Micheal Jackson

Michael Jackson

 

Representation of women in Music Videos

Lily Allen - Hard out here

This controversial music video takes a swipe at Miley cyrus- giving the message across that the only way women can get credibilty and attention nowadays is by taking their clothes off.

She also takes makes  a references to Robin Thicke by having the same silver balloons he had in his music video. This conveys the message of how women are objectified and seen as sex objects by men.

She also takes a swipe at the rapid sexism that can make working in the music industry really frustrating, unfair and hard for women, as if this kind of message is being portrayed in the music industry target to young children, it is going to spread into the minds of the public that women are the inferior gender.

The video quickly racked up over 1million views and started a controversy similar to the ones it criticises 

The video starts with her on a hospital bed receiving lip suction at the encouragement of her sleazy manager. This addresses the topic that a lot of women are being penalised for not having "the perfect body." It is really graphic, disgusting and hard to watch but it only makes the message stronger.

The opening scene of Lily's video for new single Hard Out Here shows the singer on an operating table as a music industry type asks: “How does a woman let herself get like this,” referring to her body shape.

Lily replies: “I've had two children,” before she hops off the table and starts singing with her twerking dancers.

Obviously Lily has actually had two children, which is the reason she's been semi-retired from the music industry for a while, but she drew from her own life for the video in more ways than one.

She's just revealed that she considered having plastic surgery after the birth of her first daughter in 2011 and actually visited a surgeon who told her she needed to reshape her thighs, bum, knees, back and stomach, which we assume would have been as horrendously painful and unnecessary as it sounds.

Thankfully she got pregnant again and that put paid to her mission of perfection but she told the Observer Magazine: “Nobody's immune to the pressure to look thin.”

Lily says she intended the song, which features scantily dressed dancers whose bums she smacks, to be a dig at the industry's expectations of women to be sexually desirable objects and physically perfect in other vids from the likes of Robin Thicke with his Blurred Lines track.  But she's been attacked for using mainly black dancers in the video.


Some critics such as The Daily Mirror have taken notice that most of her back up twerking dancers are black and called her a racist. the Daily mail are well known to be very misogynistic, they often highlight mistake and flaw a woman has. There was a similar case with 'Amanda palmer'- Daily mail had never acknowledged her or made any comment to her music; but suddenly when Amanda had the incident of her breast being on show- The daily mail wrote a whole front page article on it , which shows how misogynistic it is. However Amanda decide to fight back by writing and performing and writing a song challenging Daily Mail.

In addition, Lily replied on twitter that the dancers were chosen for their ability alone, regardless of their race. She said "If I could dance like the ladies can, it would be my arse on your screen"

Case study 3 - Alex Southam

 Alex Southam was trained as a lawyer and studied law at University. He found it dull and boring and decided to start again and begin a career in music video production. His initial idea was to start making music videos to learn the trade in order to transfer to film production. Has worked for Agile Films who describe him on their website as ‘An exciting new talent, working in a dizzying variety of styles across live action and animation. Entirely self-taught, his inventiveness and creativity have caught the eye with a series of diverse promos for the likes of the Walkmen, Alt+J and Lianne La Havas. Alex joined Agile in August 2012.’

To start with, Alex took on all aspects of music video production including the camera, lighting, editing and everything else all by himself. He now uses a director of Photography.  Alex likes the format of music videos. He feels there is real freedom and you can do anything you want. He is less keen of shooting commercials because he feels there is far less creative freedom and no room for personal expression. He uses Vimeo to showcase his projects and videos. Vimeo is seen as more respectable than Youtube and this is an important point that he makes a point of using Vimeo instead of Youtube.

 Alex made his impact with the video for "Tesselate" by Alt J which took only one day to shoot and cost £10,000. He used many special effects which attracted much attention.

Chase and status "Lost and found" has a £50,000 budget, it was filmed in LA.
It was filmed at 36 frames a second and then played slowly for a distinctive effect which gave it the 1990's VHS look and there was only three edits in the entire video

Case study 2 - Emil Nava

 Emil Nava is a director that started out as a runner for film production companies. He worked for blink productions and now freelances for OB management. After working as a runner graduated to Assistant Director (A.D.) where he would manage the video shoots. He signed to Academy, who are the biggest music video production company, until he left and worked for "between the eyes". He now works mainly for pulse productions.

Emil has begun directing adverts because they generally have higher budgets and production values. He prefers music videos because they have far more creative freedom than commercial advertisements.

At his busiest, Emil was responsible for making 24 music videos in one year. When he started out his production budget was as low as £5000-£10,000 but now can be as high as £160,000 in the case of Jessie J's videos.

Artists whom he has worked for:
1) kid british

2) Paloma faith- picking up the pieces

client- sony

cost £80,000

3) Ed Sheeran- Lego house

Client- Atlantic

4) Jessie J - Do it like a dude

   Client - Island

Cost - £25,000

5) Rita Ora - R.I.P

    Client - RocNation

Emil’s Top Tip

Use Extreme Close Up on faces wherever possible

Do not shoot whole of video in medium shot/long shot

Example – Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares to U

Godley & Crème - Cry

Case study 1 : Jamie Thraves

Jamie Thraves is a director of music videos. He began by making short films at Hull university, where he studied illustration . He used his fims, such as “calling card” which won awards to get his "foot in the door" with the video production company "Factory films"- in other words the production company noticed him when her directed this film which made a opened a lot of opportunities for him.  At the beginning of his career, the first videos that he directed for artists were very low budget; costing around £5000 each.

Like Jaime Thraves,  upcoming directors normally go through this process; a  ‘Commissioner’ from a record label sends a track to 5-10 directors, the directors then each submit a treatment. This stage is unpaid, the director who has submitted the ‘best’ treatment is then commissioned to make the video -Only then is the director paid. This shows how steep and unreliable being a start up director could be

.
 Jamie Thraves is best known for his two most successful videos which are:

Radiohead "Just"
which had £100, 000 budget and was Shot in 3 days

Coldplay "The scientist"
which had a bigger budget of £200, 000 budget and was also shot in 3 days

His most recent video was was japanese popstars "song for lisa". Currently music videos cost about £20, 000. It took Jamie two days to shoot and he used these music videos to get him into the film business. So far, he has shot three features: "The low down", "The cry of the owl", "Treacle Jr".

Another one of his recent music videos that he directed was Tome Odell- Another love

Jamie’s tips: use the lyrics but try not to be too literal and Most importantly-go with the emotions of the lyrics

Lip syching Exercise Evaluation

In lesson, we were set a group task to film and edit ourselves lip synching the song ‘Don’t go breaking my heart by Elton John and Kiki Dee. One of the things I learned during the making of this was how to film a music video effectively. For example, initially I would have filmed the music video by sections- which would have meant that I would have a lot of short and not very detailed shots which would have been very difficult to use in the editing process. However, through this task I have learnt that lip synching the song all the way through in one shot provides better variety of shots to be chosen and also made the editing process much easier. In addition, I also learned that it is very important for the artist mouth the words very clearly in order for the song to match up with the lip synching very easily. When it comes to filming duets i have learned that timing is key in the case of Lip synching, as the mouthing of the lyrics as to match the actual songs- in order to get the right person singing at the right time. To make this successful, we had the music playing out loud whilst the artists were lip synching. 

We used the programme- Final Cut Express for our editing process. We then synchronised our footage with the song which had imported by putting the footage in the appropriate time frame. Furthermore, we then selected the shots we wanted for each section of the video from the different shot types that were already synchronised-this way is a lot easier to put together.

I have realised a few mistake in this preliminary task that could be avoided next time. One of the mistakes was; some of our lip synching wasn’t much synchronised with song. To avoid this in the future- I would have the artist make the mouthing of the lyrics really emphasised and clear. Another one of our mistake was the lighting in our shots; some of our shots were really dark because of us having our backs to the window on a summary day-therefore creating a dark silhouette. To prevent this, I would have the artists located somewhere right away from a window and well lit, in order to prevent deep shadows. This preliminary take was very helpful to us towards our real music video, as it made us aware of what to include and what to prevent and it was a huge learning curve on lip synching and synchronisation in the editing process.

Brain storm of my A2 music video-Amber Rubarth -Rough Cut

Arafat Olayo's music video Animatic

Racism in Pop videos

It is now thought that music videos are not simply throwing more flesh at us but loads of layered messages. Chief among these are narratives around race, which go largely unmarked by mainstream media.



There's a huge debate going on about "sexualization", but it is narrowly focused on explicit portrayals of sexuality in videos aimed at young people.

But what bout race in this video? when do we look at who is centre stage? And sexualization is mainly hip hop?

                          

Miley cyrus used to be a sweet girl, now she has restyled a a caricature of "black culture" (and surrounded herself with some faceless black women dancers for extra cred)

                                                                    

The uses of Pop Videos- Branding (Katy Perry)

How Pop Videos are used to reinforce Katy Perry's brand and reflect her private life

Katy's music videos often has a narrative- a plot that ties both the song and the video together.

In her music video 'Firework' we see Katy in a more grown up point of view as the video was quite sensible inspiring. We see her as the ideal older sister as the song has a positive message which is to always be confident in any circumstance. The respective audience for this would be younger teenage girls as they would look up to Katy as a role model.

In her music video 'Last Friday night (TGIF)', the scene was vividly girly and feminine.It showed a stereotypical shy geeky girl transforming into a pretty girl that all the guys want. This would appeal to the respective audience of teenage girls as they are more likely to be able to relate to it as most of them are going that stage themselves.

Katy then released a music video called 'Cali Girls' whilst she was in a relationship with Russel Brand. Although this music video has a childish feel to it, it has more deliberate sexual references, which is a very different image to her last music videos which have been very inspiring to young teenage girls. This could have been caused by her relationship with Russel Brand, as she is growing up and exploring the the music industry, she might have been influence by her adult life.

Katy's relationship with Russel Brand then ended abruptly, leaving Katy heartbroken, she then released a music video called 'Wide Awake'. At the start of this video, she takes her wig off which could symbolise her wiping a new slate and starting fresh- she is taking her mask off- she is dont pretending to be happy. In this music video she wears a black dress which could represent mourning and grief from her failed relationship with Russel Brand. She the the takes a bite from an old rotten strawberry, this makes a reference to the story of Adam and Eve- which could symbolize her admitting that she has done something wrong and is apologizing. The lyrics says "i am born again" which conveys that she want to go back to her positive image. This is shown by her clothing- she wore a sexy but not too revealing nude dress to show her new self.  We are then introduced to little Katy who represent her getting  back in touch with her childhood.Then there were two identical monsters that had physiques of men, this portrays that all men are beasts and all the same. We then go into this very colorful scene with a prince charming awaiting her but he was only deceiving her, this could symbolise how she was deceived by Russel Brand. Then the little girl handed her a butterfly, which portrays her getting her freedom back, this also portrays her as being a fairy tale figure.

Katy Perry's 'Roar' symbolises the superiority of women and how they don't need men in their lives to succeed. This was shown by her clothing - when she was with the man, her outfit wasn't very revealing, it was very smart.This was also shown by how she adapts in the wild all alone, however, it still had a feminine touch as she was then shown, painting the elephant's toes and having the necklace around the tiger's neck that said 'Kitty Perry'. As the music video resembled that of a children's story book, she is gaining back her 'Older sister' image.

Lip Synching Exercise "Don't go breaking my heart"

Practice for editing (Elton John and Kiki Dee ' Dont go breaking my heart')

 In lesson we were set a task of filming a quick music video of  the duet 'Don't go breaking my heart' by Elton John and Kiki Dee.

This exercise is to help us with our editing. We would need to people on camera to do the lip-syncing, the lip-syncing would have to be done while the music is playing out loud in order to get the lip-syncing at the same pace with the audio that is going to be put on later on.

Daniel Powter 'Bad day' story

This video tells the message of how love is the most important thing in the world. It is filmed almost entirely in split-screen and shows the lives of a woman and a man who have never met but lead very similar and sometimes connected lives. The two are very ordinary and are easy to relate to for the common viewer.

Both are dissatisfied with their jobs and the use of camera angles amplify their disappointment with their jobs and the frustration they feel when their alarm wakes them at 7'O Clock to go to their jobs. As they wake, a bird’s eye shot is used to demean them and convey them as helpless. It also allows the viewer to see the gap in the double bed where another person would be positioned if they were in love. It constantly cuts back to clips of the artist performing in a business area of Manhattan. The artist is dressed in everyday clothes wearing a hat and shirt and jeans with a jacket. He too is unshaven which represents the theme of song which is; one is worthless without love. The video goes on to show the two getting ready to leave for work and splits the screen in three twice showing the woman applying make-up and the man shaving and always progressing towards going to work again.

 This video is parallel to Andrew Goodwin’s ideology of pop videos consisting of dance routines or stories whereas rock videos show performances. The man then spots an old couple on the train in mid shot showing they are content which is then followed by a calendar to show passing of time whilst wide shots allow us to see that both are friendless and lonely and comfort eating donuts and hot dogs.

 It then comes to a POV shot where the male protagonist sees the girl opposite him in her office and it zooms to demonstrate he is taking notice of her. The two then begin to interact through drawing on a board in the train station and they appear happier each day. The video ends with the woman standing in the rain waiting for a taxi and the man comes over and holds an umbrella over her to keep her dry, which shows affection. This is more significant because the drawings they had been communicating had consisted of a woman in the rain and a man whom shields her from the splashing of a taxi with a red umbrella. The woman realises and as the song comes to an end, the two stand looking at each other and smiling. This video magnifies the message of the song because the song is saying that a bad day should be left behind and forgotten, wipe a clean slate and start again the next day.

Measuring the success criteria of a music video

We can measure the success criteria of a music promo video by:

Word of mouth- People that have watched the music video could either think it’s good or bad, either way they would tell their friends about it and their friend would tell other people. This then becomes a snowballing method of publicity.

Number of hits on Youtube -  When a video get a million videos and above, it is known as going ‘viral’, this measure how successful it is with the respective audience.

Newspaper articles/TV reports- Music videos could be advertised on newspaper articles and tv reports such as bbc news.

How many times shown on television - Music channels such as MTV, Viva, Kiss and more often only show successful music videos repeatedly.

Amount of publicity – The success of a music promo video does differ on the amount of publicity it gets, as the more people are aware of it, the more successful it is.

Downloads (legal/illegal) – Whether the music videos are downloaded legally or illegally, either way people are still getting access to it, therefore, the music video is going to be successful.

Charts- The charts are a way to know what music videos are successful; we measure this by the amount of time the music video spends on the charts.

Extension of income/ Synergy

The extension of income of an artist promotes the artist/single and album. It also Persuades audience to buy – CD/download and raises the audience awareness or profile of the artist/group.

Product placement e.g. Christine Aguillera & perfume (Not Myself Tonight)

Synergy refers to two different companies working together for a mutual benefit. For example Keith lemon has a tv show and a Movie, in this case it works to the mutual benefit of both film/TV programme and artist.

 The movie ‘Sky Fall’ had a synergy with the artist ‘Adele’, as she recorded the soundtrack for it’s theme song. This way both the movie and the artist get great publicity.

Independent Companies

There are a huge number of small companies with little or no financial connection to the majors. These companies often concentrate on a small number of acts, within specialised niches in the industry.  These are called ‘Independents’. An example of a highly successful independent is ‘Domino Records’. It is often that record labels begin as independents, but then are bought by a major and then become major-independents.

Domino Recording Company, generally known as Domino, is an independent record label based in London. There is also a wing of the label based in Brooklyn, NY that handles releases in the United States, as well as a German division called Domino Deutschland and a French division called Domino France. They have produced artists such Elliot Smith, Dan Deacon and Eugene Guinness. 

Major Independent Companies

Most of these ‘Majors’ own, or license, a series of smaller subsidiary companies which are called ‘Major independent companies’, in order to reach different kinds of audiences in different kinds of genre. All of these companies are good for different production of different styles of music and are known as major independents because they are well known attractive companies that produce some of the best quality artists.

Columbia

- Columbia Records is a premier recording label, under the ownership of Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company—successor to the Volta Graphophone Company.Columbia is the oldest brand name in pre-recorded sound, being the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of notable singers, instrumentalists and bands. They have produced artists such as Adele, Beyonce and John Mayer.

Island

- Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell and Graeme Goodall in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group. The label now operates as a division of The Island Def Jam Music Group in the United States (where it is now a largely rock-oriented label, much like in its heyday) and as a standalone label in the United Kingdom (also known as Island Records Group or Universal Island). They have produced artists such as Akon, Amy WInehouse and Avicii.

Syco 

Syco Entertainment, often known simply as Syco, is a global joint venture between Simon Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment focused on the production and marketing music, television, film and digital content. It employs a staff of more than 50 in offices in London and  Los Angeles and manages a string of high-profile television and music brands through partnerships with Sony Music labels and TV production partners, most notably FremantleMedia. Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment each own 50% of the business. Charles Garland, the former chief operator of Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment is Global CEO, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company. They have produced artists such as Leona Lewis, Labrinth and Alexandra Burke.

RCA

- Syco Entertainment, often known simply as Syco, is a global joint venture between Simon Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment focused on the production and marketing of music, television, film and digital content. It employs a staff of more than 50 in offices in London and Los Angeles and manages a string of high-profile television and music brands through partnerships with Sony Music labels and TV production partners, most notably FremantleMedia. Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment each own 50% of the business. Charles Garland, the former chief operator of Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment is Global CEO, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company. They have produced artists such as Leona Lewis, Labrinth and Alexandra Burke.

Virgin

-Virgin- Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell and Tom Newman in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Cultur Club, Simple Minds, Lenny Kravitz, The Smashing Pumpkins, Mike Oldfield, Spice Girls and more on their list of artists. It was later sold to Thorn EMI in 1992. Its American operations were merged with Capitol Records in 2007 to create the Capitol Music Group. Currently owned by Universal Music Group after its purchase of EMI in 2012, UMG reorganized its British operations to create Virgin EMI Records on March 2013 which absorbed Mercury Records UK

Major Record Labels

In the music industry there are companies who are superior, so they have the most consumer intake and usually manufacture the most record labels. They Buy smaller firms and have the money to sign up more artists and make them into superstars, in order to make more income.

The music industry is dominated by four multinational major companies such as:

Universal

 - universal are a big company that have possession of many smaller companies in the industry.  Universal owns smaller companies such as Hollywood Records and Cash Money Record artists. Artists that have been signed to universal are Black Eyed Peas and Janet Jackson.

Sony Music

 - Sony music also dominate in the market by owning Echo records and corporations such as Syco music. Many artists have been built up by Sony music such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Usher. 

Warner Brothers

 - The Warner brothers own companies such as The Stanley Company of America and First national pictures. They produced artists such as Cher and Biffy Clyro.

EMI

 - Emi own many small companies such as Abbey road studios, charisma records and Ten Records. They produced artists such as Cliff Richard and Lily Allen.




These are referred to as ‘The Majors’. The majority of these are backed by conglomerates with stakes in other industries such as; Film, TV and Electronics. 

A2 class VOXPop

Vox Pops research Evaluation

The purpose of our research was to get feedback from other people, in order to improve our music video.

Questions asked:
 -  Do watch music videos?
- What is your favourite music videos?
- what do you like about music videos?
- what do you think makes a great music videos?
- Where do you watch music videos?

 the questions were The questions that were asked were fairly easy to understand as the majority of the interviewees addressed them well. The questions that were asked explored every area that would help us with our music videos; therefore, the questions were greatly detailed. In the scenario of making a music videos, the questions that were asked were specially designed to address the topic area of music videos, which helped us with our individual music videos.

Although it was our first time learning about Vox pops, I think we did exceptionally well with the camera shots that were taken. As the people were being interviewed by someone, we made sure the interviewees were not looking into the camera but straight ahead to where the interviewer would be, in his case the shots were framed appropriately. We did use the sound equipment effectively as the sound in our film was very clear and vivid.

Our Vox Pop did provide us with relevant research as we got an insight to what people expect from music videos, what people categorise to be a great music video and much more. We could then use this information to improve our music videos. All in all I would say our work was very technically secure as the video that was made was clear, straight to the point and we had no difficulties making it.

Vox Pops

Vox pops is translated to mean "Voice of the people". This usually takes place in public places which gives the feel of the interviewees giving spontaneous opinions in a one chance encounter.
Vox pops are often used on news programmes to show  'balance'.  So the point of views are divided.

Because the results of such an interview are unpredictable at best, usually vox pop material is edited down very tightly. This presents difficulties of balance, in that the selection used ought to be, from the point of view of journalistic standards, a fair cross-section of opinions.

The process
Each person is asked  the same question, the aim is to get a variety of answers and opinions on any given subject.
Journalists are usually instructed to approached a wide range of people to get varied answers from different points of view.




Our Task:
we were set a task to record our interviewer asking the questions straight into camera. We had to record our interviewer asking the question to at least one person while staring deep into their eyes and record at least 5 different people answering these selected questions.:

Like all good media everyone needs to prepare to answer the questions:
Do you watch music videos?
What is your favourite music video?
What do you like about music videos?
What makes a great music videos?
Where do you watch music videos?

In the editing process we need to make the Vox pops brief and to the point.
We need to add a title at the beginning of the sequence.
We need to add a caption identifying each participant- we should only use first names and possible age and occupation
Our task is to practice the process in groups in the classroom.

Richard Dyer's Star Theory (Extension of Outlets)

Extension of outlets

The music industry evolves along with modern technology. Music videos can be accessed by music channels, Direct DVD and CD sales, websites and download.

With competition from a variety of online platforms, music channels are no longer the strong promotional platforms they once were.

In many ways the music video channel is in danger of becoming defunct and irrelevant.

Online streaming and downloads mean that music videos are instantly accessible.

Gone are the days of Top Of The Pops! 

Richard Dyer's Star Theory (Character and Personality)

Artists are presented as 'real' human beings. In other words, artists are portrayed to be ‘normal’ regular people in order for their audience to be able to relate to them. An example of this is Adele, who is conveyed to be an everyday girl who has boyfriend problems.

Stars support hegemony/dominant ideology of their time/ generation. For example girl bands are very feminist and promote girl power

 It is satisfactory for the audience to know that these artists are just glorified versions of 'us', which makes the Artists more relatable. This is shown on TV shows such as X-Factor where regular everyday people are turned into stars. 

Stars are representations of the contradictions/reinforced ideas of the music industry. 

Richard Dyer's Star theory(Ideology and culture)

Another one of Dyers beliefs within his Star Theory is that artists become trendsetters in the sense that audience members will imitate hairstyles and artists clothing styles. For example Rihanna had her fiery red hair style and Rita Ora has her icy blonde hair and beanie look.

 Artists may have certain religious beliefs and cultural values that audiences may also pick up on if shared by the artist. For example girl band ‘Mary Mary’ crosses over gospel and R&B music.

The internet has meant audiences now have far greater access to the “personal” lives of stars. This could be very dangerous for the artists, has there have been past events of journalists invading Artists’ lives. An example of this is Amy Winehouse’s drug scandal.

Richard Dyer's star theory

Dyer believes artists are constructed through artificial images such as advertising, films, magazines and music.

He claims that consumers prefer artists to convey their true emotions themselves and not be groomed by record labels who try to create a fake image for them.

A “real” artist can use this as their unique selling point.  

Richard Dyer also believes that stars are manufactured to make money for their record labels by appealing to target audiences. For example: girl bans such as Little mix and Spice girls appeal to teenage girls as they enforce 'Girl power'

 

As a result of this record labels have to market different artists to cater for certain target audiences as there are both niche and whole markets.

Examples of record labels doing this can be seen through Mirror branding, both Rage Against The Machine and Joe McElderry are signed to Sony Music.