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.

Types of Artists and Bands

Artists can be divided in two categories:
Synthetic
Organic

The ‘Synthetic’ refers to the ‘Xfactor’ methodology, and it is the record labels that sit in the driving seat.

A gap in the market is identified, and then it is exploited by the development of music, and often the artist, to suit this gap.

Money is the ultimate goal in this operation. Acts such as; The Spice Girls, McFly and JLS are good examples of “manufactured” artists. 

Synthetic artists are artist that have been put together by somebody purely to make income., e.g. Spice girls, One direction, Little mix.

The term ‘Organic’ is used to describe artists where the music comes first, they make the kind of music they want to make and then the record labels (if signed) try and sell this music to the correct market segment.

 ‘Organic’ music often appeals to a niche, but can appeal to a mass audience too.

Controversy on Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor

The "Nothing Compares 2 U" crooner has penned a fourth letter to the 20-year-old pop star, in which she slammed Cyrus for "stigmatizing mental illness" and implored the "We Can't Stop" singer to apologize for her actions. 


The 46-year-old Irish singer-songwriter wrote an open letter to the Twerk Queen expressing her concern about Miley's image after finding out that she's become a role model to Cyrus and that the "Wrecking Ball' video was designed to be similar to the one for "Nothing Compares."


"I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool' to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping," she wrote.

O'Connor warned the young singer that exploiting herself sexually will take away from her "obvious" talent and send the message that she is only to be valued for her sex appeal.
"The music business doesn't give a s--t about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they' will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.

"None of the men oggling you give a s--t about you either, do not be fooled. Many's the woman mistook lust for love. If they want you sexually that doesn't mean they give a f--k about you. All the more true when you unwittingly give the impression you don't give much of a f--k about yourself. And when you employ people who give the impression they don't give much of a f--k about you either. No one who cares about you could support your being pimped.. and that includes you yourself."

Clearly, a number of expletives are necessary to get the point across. Moving on...
O'Connor continued to speak on the idea that Miley should not base her career on sexuality, telling her to "please in future say no when you are asked to prostitute yourself. Your body is for you and your boyfriend. It isn't for every...dirtbag on the net, or every greedy record company executive to buy his mistresses diamonds with."
And urged Cyrus, who is a role model to many young girls, to set a good example for them.

"The message you keep sending is that its somehow cool to be prostituted.. its so not cool Miley.. its dangerous. Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. we aren't merely objects of desire. I would be encouraging you to send healthier messages to your peers.. that they and you are worth more than what is currently going on in your career. Kindly fire any motherf---er who hasn't expressed alarm, because they don't care about you."

Andrew Goodwin's ideology on music videos (relations of visuals to song)

Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, this is the most common.

This similar to repeat-ability. Meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown through the video and drummed into our vision.

This is where the meaning of the song is completely ignored.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals; either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting.

This video is illustrative of the lyrics as the mise en scene of the video was parallel with lyrics. The song is about loosing some one you are in love with, which is quite sad ans distressing, the video is in black and white which conveys depression, there wasn't any major movement of the camera which showed how dull and lifeless her life has become and she is also wearing wearing black symbolises loss.

This is an example of a video that amplifies the meaning of the lyrics. The song is very positive, this is shown in the video by the use of bright colours and the props that were used.

This is an example of a video that the video contradicts the lyrics. This is purely because there is no correlation between the lyrics and the video.

Marketing an Image

Comparison of two artists.

                                         Adele/ Lady Gaga
                     

Adele has the brand of 'The girl next door' as she is portrayed to be an ordinary girl with a weight problem. This way most girls would be able to relate to her. Her target audience is mostly female as the majority of her songs are about break ups and heart breaks, this was proven in one of the concerts Adele performed i where she mentioned the name of her heart breaker. In response to this the audience got angry and started shouting hateful words towards the young man. This show that Adele's audience look
up to her as a sister.







Lady gaga on the other hand is conveyed to be a creative, unique, original and zany artist. She is portrayed to be an unusual creature not like any other. However, she does have the 'ideal' body of an artist; which is skinny, because of this she wears a lot of revealing outfits that creates the male gaze in her music to reach out to her male audience.

In this video Lady gaga makes a reference to the 'Bauhaus', which was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Lady gaga is associated with arty and creativeness, so this shows that she knows the history of art and fashion and almost will make the audience interested in how her house will be designed and her sense of style as we would assume it would be quite interesting and clever.

Lady gaga's marketing mirrors that of David Bowie's when he first exploded onto the music industry as 'Ziggy Stardust'.

He  was also perceived as being creative, unique and like a creature not from this earth. 

David Bowie appeared on a chat show in 1974 called 'The Dick Cavett show' and was described as a chameleon. Dick Cavett said " David Bowie is the only man i know that has appeared in the best dressed men list and the worst dressed women list. who is he? what is he? where did he come from? is he a creature of a foreign power, is he a creep? is he dangerous? is he smart, dumb, nice, is his appearance real or put on? is he crazy, sane, man, woman or a robot?" This shows perfectly how unique artist like David Bowie and Lady gaga want to be perceived. They want to be talked about frequently, they want to subvert normality. which is what their persona does.




David Bowie's ashes to ashes was went straight to No1 as it was revolutionary, it summed up David Bowie's carrier fro when he had the persona of Ziggy Stardust up to date. The video was promoted as being unique and and original.

However, David Bowie dissapeared from the music industry for ten years, then he came back at 60 years old and released a hit single 'Where are we now' which went straight to No 1 on pre-order.


Artist like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga Ziggy Stardust perform on shock factor.

As Miley's childhood persona 'Hannah Montanna' was a great model to young girls and most young girls looked up to her, Miley's drastic change in persona was shocking to everyone, thus making headline news around the world. She changed from the brand of 'The girl next door' to a very erotic and x rated persona. This shock factor boosted Miley's career and she is now one of the leading pop stars.

Channel 4's 100 best music videos

The Cardigans- My favorite game

This music video was directed by Jonas Akerlund. The song is about a love affair but the music video is just of a girl driving along.however they didn't want it to be typical and found a perfect way of showing the lyrics meant something. This was by using violence and showing her driving a car in a desert, being reckless with everything smashing around her. There was also humour involved, this was a great hit as it was a different approach.

                                                    Herbie Hancock- Rock it

Herbie Hancock was one of the first black men to appear in a music video.  As in 1983 racism occurred frequently, MTV didn't want to play songs by black artists so artist like Elvis Presley had covers of black artists in order for the songs to be played on television. Even in this video, Herbie Hancock was only showed a little. This video had a huge positive reaction because it was different, it worked perfectly and people felt it opened a gateway for mainstream hip hop.

                                            Elton John - i want love

Elton John hated being in music video, so he found a solution of putting actors in is music video and having the lip sync. At the time the music video was being filmed, Robert Downey Jr was in rehab for his drug use. His performance looked very sincere and therefore hard hitting.


                                          Bronki Beat - Small town boy

This music video tells a story about a young man coming to the city and he happens to be openly gay. When this music video was released in 1984, there was a lot of prejudice on homosexuality. As a result, this music video caused a lot of controversy. This was very brave of the band of the band as this was the first song they recorded as they got a lot of negative feedback. However, this music video helped people who are suffering from that problem gain courage.

                                   Talking heads - Once in a lifetime

This music video is known to be the birth of abstract art in music videos. This video made it acceptable for a music video to not have a story line, which subverts Andrew Goodwin's ideology.

                                      So Solid Crew - 21 Seconds

This music video shows each member of the So Solid crew showing their personalities as much as they could in 21 seconds to see who was better. It was a great way of creating individual profiles and showing the public the different members of the band. Even though the video and lyrics were actually supposed to be about escaping.
                                         
                                                New Order- Faith

This Video has an abstract theme, which conveys that a music video doesn't have to have a moral.The music video to truth faith was created by a man who had no idea how to make a music video, he was a ballet choreographer and was randomly chosen. The video has no resemblance to the song and therefore is so brilliant, mtv thought the song was so rubbish that they refused to play it unless it had the band featuring in it. They changed the video slightly and featured the band playing in it at glastonbury, it was a success because of how poor and different it was!

                                                  Godley and Creme - Cry

       Godly and Cremes video was a massive number one hit because it was one of the first videos which just had close up of random people’s faces and used a lot of video genetics to merge all of these different faces together, as all of the people look upset it try's to show a real sense of passion and being upset. This is specifically shown by the man crying at the end.





                           
                                                       Basement Jaxx - Where's your head at

This music video consists of a role play of random inventions.This video has a story behind it about evolution and men and women evolving from apes, one of the first videos to use animals as humans and put them together. The video was filmed in a crazy place, a mental institute and was just so unrealistic and crazy, about a man who thought he knew the way to show pop and sees a crazy scientist. Such a bizarre video and that’s why it was so successful!

                                               

Andrew Goodwin's Ideology on music videos

 purpose of a music video

The purpose of a the music video is to advertise the artist, to interpret the lyrics, to appeal to a certain audience and to experts an individual's emotions  in order to market an image. For example rapper often have the male gaze in their video where there are surrounded by plenty women and wealth, to give the impression of being rich, which is what often their lyrics are about.

Advertisement

Draws attention to the music/song

Illustrates the song

Appeals to a visual audience

Expresses an individual’s emotions

Tells a story

Markets an image