Concept Presentation

This is me giving my concept presentation to my class. In the video I go over my main ideas for my music video including: 

- Band Name
- Band Image
- Narrative 
- The main concepts of the music video  

This was my finalized ideas put together in a presentation with an oral pitch that I gave to my class. I thought that my oral pitch went well and i was able to get across my ideas fluently and clearly and so that everyone understood what my plans for my Music Video are. 

Concept Prezi

This is my concept prezi which i created as a visual aid to help with my video presentation and to express my concepts for my music video better. My concept prezi covers all the main concept areas including the band name, band, image, narrative and the 3 main sections of the music video as well as the song choice 
 

Target Audience Research: How do media industries target those audiences?

For Muse, media industries tend to target their audience by making all their music videos very contrasting from each other for example Hysteria doesn't feature the band in it at all it is just one whole narrative which reflects the lyrics
So for Hysteria they try to engage their audience by featuring a narrative throughout the whole video but one that reflects the lyrics so that the audience can try to relate to the video and song. The way they contrast their videos is by doing a video like Hysteria which is just a straight narrative with no cutting to the band and then they would do a video like Hyper Music which is purely the band in their element.
 And when they do videos like Hyper Music it allows them to be themselves and portray themselves the way they want to be seen to there target audience

Similar artists
1. Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters who share a very similar target audience to Muse reach their audience by using celebrity cameos for example 
 

Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly, in this video they draw their target audience in by having celebrity cameos they have Jack Black and Kyle Gass for are famous for being the duo that make up the comedic Rock band Tenacious D, Jack Black also famous for being in School of Rock and many other movies but this would attract their audience as they would most likely be fans of Tenacious D if they are a fan of Foo Fighters.

2. Radiohead 
Radiohead are very similar to Muse and have a very similar target audience however they reach their target audience by making their videos a lot more simple and minimalistic making it all about them as a band and how they want to be seen for example:
 

Messages:
Muse tend to put across very complex messages which I think reaches a wide range of their target audience. They often have messages of uprising and rebelling against corrupt Governments as well as very personal issues such as Alcohol addiction and other very personal issues that they have been through.  

Target Audience Research: Who are the specific audience for particular products?

The audience for Rock music generally is male teenagers who wear black/dark clothing an example of this would be Nirvana fans:

 They have the sort of teenage rebellious image of the 90's rock era that Nirvana was a part of. This image has managed to transcend itself through time as even with more current rock artists this is the audience that the artist tends to have.

Another example would be Muse fans, Muse fans are predominately white male teenagers who dress in dark clothes and seem quite rebellious

  As can be seen in the picture Muse's fan base is predominately white male teenagers who dress in dark clothes however there are some exceptions to this some of them in this picture are wearing brighter clothing and look less rebellious than the others.

Muse also have quite a large female audience however this depends on the female rocker chick type of audience so girls in their late teens and young adults to about mid 30's 

  Once again you can see that their female audience much like their male audience they also predominately white.

Target Audience Research: What do real audiences consume?

The way audiences consume media in the music industry has changed over the years with the introduction of the internet, there are now many more ways to hear music and to see music videos.

Taken from: ifpi:
 
Overall recorded music revenues grew in Europe and Latin America and continued to stabilise in the US, growing 0.8% in trade terms.

Graph:

The industry's digital revenues grew by 4.3% in 2013 to US$5.9 billion 

Revenues from advertising-supported streaming services, such as YouTube and Vevo, are also growing — up 17.6 per cent in 2013. 
Less people are buying physical formats such as records and CD's with their share declining from 60% to 51% in 2012, However the physical formats still account for the majority of the industry's revenues.

 Where Rock is currently:
- Rock is still quite popular but not as popular as it used to be currently in the UK top 40 chart the most popular songs seem to fall under pop or dance music with only one rock song which is at 37 in the UK top 40. Where as in the the UK Top 40 rock chart you can see that Rock still has some popularity. With a new up and coming artist Royal Blood at no.5 however it is also very reliant on older artists such as Queen, Nickleback, Goo Goo Dolls, Foo Fighters, Bon jovi, Aerosmith, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Green Day and Muse. Here's an example of the UK Rock Top 40 charts and how it is currently looking:

 
 Having a newer rock artist such as Royal Blood at No. 7 and No. 5 on the chart shows that Rock hasn't lost it's popularity as there are still people who listen to Rock music. However the two Royal Blood songs that are on the UK Top 40 chart have dropped down. The Chart does rely quite heavily on older artists as well with Guns and Roses at 12, Queen at 13, Muse at 15 and Bon Jovi at 17 which would make things seem that Rock is slowly dying out as there seems to be less and less new up and coming Rock artists. Although Rock has lost popularity over the years it still is popular and Rock still has an audience people are continuing to listen to Rock music.

Music Videos are also becoming cheaper to produce - "most music videos now cost between $15,000-50,000 to produce" - Passman, where as before music videos would cost around $200-250,000 to produce. The most expensive music video ever made was Michael Jackson's Scream which cost $7 million to produce. However as time has moved on technology has improved and music videos have become much easier to make, artists can now produce music videos for a lot less money.   

Concept

Band name: Lithium 
 
Camerawork:
- Towards the end of the video I have an idea of the artist leaning over the edge of like a car park  singing and I was thinking of shooting it at an angle where it is fairly close to the edge and the camera is focused on the artist from the side
- When the band are in the studio i was planning to get extreme close up shots of different parts of the equipment being plugged in i.e. Jack leads, Pedals, Amps etc. I was also thinking of using these shots and doing a focus pull on them. Additionally I wanted to have dark shots of the the band making there way upstairs to the studio, all these shots will build up to reveal the band as a whole when they start playing. 
Example:


I got the idea of doing shots like this from watching Royal Blood - Little Monster and I feel like shots similar to it would work for my video.
- In the studio I plan to get lots of medium shots of the band and close ups of the main artist and then when in PDH with the LED's I plan to do a lot of movement shots like track shots, pan shots etc.
 

Lyrics Annotation

Roles

 As I have decided to create my music video myself I have taken on the responsibility of doing all of the roles which presented me with a challenge as I needed to find some people who can help me create my final music video. I am the director because I am a clear vision of what I want, I'm a very visual director and I know exactly how i want my video to look. I have recruited a few of my friends to help me out with my video but i will be taking charge and leading the whole process of creating my video. This will be a challenge for me but I have a very clear vision of what I want for my video and I am determined to create an amazing rock music video.

Band Image

The idea I have for my band image is to keep conventional by having dark clothing but adding a twist with the LED's. There are 3 members of the band and they'll all wear black jeans, the guitarist will wear a t-shirt with a black suit jacket, the drummer will wear a t-shirt with a grey suit jacket and the lead singer will wear a black leather jacket with a t-shirt. In terms of the LED's my idea was to have the lead singer wearing the LED sunglasses and then have some battery operated lights which can be wrapped around different instruments also if possible I was thinking of having the drummer use LED drumsticks just to add to the idea of having the LED twist to the conventional rock band image.

The idea of having the LED's would also provide some interesting shots especially with the lead singer as you can do close ups with the lead singer wearing the sunglasses I'm hoping it may provide some interesting glares as well some cool lighting when in a darker setting.

I am a very visual director and I have clear vision of how I want my band to look in the video and I have a very clear view on their band image. I feel like the image I have chosen for my band will really suit the song and the style of the video as my video will be a conventional rock music video but with some unconventional ideas within the video. 

Song

 
There are many reasons for my song choice:
- I am a huge Muse fan and I have a strong idea of a video I could make for this song 
- The song also doesn't feature an official music video so it seems like a very good choice of song
- I have a passion for Rock music and that will be reflected in my music video

The process to finding my song was quite short as I listen to Muse a lot and when I found out that i was doing a music video for my A2 coursework I immediately already had an idea for a video for this song. I came to the decision to do this song however after I listened to it a few times and began to visualize an idea for my video, I then decided to watch some of Muse's music videos to make sure that my idea wouldn't just be copying an existing Muse video but at the same to see if my idea would fit into my alternative rock genre which I think it does.

Once i had picked my song which is Muse - The Groove I made sure that there wasn't already an existing music video for it thankfully because it is a B-side from their Time is Running Out single there is not an existing official music video for The Groove, there is only a fan made video which takes footage from the Muse's live performance at Glastonbury in 2004.

Before choosing the song I already had an idea of what I wanted for my music video and how I want the band to look however once I chose my song it allowed me to develop my idea further into something more concrete and something that I am excited about making.

8 Conventions of Rock Music Videos

1. Instruments - Almost all rock music videos will feature a band set up of at least Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, Drums and Vocals. Sometimes there may be keyboard

Examples:





2. lip syncing - lip syncing is a convention of all music videos but it is used almost all the time in rock music videos because naturally when you have a band set up you would have a vocalist and they would generally lip sync the whole song or parts of the song

Examples




3. Story - Another convention of Rock Music Videos is that they often feature some sort of story a lot of the time the story has some relevance to the song and helps as a visual aid to the lyrics and other stories tend to just be random and have absolutely nothing to do with the music

Examples

Stories in rock videos often feature the band taking on fictional roles in this case Red Hot Chilli Peppers take on fictional musician characters from different time periods the story doesn't really reflect the lyrics

Additionally some rock videos that feature a story may not have the band appear in the video much like the video for Hysteria by Muse this is quite rare though. However the story does heighten what the lyrics are trying to get across.
  
Also Some rock videos that feature stories will also have moments of pure acting before any of the music starts. Fall Out Boy tend to do this a lot as can be seen in Dance Dance.

4. Dark Settings - A lot of rock music videos tend to use dark settings because they appear grungy.

Examples:


5. Dark Clothing - Most rock videos the band will feature dark clothing

Examples:


6.

Muse - Uprising Analysis

Radiohead - Creep Anaylsis

Carol Vernallis

 CAROL VERNALLIS - THE KINDEST CUT

Carol Vernallis analysed editing in music videos and Hollywood film and identified the distinct approaches to each. She came up with her theory The Kindest Cut where she puts music videos against Hollywood film and points out the differences between each.

Music videos tend to have lots of different narrative strands which are sometimes in complete unlike Hollywood film which has one single clear path (narrative) through the film's world. A film has a clear structure of beginning, middle and end where as Music Videos do not. For Example Foo Fighters tend to have music videos that follow lots of different narratives rather than one clear narrative 

Example:
 
 Music Videos are also compared to Hollywood film very unconventional the shots shift more freely, there is no specific order of shots. Where as in a Hollywood film the shots are conventional and would have a specific order for example an establishing shot followed by a long shot of the main character where as in a Music Video the there could a close up of the main artist followed by an establishing shot. 
In music videos the time space, character and narrative are revealed incompletely, you don't really find out who the characters are, what the narrative is or what time it is. However in a Hollywood film there is a unity of time and space you will always know who the character is, what the narrative is and what the time is and how much time has passed between shots.
There is discontinuity within music videos as they are usually edited using montage editing so that the shots do not need to show continuity editing where as a Hollywood film uses continuity editing in order to draw us into the narrative.
Music videos also sometime use visual hooks in order to create continuity. Also sometimes all elements are equal, sometimes one element is dominant and others subordinate.

Carol Vernallis also said that, shots of the artist will encourage us to piece together a Phantasmagorical body (a body made up in our mind of all shots of bits of bodies we see) 
 So in theory when we watch a music video that shows of bits of the body of the main artist before we actually see the whole artists body we are putting together a Phantasmagorical body of the artist in our mind we are trying to create an image of what the artist looks like before we see the artist. This is most common in female pop music videos. For Example     

Lady Gaga - Telephone 
In the music video for Lady Gaga's song Telephone you see multiple close-ups and medium shots of her before you see her whole body 

As seen in the video above in the first verse and chorus of the song you see multiple shots of close ups of her face, legs and other bits of her bodies before you see a shot of her whole body and when you do see her whole body before it's small brief shots of her whole body. This makes the audience build up a Phantasmagorical body of Lady Gaga, we picture in our heads what her whole body looks like before we see her, she's made to appear as an almost sex object rather than a woman.

Andrew Goodwin

ANDREW GOODWIN

Andrew Goodwin came up with three categories in which to categorise music videos

The three categories are:
1. Illustration - Music always cuts on the beat, images show literal meaning, band are singing, dancing and playing instruments

Example:

Foo Fighters - Walk is an example of an illustrative Music Video as the video shows images that match the lyrics and show the literal meaning, Also the band are seen singing and playing instruments

2. Amplification - film cuts on and off the beat, the images amplify the lyrics, a specific narrative may be used, the band usually take on fictional roles

Example:

Muse - Knights of Cydonia is an example of Amplification as the images amplify the lyrics the music has a very western feel and the video amplifies this by presenting the video as a sort of Western style film. Additionally the video uses a specific narrative which is there's a good guy and a bad guy and they have to fight for a girl and to free everyone.


 3. Disjuncture - the film cuts off the beat, sometimes but not always the sign of a bad music video, images do not relate to the lyrics, the band will take on an image that is nothing like or complete opposite of their expected image

Example:

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance is an example of a disjuncture video as the video has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song. The song is about experiencing a bad romance however the images in the video clearly have nothing to do with the video