Pitch Idea Based On Lyrics

 

 

For this task we were given a set of lyrics we had never seen before and asked to pitch how you would make the music video. We done this because when we make our music video we will need to come up with ideas for our one and be able to understand how to come up with these ideas.

As I didn't know how the song went, it meant I had to read the lyrics and try and make a narrative out of it and make it how I am picturing it going in my head. 

How Many Shots are Used Within a Music Video?

Music videos differentiate with how many shots they use depending on the genre. I have noticed this from counting the amounts of shots different music videos use and I have researched into why they do this.
For example a rap video will use a lot more shots than a country pop video. The reason for this is because the pace of the beat of the song. If it is a fast rap video they will tend to use lots of shots to keep up with the beat and keep the audience entertained, however, if it is a slow paced it is likely to have less shots because it is an emotional meaningful song where the audience need to be able to recognise certain facial expressions in order to understand the ong/video.

Conventions of Music Genres

Conventions of music genres

 

R&B

Male

-Smart/Smart casual
-The majority of R&B music videos nowadays have male artists dressed in smart/smart casual clothing. This could be to represent class or status in society. Artists such as Drake, Chris Brown, Usher, Ne-Yo and many more all follow the Smart/Smart casual look.

-Tattoos are a big part of R&B culture again, with the majority having lots of tattoos all visible to the public. This could be used to show creativity and independence from other artists. Even if two artists sound similar, the tattoos and personalities they have could set them apart from each other so much that they wouldn't be seen as similar anymore.

-Jewellery is the most conventional piece of clothing in both R&B and Hip-Hop genres. In every R&B video you see, some sort of jewellery, whether that be a watch, a necklace, or an earring, the artist will have some form of jewellery, again, showing wealth and status in society.

 

Women

-Classy/Very Little clothing
-Depending on the sub-genre of the song, and the song itself, the women in music videos are usually dressed in accordance to the song lyrics or narrative of the music video. Women in the videos generally wear classy but revealing clothes, making them attractive to the males, who are the target audience for the conventional R&B music video.

-Jewellery- Again, women also follow the idea of having jewellery in the music videos, whether they are the main artist or just an actress. This catches the eye of the male, which is who the target audience is, therefore doing its job in making the target audience watch the video, even if it is just because of the women, and not the actual song itself.

Rock


-Display the bands performing on stage
- Uneasy camera movements
-Hand held shots to represent a frantic/manic atmosphere
(these camera shots and movements emphasise the roughness of the music, as you do not want clean smooth cuts and movements that you would use in perhaps pop music)
-Not common to use special effects, for example, green screen or CGI
- Usually deep dark colours are used to compliment the style of music.




This video by Imagine Dragons could be classed as rock but it has brought new iconography to the rock genre and has modernised it.

Hip Hop Music and Rap Music

The primary focus of Hip Hop is on beatboxing and DJ scratching. Rap music is another subset of this genre, and it revolves around the artist rapping to a fixed beat. Though this genre evolved in the ghettos of the United States, today it has spread to mainstream culture all around the world, and has become a multi million dollar industry. This genre of hip hop songs started involving more and more people during the 1970s.

 

You tend to find a mixture of narrative and performance based music videos for Hip Hop and Rap. The majority of music videos for this style tend to be set in a lower class area, on the streets. You find a wide range of different settings and styles for these genres however they are predominantly set in lower class areas.
Artists tend to feature within their own videos.

 

Lyric Analysis and It's Importance

Most music videos contain a narrative. Usually the lyrics within the song are used to either reflect or help enhance the emotions conveyed in the narrative; this is why analysing lyrics is important. Without looking at the lyrics before planning out and pitching a music video idea, your vision and lyrics could clash and not complement each other.

According to Goodwin's theory, the lyrics and the visuals should match at some points. Looking back at music videos that i have analysed, I have noticed this and it has made me think about the lyrics to our own song and how we can incorporate Goodwin's theory of the relationship between the lyrics and visuals and execute it in our final video.

Underneath displays a picture of my lyric analysis for the song 'My Immortal'- Evanescence.
I had never of heard of this song before so it meant I could have a go at making a music video for the first time as to what I think it would go like.

What Music Videos Have The Most Views and Why?

For this post I have decided to research what music videos have the most views on YouTube. I am doing this because I will be able to identify WHY they have this amount of views and what makes them so good. If I can do this then it might help me to find out what people want from a music video and it could potentially give me ideas as to what to include in our video to make it as popular as possible.

The most viewed video on Youtube is PSY - GANGNAM STYLE. This video has over 2 billion views and took over the web in the middle of June. This video kicked off over the social media and it went viral very quickly. Soon the whole world knew of this song and knew of the dance which came along with it.

I think the reason for this doing so well and being the only musioc video to reach over 2 billion views is because the idea was different and it had a dance which went along with it what people could enjoy and copy. This then went all over the social media and became more and more known and was soon playing everywhere so people can have fun and enjoy the dance.

Magazine Advert Analysis 2

I found this magazine advert for the album from Jessie J “WHO YOU ARE”.

 There are the obvious features such as artists name to make it clear who is being advertised, the album name to show what is being advertised. There is always an eye catching image, whether it be of the artist or a unique conceptual image, this not only shows us who the artists are but also gives an indication to the genre and artist style. A release date is often shown to highlight when the audience can get hold of the album and quite often ways of downloading the album/song to show where and how the audience can get hold of the music, making it easy will increase sales.  Song featured in the album is also common, often well known, chart music to get the audience hooked into why they should go away and buy the album/song, along with the new album cover to show what they can buy, also if its easily recognisable when they see it in shops they will be inclined to pick up a copy. Websites are often added to an advert to make it easy for an audience to know how to find out more, also to create a further possibly interactive relationship between artist and audience. Quite often an artist will have a certain font or logo that they are associated with, this helps an audience identify who the artist is and learn more about their style/genre. Occasionally the record label will have their logos printed small onto the adverts to build up artist profile, and audience can see who represents them and others they are associated with.

 

 

 

Jessie J's magazine advert meets many of the typical contentions, her name, album name, eye-catching image, hit singles, guest star/s, her own website and also logos of record labels. The advert itself if very striking, with the uses of black, white and gold. This gold colour may connote that she is expensive and everyone will want it because this album is something special and luxurious as is gold.

She is easily recognisable with her signature black bob with block fringe, matching with her dark clothing, makeup and nail varnish. The close up of her looking face on into the camera takes up the top two thirds of the advert, making it fully focused on her, and being her debut album it also helps to create a strong, fierce artist persona. The bottom third of the advert is taken up with the important information needed in the magazine like the album name, hit singles, website and record labels, these stand out well from the black background with the uses of white and gold and also a very simple 'caps' font so it is therefore bold and easy to use. Her name is pasted across the image of her in her signature font, also in gold to keep the typical genres of wealthy and powerful, which links well with her strong image. And by showing her website address fans can create a further relationship with the artist, finding out more about her, helping to create loyal fans. 

Magazine Advertisement Analysis

Chase and Status- No More Idols

I found this magazine advert for a chase and status tour that featured in many music based published products. It features the album art cover as well as the same style of text they used for it and other advertisements.


The image of the bulldog has become the most famous image associated with the band and has a lot of representation with their background. This type of canine was famously owned by many London based gangs and occupants, it shows the idea of a rural, urban upbringing and can be associated with the many acts that accompany the band on a number of tracks, especially Plan B. Because the music is fast paced and upbeat, the image is juxtaposing the flow of their music, bulldogs aren’t the fastest of canines and they tend to waddle as well as dribble, this shows what type of influence the music can have. It represents the modern era of drinking, drug taking and raving, where most participants become slobbering messes that can’t walk to usual standards and are left with hangovers. A sense of stupidity is shown through the image, that maybe the artists hardly tried to make this music and that the people who listen to it rarely understand its complexion, and instead just see it as a beat to dance to.

 

As for the text and fonts used, capital letters are extremely common in advertisements, especially to electronic and drum and bass acts. This is because it demonstrates the importance of the tour, it shouts excitement and energy, and because the artist’s main names are the largest in size, it helps publicize their rise to acknowledgement. The colour yellow helps emphasis these effects by what the colour can most commonly be associated with, danger tapes, electricity and the sun all generate a sense of fun and enjoyment and with the bulldog image being monochromatic and it’s expressed further.


Other parts of the advert are the albums cover, shown very small because of the main image, and various information regarding where to get tickets and contact details. These are in a plain white text and are a lot smaller than the others; this makes it seem like subtext and also gets the viewer to want to look closer for an interest in the tour. Another image is the advertising label branding there work, which is once again very small. Where the text is most concentrated the image is faded in to black, helping viewers to read the information and aiding the stand out features above.

 

Digipak Analysis 2

Here is the digipak for James Blunt' album "Chasing Time". I have chosen to analyse this because James blunt is our artist of whom we are using for our music video. This is going to be useful to us because if I analyse this, we will know what style to have for our digipak.

You can see from this picture that James is the bit which makes the digipak stand out and catches the audiences eye. By doing this it means that if a potential customer was walking round a shop looking to buy an album, if the digipak stands out it is more likely to make a sale. You can also see that he is holding his guitar in the picture which helps to show the audience what kind of genre this artist is likely  to be so I they like that genre but don't know the artist, they might be interested.

Just like most digipaks, James has added his songs on the disk to the back of the digipak so that the people interested in buying the media product know what they are buying. They might notice a particular song they like on the album therefore they might want to buy it.                                                                                                                                              
This digipak also used a black and white filter. This might connote to audiences that this album is quite soulful and meaningful. This again is going to attract audiences who like this kind of music.

From the picture which is used for the digipak, you can see the guitar is in the same shape as he is. This might connote to the audience that the guitar is apart of James and he lives through guitar and music.

They also used the main colour as red. This colour connotes love which might show the audience members what this album is going to be about and it might be a potential heartbreak. As part of the black and white filter, the white may connote the soulfulness of the song.

Digipack Analysis

This is Tinie Tempah's digipak from the album 'Discovery'. The main colour theme used is purple which can connote spiritual protection or royalty. We can also see that the artist is surrounded by a glow that can be linked to the colour purple's representation. Furthermore this could be linked to the title of the album 'Discovery' as this fits in nicely with the idea of spiritual protection. Therefore the theme of the album could be discovering or finding himself. The background behind the image of the artist is of stars and the galaxy which again can be linked to the word 'discovery'.

From the image of the artist we can see that he is wearing expensive jewellery on both of his wrists which could imply that he is quite 'flashy' which could conform to the stereotype of rappers. Another way the artist conforms to his genre of music is the sunglasses. They are another element that conforms to the rap genre and connotes the idea of him being flash. The artist (Tinie Tempah) is known for wearing sunglasses in nearly everything he is involved in so therefore if the company that is producing the album put him in sunglasses on the front of the album he is instantly recognisable. This could be a selling tactic by these people to make him recognisable as when this album came out he was relatively new on the music scene. Another trademark so to speak of Tinie Tempah is the font that is seen in the top left of the album cover. He uses this font a lot and therefore it is recognisable for his target audience for which he aims his music at.

We can see that the artist is holding a model city that looks like New York. The image could represent his power over a certain city, his dominance in the music world and his general dominance towards everyone. He seems to tower over the city and this also could be seen as him being the sole protector of the city. This towering over the city could make him look like a god-like figure looking over the city which links in with the space themed background to show him on some sort of pedestal compared to everyone else and that he has some sort of power over the people below. You can see from the album cover that there is some high key lighting beaming down onto the artist which highlights him and puts him as a solitary figure which can also be linked to what I said above about him having a dominance.

 

  

 

You can also see the list of songs on the back of the digipak. By doing this, when people pick the digipak, they can see what songs he has on the disk therefore they will want to buy it because his hits songs are on there.

Initial notes on magazine advertisments

We researched several music album advertisements that appear in magazines and began to notice lots of similarities.The conventions used in all these types of adds are similar due to the fact they all need certain information and aim to inform their audiences of release dates and the type of album it is.

 

From this image above you can see that it clearly shows the release date.

 

A lot of the magazine advertisements also had newspaper ratings so audiences could see how good they are expected to be.

 

 

They will also show the artists name in big writing so the audiences know exactly who has produced this album.

Cultural Effects Model

The cultural effects model

The view that the media are powerful in so far as they link up with other agents of socialisation to encourage particular ways of making sense of the world.

Strengths:

• Recognises the power of the dominant class to influence content of the media.
• Recognises that media audiences are not passive absorbers of media messages – they can and do respond differently to media content.
• Recognises that although the media generally present a biased, ideological view of the world, they don’t always have the same effect on media audiences.
• Recognises that the media are likely to be a key influence in shaping people’s view of the world. This is likely to happen over a long period of time rather than immediate and short term.

 

Weaknesses:

• The model gives too much emphasis to the active role of media audiences.
• Assumes media personnel like journalists work within the frameworks and assumptions of the dominant ideology.

What Makes a Good Music Video?