working from, as there are so many options that you can add to this. Following this, I added my main image, which was our artist playing guitar. I originally placed this image as main focus, but with the size I increased the image to, it all became too pixelated and stretched. So with this in mind I decided to split the page in half, in order to be able to write the information on the bottom half, and use the image effectively on the top half.

This worked well, however I didn't like the fact that you can see the artist sitting down, so I then blacked out the chair, and the artists legs to show that the artist was standing not sitting. Once I'd created this, I added the artists name to the top half.

Upon looking over the advert, I felt it needed some more content, so I then found a shot we took in dover of just the landscape, and decided I was going to place the artist in Dover. This was a lot worse once finished that I originally thought it might be. After cutting the artist image down to just what I needed from it, I then put in the Dover picture. This picture did not work with the artist, as it looked very 'unrealistic' and the artist also appeared to be facing the wrong way, and this stopped the advert from being even slightly effective.

Research Into Pop

The term 'pop music' first originated in 1926, when they said that the idea of pop music was to have 'popular appeal'. It was indicated by Hatch and Millward that many recordings of the 1920's can show the early emergence of pop that would slowly develop into songs that we may recognise now.

However since the 1950's, it has become clear that not only does the words 'pop music' mean just popular music, it started to simply become anything that was not classical music. So for example, in the 1960's it would be bands such as the Beatles, and The Rolling Stones.
In the 1960's, it was said that the rising of popular music fought a battle against that of the newly rising 'beat music'. However this only applied for Britain, as in America, the rising genre that tried to overtake pop was rock and roll. With the emergence of Elvis in the 50's and those to perform before him such as Robert Johnson with his early 1930's blues recordings, they had already begun to create such genres as these.

From around 1967 on wards, the word pop was used in direct opposition to rock and roll, creating a complete division in genres, and almost making the public decide which type of music they would rather listen to, as both music genres tended to avoid sounding anything like each other.
The problem faced when pop tries to avoid rock and roll is that they have to take ideas from other genres, so you will usually find that in early pop, there was hints of gospel, jazz, soul, and country music.

With the exception of ABBA, the pop music industries have been completely dominated by both the British and the American music companies. These are two of the biggest countries in the world for media, and are also the best at producing music, so it is only fitting, that these two are the only two that really mass produce music that is heard across the world.

The characteristics of pop are stated below:

- An aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology.
- An emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal 'artistic' qualities.
- An emphasis on recording, production, and technology over live performance.
- A tendency to reflect on existing trends rather than progressive developments.
- Much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-orientated beats or rhythm.

Analysis of Music Genres

Music is completely defined by its genre. When the simple question is asked 'What music do you listen to?' it is always answered by the genres in which they listen to. The further we head into the 21st century however, the more the barriers of music genres are broken down.

The 2 main real genres are:

- Rock

- Pop

Pop is a generalised term, for most things in the charts. So technically, the genre changes due to time period. The word is short for 'popular' hence why it changes, as the Beatles were popular in the 60's, yet Rhianna has been popular over the past several years. So although they are 2 completely different types of music, in their respective time periods, they are popular music.

Rock music however has also come under pop music, but not through its genre, just simply because it was popular. For example, Led Zeppelin were popular, but were still a rock band with some blues influences. Rock covers quite a broad spectrum of music, as the genre has many different sub genres. The further into the 21st century, the more rock is changing, and the same thing happened from the 20th century also. Some different types of rock are; punk, metal, heavy and folk.
But more recently, the barriers that have been broken down are most noticeable within the rock business. Firstly, a band called 'Limp Bizkit' broke down the rap/rock barrier, as their vocals are completely rap, yet with heavy metal music behind. They then have recently started to develop on this also when they got Lil' Wayne to feature in one of their songs, so not only did they include popular cultured music in their sound, but they also included someone from the public eye in terms of rap music, to therefore try to promote the sound that they were creating, and maybe try to weave rock back into popular society.

It is also now very noticeable that the Japanese bands are trying to take over the heavy metal scene. However they are also trying to be noticed in different ways. They are now including techno in their metal, making a fairly unique sound, and also giving a futuristic look at the music genre.

This band Crossfaith are one of the newest Japanese techno-metal bands, and have currently taken the genre by storm.

Plan Light/Colour

The light and colour in our video is key, as we will be able to use it to represent different moods and themes throughout the whole music video.

At the start of the video, we will see the performer alone, singing the first verse. This should be lit well, but have a black background, as to show contrast, and that the focus is to be on the performer. We will use the drama studio, in order to use their big spotlights to cover a good amount of the shot in high key lighting. The way we will use the high key lighting however is effective, because as I mentioned before, we will point the lights at the specific spot we want to film, not the whole room.

Following this, we will see some natural lighting, and some high key lighting in narrative shots that show the couple getting on well. This bright colour will show that the mood should be interpreted as a happy mood, and therefore this will make it easier to contrast in colours later on to show the effects of the video on the colours.

Following this, there will be switches to more performance, some of which being in Dover, and that will be completely natural lighting. The natural lighting should be quite bright at the cliffs, and therefore will represent throughout the chorus, that the experience of this relationship, looking back on it, has enlightened him, and that this is not him 'moping' about it.

What will be very noticeable throughout the narrative side of the video, is the colours getting darker. As the theme of the narrative and the relationship within it, gets a lot darker, and we feel lighting and colours are a perfect way in which to help represent the characteristics of the atmosphere in the video.

So the video will revert back and forth between the brighter lights of performance, and the darker lighting with the narrative, this then shows juxtaposition, and emphasises the fact that the performer is separate from the negative mood that is shown to increase throughout the video.

Research into music channels

Music channels are a great way in which people can consume music, and view the videos that sometimes epitomise an artist. The problem faced when people watch a music channel are it's limitations.

For a start, a simple limitation of watching a music channel is that each of them will focus on a certain genre, therefore, not showing any diversity, especially seeing as a lot of people like many different types of music. For example, MTV is now split into many different genre channels, as they like to specialise, and keep genres separate.

The first of the music channels that I will research is Kerrang!. Kerrang!'s target audience is aimed at the emo - goth section of music, but also accounts for some lighter rock, in which either younger fans, or lighter rock fans can enjoy. Kerrang was started in Spring 2001, and was aimed (as it still is now) at the public that prefer 'mainstream' rock, and tries to limit the amount of heavy metal, death metal and 'screamo' music that is played. You will often find bands such as You Me at Six, Green Day and Fall out Boy as the most popular features on the channel, which therefore can be their plea to reach towards more popular music, as sometimes bands like Fall Out Boy can be seen as pop rock.




Another big example of popular music channels is MTV. MTV is the most watched music channel ever, and is popular all over the world. MTV is so popular that the music video awards are actually hosted by them in several locations worldwide.

MTV's main objective is to produce popular music videos at a high rate, and to make sure that they are producing more of an income than the rival media conglomerate 'Box Television' who own Kerrang!

MTV have proved that they are in the music video business for the long-haul, as they have been around currently for over 33 years. Starting on August 1st, 1981, this TV channel originally invented in New York has consistently shown the top songs from the charts.