Today we focused on costume and make up design. Because we have chosen a song from the 60's, we wanted our actors to replicate the 'typical 60's look'. We researched into the era in order to understand how the women dressed which then allowed us to add a contemporary twist. We noticed that shift dresses were common during the 60's however we feel that going for a more glamorous look and opting for floor length dresses would work better with the genre of music we have chosen.
The make-up and hair would typically be very bold and glamorous therefore we found pictures of different hair and make up styles and then Megan sketched how we would like the actors to look in the music video. Because we are taking an older song and making it more contemporary, we decided to keep the eye make up bold and the lips a pale/nude colour. This would of been how women would of looked in the 60's however we noticed the importance of the eyes and making sure they stand out.
Our next textual analysis will be on Stooshe - Black Heart.
The mise-en-scene of the piece follows the hitherto cultural code, the protagonists are dressed similarly to show their unity, and we see many 'vintage' props around them, such as podium staging and vintage camera -also integrating with the retro cinematography.
There are several shots of the female in red sporting a romance with one of the actors in the video, suggesting a narrative romance is taking place, but we see his diverted glances at another girl in the cast... which we can interpret the song is directed at him and his 'black heart'.
The choreography for the piece, instils the era and style we aspire to have, with rhythmic, synchronized movements from all participants. We also noticed the types of movements along with the singing, e.g., movements with microphone stands, are similar to those utilised by 'The Supremes'.
There is various focus on the three protagonists, but is namely often focused on the one singing a verse, which all three partake in. We see stabs of the narrative consistently, in keeping with our chosen style, whilst still sporting a vintage flare.
Upon the climax of the song, the girl in red (who is blatantly being taken for a fool by the boy at the beginning) is central to the shot, allowing viewers to see her disappointed/hurt reaction to her partner 'playing away from home' -Then the girls sport their feminine attitudes, integrating with The Marvellettes glamorous style and desire to be respected, showing the boy with the 'black heart' that nobody takes them for a fool.
To conclude, we have chosen to take this video as inspiration for our piece and use conventions vis-à-vis Andrew Goodwin, lyrics fitting visuals/ narrative to create our interpretation of a vintage song, and promote it to a contemporary audience. We hope by doing this, we'll be successful in constructing a 'retro' style piece and make our target audience (16-20) aware of the different phases/ representations of women, in a vintage setting, but with females they're familiar with and of similar age.
Music piracy involves downloading music illegally without paying for it or without consent from the music company's, therefore infringing copyright laws. The Digital Economy Act first came into law on 9th April 2010, it stated that:
·Internet service providers (ISPs) must warn those illegally downloading files with a letter
·Slow down/suspend internet access for repeat offenders
·Must disclose the identities of the offenders to the police
·Those caught illegally downloading files could be fined up to £50,000 for copyright infringement
·Some websites may also be blocked
Criticisms of The Digital Economy Act
·Public Wi-Fi- how will providers of public Wi-Fi be affected? Will we have to sign up for acceptable use policies (AUP) to use the internet in cafes and hotels?
·Should people who are warned or fined end up with a criminal record?
·Should individuals’ actions result in whole groups of people having their internet connection removed?
·How can it ever truly be proved who was responsible for downloading the music?
·Do the majority of the public want this law?
‘the bbc found that 87% of internet users felt internet access should be the’ fundamental right of all people.’
Talk Talk has claimed that 80% of youngsters would continue to download regardless of the bill and that internet service providers are being forced to police this without any workable outcomes. ‘Don’t disconnect us’
·Can peer to peer files sharing ever be stopped? Doesn’t the music industry simply need to adapt its business model?
·Why is it the ISPs responsibility to enforce the law?
·Other countries manage to regulate with legal restrictions, why can’t we? Although countries like America have introduced similar legal restrictions on music piracy, downloading copied music is legal in some countries such as Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and panama, provided that the songs aren’t sold.
LimeWire
LimeWire was one of the world's most popular peer-to-peer file sharing websites which has recently been shut down after its 4 year legal battle with the U.S music industry (Recording Industry Association of America). It has been estimated that piracy costs the music industry around £200 million per year, meaning record company's are losing money due to peer-to-peer file sharing sites such as LimeWire, The Pirate Bay etc being used to download music/films without copyright.
In recent years, the music video has become an increasingly popular way of marketing/promoting artists and there music. Comparing music video's from the 60's to present day, it is clear to see that the way women are portrayed has drastically changed. The modern day music industry currently use music video's as there main source of marketing which has led to over sexualised content being featured as it seems like this is the only way to sell a record.
The Marvelettes performance video for 'Please Mr. Postman' (1960's) shows the women as glamorous and classy role models compared to Robin Thicke's video for 'Blurred Lines' which portrays the women sexual objects.
The women from the 1960's wore long dresses with glamorous hair where as the women from the present day video are wearing barely any clothes dancing around men who are twice there age.
Robin Thicke has recently faced a lot of controversy regarding his video for 'Blurred Lines' as the x-rated version was band from T.V and some internet sites. The x-rated version showed the young girls topless performing provocative dance moves. Such debate about whether the song/video is presenting women in the right way has led to it being banned from various student unions. However it is mostly the rap/hip hop genre of music which use sexualised content to sell their music today.
Keeping with the style of music video from the 1960's, we have decided to dress our actors in knee-floor length dresses and give them modest choreography in order to fit with the genre of music we have chosen. We decided not to use provocative outfits/choreography as we feel that this is presenting women in a negative way and shouldn't be used in order to promote sales.
As part of our A2 course we are producing a music video to the song 'Please Mr. Postman' by The Marvellettes. In order to gain a greater understanding of how the artists of that time period were promoted, I researched older DigiPaks and compared them to more contemporary DigiPaks.
Bobby Hackett !930-1940's
The Beatles 1960's
One Direction 2013
Comparing all three album covers, we can see how the era and genre of the music effects how the artist is promoted. Bobby Hackett was around in the early 1940's, therefore technology is limited and this is reflected in the artists digipak. There is no visual of the artist and very basic colours are used. This could be suggesting that the target audience for that genre of music is more mature than someone who would buy one directions album who use bright colours, as well as a picture of the artist for example. The Beatles album cover features all members of the band like one direction, who are also a pop band. However one direction use more colour in all of their promotional activities, where as The Beatles have stuck to a black and white theme which was more common in that time era. Television in the early 60's was black and white, this could be a reason for why The Beatles have chosen to stick with this theme in their DigiPak. Pop artists today often use pictures of themselves on their album covers/posters etc as part of a way of branding themselves. Often their image and how they are presented to the media would sell their media products rather than their actual music. This contrasts to artists such as Bobby Hackett in the 1940's who hasn't used a picture of himself to sell his product.
In our Digipak we plan to use a mixture of both older and contemporary elements as we have chosen to base our music video on an older song with conventions of modern music video.
Today we finished storyboarding for our music video 'The Marvellettes Please Mr. Postman'. We have carefully planned and thought through the shots and camera angles we would like in order to capture the era of the song. We have incorporated a variety of different shots which will enable the audience to follow the story which we want to portray. We have used a range of performance as well as narrative elements in our storyboarding as this will bring a more modern twist on an older song.
We carefully seleceted the actors for our music video, from pervious experience we required someone reliable, willing, confident and accustomed to acting.
Zaylie
Sophie
Daniella
Isobel
We selected these girls to in keep with our contemporary audiences, but all four have been previously trained in acting, theatre and music so they were fitting to what we required.
"Motown is an American record company founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. in 1959, the United States. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music by achieving a crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its soul-based subsidiaries were the most successful proponents of what came to be known as "The Motown Sound", a style of soul music with a distinct pop influence. Gordy originally set up two nominally-separate labels (Tamla Records and Motown Records) in 1959. The two labels featured the same writers, producers and artists, and they were both formally incorporated together as Motown Record Corporation (commonly referred to simply as "Motown") on April 14, 1960. " -Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown
Berry Gordy, Jr.
Motown still has large influences contemporarily, with signed artists such as The Marvellettes, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, both still invading the charts to this day. However, 'Motown' may stereotypically be viewed as a 'Black label', which is proven wrong through singers Dusty Springfield and Amy Winehouse; White artists taking influence from the Motown genre, singing songs seemingly written for Black artists and through their costume choices, integrate fully with the Motown conventions. 'Vintage' style is often adopted by younger generations, through sixties 'swing' dresses, prominent collars and furious back-combed hair, appearance is still as overtly important to today's generation as it was during the times of 'The Marvellettes'.
The target audience of a media product need to quickly understand what is happening. This can be achieved by having a clear narrative. These are a few ways in which narratives can function:
OPEN- This is where questions remain unanswered and the audience are left wondering what will happen next.
CLOSED- This is where all questions are answered and the audience fully knows what is happening/happened.
LINEAR- The narrative is in order.
NON-LINEAR/FRACTURED- This is where the narrative in out of order e.g. a trailer for a film or use of flashbacks.
SINGLE STRANDED- Only one storyline in the media text/product
MULTI-STRANDED- This is where there are several storylines in an overall narrative for example soap operas.
ROLAND BARTHES
Barthes came up with the theory that we use 5 different narrative codes when analysing media products.
1) Action code
2) Mystery code/Enigma Code
3) The Semic Code
4) The Cultural Code 5) Code of Oppositions
In our music video, we plan to use 'The cultural code' in order to make the audience aware of the time period of the artist/single. We are going to make this obvious to the audience by the characters in our video being dressed in typical 60s fashion and also by using props which would of featured in that era.
I decided to analyse the music video for The Marvellettes 'Please Mr Postman' as this is the song that we have chosen to do our music video on.
When analyzing the video, I found that all the shots are performance based and there is no narrative included. This is relevant to the genre of music which is Motown and also the time period the video was shot in.
The video was shot in the early 60's which is the reason why it is performance based. Technology at the time would of been basic, therefore special effects etc. wouldn't of been used. The video is also shot in black and white, again showing the era and how basic the technology would of been. In the video we get close ups of the lead singer 'Gladys Horton'. It was typical of that time period to have a band with one main singer and a few backing singers. The lyrics are suggesting that a woman is awaiting to here from her partner who is away at war. She is begging the postman to give her a letter from her boyfriend/husband which is again relevant to the time period as letters would of been the only means of communication.
The music and the visuals match as it is a performance based video however in order to modernize the video/song, we have decided to include narrative as well as performance in our story-boarding.
There is a strong focus on the artist 'The Marvellettes' and the song as that would of been what sold the record. This contrasts to artists today who are mostly created by management teams to sell records and appeal to their target audience.
After Edison had invented the gramophone in the 1900's, the ability to record audio meant that developments within the music industry began to happen. Experiments with the ability to synchronise sound with vision led to the first sound film 'The Jazz Singer' in 1927. This was a massive milestone as it meant that artists could create video's to go with their music in order to promote themselves. TV shows such as 'Ready Steady Go' gave artists the platform to showcase there latest tracks which gave them the opportunity to target their music at wider audiences as well as entertaining them.
In 1964 BBC introduced 'Top Of The Pops' which is significant as it was the first time that music was listed in terms of charts. Artists would fight to be at the no.1 spot and especially the coveted Christmas no.1. It showed the competition within the industry as bands/artists all wanted to be the best and sell the most records.
Queen are arguably one of the biggest bands there has ever been, and when 'Bohemian Rhapsody' first came out in 1975, it changed everybody's attitude to the music video. It was the first time that we had seen special effects which came as part of a technological development. I think that the significance of this video was that it was a performance from beginning to end and was used to entertain audiences. The star theory is also relevant here as they were made too look/act in a certain way in order to sell records. The music video is over 6 minutes long which is a massive contrast to the average pop song today of 3 minutes. However it could be argued that this is due to music video's in recent years were relatively new and seen as more of a form of entertainment. Differently, today we have access to a wider variety of music video's through sites such as Youtube therefore they are taken for granted.
1981 saw the introduction of the first music channel 'MTV'. This is significant as the availability of cabel/satellite television enabled nice broadcasting. Now MTV have specific channels for different genre's of music such as; 'MTV Dance' 'MTV Rocks' and 'MTV HITS'. This makes it easier for audiences to narrow down the genre's of music video that they are interested in watching/listening too.
After this development artists began to make big budget music video's which have now become iconic. Michael Jacksons 'Thriller' reportedly cost around £500,000 to make and lasts around 14 minutes. It combined narrative, performance and special effects all in one and it arguably one of the most famous music video's in history.
As the media has become more and more involved in the representation of 'celebrities' today, we find ourselves questioning what actually is a star? Reality show's such as The X Factor give everyday normal people a chance to fulfil their dreams and try to make it as a pop star. However the ideal image of a pop star has quickly adapted over the years. A pop star is now more known for what they are wearing and who they are dating than the actual music they produce. This is due to the fact that pop stars today are now promoted by their management to be/act a certain way in order to sell records. This has recently been relevant with Miley Cyrus who started out as a child Disney star and is now facing controversy due to her racy performances and revealing outfits. People aren't talking about her music, they are only interested in her video's, what she is doing and how little she is wearing. Many of the so called stars today haven't made a significant cultural impact on society in which to be classified as true stars.
Stars are constructed images even though they are sometimes portrayed as being real people just to sell records. The social media has also helped pop stars of today gain a wider fan base due to media sites such as twitter which allows them to communicate with their fans making them feel like they have established a real connection with their idol's, therefore presenting them as real people with real emotions.
We have decided to go for a more old school/different genre of music as we feel that this will differentiate us from other groups. We have chosen the song 'Please Mr.Postman' from the 60's band 'The Marvelettes'. We wanted to do a black and white/old fashioned video and thought that this song would be perfect for the vision we had in mind. We haven't yet storyboarded for our music video however we do want to have a performance element as well as a narrative for our production.
I began my research by looking at old sixties video's and looking for what qualities/features each video had. We realised that most of the video's were based on a performance which lacked a variety of shots/angles/camera skills and mise-en-scene. In order to incorporate the old sixties vibe into our video as well as show our skills, we have decided to stick to the conventions of the sixties video and include a performance element in our music video. However we wanted to bring a modern day twist to the old video and so we have decided to have a narrative throughout. I think that this will work well as we are bringing modern day and sixties soul together. Our narrative is purely based on a young couple who have been effected by war. This also fits in with the lyrics of the song, therefore our video will fit in with Andrew Goodwin's music video conventions, the visuals matching the lyrics.
The music industry is always changing and evolving into something bigger. An example of this evolvement is the music video. Nowadays music video's are easily accessible due to the improvement in technology. With just a click of a finger you can access any music video in the world via the like of 'YouTube'. Music video's are also available on our television's with TV channels being dedicated just to stream the latest video's. Artists rely on their music video's in order to establish a name for themselves and increase the popularity of their music.
'The Jazz Singer' is a 1927 American musical film; it was the first motion picture with synchronised dialogue sequences. This was the first time that speech had been synchronised with the picture on the screen and it is responsible for the development of music video's today.
I decided to look at upcoming album releases to help us find out about what we can include on the front cover of our album and what it should look like. 2013 will see the likes of these artists releasing new albums:
Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience Part 2 30th September
Jason Derulo Tattoos 8th October
Miley Cyrus Bangerz 8th October
Katy Perry Prism 22nd October
Lady Gaga Artpop 11th November
One Direction Midnight Memories 25th November
These artists are constantly having to improve their music or in some cases completely change the sound that they are famous for in order to keep up with the ever growing music industry.
After 6 weeks off we have just started back to sixth form and are beginning our A2 Courses!
Unfortunately our group has now halved and now only me and Megan will be continuing on to A2:(
At the end of last term we practised making a music video along with the cd cover, insert and magazine advert to go with it. This has allowed us to know what to expect in the upcoming year and will hopefully mean we can improve our skills that we have already developed.
Me and Megan have brainstormed a few idea's and we quite like the idea of doing an old-fashioned music video with an older song as we feel like this will be something not many people will do. We liked the idea of a black and white theme as this will show the age of the genre we choose and will also differ from other groups. However we still haven't decided on a song or a narrative for the video but are hoping to come up with a final idea very soon!
The CD cover and magazine advert are closely linked together as they both represent the artist/band and allow the media companies to promote that particular single/album. It is important that both the CD cover and Advert both consist of the same text,pictures,colours and layout etc in order for audiences to recognise that this single/album is from the same artist(s).
The magazine advert should also include a release date which informs audiences when the can buy their product. The CD cover won't include this as it isn't necessary.
Both the CD cover and Magazine advert should be consistent throughout, including the band members or the same image, band name which is also the brand name as it is what sells the products and also the same colours and fonts.
Album Cover
Magazine Advert
Synergy is shown between this CD cover and Magazine advert.
We have taken inspiration from CD covers and Magazine adverts as we have used the same colour schemes, images and font in both therefore creating synergy.
Today our prop has arrived for filming, (hair chalk) me and zac have tested it out and are really excited to start colouring megans hair in:D although i don't think megan is quite as excited:(
Hopefully tomorrow we can start filming and everything goes to plan!
Today we have completed our CD cover and Insert for our practise video (Mcfly Five colours in her hair). We tried to incorporate all the features that would be included on a real cover and insert. This is the finished product:
We have included already existing images and found artwork in our practise piece however when we come around to do our actual A2 work, we will make sure these images aren't included.
We have found some hair chalk which we would like to use in our music video as it relates well to the lyrics and we think that it would look good. As soon as this arrives we get to colour megans hair yayy!:)
Today we are beginning to design our CD insert and Back Cover. We researched different single/album covers to gain inspiration.
We decided to go for a bright colour scheme as this matches well with the song and the overall finished look we are aiming for. It is also a common feature in the single/album covers in the genre aimed at our target audience.
Despite using found artwork and images from the internet, we eventually hope to replace these with artwork produced by one of our friends and the signiture of the main character in
the video (megan clark). We also want to include images of megan in the CD insert however we haven't been able to shoot these yet.
We will continue to develop and improve our cover and insert once filming has started and we have the images we need.
We were planning on starting to shoot our practise music video in preperation for our A2 Course next year however 2 memebers of our group are away and this has led to a set back in filming. We have finished story boarding and are prepared to film ASAP. Hopefully our group is back to normal soon and we can start to film.
Today we have been learning about the features of a magazine advert in preparation for when we start our real music video. As we decided to do Mcfly 'Five colours in her hair' i did a practise magazine advert based on this. I tried to use all the features that a magazine advert would incoroporate. I chose a colourful theme to this advert as the song is upbeat and based on the pop/rock genre. This would appeal to the target market and also matches the single cover allowing audiences to recognise that this advert is from the same band.
After completing our AS course, we have began preparation for our A2 course by creating a music single promotional package. This will include:
a music video
CD digi pack
A4 magazine advert.
We decided to work in the same group as we did for our AS thriller task as we felt that this would be more effective. After discussing possible song choices we managed to narrow it down and finally decided to shoot our preliminary piece on 'Five colours in her hair' by mcfly. We chose this song as it is dated and the music video isn't famous/iconic therefore peoples opinions won't be influenced. We also felt like this video is the weakest due to the fact that it is the first recognised video that they have released and will allow us to experiment with a variety of possible locations and camera angles. We had a vairety of different song choices but after brainstorming ideas on how we would shoot the video we felt that this song would suit each of our music styles better.
