G324: Music Artist Poster

 

This is a music artists poster from a genre that our group are considering for our final music video, the genre of this specific music artist is dance/house, I like this music artist poster for the song "Around The World" because it fits in with the background of the music video for this song. All of the people on the bottom there are in the music video as well so in that respect they also relate to the genre/music video. In this sort of music genre you tend to see red/green/blue colours because they are associated with dance/house music. The image on the poster does fit in with the genre of the music artist, it shows what is going to be in the music video in a subtle way and the message it is trying to get across to the audience I think is "we're not conventional artists, we like to mix things up".

 

This music poster is a good poster but it doesn't really fit in with the typical conventions of music posters; the ways it doesn't are listed below:

• The artist isn't in there themselves, therefore the artist has gone with a cartoon poster to try and relate better to the song and perhaps the record label didn't want the artist on the poster, they wanted to do the poster in a unconventional way to most posters.

• With this poster because the artist isn't on there they don't look into the camera to grab the users attention, they try and do it in a different and kind of cool way by using cartoons and the same colour scheme to the background on the music poster.

A few problems with this poster are; that it doesn't say when the album/single is released, where it is available to buy and the record label isn't on there.

 

Typical Conventions of Music Posters:

• Typically the artist tries to promote themselves instead of the actual album or single.

• The artist normally looks into the camera to capture audiences attention.

• The image on the poster always represents the album/single itself, what the lyrics of the song mean and what the artist wishes to get across to the audience.

• The colour-scheme links in with the image as well as the album/single itself, in that one image it tells the audience what they are going to get from the album.

 

 

This is the music video for "Around The World", in the background you can see the same colour scheme board that is used on the music artists poster promoting this song, this is good because it follows the same theme as the video and is therefore easy to associate the music video to the music artists poster.

G324: Lip Syncing

Lip Syncing is the movement of lips to a pre recorded song to give the appearance that the person who is performing is the one who is singing.

The film track and music track are recorded separately during the creation of a music video, the artists usually lip-sync to their songs and often imitate playing musical instruments as well. Artists also sometimes move their lips at a faster speed from the track, to create videos with a slow-motion effect in the final clip. Some artists have also been known to lip-sync backwards for music videos such that, when reversed, the singer is seen to sing forwards while time appears to move backwards for his or her surroundings these make interesting music videos when watched.

Lip syncing is done quite often when the artist is performing at a live concert because they are auto tuned in the actual track and don't want to sound bad on stage. Lip syncing is improtant because the artist can't always sing to the song for the whole time they are performing on the stage, especially if they are dancing at the same time.



This person on YouTube has done a compilation of different songs and he has lip-synced to them, I thought this would be a good example of lip syncing when he clearly isn't actually singing every song.

G324: Independent Learning - Music Video Factsheet + Activities

Purpose of a music video -

- Sell products/ the song.
- Products can be marketed.
- Product desirable.

General Information off the Factsheet -

- Songs used to only available on TV music channels e.g. TOTP.
- Music + videos allowed in a variety of platforms now .
- Videos can be uploaded to sites such as YouTube.
- Viewed on devices such as mobile phones and iPods.
- The availability of this music on YouTube means that people were more inclined to watch the videos for free on YouTube other than paying for the music on iTunes.
- Laws put in place and record companies tried to sue anyone who uploaded a video from their record label.
- The record companies realise now that these sites are really time consuming to stop people uploading music like that.
- Most companies now allow their artists' music videos to be online but under controlled conditions
- Song BMG have a YouTube channel that hosts their artists' music videos from which there are links to iTunes to buy the songs.
- Television shows associated music such as X-Factor, upload performances from their show up to their YouTube channel so fans can view their contestants performances. They also have links so that fans can download the music off of iTunes.
- In America, 3 major record companies have combined to become VEVO. These are Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media (along with content licenced by EMI).
- MTV Networld and Warner Music Group have allowed American Internet Users to access music videos via their MTV site.

Conventions of Music Video:

- Movement is essential to music videos and usually compliments the rhythm of the song.
- Movement can be achieved by physically moving the camera, the people moving and dancing or through the speed of editing.

- Narrative - Most music videos have them. The storyline may relate to the song's lyrics and illustrate what is being said or be independent from the song and tell a different story.

- Intertextuality - Music video is such a well established genre that it is possible for producers to play with the conventions by making references to the genre in general and to other music videos.

- Band or Artist - Most music videos feature them altough some might go against this and they are also a product to be sold.

- Lip-syncing - The artist may be featured performing their music in the form of lip-syncing.

Activity 1: Analysis of favourite music video

This video by Naughty Boy called La La La is my favourite music video at the moment because it has a good catchy song, the music video is very well done and there is an imaginative narrative to it. The main narrative is trying to include The Wizard Of Oz, where the man with silver face paint on is meant to be the tinman, the dog is meant to be the lion, the person dressed up as a scarecrow is meant to be the scarecrow and i think this intertextual reference is very creative and pretty easy to actually get because most people have seen the film The Wizard Of Oz so it links in nicely. I think that the camera tracking the little boy is decent because it shows his journey and the clothing is especially creative because it is appropriate to the narrative and follows the same sort of style in The Wizard Of Oz.

In this video, Naughty Boy himself isn't in the video so I think it is narrative based and not performance based. He wants to get a certain message across and if he was in it, it wouldn't get the message across as easy as it does at the moment. At about 2:36 in the music video there is a tv on the screen, this is especially effective because it isn't easy to read but gets a message across and the message on the screen says "Hotel Cabana" which is Naughty Boy's new album so this is promoting their album without the audience realising really. I only realised it because I delved into this music video to see if there were any hidden messages. Overall this is my favourite music video at the moment, my opinion is bound to change sooner or later but this is my favourite at the moment just because of the good intertextual reference to The Wizard Of Oz and the catchy song.




Activity 2: Conventions found in music videos

Genre:                   Clothing:                  Behaviors:                       Video settings:

Hip-hop          Blinged up clothing    Fast cars/bling on them     Street

Metal/Rock    Dark/black clothes      Playing electric guitars      Live performance

Punk               Tight, black jeans       Skateboarding                    Skate park

G324: Other Students Music Videos

Music video 1:

This is a music video from a student from another school. This song is called The Ocean. I think this is quite a good music video for a media studies student. The only problem is that I don't think that the narrative is clear enough for the end user and the lyrics don't seem to match the video which isn't very common. The lip-syncing is slightly out as well which is easy to pick up on in a music video because you are constantly looking at their mouth movements therefore the mistakes are more obvious than in something like a movie. The camera shots are decent throughout with quite a lot of varied shots in it, there are quite a few fades throughout the video which gives it a good affect instead of just normal cuts throughout but personally I am not a fan of fades because they aren't common in music videos.

The person who features in this music video is wearing clothes that I would associate with a person who likes this genre of music so I think that they have done well in that respect. I think that the lighting was good throughout even though it was outside because sometimes you can get shots where the sun is in the frame and makes the camera go a bit weird. I think that the target audience for the video is both genders from ages 16-25. Also, I think that the video would be better if the setting was near the ocean/sea because then the setting would correspond to the song title. There aren't any titles in this song apart from the beginning bit saying the students names and candidate numbers.

 

G324: Magazine Advertisements

When artist releases a new album they use lots of different types of promotional material, they do this to make sure that the album that they release is well known and will be a success. For one of our ancillary tasks we have to produce a magazine advertisement/poster. I chose this magazine advertisement below because it is a magazine advertisement for a genre that we were considering to use for our final product.

This magazine advertisement is relevant because it is of a genre that we are considering for our music video. Chase and Status are British D'n'B artists who like to tour quite often hence me getting this magazine advertisement for one of their tours. As with typical drum and bass advertisements or album covers, this has the colour yellow in it and as well as this picture in the background standing out, this picture is also featured on their album cover so it shows that they are consistent with their designs. The layout of this magazine advertisement is decent because it has all of the relevant details in the right place, the title is in an eye catching position, the subtitle is nicely positioned in the middle of the advertisement and the tour information is situated at the bottom of the advertisement. This advertisement takes the same form as most advertisements in magazines but this one is good because it is pretty unique using a picture of a dog as the background.

From looking at this magazine advertisement, I think as a group we need to make sure that we make our ancillaries consistent with both the digipak and with the magazine advertisement. These are very important if we want to try and gain maximum marks in both the ancillary tasks.

G324: Initial Ideas on our Music Video

These are my initial ideas on a music video:

G324: Textual Analysis And Goodwin's Theory

Song chosen - Sway -  Still Speedin'



1. Music Videos demonstrate certain gene characteristics.

I think that this song has certain gene characteristics because it has a car in it (hence the name of the song “Still Speedin’”), there are close ups to show the characteristics of the hip hop artist, there are attractive women in the video, the artist is also involved in the music video as well and is the centre of attention. These conventions are typically shown in hip hop music videos.

2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals. Often illustrative but could amplify or contradict the lyrics.

There aren’t really many lyrics relating to the visuals but ones that I did pick up on were where Dynamo makes a cameo appearance when Sway says the lines “Time to blow like Dynamo, no more disappearing act”.  Another line is where “Seat belt” is said and it shows a seat belt but other than that there isn't anything else that I could pick out.

3. Relationship between lyrics and visuals. Often illustrative but could amplify or contradict the lyrics.

There isn’t any link between the music and the video really which is typical for a hip hop video.

4. The demands of the record label are that there are lots of close ups of the artist.

In this music video there are a lot of close ups of Sway, this is most likely because his record company has told him to be in a lot of the close up shots so you know that he is the artist doing the music video.

5. The artist might develop motifs or iconography that recur across their work. (A visual style).

Sway’s typical look in a music video is to wear glasses, I guess this is another way of showing off his style and you can recognise him easily if that is his particular style and in this music video he wears blacked out glasses.

6. There is frequent reference to the notion of "looking" such as the male gaze theory and voyeuristic looking at females.

I think that there are some voyeuristic bits in the music video nearer to the end where you see a woman undressing and this can also relate to the male gaze theory as she is shown in a way that is meant to interest men.

7. There are often intertextual references. Mostly to film, television and popular culture.

With this song I don't think there are any intertextual references. Although I did pick up on a few of the lyrics which were "Bobs your uncle, mines uncle Phil again" and I think thet line is perhaps related to Fresh Prince because Will Smiths dad is called Bob and Sway says he was raised by a dude as cool as him, as well as that, "Bobs your uncle" is a famous saying so that line might have a few different meanings.