Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Copyright Permission Letter

In this day and age you can't just use people's work for your own use without any permission. Therefore we decided to compose a short email to the record label company of our band 'Fenech Soler' to ask via their website. The record label companies are usually fine with this efficient use of copyright so we are expecting a response of acceptance or just no response at all showing they do not object. The record label name is 'Moda Music'.

Target Audience

In order to try and distinguish our target audience we used the UK Tribes website. The UK Tribes website categorises different types of people into different social groups like 'chavs', 'emos', 'geeks' etc. It is important to try and identify a group of people who we are going to target because this is who our music video is going to be most popular with. After reading through different categories of people we decided that the target audience which best matches our type of music is 'ravers'. 

These tend to be young people who love clubbing, this set of people used to be a large community but has seemed to have dwindled (but not as much as the media illustrate). This tribe no longer consider themselves as outsiders because of their musical tastes or addiction to clubbing but actually look at other tribes as the 'weird ones'. They like the biggest and best clubs such as Fabric (London), Club So (Liverpool), Mission (Leeds) and Pacha. Music festivals like Wireless and the V festival also appeal to them in the summer time. These people like to party and suggest that people should live their life to the fullest because you can sleep when your dead!
Click to enlarge
As you can see above I have drawn up a character of what I believe a member of our target audience may dress like. As you can see each item of clothing he's associated with in the picture is quite bold because these nd of people kike to stand out. Even the haircut is quite bold as it is completely shaved around the back and sides but fairly lengthy on top. Also a lot of the clothing is tight fitting which I think reflects their 'all eyes on me' personalities. Footwear is also never forgotten with these types of people, they've got to be fresh out the box because with the extravagant footwear they tend to wear they can't be missed by the public.



Likings and Interests



The brands above have helped us to get a clearer picture of what our target audience may look like and also what sort of people they are. I looked at the River IslandTopman and All Saints websites to gain an understanding as to how they may dress. 'Ravers' don't like to dress too smart, they prefer a more casual approach wearing t-shirts and jeans. Spending most of their time clubbing they don't have much time to dress up but nevertheless they still take great care in their appearance.   


Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Choice Made

After brainstorming ideas from each song we ended up with two spider diagrams to compare. This helped us to come to our final choice which is 'Demons - Fenech Soler'.

Looking at both sets of ideas we decided that this was the best option because the ideas which sprung to mind were more unique opposed to our 'I Found You' ideas. With 'I Found You' a typical boy meets girl story came to mind but this is so common and so we wanted to do something different, like we always wanted to. Also we wouldn't have been able to film a club scene very well because it would be so hard to control.

'Demons' falls into the genre of Indie-pop and so now to fill in the gaps of our plan and research we need to do some research on our target audience.

Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Conventions of Music Videos


Different types of shots used in music videos are used to create an emphasis on the artist, location and emotions. Close ups are used to get a sense of how the artist is feeling whilst singing the lyrics whereas long shots gives the viewer a sense as to where him/her or the band are at.

Camera movement is used to trace the performer(s) and follow their movement, the pace and timing of this helps to make the viewer feel involved and primarily makes the video more exciting.

Mise en scene can tell us as a viewer a lot about a song, this helps us to gain an understanding of the music. This includes things like clothing, lighting, colouring, props and settings. For example an artist could be dressed in black clothing, sitting in a room on his/her own and filmed in black and white. The dull colours would reflect the artists down mood in the song, this can also be supported by the type of lighting. It could also suggest that the artist is lonely or isolated because of being in an room without any company. Colour schemes tell us a lot in music videos, they can set the mood of the song and thus create a type of atmosphere. Typically indie/rock videos have dark colours and pop/hip-hop videos have more bright colours.

HipHop/Rap/RnB
In this genre of music we seem to get a reoccurring theme of women and money. Most of these music videos are set at parties or nightclubs and it shows the artist having a good time surrounded by women. Expensive items are also flaunted showing the wealth of the artist and this is also reflected in the lyrics of these songs, lines like 'money over bitches' are used. A lot of over-cranking is used in these music videos to create emphasis of the emotion and the location they are at. Again to show off the wealth and location long shots seem to be used often in this genre type. Bright colours in these videos are used to reflect then cheerful mood. The video below shows most of these aspects especially the idea of the video being set at a party.



Pop
Pop music is mostly associated with happiness, this is shown in the music videos through the mise en scene. Bright colours are often used and the artist is normally dancing around expressing their emotion. The lighting is nearly always high-key to reflect the upbeat music and mood. The editing is normally of a fast pace to create excitement and to please the target audience which tends to be the younger generation. The artist is normally singing in the video and there are lots of close-ups on his/her face to emphasise their joyous mood. Costumes can vary a little bit, sometimes the artist can be wearing quite extravagant clothing to make a statement like Katy Perry in 'California Girls'. Sometimes the artist can just be wearing clothing of the latest fashion and trends. Below is a current music video which has the bright colour scheme and which therefore suggests a happiness about it. The performer has a modern and up to date look about her as shown by her costume, hair and make-up.



Rock/Metal
This genre of music often has a depressing manner about it and this is reflected in the music videos with the low key lighting and dark colours. The bands often wear black clothing and sometimes even dark eye make up to show a sense of evil. Often the artists have dark clothes an black hair but a very pale face to show their lack of emotion. A band known to have a scary nature about them is Slipknot, they wear masks which put the viewer on edge. The pace of editing in this music genre is normally fast to go with the fast pace music and close-ups are used to show the instruments being played. The majority of these music videos are performance. Below is a music video by The Rasmus, the lead singer has the stereotypical rock look as I described above with the dark clothing and hair but white face. The video has consistent low-key lighting.

Thursday, 6 October 2011

Choice of Song

After assessment of our three final candidates we decided to eliminate 'The Great Unknown' leaving us with 'Demons' and 'I Found You'. We decided on this because we struggled to bring together any ideas for a song so mysterious.

With just two songs left now we decided to listen to both tracks over and over and put together brainstorms illustrating the ideas we were getting from the songs. This way we can put both brainstorms next to one another and see what song will be apt to work with.