The Killers-Mr. Brightside

This video is good to look at for camera use and lyrics & narrative, as it is an indie video but with elements of rock and pop genre. There are a lot of close ups and tracking in to the lead singers face, whilst lip syncing the lyrics that are being described in the narrative. The narrative is lead by the lyrics of the song and is literal to what is happening in the video. 

There is a lot of performance with the characters, this makes the video seem very more general. When the audience in the video integrates with the band, the video becomes more real and suggests he is actually singing to people and not being ignored.

There is a lot of cross cutting from the narrative (dancers) to performance (band) this emphasises the fact the whole scene is in one room and they are all together in the video.

Meghan Trainor-All About That Bass (Theories)

Meghan Trainor is our chosen artist so I thought it would be a good idea to look at her other work. She has recently had a very successful song 'All About That Bass'.

Theory

Applying Goodwins theory to this music video it is a very amplified video. It exaggerates the key theme and meaning to the video so much, which is the fact you should be comfortable with yourself an have confidence no matter what anyone says. This could also link to Levi-Strauss' theory that there are binary oppositions within the video. There are clear opposites in this, the main one being thin and curvy but also elements of young and old, and men and women. 

The artist herself is subjective in the video as it is her telling the story and performing rather than watching over the performance. 

Visuals

The video consists of a lot of colour, particularly pastel colours which is very girl-y. This is what a pop video should have, she has kept to the conventions here. Another convention applied in this music video is the performance, there is a lot of dancing which projects a very lively feel to draw the audience in. It often cuts to different scenes of different people dancing and different outfits and different orders, this appeals to the audience as they get to see the artist in many ways and at different angles.

Lyrics
The lyrics are very repetitive in this song, the artist looks at the camera and we see her sing to the important lyrics that she means and the phrases she wants to get out to the audience and her beliefs she wants to portray. These lyrics include one about herself, and the audience, 'every inch of you is perfect', 'I'm no stick thin barbie doll'. You could consider Steve Archer's theory for the use of lyrics in this music video. The artist in this video is the centre of attention (also typical of pop in general) there is lots of close-ups of her lip syncing and dancing, being in the heart of the video, suggesting that the feeling and moods about the song and video are more genuine.

Music Copyright News

This morning on the news it was mentions that changes have been made to the copyright licensing laws about music videos.

This is important to bare in mind in case we break any licensing laws whilst creating our music video.

Monday Morning Update 29/09/14

As we have not yet got a reply from Meghan Trainor or her PR team we are assuming that it is okay to use the song for our music video. If we get a rejection reply we still have a couple of back up songs, one that is copyright free and one we have permission for.

By the end of last week Bronwyn and I had collected a lot of primary research including two individual interview and two focus groups, giving us some insight into what we can include in our music video.

News Update

Whilst looking at the entertainment & arts news site I came across some news about our artist. It was the first article on the page. Meghan Trainer has become the first artist that had entered the charts purely through the number of streams to her song. The rule on this changed three months ago on how the chart is updated included streams as well as downloads. Meghan Trainor's first single is not even out yet, it was only released this morning and was in the charts at number 33 yesterday.

Since choosing our song and artist Meghan Trainor has become much more famous and well known, with her song 'All about that bass'. We now know that her style of music and persona is loved and is very popular with the mass audience, so we can be confident now when creating our music video.

Initial Primary Target Audience Research

I created a Survey Monkey survey to get some initial research on music video genre and focusing into pop genre. I posted the link to my survey on Facebook so I could get a range of age and genders to answer it due to the fact I have friends aged 13 to 66 on Facebook. This was very effective as I got 20 answers straight away, which was a big enough sample for the initial research.

First of all I asked age and gender as I would be able to get a rough idea of who are answering the questions and our potential target audience. 

I have a varied age range, this would be could as the taste in music changes a lot with age and would be interesting to see what they though about pop videos and music videos in general.

This question, asking about the genre choices is again to get a rough idea of who this research group is and whether the answers to the other questions would be viable.

This is quite lucky that the majority of my research sample like listening to pop and R&B music as these are the genres we considered an pop is our chosen genre for our music video.

I gave my audience many feature of a typical pop video to choose and see how important they are to the music video. This would give me an indication as to what the audience like to see in music videos on a whole and what we could include in ours.

It seems that the artists performance and singing is a very important factor and also a connection with between the artist and audience. We will be sure to get a good performance from the artist, I believe this is vital for a pop music video.

In my research I also found that the camera and editing is also important to the audience so we need to ensure we take extra care when filming and editing our music video.

I worded question 5 as 'out of choice' to be more accurate with my results as most people probably listen to pop music every day, either on the radio or TV. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the audience enjoys or chooses to listen to pop music.

This audience do often listen to pop music and enjoy it so will make this research more accurate and give us a realistic idea about pop videos. However some of the audience never listen to pop music so some answers could be going in the completely wrong direction.

I asked this question in my survey so I could get a better idea of what our music videos going to look like and start planning colour schemes etc.

The majority answer to this is multi colours so our music video will be quite bright and colourful with the audience research in mind.

I the asked about the favourite excising videos to see what stood out. However, there weren't a lot of responses to this. This could be because that there are so many to choose from or that pop videos aren't the type you would search and look up, but perhaps just watch on the TV or if shared on Facebook.

In order to understand why we are making this music video and the aim of it I asked what the audience feel the purpose of a music video is. 

It seems that there are many main purposes but mainly for entertainment so we will aim to make our music video entertaining to the viewers as well as promoting the artist and connecting the audience with them.

In-Depth Music Video Analysis-Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce

'Telephone'-Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce
I have created a Prezi presentation analysing certain feature of this pop video. I decided to analyse the camera and editing, lighting, costume and props, setting and sound. I did this because I thought this would be useful and appropriate for my research for the coursework.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

This is Goodwin's theory of music genre, we learnt it in todays lesson.

• The visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
• Genres often have their own music style/iconography.
• Close-ups should always be included.
• The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image.
• Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos.
• Intertextual references are also popular.
• Goodwin also argues that female performers are often objectified for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.

Genre Types

As we have been learning about Genre, I have learnt that there are three types of genre categories.

Cross-genre

A cross-genre is where there are two or more genres crossing and overlapping with each other to create a new sound or genre. An example of a cross-genre is Pop Rock.

Hybrid Genre

This is where there is one genre and can clearly only be identified as one genre and has clear conventions. 

Sub-Genre

A Sub-genre is where there is a different type of one particular genre. These are very popular and most genres have sub-genres. An example would be stadium rock.

Copyright Permission

Our favourite song choice for making a music video out of the four is 'Dear Future Husband' by Meghan Trainor. We like the overall tone of the song, it is definitely in the pop genre but is not a hybrid genre. I believe the genre crosses with a 50's/swing/rock & roll genre which gives it a very upbeat feel that we love. This music video will have a lot of high energy performance, possibly with a 50's style theme.

We have followed Meghan on Twitter and decided to seek permission to use her song through this.

We also emailed her PR team asking for permission to use the song. However we have yet to get a reply from either media.

Possible Song Choice

On our Twitter account we were followed by a couple from America called 'Brytt & Kev' who are a Indie-Pop band. We thought we would take the opportunity and listen to their music. We really like their song 'Best Friends and Lovers' and may consider it as a song choice for our music video. As they follow us we direct messaged them asking permission and they granted us with it.

We like the song because it is clearly a pop song which is quite catchy, the only problem is that we can't immediately imagine a music video for it, whereas our other song choices we can imagine an idea for a video straight away.

This is the link to the song:
http://bryttandkev.com/track/664357/best-friends-and-lovers?autostart=true

Conventions of Pop Music Videos

Pop music videos are created mainly to advertise the song and the artist tot the audience. The videos are usually quite lively, with bright colours, props, dancing etc. Many aspects on the videos can be analysed, such as:

Camera

There is usually a lot of different scenes, including many close up's of the artists face, often showing the emotion of the song and connecting the audience with the artist. 

There are often long shots or establishing shots, usually including dance choreography or telling a story.

Mise En Scene

There are often many colours in pop videos, these colours are also enhanced to make it look happier and brighter. 

Pop videos also tend to have a lot of dancers in the video along with the artist being centre of attention, the people in the video are often dressed in similar clothes with a similar colour pattern to make them all look the same.

Genre Conventions

In class we discussed how many different genres of music there is. This is a list of the different genres I wrote down:
Pop
R&B
Rock
Indie
Soul
Hip Hop
Dubstep
Drum and Bass
Rap
Punk
Electronic
House
Jazz
Pop Rock
Metal
Classical
Dance
Boy Band
Pop Princess
Reggae

Within all of these genres there are many sub-genres, for example for rock there's; pop rock, punk rock, stadium rock, psychedelic rock and many more.

These are the conventions of the music videos of my three favourite music genres. I have used a few brief words just to get a basic idea of the conventions.

Pop-Dance choreography, many enhanced colours, girls, fast cutting rate, close-ups, artist centre of attention.
R&B-Storyline, dancing, blue or golden colour filter, emphasis on clothes, street, house or party scene, close-ups.
Indie-Guitar, instruments, acoustic, not always showing the artist

First Song Choices

These are some first song ideas we have before we have done any in-depth research. We have decided to go for Pop/R&B genre as we both enjoy listening to it and we know the conventions of the music videos for both of these genres.

Without you-Mattias Andreasson

Future Husband-Meghan Trainor

Close Your Eyes-Meghan Trainor

Twitter Account

Bronwyn and I have decided to create a twitter account to engage further into social media. This will allow us to follow artists we like and get inspiration towards our music video. We can also tweet about what we are learning and lessons and how our work is coming along.

We screen-shoted the process of setting the account up.

This screen shot shows the different topics of accounts you can like and follow, as our task is about music and creating a music video we followed the music topic.

To make our blog personalised we changed the design of our page, we used a plain neutral colour of grey and black for the background with a highlight of pink to make it a bit 'pop-y' which relates to the genre we will probably be using throughout the task.

Target Audience for Pop Music Genre

The first step to finding out what the target audience is for this genre, I Googled 'who listens to pop music?' 

Overall, most people listen to pop music as it is everywhere; TV, Radio, Bars etc. Pop was originally made for children to listen to before their music taste matures. However this taste in music can carry on into adulthood as pop music is over-played. The main reason adults/teenagers listen to pop music is because it is heavily influenced by celebrities and radio DJ's saying that this music is good and we as an audience automatically like this music passively. 

In my opinion, I think that the target audience for Pop music would be an age group of about 10-15 year olds. However, I do believe that this taste carry's on all the way to mature adults as we hear pop music all around us and passively choose to like it. 

Pop Music Analysis-Taylor Swift

is a Pop artist who was first established as a country artist but as she has evolved, along with her image she has gone over more to the pop genre. She has been in the public eye since she was about 16 as her debut album was released in 2006. 

A lot of Taylor's songs are about boyfriends, ex-boyfriends and break ups. This is a typical convention for pop music. Her latest released album 'Red', the fourth album from Taylor Swift, had many hit single on it that were in the charts worldwide. This is a typical pop album, the songs feature themes of relationships, being young, family and love.

This video could be seen as a very typical pop music video. It contains a variety of colours, dance choreography, and the artist is centre of attention. These are all typical conventions of a pop music video. It is also a good representation of a pop video as it is all pretend with Taylor in all the different costumes and contains a slight storyline then cuts back to Tylor Swift singing as her normal self. Another typical convention of a pop video is that there is many different shots of the same person (the artist) and dance to enhance the audience's viewing. These shots have a very fast cutting rate, usually with the beat of the song. This music video is a very feel-good video and makes you just want to dance, this is also typical of pop music.

Target Audience for R&B Music Genre

Again, I goggled what the target audience for the R&B music genre was so I could get a better idea of what our target audience would be, with the pop target audience also.

The target audience for R&B music is usually younger people aged between about 16-25. This may be due to the fact they often use explicit lyrics and also lyrics that are very relatable. The target audience is usually also women as the songs are normally about relationships which young women can relate to very easily.

R&B is a very popular music genre as it crosses over with other genres at the same time for example pop and hip hop. It is also often on the radio and TV so is herd in quite a lot of places.

R&B Music Analysis-Beyonce

is an R&B artist who has been in the music industry since her early teens, starting with her girl group 'Girl's Tyme' which was later changed to the name 'Destiny's Child'. Throughout her whole life Beyonce has portrayed herself as a 'strong, independent woman' which is the main theme across her songs.

Throughout her professional career, Beyonce has changed a lot, especially with her new album 'Beyonce', which was released in December 2013. This album was produced with the idea that her fans had now grown up, along with her, and wanted to express her sexuality and exaggerating the idea of feminism and that females are strong and can lead and be powerful. This is probably shown mostly through her song 'Run the World', on Beyonce's 4th album '4', suggesting that women are dominating the world and we can lead. However, on this song 'Pretty Hurts', sexuality, feminism, race etc are all expressed on an extreme level.

We can see the pain on the girls as they attempt many ways to be stick thin and to look perfect. Everyone is prejudiced against Beyonce and turn their nose up at her because she is not stick thin, perhaps even because she's black. This video shows the view of society, everyone thinking you need to be perfect, and shows how people can be upset and even depressed about it.

Towards the end of the video you can see her gain power and confidence and realise that noone actually needs to be perfect. This is a typical convention throughout Beyonce's videos she naturally brings a lot of power and confidence through her music. 

Another music video of Beyonce's that represents all of these conventions but in a totally different way is 'Run the World (Girls)'. The video represents feminism, by a large group of women coming together and standing off the group of men. This also shows that women can be very powerful if they know how to be and, as the title says, girls can be leaders.

In contrast to 'Pretty Hurts' the video shows that women are strong and confident right from the beginning. They don't care what they look like and they become one, unlike the self-conscious, lonely women in 'Pretty Hurts'.




I believe that both videos give off a similar message of feminism, power and beauty but in completely different ways. This is very typical of R&B music and these themes are typical conventions.

Reasons for a Music Video

There are many reasons for an artist to create a music video for a new single. 

One of main reasons is entertainment, these videos are created to entertain the audience and grabbing their attention. Other reasons for creating a music video are: Advertising, Label Branding, Bringing out the Emotions of the song, connecting the audience to the artist, Multi-media platforms, wider location release, making money and enhancing/recreating the artists image.

Advertising

Music videos are used to advertise not just the song but the artist, the label and the whole production company. These videos make a lot of money for the companies as is persuades the audience to buy the single and album and possibly even branch out to buying other albums from the production companies. They also bring money in from external advertisement such as adverts before the video on YouTube or TV channels as the adverising companies have to pay the record label, creating music videos also benefits YouTube, TV channels and others by getting other advertisement money in for the popular, high viewing videos.

Location/Multi-media Platforms

By making a music video the song can be released on many platforms such as TV, YouTube, Facebook etc as well as the song being released on radio, Spotify etc. The song can also go viral and spread all around much quicker as it can be viewed on all these platforms.