DS: Institutional context questions

1)      Who owns the record labels?

Main industrial conglomerates include the big 3 of; Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group. Sony is a synergistic company that also produces music related appliances such as CD players etc. All 3 of these labels also own production companies so are mostly vertically integrated. An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.

2)      What is involved in a record deal?

A record deal is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist, where the artist makes a record for the label to sell and promote. Artists under contract are normally only allowed to record for that label exclusively; guest appearances on other artists' records will carry a notice and that label may receive a percentage of sales.

DS: Music Festival Poster

Reflection on production of Festival poster

1.      Stick print production in exercise book

Done

2.      Reflect on your use of Photoshop. How does it enable creativity? What were the challenges? How did you overcome them?

Photoshop has many unique and original functions that enable you to manipulate text in a number of ways and express creativity. The layering and lasso function I found most innovative as it allowed you to cut certain parts of an image and then place them exactly where you would like, meaning you could create a totally original image.  Albeit I found the lasso function most creative, I also found it the most difficult to use. At time I became frustrated with its sensitivity and tedious but the ends results were good. I overcame this through patience and perseverance.

3.      List the techniques used in Photoshop. To what effect?

The magic wand tool was used to remove any unwanted excess from the images.

The text tool was used to incorporate text, which I used to create the fonts for the festival name, artists, location and date.

Colour editing was used to change the border colours, as well as the pictures in monochrome.

The scale function and crop was simply used to adjust and resize images.

4.      Evaluate your finished product in terms of the brief? How successful were you?

I feel the festival poster I created was exciting and exuberant. It was packed full of colour and design, giving a futuristic and innovative feel. The layering tool helped me offer an eye catching main image in the centre of the poster supplementing with a stimulating backdrop to accent the whole poster. I believe my font conformed well to the overall style of the poster, as the theme was futuristic and carnival like. I consider it to be relatively successful, however my main criticism of my work would be there is perhaps too much going on, leading to certain images possibility preventing others to stand out and be taken in. As well as the complex font and arc I included which also may distract and warp someone’s view on the poster.

5.      Moving on to print production for the digipak and advert. What advice would you give yourself?

When creating my digipak and advert I am going to be sure to make sure I am original with my ideas. I also hope to remember to not make the same mistake of trying to pack in as much as I can, as quality is better than quantity. Overall, be simple but intuitive.

AS: The Music Industry – Contextual Research

Who is responsible for making branding/marketing decisions?

The owners of the music videos – record labels. They are responsible for the brand within a video and how it comes across to an audience. Marketing decisions are also made by the record labels, because they actually own the band.

Why is a music video so significant?

A music video accompanies a track, and is a vital way in which the band is promoted to an audience. It is a way of creating a brand image across the video and creates a unique selling point for the band.  Modern technologies and the rise of social networking and sharing sites means that now a video is vital in order to build upon the buzz created by a track.

What is the production process of a music video?

1. Concepting

When you hire a video service crew, they should ask a lot of questions. They will be discovering where the starting point of this production is and what your goals and budget are for it.

2. Scriptwriting

The script forms the backbone of the production and becomes the official reference for all that follows.

3. Production Planning (Pre-production)

This is where specific production approaches are discussed and decided on, along with determining what resources (shoots, talent, animations, etc.) are going to be needed.

4. Videography (Shoot)

Music video is shot for the first time.

AS: Music Video Essay

Are music videos commercials, art, or porn?  Discuss.

Music videos are now a customary part of any track by an artist. A music video can be deemed to be one of three forms: a commercial -meaning that the video promotes the band to the audience. Porn – where the camera in the video focuses solely on females and objectifies them. And lastly, art – where a video can be deemed to tell a story.

Firstly, a video can be seen to be a commercial in a number of ways.  A music video can create a brand image through a music track in order to market the text.  One of the main ways a video can do this is through meta-narrative. This is where the video relates to the band’s life outside of the actual video, which then makes this recognisable to the audience and helps to identify the artist in a specific way.  Once this has been established, the video can go on to repeat random pieces of this narrative in the video, this is known as narrative fuzz, which then makes what the audience have seen before more memorable and means that they begin to associate certain images with a particular artist. Furthermore, music channels repeat artist’s music videos and have adverts integrated in them. The adverts the channels decide to screen in-between the videos correspond to the genre or nature of them, which shows the channels have targeted their niche audience and are able to advertise to them accordingly, reinforcing the way that music videos are becoming increasingly commercial. Lastly, another key feature of a music video that helps identify it as being a commercial is regular close ups of the band, these are known as ‘meat shots’ where the sole focus is on the artists in the video.  The artists are commonly given prevalence and a lot of screen time which leaves the audience with a lasting image of the artist.

Secondly, music videos could also be perceived to be porn rather than a commercial by an audience.  In modern music videos, women are often depicted in subordinate, male pleasing roles. This growing increase in this representation of women in modern culture reinforces sexism, according to a number of theorists, known as Goffman et Al. One of the most common features in music videos is where the camera focuses entirely on the women in the video using close-ups and midshots and here are a number of different representations that this can create of women in music videos. The artificial look refers to the way that women are shown to be slim, long legged, and narrow hipped, airbrushed and computer enhanced in order to deceive reality. Moreover, there is also dismemberment where specific parts of the women are displayed, detracting that they’re real people and instead actually objects for consumption. Along with this, women are also displayed as a commodification and therefore again seen to be an object for male pleasure and consumption; this again detracts from the fact that they’re people. The last feature that was identified by Goffman et Al was ritualization of subordination, where women are commonly seen to be submitting to a male in the video, usually on the floor – depicting that they’re lower in society, the kiss- where a woman is seen submitting to the male advance, woman as a child – often sitting on a man’s knee, or licensed withdrawal – where women are not actively participating in the social scene in the video.  

Lastly, there is the view that music videos are not commercials, or porn, but rather art. This argument focuses on the way that a music video can be thought provoking and used to tell a story, like a film. With the advancement of technology, music videos have progressively become more creative and imaginative to get to the highly innovative and modern stage they’re at today. An audience is now more immersed in a music video than ever before, the narrative is more powerful, and ‘videos are no longer perceived as a five minute promotion for a band’ a music video is able to communicate and captivate an audience, just like a piece of art does.  A theorist who strongly believed this was the case was Matt Hanson, who claimed “Music video is a perfectly formed moving image form, which is based on reinvention, reimagining and never standing still, always looking different and being in flux.” This reinforces the point that music videos have developed rapidly in recent times in order to get to their current stage where they are now more complex and thought provoking than ever before.  Also, the view that music videos are now more like films is backed by Hanson when he goes on to say “They offer up, in their flash cuts, glimpses of filmmaking futures”, he then uses the term “accelerated cinema” both of these quotations suggest that music videos represent the modern filmmaking techniques and features which means that they can be perceived as an art form.

To conclude, I believe that music videos can be deemed to be commercials. This is because it is clear that music videos have a central focus on the artist. The video is vital to the artist and is a prominent way in which the track is recognisable. It helps to give it a unique feel and helps the audience to associate a set of images with a band or artist. There are videos that have a main focus on females, meaning they could be seen as porn or videos with an extremely strong narrative that helps to tell a story – meaning they could be seen as an art form, but it is the features of a video that promote an artist that means that I believe they are predominantly commercials. 

AS: Photoshop Reflection

Reflect on your use of Photoshop.  How does it enable creativity?  What were the challenges?  How did you overcome them?

Photoshop enables creativity by providing the user with various techniques to help enhance/modify their pictures. It allows users to overlay images, set different backgrounds, edit saturation of the images and alter the colour of the different images.

List the techniques used in Photoshop.  To what effect?           
In Photoshop the techniques I used were:

Saturation of Images

Overlaying images

Use a background

Bring a separate picture to the front

Using the blur tool to improve edges of images

Inserting text onto an image

Use clone stamp tool

Evaluate your finished product in terms of the brief.  How successful were you?

The brief instructed us to insert a picture into Photoshop, and then we had to use the clone stamp and the magnetic lasso tool to modify our picture. Following on from this we were told that we had to change the colour of the background before going on to insert some text and a gradient. My finished product has met some but not all of these criteria. However, I still believe that my finished product is of a good standard. In particular my clone stamping to adjust the edges of the inserted images, and the background with the red scale effect are the most effective features of the poster.

Moving on to print production for the digipak and advert.  What advice would you give yourself?

For the digipak and advert I think that it’s essential that I transfer the same ideas regarding the background and overlaying of images. However, I think my creativity could be better and I may need to explore some more complex techniques rather than now just sticking with that I know.

AS: Auteur Research Task

Music-Video Filmography:

MGMT – Kids (2009 – Christy Karacas)

Effective visual style. Easily memorable because of the dramatic and shocking nature of the content. By using a child as the antagonist the audience is able to sympathise and therefore the video connects with them more effectively.

This shot in particular demonstrates the vulnerable and innocent child that is the central piece of the video that helps it to connect with the audience.

Kasabian – Days are Forgotten (2011 – Charlie Lightning)

This video relies heavily on visual effects surrounding the band’s performance rather than a narrative video. The video’s effects (such as the ones above) help to turn what would be an ordinary performance video into something more memorable and unique. By having these effects in the video it gives it a unique visual style.

Watchtower – Devlin (2012 – Corin Hardy)

This video has a strong and dramatic narrative that the audience are drawn into from the beginning. This helps to place them in the protagonist’s shoes, as well as being able to listen to him as being the lead vocalist in the video. Accompanying this video is narrative speech over the top in order to reinforce the feel of reality aspect of the video.

Bloc Party – Flux ( 2007 – Ace Norton)

This video, like the MGMT Kids video, has a memorable visual style. The video has a disjunctive relationship between the lyrics and the visuals and this helps to give the video a unique feel. The monsters destroying the environment in the video helps to add a dramatic feel slightly and this along with the amplified visuals makes it an effective video.

Calvin Harris – We’ll be Coming Back (2012 - Saman Keshavarz) 

This video has a fast paced narrative which involves two characters racing back to a hidden stash that is unknown to the audience. This in itself creates enigma and keeps them gripped throughout the video. The fast cutting rate also contributes to the dramatic and gripping feel of this video. The two parallel storylines that form the narrative are also a key way in which suspense and tension is created.

Last Time – Labrinth (2012 – Colin Tilley)

This video has a sci-fi feel from a modern artist. The video seems intergalactic and shows the protagonist seemingly travelling the globe. The lyrics and visuals have an illustrative relationship and this is shown by the lines “round the world” and “I’m taking off”. This video is a good example of how you can create something creative that goes against the normal conventional music video.

Wildfire – SBTRKT ( 2011 -  Sam Pilling)

This video shows a girl awakening from what is presumably a seizure. We as the audience assume that she has taken drugs to get her into that state. The style of featuring only her helps to place emphasis on her ill health and aids the creation of enigma and mystery. As well as this, the inclusion of several normal features of a household e.g. a fan and wallpaper, and the effects that the video puts on them, helps to place the audience in a real situation so that the video connects with them more effectively.

No Church in the Wild – Jay Z and Kanye West (2012 - Romain Gavras)

This is a powerful video portraying what the audience can infer are citizens rioting against the government. There are many symbols of conflict on behalf of those who are rebelling. For instance the Molotov cocktail thrown at the beginning is what sparks the conflict between them and the police. 

This image sums up the video in one shot and is a powerful image. The shot shows the rebellious individuals as being united as one. Together they are evidently more powerful and feel as if they can have a greater influence on the state and the police.

Detailed Analysis of two videos of choice: 

No Church in the Wild – Kanye West and Jay-Z

In the video, representation builds the main ideas in the video. The citizens are represented as powerful and defiant. This is in contrast with the police who’re represented as the scapegoats and the target for the citizen’s anger, thus making them seem powerless and vulnerable, and heavily outnumbered by those seemingly seeking justice.

Moreover, the video’s narrative is also central to understanding the video. There are various narrative codes that can be used to analyse this video.

For example, the enigma code in the video is ‘why are they rebelling?’ the audience are encouraged to side with them as a result because its not clear why they are rebelling but their still encouraged to share the citizens point of view. The events and actions code is the idea that there is a constant stream of rioters who seem determined to fight their cause. The symbolic code can be applied by looking at the police’s riot gear and horses. These connote authority but could also be perceived as representing heavy-handed law enforcement if you’ve sided with the citizens. The cultural code is also powerful in this video; the setting of an urban suburb connotes frustration and boredom on behalf of the young rioters represented.

In terms of techniques used in the video, high angled shots are used when showing the citizens being beaten by the police to position the audience with them and represent vulnerability on their behalf. In contrast, the low angled shots that accompany the police on horseback connote authority and power. Lastly, the fast cutting rate when the rioters and police are seen in confrontation helps to represent the chaotic disorder and lack of control on the streets. 

Leave Before the Lights Come on – Arctic Monkeys ( 2006 – John Hardwick)

This video has a powerful narrative and many narrative codes that can be applied. The video shows a random member of the public who is dragged into a dramatic scenario of a woman contemplating suicide.

In terms of representation, the female is represented as being vulnerable and mentally unstable. This is contrasted with the male, who is seen to be a hero because he’s there by chance at the time that the woman is contemplating taking her life.

In the video, there is a clear relationship between music and visuals. The line “This is a good idea, you wouldn't do it if it wasn’t” is accompanied by a woman contemplating suicide whilst standing on the edge of the roof of a building, this is known as an illustrative relationship.

With regards to narrative codes, the enigma code can easily be applied to this video. This is because the audience are asking themselves questions such as ‘Why is the woman contemplating suicide?’ and ‘Was the man there at that time by chance, or was she waiting for him to walk by?’ and ‘Is she actually planning on taking her own life, or is she looking for a relationship?’ all of these create an enigma and give this video a unique feel of mystery and suspense.

The semic code uses connotations in a video to give an audience insight into a video. In this case, the woman standing on the roof connotes vulnerability and mental unstableness. 

Can music videos be seen as an art form?

With the advancement of technology, music videos have progressively become more creative and imaginative to get to the highly innovative and modern stage they’re at today. An audience is now more immersed in a music video than ever before, the narrative is more powerful, and ‘videos are no longer perceived as a five minute promotion for a band’, they’re now seen as art.

‘A music video is now able to tell a story, just like a film’ – a music video is able to communicate and captivate an audience, just like a piece of art.  For example, Leave Before the Lights Come On shows how a powerful storyline can be when accompanied by a music video.