For our current A2
media coursework we have been given the task to create an effective music video
for an unsigned artist’s song, and create two ancillary tasks, which include a
digipak design and a website.
The purpose of the
music video, digipak and magazine is to promote and advertise the artist/band’s
new material to the target audience. These methods help a band to gain more
experience of reaching a larger audience that they would not have been able to
obtain without these types of promotional marketing. They all work together to
help plug the artist/band, giving their fans or potential fans an idea of who
the band is and what they have to offer.
Promotional
Video: A promotional video
would be used mainly to embolden the target audience to get to know the band;
the music video for a song is made to be viewed on multiple digital media
formats such as music channels, YouTube and Itunes. The music video must be eye
catching to the viewer and it must also have the repeatability about it, so the
audience feel that they want to come back again and again to watch it, this
helps to keep the song in your head and interlink the imagery from the video to
the song.
Digipak: A digipak is simply a CD case that holds
the CD within it along with other items such as lyrics, pictures or even a
poster. The digipak must be appealing as you want to gain the attention of your
chosen audience the second they look at it, sometimes you only see the spine,
so all of it must have a bold and effective design. Although as technology
becomes more advanced, more and more people tend to get digital versions of
songs off ITunes, collectors and fans still tend to buy a hard copy.
Website: The website is a way of bringing
everything the band have together into one marketing element, the website helps
a band to promote their music video and their tracks along with merchandise,
which will include such things as t-shirts and the digipak. A website is also
an effective way of bringing the fans closer to the band, having constant
updates through images and videos really gives the people viewing an insight
into what the band are like together and what they are doing, it also helps
feed the hunger of fans, links to social media sites such as Facebook and
Twitter also promote the band and encourages you to go and follow or like their
page. I have chosen oasis for each section as they have a professional example for each element, helping to support my points.
The purpose of a
music promo is to give the fans something that they can watch when listening to
the song; this helps to enhance the overall story behind the lyrics and create
a strong link to visual imagery. The video also lets them show off their musical
talents with shots of them playing the instruments and also help to show the
personality of the band, allowing people to decide whether they are a fan on
two aspects, the music and the bands personality. For a record company, a music
video allows the band to be noticed and listened to on the Internet instead of
relying on the radio; this helps to promote it to a larger number of people.
A music video is
expected to mirror the energy of the song through the use of mise-en-scene and
editing as conventionally the shots are cut to the beat of the song, allowing
it to feel like the video flows according to the music. This gives it a very
professional feel and also makes the overall video more enhanced with both
aspects, the performance and the narrative. Most cuts that are used tend to
also relate to the genre of music it is, for example a slower song may have
fades between shots whilst a more upbeat one will use straight cuts to make it
punchy and energetic. Conventionally they tend to use to straight cuts are they
are easier to keep to the beat and do not distract the audience from anything
going on in the video. The mise-en-scene in music videos stays in parallel to
the genre of music it is, such as a hardcore genre like the one we chose the
mise-en-scene is typically darker lighting, no outlandish costume themes, they
tend to just wear a band t-shirt to promote other bands, the conventional
location for a genre like ours is an abandoned building/derelict area and the
props would be the instruments as hardcore bands show all instruments and don’t
tend to focus on one more than the other, I feel we have succeeded to hit all
these aspects. Although a variety of shots are expected in a music video, you
get more close up shots than any other type, this is because it gives a more
intense feel to the video and also allows the viewers to see up close and
personal which they will perhaps never be able to do.
The sound in music
videos usually is non-diegetic sound as it will be the song placed over the top
of the video, however in some more unconventional videos they will have
sections of narrative that will be diegetic sound, this is noise that is picked
up from the camera, usually this is done either at the start or at the end,
this allows the video to be more realistic, it also deters people from
downloading the song straight from YouTube because they do not want that in it
so they will buy it from ITunes to cut that sound out, an example of this is
the ending of the video below.
Narratives always
vary significantly depending on the genre of the track, most bands/artists tend
to want to keep their narrative straight forward and easy for the viewers to
understand, stopping people from getting confused or missing the point of the
song It also helps to enhance the ideas and emotions that they want to get
across to their audience, there isn’t always a balance on both narrative and
performance as some videos focus just on one aspect. There are three main
narrative ideas; you can either choose Illustration, which is the just where
you mirror the lyrics from the track in the story, Amplification, this is when
you take one main idea or theme from the lyrics and you create a story based on
that and Disjuncture, this is when the narrative is completely different to the
lyrics in the song, this tends to not make sense or have any link.
http://prezi.com/yssq29jwkt3g/conventions-of-a-hardcore-video/
http://prezi.com/yssq29jwkt3g/conventions-of-a-hardcore-video/
http://prezi.com/ubkzjualqp1w/conventions-of-a-pop-promo/
This video above
by The Verve breaks a lot of conventions that you would associate with a music
promo, one main factor is the amount of shots used, although they have all the
main shots such as a long shot, mid shot and close ups, they are just scattered
around compared to the long tracking shot that flows through the whole video.
It also breaks conventions by just having the vocalist in it as usually when a
band make a video for a song, they tend to have every member of the band in it
to promote the band and also to play their instruments. However in this video,
you see no one playing instruments, just the vocalist walking along and
singing. It’s also interesting how they have used disjuncture in their video,
although this is unconventional of a music promo, it is conventional of a rock
band as they thrive to keep their individuality.
This video by
Jessie J sticks to a lot of conventions, however has some aspects you wouldn’t
usually see in a pop promo. One aspect is that usually pop promos tend to be
set on sunny and bright locations or expensive sets; however this set is very
simple being that it is just a corridor with a few rooms on the side. The video
is very conventional in the way that the editing is very upbeat and fast to
replicate the pop genre and the narrative behind is very simple to understand,
being amplification of the name of the song ‘It’s My Party’. The costume design
is also very conventional as pop promos tend to keep to having very fashionable
clothes, although Jessie J isn’t wearing a lots of branded names, she looks
very young and fashionable.
In our music promo
we have kept our camerawork very conventional of a music video by using a large
range of shots, however also kept it to the hardcore genre conventions by
including mainly mid shots for our preforming shots. As we have seen in most
hardcore videos, we showed each band member playing their instruments in a mid
shot of them where they were the main focus and other members in the shot were
blurred using manual focus, we also showed the full band together in long
shots, this was to help show their talents and skills and help to show the bands
connection to the music. We have developed the convention of narrative a lot in
our music video as hardcore promos tend to focus mainly on the performance when
we have tried to keep our video very equally split.
For our performance shots, instead of using a tripod and having a single placed shot, we have used a glidecam, this meant that we could film one large take from one angle, this meant that we could also follow the performer in their actions, moving back and forth along with them is a key aspect in hardcore music videos as it allows you to feel much closer with them and therefore makes the shots more energetic, a conventional style for a hardcore music video.
For the most part
of our music video, we have kept our editing completely conventional, we have
kept the editing to replicate the tempo of the song so the editing is a fast
paced, which helps to keep the energy of the song at a peak throughout. Fast
paced editing also keeps the viewers more interested and helps to increase its
visual appeal. For most of our transitions we have used straight cuts, this
keeps the video looking sharp and professional and also keeps all the
audience’s attention on what is happening in the video. However, on the piano
intro we have challenged conventions by using slower cuts between shots and
instead of having straight cuts we have used short fades, we felt this mirrored
the piano better than straight cuts but is very unconventional of a hardcore
music video.
When choosing our
location, we wanted to have a conventional setting, which from watching other
music videos of the same genre we saw was abandoned or derelict
areas/buildings. We wanted to use a building with a low amount of light coming in
as we wanted to be able to control the lighting, we had either a very old barn
or an abandoned hospital, but after sitting down discussing what would be the
best place, we came up with the barn. This was because it had a very old feel
with the stone bricks and wooden frames and we felt that would give us a very
aesthetically pleasing video and would also suit the genre much better. We also
chose the barn because we knew that we wanted a wood setting for our narrative,
so this linked better with the video and we knew it would have a better flow
between narrative and performance.
Whilst watching
other music promos we found that there was a strong correlation in costume to
the hardcore genre and we felt we wanted to carry this on in our video to make
it conventional. We were wearing band t-shirts, a lot of bands do this to
promote other bands or brands they have created, but it also helps to create a
sense of personality as they are showing the audience what bands they enjoy
listening to, giving the audience a chance to connect to the band member(s)
more as they may listen to the same music.
The props in our music video are very conventional of a hardcore music video, we have used a full drum kit, a bass guitar, an 8 string guitar and a vocal microphone. The conventional aspects come from the guitar and microphone, an 8 string guitar is most commonly used in hardcore videos as they are used in heavier music because they have a much deeper tone to them, so using it in the video helps to mirror the deeper tones of the song as a normal 6 string wouldn't be able to reach the low dynamics. For the microphone we chose not to have a stand, bands from lighter and more pop orientated music will use microphone stands, however, in heavier music it is uncommon to see a stand as the vocalist never tends to stay still, we have tried to replicate this in our music video.
The props in our music video are very conventional of a hardcore music video, we have used a full drum kit, a bass guitar, an 8 string guitar and a vocal microphone. The conventional aspects come from the guitar and microphone, an 8 string guitar is most commonly used in hardcore videos as they are used in heavier music because they have a much deeper tone to them, so using it in the video helps to mirror the deeper tones of the song as a normal 6 string wouldn't be able to reach the low dynamics. For the microphone we chose not to have a stand, bands from lighter and more pop orientated music will use microphone stands, however, in heavier music it is uncommon to see a stand as the vocalist never tends to stay still, we have tried to replicate this in our music video.
When watching back
over our footage of the woods narrative we felt it wasn’t quite right to fit
with our chosen genre, it was too light and vibrant to work with the heavier
music, so we decided to use colour correction on Final Cut Pro to alter the
contrasts and make it darker, this has meant that the clips fit in better with
the conventional style of the genre and also flow a lot smoother from the
darker clips of the barn. Alongside the video effects of colour correction, we
also used layered two clips together and altered the opacity to reveal the
other clip, this allowed us to have two clips playing at the same time, we had
the male character from the narrative and the vocalist on the screen at the
same time, as they are the same person this gives the video a real sense of
individuality, something that a lot of hardcore genre bands like to have.
Our performance in
the music video is very much conventional of a hardcore music video; we gave a
highly energetic performance each time it was filmed. This replicates what you
would see in a hardcore video as they want to give the viewers watching a sense
of what their stage presence is like and how much they would give in a
performance; this makes people want to see them live. We have kept an equal
balance between the band members shown, this is also conventional of a hardcore
music video, as they never tend to show any member more than the other like
other genres may do such as rock or indie. For our narrative we have tried to
keep it conventional with the use of amplification to keep the storyline very
easy to understand, the idea branches off the lyric “Dig a hole and bury your feelings”,
we felt like we wanted to make the narrative and performance 50:50, this allows
people to not focus on one section of it more than the other, helping them to
take in the whole video and not just one element of it.
In our music video
we have used ideas from Andrew Goodwin’s theory as throughout our video the
narrative works well alongside the performance, we also have the male vocalist
being both the main character of the narrative and also the singer in the performance,
to which he states makes “the video more authentic and original”. As well as
this theory, we have also taken ideas from Steve Archer’s theory in trying to
keep the strong link between the performance and the narrative.
For our promotional video, we used amplification, this meant that we took one section of the lyrics, which was 'Dig a hole and bury your feelings', a very bold lyric and be based the narrative around that, this narrative type is conventional of a hardcore music video as they like to keep emphasis on one section of the song, this also helps the narrative become much bolder as its based on one element.
For our promotional video, we used amplification, this meant that we took one section of the lyrics, which was 'Dig a hole and bury your feelings', a very bold lyric and be based the narrative around that, this narrative type is conventional of a hardcore music video as they like to keep emphasis on one section of the song, this also helps the narrative become much bolder as its based on one element.
Conventions of a digipak:
Conventions of a website:
Website evaluation and comparison:
Digipak evaluation and comparison:
