Actor research

For my music video, my actors will have to be in the conventions of the genre. Most bands/artists in the indie-pop genre tend to be male more than female so I will have male actors in my video!

After considering a limited options I have chosen to use an actor in my video. My first choice will be Ellis.

He is a good choice because he dresses like the genre and this will make the costume choices a lot easier. Also he has a lot of free time so therefore it would make sense as we can film a lot whenever possible. My second choice or another actor to use in the video would be Stefan. He also dresses like the genre and will make good indie-pop artists.

Audience Response

I have spoken to many different types of music fans to complete a broad and wide audience response by using a questionairre and Yahoo answers. The questionairre is more for the name of the brand whereas Yahoo answers is for the video it self.

 

I also played my track out during class and asked my class mates for their opinions of a narrartive for it.:

• A boy and a girl walking through a field at dawn with the sunrise and holding hands towards the end
• A concept video which is totally unrelated to the lyrics, at a derelict factory maybe or a dirty old room with cobwebs and dust.

 By using this feedback from many different music fans I think I will be able to attract the right audience to enable my music video to be a success. I will have to make sure I stick to the conventions of my genre.

Digipak research

A digipak is what makes a CD, it has the tradional single cover and track list on the back. Recently digipaks have been having various other things in them such as posters, signed pictures and little biographys. As well as a music video for a track we have to create an artist including the auxilerry tasks. I have chosen a digipak and a magazine advert.  I will have four squares in mine, like above. Number 1 will be the album cover, number 2 on the backside of 1 would be a little bio of my artist. Number 3 would be four small images from a photo shoot which is behind the CD and the final number 4 would be the track list. I will also try to include an A4 size poster.

Initial Ideas

At first I struggled to think of ideas for the actual video but once I started to get audience feedback and various other feedback on my lyrics I started to think of a couple of ideas. Firstly what type of video would it be? It could have been either really linked to the lyrics or totally random. For a visual-lyrical link video I had the idea of a romance between a boy and a girl. Whereas for the other video I thought of something similar to this video.

Equipment and technology that will be used.

For the creatation of my video, magazine article and digipak I will have to use various equipment and technology, firstly when creating the magazine article I will have to take photographs of the artist.The cameras I will be using will be a DSLR, digital single lens reflex and will take profesional photographs. I will also use this for creating the digpak aswell. When it comes to the video it self I will be using a Sony Carl Zeiss vario-tessar handycam.
I will also be using various editing software to create my video.

Magazine advert research

When I researched into magazine adverts I noticed that artist will follow a similar design or infact exactly the same when it come to the album cover. An example would be Muse's album the 2nd Law.
The image in the background is almost exactly the same as the acutal album cover. I can use this as an inspiration for my own album cover and magazine advert.

By following these conventions I have thought through some ideas in which to create a profesional magazine advert which will suit my genre and track very well.

Lighting conventions

For my music video lighting will be very important as it can set the mood of a song, as my song romance song high and low key lighting can be used in both but it will depend on the colour usage. Here is an example of low key lighting.

 I will also need to use the colour red effectively as red connotes love, passion and lust. Here is an example of high key lighting.

 

Because everything is all yellow and green, it connotes peace and tranquillity. Taking these effects into mind I will need to decide what type of mood I want for my video will depend on what type of lighting I will use. 

Costume moodboard

When deciding on a costume for my actors I knew i would need to purchase the clothing. I have used many bands/artist from the genre of my track to find a suitable costume. I have used photos from shoots of the artists for my research.

A list of possibilities:

• Blazer, shirt and tie
• Blazer and tee
• Shirts and jacket
• Tee
• Full suit.

These seem to be the most common for the genre of my track and looking at the photos a mix of the above would be suitable for the video.

Research into album covers.

I have been looking into different album cover within the genre of my chosen track using artists such as Death cab for cutie, the Shins and Muse. 

These are all album covers from the bands first albums the first two are very simplistic and have the same colour scheme of blue and white, whereas the other is slightly more complicated with an image and background.

These are the album covers of the bands most recent albums(2012) the first two have changed colour schemes but one is still simplistic but the other is more of an image and a background. The 3rd cover is similar to its first cover still with a background and an image. I think for my album cover it will be a mix of both simple and images with background and relate to the name of the album or band name.

Research into similar bands/artists logos

To create a successful brand for my chosen track, I will have to research into similar bands and artists logos to create a appropraite one of my own.

 

These logos have many similarities, one of which is that the name of the band/ artist seems the be the main feature. I will try and use these as an influnce when creating mine. Another similarity is that the name is in bold and capital letters, trying to make sure that it is remembered. I think if an image will work well along with the name of my artist.

Lyrics from my chosen track.

I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles
In our eyes are mirror images and when
We kiss they're perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate that God himself
Did make us into corresponding shapes like
Puzzle pieces from the clay
True, it may seem like a stretch, but
Its thoughts like this that catch my troubled
Head when you're away when I am missing you to death
When you are out there on the road for
Several weeks of shows and when you scan
The radio, I hope this song will guide you home

They won't see us waving from such great
Heights, 'come down now,' they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
'come down now,' but we'll stay...

I tried my best to leave this all on your
Machine but the persistent beat it sounded
Thin upon listening
That frankly will not fly. you will hear
The shrillest highs and lowest lows with
The windows down when this is guiding you home

They won't see us waving from such great
Heights, 'come down now,' they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
'come down now,' but we'll stay...

Instrumental

They won't see us waving from such great
Heights, 'come down now,' they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
'come down now,' but we'll stay...

They won't see us waving from such great
Heights, 'come down now,' they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
'come down now,' but we'll stay...

Research into record labels associated with genre.

In the music industry every artist will be signed to a record label, whom will create an image and deal with all the marketing and promotions for the artist. The genre of my track is considered indiepop and because of this I think that the type of recording label would be a small with a few similar artists. Indiepop orientates from the UK in the mid 1980's and has been ever growing since. An artist can be signed to more than one record label at once.

listen to ‘for liam’ on Audioboo

 

 

 

 One of the record labels I have come across is the German label called Firestation Records

They claim to be the number 1 indiepop label in Germany and have released 80 records in the last 13 years with artists such as Mighty mighty and Skint & Demoralised. I listened to the song 'Red Lipstick' by Skint & Demoralised and it does fit into the category of indiepop.

Another record label I have come across as being indiepop would be 'Sub Pop Records'

They have artists such as Beach House and The Shins. I listened to the song 'Zebra' by Beach House and it fits into the category of indiepop.

 

• Death Cab for Cutie - Sub Pop, Warner Music Group, Barsuk Records, Fierce Panda Records, Atlantic Records
• The Dandy Warhols - Capitol Records.
• The Shins - Sub Pop ,Aural Apothecary, Cargo Industries, Transgressive Records
• RadioHead - Parlophone, Capitol Records, TBD Records, XL Recordings
• The Whitest Boy Alive - Service
• Bat For Lashes - Astralwerks, Manimal Vinyl, Echo Records, Caroline Records, Parlophone
• Broadcast - Warp Records, Tommy Boy Records, Duophonic Records
• Magnetic Fields - Merge Records, Harriet Records, PoPuP, Nonesuch Records.

The above list of similar artists to mine of the my chosen track, shows the kinds of record labels associated with the genre of music. The three most popular seemed to be, Capitol Records, Parlophone and Sub pop.

 
 

Analysis of a music video using Goodwin's theory

Goodwin's theory - 30H!3 from Liam_Aspo

Our preliminary task

I was given the task of analysing a music video from the 1970s and the 1980s. The video I had chosen was for the 1970s was that by The Beatles, 'Let it be', released in 1970. It is a little narrative but it is mainly band footage. There is some still images of the band and album covers but it is mainly made up of the band in the studio performing the song. I feel the music and lyrics have no connection to the video, although it could be connoted that 'Let it be' could be referencing to living life to the full and there are a few still images of the band together having fun. Also the beats and shots have no joint significance. There is no real stereotyping in this video.

The video I had chosen for the 1980s was 'Gold' by Spandeu Ballet, released in 1983.

The video narrative and has band footage towards the end. There is a link between the lyrics and the video because the song is called gold and the lead singer is collecting gold in the narrative part of the video. In addition the shot changes match the beat effectively throughout the video consistantly. There is some small stereotypes in the video as it is set in a hot counrty with a desert, there is old men sitting around playing dominoes and drinking what looks like tequila.

Start of A2

My name's Liam, I'm studying the Media Studies A level in one year! The brief we've been given is to create our own music video to a song we will be given. I like a lot of different types of music, my spotify playlist will go from Maroon5 to Katy Perry to Hollywood Undead to Muse, so yeah all kinds of different types! I'm looking forward to seeing how the music video will come out!