Iconography.

• set: roughly cut out heart archway, organ at the back of the stage, bare stage floor
• props: pink ukulele, clouds on a stick (very 'hand made' looking)
• the entire video boasts the idea that the band are doing a stage show for the audience (which for most of the video is just the camera, creating intimacy) and that they have created and produced it all themselves.
• they are wearing old fashion looking suits without the jackets which makes it look as though they have been working hard on the video and have had to take their waistcoats off and roll up their sleeves. It also gives the audience a chance to see their bare braces beneath.
• there is obviously some lighting on the people but there is also a light that can be seen at the back of the stage, lighting up the big organ.
• it all gives the impression that it could have been filmed in a local village hall or somewhere else simple. The room is very bare apart from the rough-looking set and has a bare floor and an organ at the back.
• Tom is in the foreground because he is the lead singer and is also singing at this point in the song. He is seen playing his ukulele. It is common for rock pop bands to play their instruments in their videos. He is walking backwards which shows his confidence and his control because he knows where he is going.
• the props link with the song lyrics 'I'm laughing the clouds away'.
 

 

• in this shot, the lead singer is in the middle.
• the boards say the lyrics and pop up individually as the words are sung. The writing is quite 'girly' in that it has been designed and painted in a flambouyant way. All the words look the same and the boards themselves look quite funky as the are bigger at one end which would appeal to the target audience.
• the whole band gets involved which brings it back to being a team effort.
• they are standing in front of each other which makes it seem unprofessional, unplanned and more spontaneous which the target audience would enjoy as it looks like a lot of photographs that unprofessional young people would take.
• for humour (which is often found in videos of this genre as they do not take themselves too seriously) Tom is holding his board upside down and later notices and turns in the right way round again.
• they are standing under the archway at centre stage to show that they are what the audience should be looking at, however both the band and the camera seem to be positioned slightly to the right which again shows it as being unplanned or could even show it from the audience's point of view.

• here the audience sees Tom standing quite far in front of the stage in the centre
•       he is walking backwards which shows that he knows where he is going very well.
•       he is in shadow, but the stage is lit up from in front and behind (as is seen in the lights above the organ)
•       in this shot, the full roughness of the archway can be seen which could show that it is hand made and amateurish which makes it easily accessable to the target audience. It also appears to be cut all alomg the top which suggests that it should stand out.
•       through the archway, the organ can be seen at centre stage. This could simply be because that's where it was put, or it could show its importance.
•       this shot is very simple and doesn't have a lot in, which leads to anticipation for the show to start.
•        the hall is empty which shows that the only audience is the camera, which also films from the audience's point of view. This makes it much more intimate.

I think I have made a real improvement in my analysis of mese en scene compared to my first attempts. I now realise how every detail of a video has been done for a reason, so I will do the same in our video and in the staged photos for my Digipak.

How Musicians Promote Themselves.

Even when advertising their new book, Mcfly dressed as they did in the video for 'Love Is Easy' (pictured below) which reminded the audience of the song therefore helping to promote it.

The website below contains a video of Mcfly being interviewed about their single 'Love Is Easy' in America.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a406086/mcfly-confirm-new-single-love-is-easy-for-2012-release.html

Tracking an Artist Throughout Their Career.

   Lady Gaga.  

 

 

Real Name: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta

 

D.O.B: March 28th 1986

 

Place of Birth: New York City, USA

 

Fan base name: The Little Monsters

 

In the summer of 2005, Lady Gaga recorded a few songs with hip-hop singer Grandmaster Melle Mel, for an audio book to the children's book 'The Portal in the Park', written by Cricket Casey. This was the beginning of her musical career. She also started the Stefani Germanotta band with some of her friends in September 2005. They had a small group of fans, but eventually earned the attention of Joe Vulpis- a music producer.They spent some time in Vulpis' studio. Soon SGBand were selling  'Words' and 'Red and Blue' (both 2005) at gigs around New York. They were also local celebs of the downtown Lower East Side club area.

 

In 2006, the band peeked at the Songwriters hall of fame new songwriters showcase at the Cutting Room in June. Wendy Starland was a talent scout for producer Rob Fusari that day. Fusari was looking for a female lead singer for his new band after SGB broke up.

 

The stage name 'Lady Gaga' was then inspired by one of the best bands of all time-Queen-and their hit song 'Radio Gaga'. 

 

Fusari and Gaga set up the company 'Team Lovechild' and produced electro-pop songs. Joshua Sarubin (head of A&R at Def Jam Recordings) told the company to take a chance on Gaga, to which his boss Antonio Reid agreed. She was signed to Def Jam in September 2006 but was dropped from the label 3 months later. She returned to her parents and the Lower East Side.

 

She then dressed in little more than a bikini and started experimenting with go-go dancing, burlesque and drugs. She became a go-go dancer at St.Jerome's and she became distant from her father for many months because of her drug use. Although Germanotta had received a Catholic education, the New York Underground scene represented freedom to her.

 

Lady Gaga and Lady Starlight met, and started performing together in many various downtown clubs. Their performance was called, 'Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue'. They were invited to play at the 2007 Lollapalooza festival in August and were their performance was very positively received. Fusari still worked on songs and sent them to producer and record expert Vincent Herbert who quickly signed Gaga to Streamline records.

 

Gaga was an apprentice songwriter as an intern for Famous Music Publishing. She then struck a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV and was hired to write songs for Britney Spears, New Kids on the Bloc, The Pussycat Dolls and Fergie.

 

Akon recognised her vocal talent and  convinced Interscope-Geffen-A&M Chairman and CEO Jimmy Iovine to form a joint deal by having her also sign with his own label Kon Live.

 

Near the end of 2007, she was introduced to songwriter and producer RedOne. The first song they produced together was 'Boys Boys Boys'. They created Gaga's debut album and she joined Cherrytree Records (established by producer and songwriter Martin Kierszenbaum) after co-writing 4 songs with Kierszenbaum including, 'Christmas Tree' and, 'Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say'. There was fear about her being 'too racy', 'dance-orientated' and 'underground' for the mainstream market that the company was used to.

 

She is still extremely relevant in today's music culture and is very famous-even if that is because she wears outrageous outfits (such as a dress made from meat) and acts out from mainstream society!

 

Additional Audience Research.

Additional Audience Research.

After discussing the task within our group, we have come up with a few ideas of what we would like to see from the results.

As we are using Mcfly, our genre is a mixture of pop, punk and soft rock. We would expect the Digipak to be bright and colourful (reds, yellows, pinks etc.) in order to catch the attention of our target audience (teenage/young girls) however we would like the entire Digipak to reflect our genre and represent our band by using their new image. This new image shows them moving towards a more indie style, as they dress like gentlemen and sing more laid back, simple songs. To demonstrate this new look the Digipak could use more relaxed, toned down pastel-type colours rather than bright colours that are in the customer’s face. We could even use browns and whites to refer to the colours worn by the band in the video for ‘Love is Easy’ which is our chosen song. This would make the Digipak easily recognisable and show that it will contain this single; however the audience may not like the use of brown and white as they are dull colours that are not eye-catching. They are colours which are associated with a boring, practical personality which is why smart suits use brown and white often. We would like the Digipak to include pictures of the band, song lyrics, band information and tour dates if possible.

Our own music magazine consumption is very limited. Only one member of our group has ever bought a music magazine, and she does so on a very rare basis. The target audience however, are a couple of years younger than us. We think that they will be at in the age of purchasing music magazines, though they may buy/read the online version now rather than buying a physical copy.

We have used the Internet to find out about our band, although we do realise that certain websites such as Wikipedia may not be valid sites to use as they can be altered and edited by anyone. We have also watched old music videos of Mcfly on YouTube to see what sort of style they usually opt for, however we tried to track down their new songs/ videos but the task proved impossible. So far, from the old material, we have noticed that Mcfly focus heavily on three key themes which are: bright colours, lots of pretty girls and lots of physical movement. This is true of many pop rock songs and is what makes them easily recognisable to their target audience.

Two members of our group still buy physical CDs. Even though none of us buy music digitally through websites such as iTunes, we believe that this may be our target audience’s main way of accessing music today. This will influence our planning because we could plan to incorporate a lot more digital media in the Digipak such as website addresses, ‘hash tags’ for fans to use on twitter and ways to buy online copies of the song.

Analysis of Previous Students' A2 Work.

http://examplesofwork13.weebly.com/a2.html

The above website lists previous students' work and shows you what marks they got for it.


 This video scored a mark of 16, this is the lowest scored music video on the website.

Pros:
narrative storyline
people of the same age and style as their target audience
shot lengths match the music
good effects
mess in background

Cons:
extremely shakey camera
no performance piece
actors not looking in the camera, probably looking at the crew
not a very good message-alcohol/possible drinking & driving
boring storyline
bad quality camera


 This video scored 60 which was the highest mark on the website.

Pros:
make
professional dancers & routines
different backgrounds
confident actors
matching outfits
excellent effects
suits a pop/girl target audience
very good quality camera
title at the end

Cons:
at some points in the video hands/tops of heads were cut off
no narrative
all in one place-boring-no different sets

Based on these examples and scores, I think my video will score around 17 or 18 marks. I predict this low mark because of all the errors and unprofessionalism in the video, which I will explain in detail in my evaluation.

Analysis of Band Website.

 

McFly's website is bursting with videos about the bad, tour dates, ticket sales and even fan comment spaces. There is also an online diary where the band can present their upcoming events and an online store full of the band's merchandise. The store also has 3 currencies to choose from to order in; Pound Sterling, Dollars and Euros. This demonstrates McFly's multi-national appeal. The website also has a music player that lists all of McFly's songs to allow fans or even new-comers to listen to them.

 

The site seems to stick to the design of McFly in years gone by, it is more rebel-looking than gentlemanly. However, this culd be because the band are currently promoting duo band 'McBusted' and Busted have a more rock orientated.

One way that McFly make a lot of their money is through selling their merchandise. This includes:



They also advertise and promote themselves and their upcoming events. One recent promotional stunt they're done is the invention of McBusted:

Sales Of CDs Over The Past 5 Years.

CD sales have decreased significantly over the past 5 years both in the UK and the US. Music shops such at HMV have been forced to close in the past because of such low sales figures. Illegal downloads and online music are mostly to blame. iTunes was officially created in the year 2000 by Apple and it now has over 200 million account holders worldwide.

This graph from tech.blorge.com shows how CDs became popular after the demise of the cassett tape, however in today's digital era less people are opting to purchase a physical copy of their favourite songs. Reasons for choosing digital over physical include:

• pysical copies take up a lot of room
• some people don't care about the artist info and would rather just pay for the music
• it is a lot easier to buy a single song from an online shop
• you don't have to leave your house (or even get up) to buy a digital copy
• the money for the music only needs to be in the customer's account, not their wallet to buy a digital copy
• it's a lot easier to put a digital copy straight onto a phone or other device
• you can take them anywhere with you on your device with no extra weight in your bag

 

 

Conventions of a Digipak-Specific To Mcfly.

Digipak Tick List:

 

1) Images of the band/artist

2) photoshopped images

3) cartoonised images

4) name of the band/artist

5) name of the album

6) colour theme
7) image theme eg: the Mcfly Digipak (left) has cartoons, doodles and images on notepad paper with manual writing on. The whole thing just looks like one big notepad.

 

Report On Award Students.

Report.

 

During the filming of the award students, there were many disruptions.

These involved:

©       The students themselves forgetting their lines

©       The students not thinking about where to stand

©       The tripod being stiff

©       Not being prepared as in not knowing what they should shout out

©       Not very organised

 

However in the end it went really well and we got all of the shots we needed.

What is a Digipak?

digipak
ˈdɪdʒɪpak/
noun
trademark
noun: digipak; plural noun: digipaks

1.
a type of packaging for CDs or DVDs, typically made from cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more discs.


Origin:
1980s: from digital and pack1, probably on the pattern of Tetra Pak.

-Wikipedia.

A digipak is basically a CD case. What makes them different from normal CD cases (why they are classed as digipaks) is that they can include lots of extras such as photographs, informations about the band, song lyrics and maybe even a little booklet about the music. Digipaks cost a little more than regular CD cases because of all these extras, but they are worth it if that is what the fans want.

Research into Digipaks.

• Bright and eye catching
• 'doodle' style-identify with audience
• 2 sides
• Pictures of the band
• A little information

 

• Warm/cosy colours
• More our genre
• 3 sides
• Artistic photo of instruments
• Track list on the back and also on individual CDs

• 'Girly'-fairies, pretty colours
• Natural theme
• Information/track list
• 2 sides
• Cartoons/drawings

More Relevant Digipak Analysis.

This is a Digipak which Mcfly have already produced called 'Radio:Active'. It is done in the style of a notepad with doodles, cartoons and scribbled notes all over. The notes are the song lyrics and give the audience the feeling of being able to see the thought process behind the lyrics of each song ad have been written in a font similar to a typewriter which gives a vintage, simplistic look. The colour theme is very dark and male-friendly with blues, greens and whites. There are also photographs of the band taken outside, which tends to represent freedom. The cartoon microphone (front cover and disc) is an interesting concept because it is as though the microphone itself is the one singing. The photos and the note pages are merged together to give the Digipak a kind of collage/thrown-together type of look. It is all very informal and casual to go with the band's cool rock image.

This is 'Loud' by Rihanna. It comes in a clear plastic cover with the title and name of the artist on, so that once you take the cover off there is just a plain photo of Rihanna. The photos have all been taken on the same photoshoot as she is wearing the same clothes, which gives continuity and her eyes are closed in all of them to show deep thought or ecstasy. The colour scheme in this Digipak is red, pink, blue and white. The roses match her hair, and the CDs (which are also roses) match her dress. It is a very simplistic Digipak which represents how she believes her music is so good that she doesn't need to dress it up with lots of pictures and extras for it to sell. The lighting is very high on the close ups of Rihanna, but in the big picture that makes up the entire back panel layout, everything is quite dark apart from the singer to make her stand out. Young people today (such as Rihanna's target audience) want to party and be 'LOUD' as her title suggests, which helps her to identify with and reach out to them.

Here is 'Animal and Cannibal' by Ke$ha. The cover shows two images of the star merged together, one being her 'normal' side and the other demonstrating the 'animal' within. This could relate to a young target audience as they act normal through the working week but then transform into party animals on weekends. The Digipak includes tracklists, song lyrics and photogaps of the singer. Seeing as she is the star alone, she is the only person on the Digipak. The images on the front and back covers look as though they have been roughly stapled together and there is a 'warning' label on the front to show off Ke$ha's raw, punky look. Even the fonts on the front and back pages look edgy and rough. In the images where you can see her body, she is not wearing a lot which tells the audience that her sex appeal is very obvious ad important to her and her music. There are a lot of blues reds and whites in the Digipak which-together with a picture of the flag-symbolise the USA (where she is from). The page layouts include text overlapping images of the most prominent design feature-space. Space represents both freedom and the idea of the strange and unknown which may be something that Ke$ha uses to promote and describe herself as.

Replicating an Existing Digipak Front Cover.

 

This is the front cover photo of The Plain White T's album 'Hey There Delilah'. My task this week was to recreate it using Photoshop.

 

I started out by planning what the main parts of the image were and coming up with how I could recreate them using objects at my disposal (in school).

 

I used my plan, an photo copy of the original picture, a piece of A3 green paper and a sign I made to look like the one in the background of the image. 

 

 

This is the first photo I took, the boy on the far left needs to pull a more serious expression, as does the boy second-to-left. The boy in the middle needs to close his mouth and the boy on the far right needs to look at the camera and have a serious expression on his face.

 

Here is the second photo I took which I think came out really well. (the green paper is acting as the top of the pool table, and the orange bottle is meant to be a beer bottle).

 

 

 I then Photoshopped the picture in the following ways: tidying the boy on the far left's hair,cropping the whole image to tidy the background, extending the green coloured paper to make a long pool table, drawing the graffiti and paint marks on the wall and extending the wall colour to create a plain background and larger wall area.

I am proud of what I achieved in the picture as it looks quite like the one below. However, if I were to do it again then there would be a lot that I would change. I would put the boys in similar clothing to the band, print out the 'NO GAMBLING' sign, find an actual place with a rough-looking wall and a pool table, also I would need to find something that I could use as pool ques in the background. I would use a beer bottle instead of water and I would practise more on Photoshop as I had only ever used it once before this, and even then I only used the 'spot healing brush tool'. I would also give myself a lot more time to do it as I only had a limited amount of time to work with which is why the photo is very basic.

Below is a copy of the image so that you can compare the two.

 

 This is what the album cover actually looks like, in order to add the text I need to take another photo of traffic at night in the rain and put it behind the first photo. If I find some time/learn how to do this in the future then I will.

 

 

Analysis of Existing Digipaks.

Digipack

This digipak is very dark which could reflect the artist’s genre. The images are of close up serious faces. I think it could include more persuasive things to link it to the audience such as lyrics, a booklet on artist info or more photos. The font is big and colourful to catch attention and there isn’t a lot of writing to make it simpler. The contrast of black and white is very bold. It is not very informative but it does catch a lot of attention. It’s very striking. I think the writing works well against the background because it stands out against the black and its big and bold, however the colours are bit random against the rest of the cover. I think the artist is represented as a rapper because of the dark colours on the covers, he also looks mysterious. The ideas which we have gained from this digipack are that keeping plain and simple looks professional. Also using a bold title against a plain background is very eye-catching.

This digipack is portrayed as retro by making the CD look like an old record. By doing this we can gather that the artist is maybe old and an opra singer because of the piano background. It is simplistic with minimal text which makes it look easy to read because many people don’t like reading big amounts of text. I like the idea of a simple digipak as it is easy to make but very effective. It doesn’t contain a lot of artist information unfortunately as far as I can see.

Institutions And Audiences-Music Channels.

Institutions and Audiences.

MTV

MTV is a Music channel that launched on August 1^st 1981 and is still going strong today. It has now evolved into 8 sub-categories (pictured right) and shows programmes and documentaries as well as all different genres of music. I like that it shows so many different styles of music which appeals to a niche audiences and all kinds music lovers. Although I don’t like that it now exhibits TV shows (16 and pregnant, My Super Sweet Sixteen). I believe that the channel should show what it was invented to-music in all its different styles and cultures. The things that are mainly advertised on the channel are its own programmes and some music festivals; however the advert breaks are only short to allow for more viewing time and less audience boredom. Our band would feature on either MTV rocks or MTV Hits because our band’s genre is pop rock, however they have had some greatest hits. MTV Hits may be more appropriate as the rock channel may show more ‘heavy’ than ‘soft’ rock, also MTV Rock may have an older or less mainstream audience.

Viva

Viva is a music channel that was launched on 26^th October 2009 by Alexandra Burke, it replaced TMF. It is also owned my MTV. Its audience is 0.2% of the UK and its slogan is ‘up your viva’. In this respect it is a better channel than MTV because the slogan makes it catchy and easy to remember. Nevertheless MTV is bigger and more well-known and the idea of music genre sub-categories makes it different in a good way as the viewer can select the channel that shows only the genre of music that they want to watch.

4music

4music launched on the 15th August, 2008 . It replaced ‘The Hits’ and is the only Channel 4 band within the Box Television network. The channel shows what is in the UK top charts each week, meaning that the content alters slightly on a regular basis which keeps it fresh and hooks viewers as they want to see if their favourite song has made it to number one each week. Channel 4, E4, T4 and 4music are all very well-known channels in the UK, and are associated with a young audience.

I would like to exhibit our music video on MTV Hits because the channel’s audience profile matches Mcfly’s target audience by being well-known to a large audience that specifically wants to see music in the ‘Hits’ category. This channel features a band’s best-received song videos which would make it an honour to the band for one of their songs to be shown. When the audience see a song on MTV Hits, they know that it must have been good for so many people to have liked it which makes for good band publicity.

Analysis of a Music Video I Admire-Maroon 5.

Shot Type	This camera shot is a close up of the lead singer.	Analysis
		Maroon 5 are a pop rock band, but their song ‘Harder to Breathe’ focuses more on the rock aspect as the band’s older music generally does, whereas today they do more pop. This video is a performance video which contains only the band members with no extras or even any dancers. What they are singing about does not relate to the video as it is not a narrative. They are simply playing their instruments and singing the song, which is about a very dysfunctional and angry relationship which he wants to end. His voice shouts and goes to an angry whisper to reflect his emotions. Very dark colours such as blue, grey and black have been used to represent the dark nature of the song and sad emotions. The target audience could be men as there aren’t any bright colours to attract women, however if it was for men then I would expect there to be women in the video. The target audience may simply be people who have recently broken up as it will appeal to them as the singers let out emotions. The location is one single room that it very sparsely decorated which could reflect the singer’s bare emotions. However the walls are quite cluttered which could show his cluttered mind. He has honest anger in that he is not dressing up or trying to catch attention; he is simply showing his rage to the viewers. The lighting is very low and may be slightly blue to again reflect cold, lonely, sad emotions. The video is like a private performance just for the viewer which shows intimacy with the singer.
Lyrics	“You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone  Not fit to fuckin' [CD cover says: "funkin'"] tread the ground that I'm walking on”

 

 

Shot Type	This is a pan angle showing the whole band as they perform. It is from a long shot position.	Analysis
		In this shot, the camera pans across the whole room and the viewer gets to see each member of the band playing their instruments. As the camera moves past the band, they each appear again as if in a sequence over different parts of the room. This could represent time going on and the band still saying in the same place, doing the same song because the singer could be so angry that time seems to stand still for him and he is never truly happy again after this relationship. In this shot, more of the room/apartment is shown and this is where we see the cluttered walls. It is important to have different shot types like this in a performance video so that the viewer doesn’t get bored of watching it as there is no story for them to follow. The general tone and atmosphere of this video is dark and scary, the lyrics talk about how the man is overly critical of his partner and even gets physical with her. He wants her to leave.
Lyrics	“Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe  Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe”

 

Shot Type	This shot is a close up of one of the instruments being played.	Analysis
		This quick shot shows one band member playing their keyboard. He appears to be wearing three watches which represent confusion over time or maybe even that there is still not enough time for the man to be happy. The fact that none of the watch faces are visible in this shot could reflect time being an unknown variable in this video. The band member’s trousers are white which makes them contrast abruptly with the background colours of the video so that he stands out. The use of black and white in this video could suggest to the viewer that the singer’s emotions are very plain, boring and depressing because of his relationship. Each performer gets a chance to show what they do in their individual shots, however this one is particularly close up which could show intimacy or simply make the listener become more aware of the part the keyboard plays in the song. This shows the band coming together as a team to build up their sound.  None of the performers smile throughout the video, and in this shot his face is not shown to hide the emotions.
Lyrics	“Clutching your pillow and writhing in a naked sweat  Hoping somebody someday will do you like I did”

 

Shot Type	This is an extreme close up of the singer’s mouth and his microphone.	Analysis
		This close up of the singer’s mouth shows great intimacy between him and the viewer. It is at this point in the song that he is whispering the chorus menacingly to show his aggression. The fact that he whispers rather than shouts makes him seem even more threatening and scary. The record label also demand the need for lots of close ups of the artist so that they become easily recognisable by fans and other viewers, however Maroon 5 have no need for a motif or logo because of their distinctive sound. This idea of recognisability is part of Goodwin’s theory (1992) though he also states that there is frequent reference to the notion of looking such as in mirrors and screens etc. In this video there are no such references as the band want to put across the idea that they are speaking directly to the viewer to pull them into the story. The lyrics reference ‘you’ rather than a name and the band look straight into the camera to appear as though they are looking at the viewer which allows them to become more involved in the story of the lyrics. Being close to the singer’s mouth when he whispers makes it seem like he is whispering specifically to the viewer, as if no one else can hear his words. Everything in this video comes together to create a dark, angry rant to match the lyrics themselves.
Lyrics	“Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe  Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe”