Task 5 - Research into my chosen genre

Indie Rock

For the genre that I am thinking about making a music video on I chose Indie Rock. This is because I like this genre of music.

Background History and Key Players today

Indie Rock is a genre of alternate rock which originated in the UK in the 80s. The band R.E.M and The Smiths were the pioneers and front runners of Indie Rock in the US and UK respectively. The major players in the Indie Rock genre today are the Arctic Monkeys.

Conventions of Indie Rock Music

Indie Rock music tends to be like normal rock music just not as heavy. And as such the instruments used are slightly different. Indie Rock artists typically use Guitars, Bass, drums as well as vocals. The type of guitar used may be an electric guitar or even an acoustic guitar. The vocalist often plays the guitar themselves also. Lyrically indie rock music can be used to tell a story or make a statement about something.

Conventions of Indie Rock Music Videos

Indie Rock musician are often seen as laid back. The majority of indie rock bands are fully male, Oasis and Arctic Monkeys being examples of these. As the artists themselves are often laid back this reflects in the way they dress. Many Indie rock artists can be seen wearing leather jackets and jeans and it has become almost the mandatory style for this genre. Generally the colours that artists wear are dark colours. Very often for the setting of an indie rock music video the setting is a normal location such as a pub where the band is playing or just a street. There is often the use of a large amount of close ups particularly on the main character in the video or the vocalist or both. There is the use of quick jump cuts in indie rock videos particularly when there is a fast paced song.

Task 3 - Research into a marketing package

Arctic Monkeys - AM

I have decided to use the latest Arctic Monkeys album, AM as the focus of this task.

The cover art is really basic and simple yet effective. The cover seems to resemble a heart beat monitor which kind of looks like a pair of sunglasses. There are only two colours used on this being the black and white but they seem to stand out. This is a very minimialistic design for a digipak which shows that the band aren't worried about their image and that it is the music that matters.

The poster for the Arctic Monkeys album AM shows the same house style as the album cover. There is still the minimalism in the use of the black and white along with the heart monitor symbol.

Music Video Theorists

Adorno

Adorno believed that music videos were created to give the public false needs. Adorno believes capitalists are behind this. False needs are things that we think about that don't matter and they act as distractions from real problems. Adorno believes that these false needs are created to help cover up things happening with the government. He also says that these false needs are created and satisfied in one go.

Hebdige

Hebdige is on the other spectrum to Adorno. Hebdige says that people interpret music videos differently. This is based on the type of person and their background will help them to interpret the music video in a certain way. Hebdige's main point is that this can lead to subcultures like punk and more niche artists away from the mainstream music.

Negus  

Negus' theory is based off of two ideologies. Negus believes that there are two different types of artist. These ideologies are ideologies of creativity and one is organic and the other is synthetic. Organic is when an artist focuses on albums and they sustain their status in the industry as they are a long term solution. Because there is the focus on albums the artists image enhances. Synthetic is short term and it mainly features 1,2,3 hit wonders. The image of the artist is constructed by the company. An example of organic would be Michael Jackson and an example of synthetic would be One Direction.  

Dyer

Dyer focuses on the idea of artists being stars. He believes that stars have common features. Dyers definition of a star is an image and not a real person. He says that the image is constructed through advertising and other media outlets. Dyer believes stars are commodities and that they are based on two paradoxes. The first paradox is that stars are ordinary and extra ordinary. These means that the stars can be see doing normal things like shopping but their talent makes them stand out from the crowd. The second paradox is that stars are present and absent. This is based on that the consumer gets to see so much into the stars life through TV, radio and magazines that they know them when in fact they dont. 

Purpose of Music Videos

I created a mindmap on mindmup to demonstrates the purpose of music videos.

Boom!

Adobe and MTV set up a competition for young directors to make a music video. In this video some professional directors give tips on how to make a good music video. One director said that the music video should either be funny, exciting or sexy. Another director gave advice on storyboarding. She said that directors should make basic storyboards as they are easy to interpret and add ideas to aswell as being less time consuming. She also said that preparation is key and that everything needs to be complete by the time of filming. It is important to plan your day to allow time for everything you need to get done. Time management is a major factor also as many music videos may be set on other peoples property. The owner of a property may need to use it themselves so there wont be much scope for overlapping time. The music video itself needs to be graphically interesting and also have elements of simplicity. The band or actors featured in music videos need to be charismatic and brave for being able to be in front of the camera. They also need to make the video relaxing and enjoyable.

Timeline of Music Video History

I have created a timeline of Music Video History. This is based of the article from Pete Fraser Teaching Music Video (BFI 2004)

Task 1 - Shot Count Analysis

Track: Little Black Submarines                                             
Artist: The Black Keys                                      
Director: N/A                                  
Release Date: 4 September 2012
Length of video: 3:32
Number of shots in entire video: 167
Average length of shot: 1.7 seconds

0:00 - 0:30
Number of shots in 30 second segment: 14
Within the 30 second segment there are:
Number of CU: 6
Number of ECU: 4
Number of LS: 0
Number of MS: 4
Number of panning shots: 0
Number of tilts: 0
Other shots: 0

I have learned some good things from doing this task. By analysing the music video much closely I have been able to see what things go into making a good music video. This will help me when I make my own music video as I can see what the process would be in creating this music video.

Task 2 - Previous Students Work

For this task I am looking at a previous students work.

Student 1

Link to Students Work - http://2015a2jacob.blogspot.co.uk/

As an example I used Jacob Maud's Work as one example

Research and Planning

This student has included some very detailed research in their blog.  They have also used different media formats in their work to reinforce the points he is making with his research. In terms of planning Jacob has included a lot of images to demonstrate the filming locations which can really help to give the reader an easier understanding of the locations. Although there are very detailed posts they could do with being a little more consise as they are very long winded paragraphs. Also whilst it is a positive that only one genre has been looked into this student could have benefited from implementing elements from a different genre to make the video unique.

Music Video

First of all the music video is great. It tells a great story and it has some great acting. There are parts in the video which really match up with the song. It is really clear what the relationship is between the two characters in the video. The only weakness would be that the video does no feature the band which may not necessarily be the best for a small band. 

Digipak

For the digipak the student has made it easy for the reader to see the progress in making the digipak. There are images which show the raw images to them being edited to the final images. The final images also look very professional. The only weakness to this part would be that the black and white filter is a simple filter and it is not really unique.

Magazine Advert

Like the Digipak the magazine advert looks high quality and professional. It is also good how the cigarette is in the foreground of the image and the actress is in the backgound. Also like the Digipak there is a clear documentated progression in the creation of the final magazine advert.

Evaluation

The student has used a range of different media formats in the creation of the evaluation. From images, videos and slideshows there is a variety of ways the student has done their responses to the questions. For the text responses they should be broken up into paragraphs as it is hard to read through a massive block of text.

Student 2    

Link to students work - http://2015a2rory.blogspot.co.uk/
This student I used is Rory Ford

Research and Planning

The research and planning is generally very good. This student has broken up their points by using different posts for each research point. He has also used pictures to accompany the text. One weakness of his work is that he has used black and grey text on a black background which make it hard to see.

Music Video

The music video is in my opinion really good. The video focuses on the band solely which I think is a good thing. There are a range of different camera angles and shots used in the video which gives the video diversity. The black and white filter fits the band and the genre of music. Although this is a good feature it isnt unique and its is a pretty common thing in music videos.

Digipak

The digipak looks good and professional. The images are really clear and they fit the genre of the band. One thing that is particularly good is the track listing included on the digipak. However in the blog their progress whislt making the digipak is not documentated. There is draft versions of the digipak but no raw images. This is a bad thing because you can not tell the progression from raw images to the finished digipak.  

Magazine Advert

The magazine advert is very good and it looks very authentic and professional. He stuck with the black and white filter as in the Digipak. Also the bands text doesnt look like it has been placed onto the background image and the font makes it really fit in. However there is no explanation to how they created the magazine that why or why they did.

 Evaluation

A good thing about this students evaluation is that he has used some different media formats to answer the questions. He has a sound clip and a presentation as well as some text to accompany the answers. For the response where he just did a text response he broke it down into paragraphs that is really good.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

Task Outline and Real Video

The task that we have been given is to recreate a real music video in our groups. The song that we are going to cover is Keri Hilson - Knock You Down ft. Kanye West, Ne-Yo. We are going to cover the part in the full video from 3 minutes to 4 minutes which features Kanye West and Keri Hilson. I am doing this in a group with Irena and Steph. Irena has also edited the part of the clip we are doing.

 Planning

 My group and I have already decided the roles we are going to take in this task. I will be playing the part of Kanye West when he is directly looking into the camera with Irena taking the full part of Keri Hilson as well as Steph playing a part as Kanye West in the latter stages of this production.

I am also going to look over the lyrics I need to lip sync to.

Lyrics

Tell me now can you make it past your caspers
So we can finally fly off into NASA
You was always the cheerleader of my dreams
You seem to only date the head of football teams
And I was the class clown that, always kept you laughin'
We, were never meant to be baby we just happened
So please, don't mess up the trick... hey young world I'm the new slick rick
They say I move too quick, but we can't let the moment pass us
Let the hourglass pass right into ashes

Filming

We filmed our preliminary task over the course of 2 lessons. In the first lesson we completed the filming of my part in the video. In the second lesson I was behind the camera filming Irena's and Steph's parts in the film.

Final Product

My Contribution 

I contributed to a good part in this video. I feature in the first 33 seconds of the video on screen. I also filmed the parts in which Irena and Steph are in the scene together as well as some scened featuring only Irena or Steph on their own. In terms of editing I did some but not a whole lot. I am not the best with editing so it was probably a good thing that I didnt feature in it too heavily as Steph and Irena are better at it then I am anyway.

Evaluation

I believe that as a group we have done a really good job with this prelim task.We have done a great job in recreating the real music video as best we can as there are some things we could not recreate like the hour glass and the smoke but we improvised with them, I feel like the acting we all did in our video was to a good quality and that we managed to replicate some of the actions from the video very well. We have done very well in post production making the split screen as well as using the black and white filter for certain scenes. There was one point in the video where the camera was a bit shaky and that was my fault as I was filming that part as well as in my part I did stumble on my words a little but it isn't too noticeable.