During the Christmas holiday, we made excellent progress in getting the music video up to a good standard and one of the ancillary products finished. After using some more pictures, we actually managed to get the magazine advert for our artist finished.
By using our magazine advert analysis, we decided to use the conventions that would typically be seen such as a focal point, reviews, release data and extra information about the artist such as where you could contact him. Though we believe that it turned out as a solid magazine advert, we did have a lot of issues whilst producing it.
Firstly, since none of us were photoshop users, it was hard to get the hang of it at first. We had many issues with layers and inserting images which did waste a lot of time. Also, cropping out images was difficult which resulted in a not too realistic spliff. Finding a good font to portray our artist was also difficult as we had to get a font that we believed symbolised the artist which also meant that quite a lot of time was wasted.
Other than getting the magazine advert completed, we also made progress in getting the digipaks done.
This was the back cover that we would have for our digipak. It's fairly simple as all we did was get the artist looking to a side and then having the track list there. By having the same locations for both the digipaks and the magazine advert, it allows for synergy to be portrayed and then when an audience sees a tunnel that looks like the ones portrayed in our digipak and magazine advert, they will remember the artist.
This was another image that was gonna be included in our digipak. Though there isn't too much to it, by having a low angle shot, it means that the artist is above the audience in terms of power which is something that we did want to portray - a strong. dangerous personality.
Other than making progress in our digipaks and magazine adverts, we also worked on our music video and this was one of the shots that we filmed. It is a long shot of the artist in a tunnel creating extravagant hand movements. We filmed this to clearly show the location to the audience as a tunnel can represent that an artist is in solitude which can resemble Roob as in his lyrics constantly shoots out towards his haters.
This is our magazine advert. The focal point is our artist standing in the middle holding a joint since the song has the use of drugs. It contains a review to show the quality of the mixtape, the date that it's going to be released and information about where you can contact the artist in the bottom left. In the bottom right contains a parental advisory logo since the lyrics contain swearing which is not appropriate for young ages.
This week, we made some good progress with the music video. We got a good couple of shots in some dark alleyways in London which we used to introduce the character to the audience.
This was one of the shots that we filmed for the introduction of the character. Firstly, the artist has his back to the camera that signifies mystery which we wanted to capture about the artist since he is an underground figure. Also, though it may not be perfectly visible, there is a British flag in front of the artist which instantly tells the audience where the artist is from and thus the artist will be associated with British culture. Finally, our use of dark clothing and lighting for this shot was done because we wanted to keep the artist on the low for now as we are simply introducing him.
This was another shot that was filmed and that we decided to use. This was shot in a very narrow alleyway which can connote danger to the audience as dark narrow alleyways are a usual location that signifies trouble. We can also see his lower body which we used dark clothing which was inspiration taken from Logic's Young jesus.
Other than working on the music video, we started to take pictures of our artist that we would use in the ancillary products. This was one of our pictures and we believed that it was excellent in representing the artist. Firstly, the graffiti'd background captivates how the artist is not in a rich area but more of a working class area which is where you would normally see illegal activities happening. Also, his clothing is rather similar to the one that we used in the music video except for the jacket but we believed that this would create enough synergy as the artist does not look totally different.
This week we began our filming for our music video. We decided not to follow all our shooting script because we believed that when we were starting to film we didn't really like what we were filming and therefore we decided to change some of the shots. Firstly, we decided to get some scenes at a park as we wanted to experiment with locations that weren't popular in rap music videos but we quickly realised that it was not a good idea after we started editing it. It did not allow for us to captivate what we wanted from our artist and therefore, we scrapped that filming.
At the same time, we began to create our ancillary products. We decided to not do it early as having an exact idea of what we wanted to do with our artist was necessary so that we can create total synergy between the music video and the ancillary products.
For this week, our main target was to get the shooting script completed as well as get some vox pops completed so that we knew what our target audience thought about our idea. I think that it went ok with some people but with others they didn't take it very seriously and so it was hard to get helpful feedback.
I think that next time, something that we should do would be to get people that do not fit with our target audience and get their opinions because this would give us a broader idea on what people think about what we want to create.
Also, we took pictures of the locations that we would use for our music video. These locations were fairly simple to find because they were all around the area that we lived in and so it wouldn't be hard to access them and also allowed for us to create a good personality for our artist.
Finally, we created a risk assessment. This was done for our own safety as we would understand the hazards that could happen which could result in injury. Therefore, having done a risk assessment, we were safer whilst filming as we would be aware of what could happen.
This is the locations that we will most likely use to film our music video. They are very accessible locations as we live 5 minutes away from them and also have no regulations against filming. The alleyways are very good for us because they look quite rough which suits the character.
Also, these locations contain typical scenery from South London for example the graffitied tunnels and the tight alleyways which would tell an audience member where the artist is from so an audience member could get a feeling of personal identification as they may have gone to the same areas that we are filming in and therefore would have a great interest in finding out more about the artist raising his personality.
This week, we were focussing on the job roles that each person would have when we are filming. We had to assign each person to a specific job role and we had to base our choices depending on previous experiences. For example, to create our flat plans we decided to have Tselmuun Gerel because we know that he is a good drawer.
This task was fairly simple because we already had a good idea of who we would use as we already know what each person can and can't do.
In addition to assigning job roles, we created a small production schedule. In this schedule, we would assign dates to when we were all free so that we could get together and start filming at our desired location. By having a production schedule, we would all know when we have to film which would get rid of any issues such as someone not being available.
Also, we began to work on our shooting scripts so that we knew what shots we would have and so making the creation of the actual music video much easier.
This week, our task was to choose 3 music videos which we thought would be similar to what we wanted to appear on our real music video. As we have 3 people in our group, we all had to pick 1 each. I thought that this was a fairly simple task as we had done a lot of analysis on the past. Doing these music video analysis would give us an insight to how music videos are created and how we could steal ideas from their music video to improve ours.
This music video is mainly based around the convention of exhibitionism as there are women on display in nearly every second of the music video. These women are also wearing very revealing clothing which can be used for the pleasure of the male viewer. Therefore, the target audience that would definitely be watching this type of music video would be males of ages between 15-25 as they would be attracted to the constant viewing of nearly naked women.
In addition, at approximately 2:40, you can see one of the artists taking money out of his pocket and throwing it on the ground, showing that he does not need it. This was done to show that the artists as a lot of money which he could spend which can suggest that he would want viewers to feel jealous of him as they may not afford to just throw money on the ground as if it was worth nothing.
Also, throughout the entire video there is black and white lighting which creates a contrast with what is actually happening in the music video as having lots of women and money can be see as a very good thing.
In this music video by Kendrick Lamar, the main focus of the music video is him partying with other people and having multiple close ups of him doing so. This is to show how good his life is to him and therefore, make other people understand that. Showing him partying himself with other people may influence others to do so and thus making the music rather successful.
Also, the clothing used by Kendrick Lamar is very basic as he's mostly only seen wearing a white T-Shirt which can be a counter type as people would expect someone who's as successful as him to wear huge chains or fully branded clothing, but because of his simplicity in clothing choices an audience member can relate to him as Lamar is making himself be seen as a non-extravagant sort of character which most people are.
The lighting throughout the music video is mostly dark since the music video was shot during the night. This was done because partying is mostly done at night which is what Lamar wanted to put through - he parties a lot. Despite the fairly dark lighting he can be seen having a lot of fun which is what the audience wants to do - enjoy themselves. With the use of the white T-Shirt, Lamar tries to express the idea that you don't need to have a lot of have a good time which would certainly appeal to a lot of audiences, especially those who may not be as rich as Lamar.
In relation to my music video, our artist can implement some of these ideas as our artist can be seen relaxing with other people especially since the song is about being in a calm state of mind.
The music video by Ice Cube can be used as inspiration for our own because from the beginning of the music video when he is waking up and having breakfast with his family, we get an idea of what type of person he is by looking at his mise-en-scene. He is seen wearing a bandanna and a hoodie which symbolises that he is a person who enjoys hanging around the ghetto area of his neighbourhood. From this, I can understand that Ice Cube is a person who likes to get himself involved in danger. Despite our chosen song is not about this sort of danger, we can use some conventions of this video such as the clothing that he is wearing since we would want our artist to wear something similar.
The target audience that this music video would attract would be teenagers of the ages between 16-40 because these ages are the ones who are most likely to be seen in the same areas that Ice Cube is seen in. This also fits in to out expected target audience which further re-iterates how we could use this music video for our own inspiration. In addition, Ice Cube has been around for a very long time which means that people who have been with him from the start still enjoy his music.
Also, at the start of the music video, the lighting is rather bright which suggests that the artist is looking fairly innocent as there appears to be no darkness around him. However, as the music video progresses it turns darker and darker showing the potential trouble that the artist is continuously facing which is concluded at the end when the lighting is dark due to it being night time and having the police appear. This shows a conclusion to the music video as at the start, the artist was looking like he was doing nothing too wrong, but at the end, all the dark lighting really showed how dark the artists' day had become.
Also, the props that were used can show how the artist is. As he is waking up, his 'innocence' from the bright lighting can be sort of removed because a small shot which shows a gun. This can give the personality of the artist away as having the gun showing can suggest once again how dangerous the artist can become and thus showing his true colours.
This week our main focus was to to start thinking about our actual music video and what we wanted to portray. Firstly, we created a flat plan for what we wanted our character to look like on an advert. This was a fairly simple task to complete because we already had a good idea on what we wanted to show for example his clothes and his pose. Also, we had a good drawer and therefore it was easy to draw what we wanted our character to be like.
Also, as that was being done we had another member of our group working on digipaks. This wasn't very good because the person was not a very creative person and as a result it was quite hard to depict what we wanted which slowed us down more.
Overall, I think we made good progress this week as we got a better idea of how we wanted to show the character to our target audience.
In addition, I also created an ideal target audience that I believe would be the ones to listen to our artist's song.
This week, our main focus was on the music video pitch. This pitch would be about the song that we would like to do for our project and why we would want to do it. We had to talk about what type of music video we were going to do, who our artist was etc. The main goal of the pitch was to persuade to our group that our idea would be most suitable. For my music video pitch, I decided to go for a rather simple presentation as it would be easy to understand meaning that my group would know what I was headed towards.
When the pitch was done, we had feedback from our peers about our pitches saying what we did well and what we could improve on. One piece of feedback that I received was that I forgot to mention costumes in my presentation and therefore, I had to explain it during the feedback session.
There were problems however when I wanted to present my pitch. The main problem was with equipment. A lot of the time, pitches would have to be stopped because of camera issues which was very irritating as the presenting of the pitches had to be postponed every time, but when it was finally done, I think it was a success.
Later on the week, I got together with my group and we created a treatment for the music video, which is seen below:
This treatment was fairly easy to do because we had a fairly good idea on what we wanted to do with our music video. However, because some members of my group didn't do that much work, it took us a little longer than what it should have.
This was my music video pitch. I included the permission email which I sent to the artist for him to allow me to use his song, some of the lyrics so that the audience knows what the song is about, some images of the artist so they have an idea what he's like, my idea for the music video, what the video will actually look like, the target audience that I have chosen, some potential characters for my music video and some of the locations and equipment.
This was my pitch. In this video, I suggested my vision to my audience explaining into further detail what I already had on my power point presentation. I believe that my pitch was able to get my idea across well as I was able to be concise about what I wanted to say but I did feel like I was repeating myself which confused the audience at some points. However, I believe that my pitch portrayed what I wanted to display well.
This video is where I was able to get feedback from my audience. They asked me questions about my idea and I tried to explain what I was trying to say. By doing this I was able to allow for my audience to understand what point I was trying to get across when doing my pitch so that they would understand how I wanted V-Dogg to be portrayed.
This week, we created various blog posts which allowed us to get more inspiration for our magazine advert and for our digipak. We were asked to create analysis for various digipaks and for magazineadvertsand we had to analyse their impact on the target audience. As we were doing this, we were able to get a more knowledgeable understanding of how different digipaks and magazine adverts can target different audiences and therefore, I need to take this into context when I am creating ideas for my own digipak and magazine advert analysis.
This digipak was created to advertise the band distorture. Just by looking at it, you can instantly see the intentions of the digipak due to its distinctive red and white colours which symbolize danger and pain. This is supported by the fact that there is blood on the focal point which allows the audience to understand that the album will be about suffering as the band may have gone through some times of grief. As a result of this, the audience that will be appealed towards this album will be teenagers from the age of 13-18 who may be feeling emotional distress because of something that they have gone through and thus need something to relate to so that they can try and ease the pain away. Furthermore, the blood seems to be on the hand of someone which can connote that the person may have gone through a time where they have had blood spilled on them because they have assisted the death of someone or have caused the death of someone which can bring the feeling of guilt and thus can once again attract an audience who may have gone through the same rough periods as the artist .
This digipak was used to advertise the famous singer - Rihanna. This digipak can be attractive to an audience very quickly because of the focal point that is used - the singer themselves, Rihanna. Having Rihanna as the focal point can be attractive for an audience because how she appears to have been 'sexualised' in the set of images that come in the digipak. For example, the bottom pictures show Rihanna with her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open which is a symbol of where artists try to make themselves look "sexy". Therefore, the target audience that this digipak can attract would be teenage girls of the ages between 14-20 because they are the ones who use Rihanna as a role model and therefore would try to copy what she looks like in the digipak. Because of the digipak, you can understand what the album will mostly likely be about; her singing songs about relationships. This digipak can influence future music videos because Rihanna would most likely want to follow this image of sexualisation as people have already seen it in the digipak.
In this digipak, the artist who is being portrayed is Marina and the Diamonds as it can be seen through the typography on one of the frames. The typography which is being used is bold on the first name of the band which is the focus point for an audience as they can easily find out who the digipak is advertising. Therefore, this is good for rhe digipak because the artist is clearly advertised, they can be quickly recognized and therefore, their audience would want to buy their album. The focal point of the digipak appears to be the artist. In the top right image, the woman is seen to to lying down with her hair flowing on the ground which shows that she is very relaxed and trying to look appealing to the audience. This can be successful for some audience members because they may feel attracted to the digipak because of the main image meaning that they would be attracted to buying the album. The target audience for this album would be females who are in their teens (16-24) as they are the ones who would want to look like her as she is looking very appealing to some people.
This album cover is advertising Adele which is instantly recognisable because of the large focal point which is her face. Having her face as the focal point allows an audience member to get immediately interested as they quickly know who the magazine advert is about and so they would want to know more.
The target audience for this magazine advert will be females from the ages of 18-40 because Adele is a very popular artist who is known amongst all age groups. Despite begin very young, Adele is mature meaning that both young and middle aged people can relate to her. Furthermore, the main image is black and white showing Adele's sadness and distress which can attract people who are also feeling down which would make them want to listen to this song as they believe that they could relate to what Adele is singing about.
As a result of this, the representation that it gives is that Adele is in a dark zone as there is no sign of colour anywhere which can appeal to people who may also be going through rough times in their life and need something to relate to, making her sales potentially boost. The pack is also being displayed on the bottom left corner which is not very different to the main image of the advert showing that Adele's feelings will be displayed all throughout the album. It also allows for people to see clearly that this is an Adele album since they saw the magazine advert, making the pack easily recognisable.
The message that the magazine advert is trying to convey is Adele's feelings which can be understood simply because of the overall advert. Its simplicity allows for the message to be easily spread because her emotions are easily portrayed.
This poster is advertising Eminem and his new album 'Recovery'. Firstly, the typography is different as his name is in black, but the title is in white. This can connote that Eminem's life was previously in the dark as he was going through a lot of troubles but however he is trying to turn it around and make himself better, hence the white font giving a contrast between Eminem's old life and Eminem's current life. His album title also has an hospital sign in replacement of the 'o' which can create the image of an hospital showing that he has required numerous amount of help to try and recover. Having this can attract an audience who may also be going through troubled times and need some way to recover which is why Eminem's music may be intriguing for them as they would want to feel some sort of personal identification. In both his name and in the album title, there are two 'E's which are backwards which can connote that Eminem has gone backwards a lot in his life which is why he may be going through recovery.
The focal point is Eminem walking down an empty road that doesn't look to have an end. This could be the road to recovery which connotes that to be able to recover you have to walk long distances before you can become better which shows how troubled Eminem is. Therefore, the target audience for this album would be any gender between the ages of 18-30 as this is the time where a lot of people have troubled times and as a result of this need to find some help. Also, the body copy includes some artists who are just as famous as Eminem such as Lil Wayne, P!NK and Rihanna. If an audience member sees these names then they will be automatically interested. Finally, the release date is very important as the audience needs to know when the album is going to be released so that they can buy it.
Eminem would be most suitable for the 'rap' genre because of the way he is being represented in the magazine cover. This is because a lot of rappers decide to rap about their lives and all the times where they have been deep down on the ground and as Eminem was on a similar position, this would be the most appropriate.
Therefore, the message that Eminem is trying to illustrate is that he is alone on his journey to become who he wants to be - someone divergent from who he was in the past.
The artist's name, Mika, is clearly displayed in very large bold writing which can allow audiences to quickly identify who the artist is which allows for people to want to find out more as they may know who the artist already is. Because of this, the advert can quickly gather popularity because audiences want to see more about an artist who they enjoy listening to.
The focal point is very attractive as it includes very bright colours as well as a section with black and white which can give a contrast in the music which will be played in the album - some will be very joyful, some will be serious. In the colourful part of the main image, you can see a table with work and a teenager holding a book to their face. This can suggest that the artist is showing that work can be stressful, and as the work is being sucked up, it can connote that the artist wants people to put away their stress in life and relax more showing that the artist's music is cheerful that can attract an audience who may need some cheering up.
On the other side of the main image, you can see planets which can connote that the artist's song is universal meaning that anyone can hear it which can suggest that the artist wants to be able to attract all audiences around the world.
This song is called Alive by Empire of the Sun. This song's costumes helps to attract audiences because of how abstract the artists in the video look. For example, the 2nd person from the left is wearing a very large crown which connotes that he is the one who is most powerful in the group and therefore, this can attract an audience who will want to feel some sort of superiority as they would like to wear a crown that big. Therefore, the target audience which this music video attracts would be mostly females from the ages of 16-25 because they are the ones who will find most attractiveness towards these obscure costumes as at this age, they always like to stand out when they are in a crowd. In addition, the artists look like they have costumes which relates to science-fiction because they do not look realistic as they would not be used out on the streets. Therefore, they could attract audiences who are fans of science-fiction because of their costume as it looks like something that could be used in a science-fiction movie
Narrative
This song is called La La La by Naughty boy featuring Sam Smith. In this music video, the narrative is very appealing especially to people to know the story behind it. The narrative behind it is based on the Bolivian oral legend which relates to the Wizard of Oz. This is successful because if people recognize what the music video is about then they will get a feeling of personal identification as they will be understanding what the music video is on about. Therefore, because of this the target audience where this music video would be aimed towards would be people of all ages or gender because everyone should be able to have more knowledge on past legends as it can help to educate them further. In addition, as the music video is about a Bolivian legend, it will most definitely attract people from Bolivia as they would like to see their legend come to life.
Intertextuality
The song 'We made you' by Eminem is the perfect example of intertextuality within a music video as there are a lot of references which can be seen throughout. One of the references that can be recognised from the start of the video is towards the video game Guitar Hero as it shows Eminem edited onto a huge Guitar Hero board. This can be very attractive for an audience because guitar hero is a very popular game and therefore if it is seen in the Eminem music video, it will gain more popularity as more fans would want to see it. Another reference that was made was towards Star Trek as you can see the 'Star Trek' crew inside their spaceship for the music video. This can attract a lot of audiences because Star Trek is the most popular science fiction TV show meaning that it can gather millions of views.
Editing
In this music video, the editing that is used during the beat drop becomes very fast. This can be seen as a lot of different clips are used that mostly symbolize explosions which can relate to the drop as it can be called 'explosive'. Also, the music video includes extremely fast editing especially from 1:09 onwards which is when the actual song quickens itself. This was done to match the actual pace of the song but also to show a lot of things happening in a very quick succession. The target audience for this music video is most likely 16-20s because they are the ones who most likely enjoy this upbeat sort of music as it may no longer be attractive for them since the music is very recent.and most people above those are mostly not interested in modern music and thus would equally not enjoy the music video.
This week we began our work for our main project which is to create a music video. Our first task was to go to a website with unsigned artists, such as "www.mp3unsigned.com" and find a song which we liked and could make a music video on. This was a fairly easy task because we could find songs from the charts who were pretty good and had lyrics which were fairly easy to understand. The song that I went for was called "Don't tell me what to do - V Dogg".This song is about a person who is very independent and doesn't listen to anyone's opinion.
After finding the song. we had to transcribe the lyrics and write their meaning, which was a straight-forward task because the lyrics were easy to understand. When that was done we had to write a letter to the artist asking for their permission so that we could use their song in our music video.
Overall, this was a productive week because we made very good progress in finding a song and so it would be quicker to get a move on the creation of the song.
What styles did you choose and why? The styles that I went for was parody and performance. Firstly. we went for parody because we thought that it would be easy to create since we could just be ourselves and do whatever we liked. One scene which involved parody was when Chi threw a "shirt" at me and hit me in the face. We thought this would work because it was rather funny and so would please the audience.
We also used performance because we knew that it would be a good challenge to be able to lip sync the music video. As we had little experience in lip-syncing before, doing this would be very good practice as we would see different techniques to lip-sync and see which one works best. This would therefore prepare us for our main task since I know have more experience in understanding how to lip-sync.
What music video conventions did you incorporate?
One example of a music video convention that we incorporated was lyrics. We used the lyrics of the video to create our music video as in some scenes of the music video we followed what the lyrics were saying and we also used it to lip-sync. Using the lyrics of the music video, we were able to make our music more interesting because we could play around the lyrics, for example when Macklemore said "They be like Oh that Gucci" we had multiple ideas such as getting Gucci clothing or instead make it more parodic and make something look like it''s supposed to be from Gucci, which is what we went for because one of our music video styles was parody.
Another convention that we used was to have a good tempo to our music video. We didn't make it too slow or too fast. This was because we wanted to match the tempo of the song itself. As the song isn't too fast or too slow, we didn't want to make the video seem irregular.
Will you use these styles and conventions in your final product in Y13? Why? Why not?
In my opinion, it would be likely for me to create a 'parody' music video because when we were doing it, we were free to do whatever we thought was funny as long as it didn't drift away from the song lyrics. It was also very entertaining seeing what I could create with my character, for example the clothing was unusual for me as i'm not used to wearing clothing which makes me stand out. So, it was a rather good experience to try out something new.
For performance, I most likely will include some performance in my final product because it is fairly easy to film myself and my group lip-syncing to a camera since all we need to practice doing is getting the tempo of the song right. If we can nail that, then creating a performance music video will be a much easier task. What problems did you face from pre-production to post production?
Before we started filming, I encountered some problems with my group because there was a lack of communications at a lot of times. For example, when we were going to start filming, we didn't do too much preparation so when we went to the place where we were going to film, there was a bit of confusion on where people should go. This made us waste time since we had to go through initial arrangements so that later filming would be more smooth.
Another problem that I had was during editing. Firstly, in the first day of editing I didn't have my group with me since none of them showed up meaning that I had to edit everything by myself. This was quite difficult because I didn't have feedback and so made me a little unsure on if things were good. Also, when editing, I found it quite difficult to get the video in sync with the lyrics which took a bit of time. and also a lot of effort. What elements did you feel were successful?
What was successful was that towards despite the lack of communication at the start, on the 2nd day of filming, things were going much more smoothly and everyone in the group contributed with their own set of ideas. This meant that we had a broader set of ideas so that we could make our music video seem good.
In this week, we began to work on our Thrift shop mash up. We were assigned a certain section of the song and we were placed into groups. Our first task was to discuss what type of music video we were going to create and in the end we decided to go for parody. When this was decided, we had to create storyboards so the tee knew what we had to do exactly. These didn't go very well and therefore, it caused our group some trouble since our coordination was rather bad.
Despite this, we were able to have better teamwork on the second day of shooting and so, we completed the task much more quickly which let us be able to edit our product as soon as possible.
Overall, the week was productive but it wasn't great because there were a lot of shots which could have been completed better but it was good that we got something completed.
Eminem is famous because of his embodiment of white rapping. At the time of when he started to become more recognized, rapping was mostly dominated by the black culture and therefore, it was hard for him to start fitting in. However, because of his lyrical ability, Eminem was able to quickly start gaining more recognition and more reputation amongst the rappers making him become a respected rapper. In addition to his ability, Eminem's lyrics themselves were also extremely meaningful as he decided to rap about his life and all of his problems that he had for example with his mother, wife and even daughter. As he was rapping about this, people started seeing him as a very talented rapper and therefore, allowed for Eminem to become even more famous. As a result of this, Eminem is starting to become a role-model for many rappers as they believe that they have a chance, especially since Eminem originated from a very troubled background.
Star as constructions
Before turning into what she is today, Miley Cyrus was a mere construction of Disney Channel. Disney Channel decided to turn her into the sweet girl who everyone adored, especially because of her role in Hannah Montana. As she was constructed into this innocent sort of girl, Miley was able to gain a lot of popularity, especially amongst the teenager crowd who saw her as someone who they could easily look up to. In addition to her music making her innocent, Disney wanted her to be the sort of perfect girl who stayed out of drugs, as in one interview she said that "Drugs are for idiots". This shows that artists are turned into something they may not be, which is true for Miley because of what she's become, but companies simply do this because they know that they can make a lot of money out of someone.
Stars as a products
Many companies who own artists understand that music is only one way of making money. Another way for record labels to make money is through merchandise. If an artist(s) is popular then they will understand that people will certainly want things so that they can stand out and show the world that they like that artist(s), which is where merchandise comes in. A very good example is One Direction. As they are very popular amongst teenagers, record labels know that teenagers will spend their money on anything, as long as they get to show their love for them. One Direction's record label have gone so far that they've even made an online store (http://www.onedirectionstore.com/) where they solely sell One Direction merchandise. In this store they sell from clothing, to jewellery and even toys and games. This is a very good way to make profit and both the artist and the companies know that.
Stars as ideologies
Many artists/stars will represent one certain group or class so that they can easily get their support. Because the artist focuses that one group or class, many fans will try to follow them and copy their ideology. One very good example is Beyonce. She has made some songs which are created so that women are seen as equal as men, if not greater. One example of this is the song 'Run the World (Girls). This song is basically about women having the same rights and power as men. As she is singing about this, she will easily attract the female demographic into supporting her, allowing for Beyonce to easily get more recognition amongst this genre.
This week was the start of our A2 coursework and we started off by learning about a few theories (representation) and styles and conventions both for music videos. In my opinion, learning about these theories can help us when we are to create our own music video because we can use some of these styles and conventions so that we can have a broader amount of ideas. Also, we can use the representation theory work so that we know more on how artists portray themselves, and so we would have a better idea on how we could portray ourselves.
In this video, women are mostly represented as being very sexy and hot which agrees with Goodwin's theory since their flirtatiousness can make men want to see more, making them very attracted to the video. In addition, at certain parts of the music video, such as 1:17 or 2:37 you can see some girls wearing a very small amount of clothes which makes the women seem very attractive for a lot of men, which once again supports Goodwin's theory that men only watch the video for the women. Another way in which this gets supported is with the constant close up of the women which shows that they are trying to treat women as objects since they are just using those women to look appealing and for the gratification of men.
In this music video, at the start, (0:07) there are a few scenes which CCTV footage, and in this footage you can see one of the artists lying down in a bed covered by half naked woman. This shows that women are being used as objects and only there for the pleasure of the viewer because it can make some viewers start to get aroused. Also, having a lot of women around an artist easily suggests that the artist is very popular and very masculine which is used to create a better image of that artist, as well as show all the money and fame that they have.
Berger's 'way of seeing things'
In this music video the artist, Kesha, was seen to be very rebellious and rather self-centered as she is seen wearing a miniskirt and having messy hair in contrast to her family who seem to be very posh and well-mannered. Towards the end of the video, the artist is seen clubbing and drinking alcoholic drinks. Personally, I interpret this badly because I am not used to this kind of behaviour since I was brought up to be well-mannered and to not get myself into this which can cause trouble.
In addition, it's stereotypical that a girl who dresses trashy with clothes that barely fit is as previously stated self-centred since they are seen as people who do not know how to take care of themselves and are always seen to be getting in into trouble which can actually be seen in the music video at 1:42 where the artist is seen to be getting arrested.
The Male Gaze
This is a very clear example of how women can be used for the simple sexual pleasure of men, as throughout the music video the two artists can be seen wearing rather revealing clothes making them more appealing. At 1:07, you can even see Shakira in a hot tub completely naked, only coving her breasts using her hair. This clearly shows how she is being used as a sex object for the pleasure of men, turning them more popular. In addition, there are sometimes close ups of the artists, showing their backs closer to the screen just to appeal to men which is a very easy way for them to gain popularity.
'Reception Theory
This video raised a lot of controversy because of Miley Cyrus's 'new image'. She is now being more free as she is able to make her own decisions, even though they aren't usually the best. This therefore raised some disputes over how she now is, and so we can apply the 'reception theory'. The dominant side are the ones who agree with Miley - she has become more independent and strong meaning she can do what she wants. However, there are people who oppose this who are known as the oppositional. This group of people believe that Miley Cyrus is an awful person for what she is doing because she's turning into a bad influence to her younger audience who looked up to her. Then you get the negotiated people who just don't care about what she does or who she is.
Genre is a term that can be split up into differentcategories, based on characteristics that they share, for example, settings, storyline's, narratives,characters and themes. Many genres include grime, hip hop, rock and R&B.
One theorist known as SteveNealestates that 'genresareinstancesofrepetitionanddifference' and 'genresare notsystems,theyareprocessesofsystematisation'. This means that many music videos of the same genre contain similar conventions which I will demonstrate.
This music video by Section Boyz fits into the genre of grime. This music videos supports Steve Neale's theory because this music video is rather similar to what can be seen in a lot of grime videos. The artists are directly doing at the camera whilst performing notorious activities such as smoking drugs and they also try to look like they are dangerous. If the artists were not doing this, then it would be different to a lot of other grime music videos which the public may not enjoy as much.
When compared to the music video by 67 in the song 'Skengman', Neale's theory can be applied as both of these music videos are extremely similar. 67's music video also contains a group of people constantly looking at the camera trying to look as menacing as possible which can also be seen in Section Boyz's video. In addition, the same props can be seen, mainly drugs. This is because drugs is a large prop used in the grime culture and therefore if they didn't have it, then the music video would not be a typical grime video. In addition, in both of the music videos there is similar clothing being shown - dark hoodies and tracksuits used to show how they are dangerous as they are wearing dark clothes.
Eminem is famous for his rapping and thus, fits into the genre of rap. Eminem fits into Neale's description because he is similar to some rappers, but at the same time very different. Many rappers today don't rap about very meaningful things as it's mostly about girls, drugs or money. However, a difference in Eminem's music is that he raps about real things that affect him in real life, for example in the song 'When I'm Gone', Eminem is rapping about his daughter and how she is being affected by Eminem's fame. Some rappers also rap about real life which is a similarity to Eminem.
50 Cent's P.I.M.P shows how rap can be totally different but still fall under the same category. Unlike Eminem who raps about his life, 50 Cent's song is all about him being a pimp. The music video is full of women being 'sexualised' just to show how much of a pimp he is. Contrary to Eminem's emotional lyrics, Cent's one is all about him having as many women as he wants whenever he wants which is totally different to Eminem's 'When I'm Gone'.
This song by the Vengaboys titled "Boom, boom, boom!!!" fits into Neale's theory of repetition and difference. Many dance songs are very upbeat and made to make an audience member dance. This is the case in this song because the song has a rather fast tempo meaning that it will be easy for an audience to start dancing to it. Therefore, this suits the audience because if someone searches up for a dance song and they get this, they will be pleased since it fits into their criteria.
The song by Dr Kucho called Can't Stop Playing is also a dance song. It contains a very fast pace which is used to make the audience members get up and start dancing. Though the two songs sound fairly different, they both have the same target which is to get an audience member more hyped up which would be usually seen in clubs. In addition, to fit in with the dance genre, both of these music videos include people dancing which is just to make it more obvious what the songs' purpose is.
In this music video, Taylor Swift performs to a live audience and uses it as a music video. In this performance, you can see the crowd jumping and overall being very excited showing their enthusiasm when listening to Taylor Swift. In terms of the artist, a performance music video can benefit them and the record label because it will make the artist seem to be able to captivate an audience and so will increase the popularity of the artist. Also, a performance music video can display the artist's true self as they get to perform how they want to whereas a studio created music video will make the artist more limited as they have to follow the producer's ideas and possibly not what they want themselves. For audience appeal, the way in which the audience seems very excited such as at 1:28 where everyone has their hands up, will be able to be intriguing for other audience members and so, will mean that more people would like to listen to Taylor Swift. For conventions, the editing has many fast cuts which corresponds to the beat of the music. There are many high angled camera shots to show the crowd which connotes the vibe that is being felt inside the arena, but also many medium long shots of the artists performing the song to show the artists' own excitement.
Narrative
In this music video, there is a clear narrative style to it as there is a story throughout the entire video as Skrillex shows the growth of a group of boys - from becoming boys all the way to their adult years. For the artist, the benefits that they get from it is that it could display an event that could of happened in the artists' life and show they would like to display it in a music video. For example, in this music video, the artist could have known someone that had a troubled childhood which included stealing but later turned out to be someone who worked with compliance towards the law. For the audience benefit, having a story as a music video can be beneficial because the audience may be able to relate to what is shown and so making the music video more powerful for them. For conventions, the editing does match the music video at certain points which can make the music video more pleasing to watch.
Conceptual
This video has a conceptual style because there isn't much action rather than the artist walking down a long street. This can be beneficial for the artist because it can easily separate them from other artists since its very un-often to see a music video that is so simple and because of its simplicity, it can get a lot of popularity because discussions would occur about the music video. In terms of audience appeal, the music video is beneficial to achieve this because there can be unanswered questions, such as 'why is the artist just walking down the street without caring?'. These questions would keep an audience member interested because they would want to find out an answer to it. For conventions, the editing very much matches the tempo of the sing because as there are long takes and the song is not very upbeat, the tempo of the editing easily matches it.
Animation
This music video is clearly animated throughout which has benefits for both the audience and for the artist. For the artist, a very easy benefit for them is that they can save money for the institution as it is all done through computer rather than having to pay for humans to travel and to actually create the music video. Also, another advantage for the artist is that their imagination and creativity is limitless meaning that they could create anything they want and relate it to the music. For the audience, the benefits are that an audience member can be easily engaged throughout. As the music video is very interesting, an audience member would want to keep on watching it so that they would know what would happen next. Also, an element of mystery can remain since some of the things which were animated may not be 100% clear and so, an audience member would want to figure out what it's about. The conventions which are included in this music video is that it is inter textual as it refers to another media text. Because of this, it can easily make the music video more popular as people would understand the references linked to the other media text - League of Legends.
Interpretive
This video is clearly interpretive especially in the second half, where Eminem is depicting his lyrics. This can benefit the artist because it can show how Eminem wants to be perceived, for example when he was talking to his daughter, he later on put his head down in sadness. For the audience, it can also be beneficial because the audience will be able to easily understand the lyrics and so, understand the experiences that Eminem has gone through. In terms of conventions, one of the main conventions is lyrics. The lyrics in this song are very deep as they clearly show Eminem's emotions and thoughts, for example when he says "turn around, find a gun on the ground,Cock it, put it to my brain, scream Die Shady! And pop it",
Surreal
This music video is undoubtedly surreal because of how creepy it can be interpreted. For the artist, its benefits is that it allows for them to express their creative side and also use their imagination freely without any limitations. For the audience, having a surreal video can be very appealing because the audience would be left asking questions as they would be wondering what the video was about and they would wonder what meaning it has. Because of this, they would most likely ask their friends to watch it and so, it can easily raise the artist's popularity.
Parody
This video is a parody of Eminem's Not Afraid. This is because he uses a lot of the scenes that Eminem used but made them try to seem funnier. In terms of benefits for the artist, it can raise a lot of awareness for the artist because a lot of people enjoy watching and hearing parodies. For the audience, parodies can be very funny and enjoyable to watch and so they will continuously be entertained when watching the music video.
Cameo
At approximately 2:25, there is a cameo appearance by another artist known as Beck, making this a good example. In terms of artist benefit, having guest artists appear in their music video will easily grant them more popularity because they would like to see an artist they enjoy appear in another piece which thus, raises the artist's popularity. For the audience, seeing an artist that they like can raise their excitement and so they could share the music video with their friends.
Other than getting the magazine advert completed, we also made progress in getting the digipaks done. 
