(audience research) Focus Group

I have successfully recorded my focus group and there were 6 17 year olds involved. I asked questions that covered all areas around the concept of my music video idea. Their feedback was very interesting because they all had their own ideas about how i could improve my idea and make it better which is useful for me. My further step is to note down things they have said in the recording in response to my questions so that i have a document of helpful research.

(audience research) Close Ended Questionnaire

I have started my audience research and came up with 10 questions for a close ended questionnaire. I am planning to give them out to some 14 year olds because i think that is the minimum age of the songs target audience. I have tried to cover everything around the concepts of my music video so that their responses from each question are as helpful to me as possible. Some of the questions for example:
1. Do you enjoy slow music?
2.Do you prefer a female artist?
3.Which do you prefer, a group or solo artist?
4.Do you enjoy country music?
5.how many people is a suitable amount for a group of friends in a music video?
6.does watching a black and white music video appeal to you?
7.do you like dancing to be shown in music videos?
8.is 3 1/2 minutes too long for a music video?
9.Should the characters be dressed similarly in the music video?
10. Should the leader of the group (main character) be the villain?

(planning) Annotating the lyrics

After completing the shot list and getting it checked, i decided to print out the lyrics to the song i will use and use the shot list to help me annotate and analyse them. I have noted down the timings for each verse of the song and written what shot type will be used and i am also planning to print out another set of the same lyrics and look into what the message of the song might be about using my own interpretation. This isn't a vital piece of work that needs to be done but i feel that it would help me understand and maybe change some things about my music video to fit in with what the artist is trying to make a point about. The reason why i chose the idea of using teenage fiends is because from listening to the lyrics i feel that they are strong points that teenagers would make, for example, "I don't want to wait anymore I'm tired of looking for answers, take me some place where theres music and theres laughter"this for me highlights the way that teenagers always want to escape from dull reality like school and just party and have fun.

(planning) Music video shot list

I have drafted my very first shot list for my music video, the song i am using is First Aid Kit-My Silver Lining. The song is very chilled and slow but at the same time is has a beat that would be very interesting and easy to film a video to. Another reason why i would choose this song is because the lyrics are very broad in a sense that they could be interprited in different ways to the listener. This fact made me understand that it would be very easy to come up with the music video/narrative that i want to make to go with the music that display and express my own interpretation on the song when i listen to the music.
My idea for the video is about a group of teenage girls who are 'friends' but they are actually all miserable in each others company. This to me highlights the idea of status and populatiry that teens stereotypically desire. There will be 6 of them altogether and they will all have numbers drawn in their foreheads as an indication of their status and position in the hierarchy of the 'cool' group of friends. This is something interesting i wanted to add that is an obvious and visual thing for the audience to understand.  
From drafting the shot list i felt the need to cut down the song timing and i listened to the song and found a perfect time that would sound realistic to use a fade out for the sound. Looking back i think that ending the song at 3:04 is a perfect amount of time but it is possible it could change.

(research) Avicii-wake me up

The reason why I chose to analyse this music video is because there was a big stir in the media about whether the music video was negatively judgmental towards people of different classes and social orders.
 Critics have made points about how it follows the steps of stereotypical rich kids and it represents them as beautiful, young and happy people, whereas the poor civilians that stare at them are represented as miserable, depressed, tired and unattractive. So what message does this music video convey? That only the rich and beautiful have the right to party and live a happy life while the others are outcast and cannot feel joyful or satisfied? At around 3 minutes into the video she says "we are going somewhere we belong."
I researched the real representation of the video and what it is really trying to portray and it seemsthat the girls in the music video are wearing what we could call 'modern' clothing, and the people in the town wear clothing that would of been popular during the 1930's or so. This video is more to the point of people being stuck in the past and hating music that is now produced. Where she says 'somewhere we belong' is seems to mainly be talking about moving to a place where they can fit in with their likes and dislikes.

Similarly to Wilkinson, the previous producers I analysed, Avicii are also producers who don't sing. this means there is a very strong narrative within the music video. The repetitive chorus of the song fits in well along with the beats that are carried out throughout the track and creates a very effective contrast with what is going visually e.g. when the music repetitively blasts out in the middle of the song the main character of the narrative is on a horse galloping in a long shot looking almost determined to get somewhere and it shows that she ends up in a city that is a complete contrast to where they currently live in a small barn like building in the countryside.
The main characters are very young females who are sisters; they are actors who are also models (as researched). As they appear to be in an old style countryside setting everyone else wears dress and skirts making them very traditional and judgemental towards the girls, with the camera emphasizing their disappointed faces. The girls "marks" on their arm also tell the audience that they are living somewhere that they 'don't belong' and this is made obvious as soon as the girl sees other people from the same era as them who have the same distinctive mark as them.
Similarly again to Wilkinson, because they are just producer dj's meaning that their idea of 'star image' is almost seen as a mystery to the audience, the audience being teens aged the same age as Wilkinson's and also making them competitors within how successful their music sells to the listeners.
The lyrics also have a meaning that has clearly been thought through when producing the music video because 'wake me up when its all over, when I'm wiser and I'm older. All this time i was finding myself and i didn't know i was lost.' Making it clear that the message of the song and the music video is that everyone feels like they don't belong sometimes but there is always somewhere where you should be able to feel welcome and that no one is ever alone when feeling this way (the siblings in the video are feeling aloe together).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcrbM1l_BoI

(research) The history of music videos

The History of the music video

We may not notice this but the production methods of music videos has changed rapidly since 2000, the institutional values that we use and understand when analysing these forms of media show great differences compared to today’s modern music video. In the respect that this is understood, the values within an institution have a wide range of things that narrow down the way that the music videos have evolved over such a small amount of time. Aspects of the institutional values include for example, gender; do we still use women as nice things to look at? And if so, is this used more or less than 14 years ago? Do we do the same to men? These questions already open up a wide range of ideas about the unnoticeable but drastic change that has occurred over the past few years. I personally think that over the years, gender stereotypes have been calmed down but not completely stopped. We are more than ever more aware of the effects of using certain gender stereotypes and qualities in order to draw in more attention from a certain target audience who are known to like the video/genre of music.

One of the most well-known and influential music videos of 2000 could have been Britany Spears-Oops, I did it again. She was very iconic towards young girls specifically that loved her music and it is no wonder that stars today are always mimicking her style. The video is very ‘old school’ and uses editing techniques that would be considered as very simple in today’s technology, the media language is also very noticeably and visually different compared to today’s easily recognisable clear picture and sound. The fact that the visual imagery in this video is very out of date compared to modern music videos is because of how easily you can tell the difference between the editing of the sound and animation of the space codes on the screen compared with the filming of the performers. Comparing this to something modern day, we now use editing as another layer and is used in the same scene as actual filming whether as in this video they have to actually make a separate scene just for editing.

Another music video that has a very wide range of things to be analysed about the types of institutions would be Snoop Dogg -what’s my name (1993) because the gender representations in it are more noticeably clear than I had realised. The introductions shows him and his girlfriend at her house and they are sat on a bed, he says something about her not loving him which makes her seem to be dominated by him because he is literally telling her how she feels. He then has to sneak out and morphs into a dog, this is also a sign of how powerful he is as a male in the video because he has super powers. Other gender representations show him running like a pack of dogs with him in front of the group showing his leadership nature, which is a similar layout for how he is always rapping at the front so that the audience focus on his presents and his ‘gang’ stand behind him nodding along like they are agreeing and following his actions and commands. This representation is very much the same case as today’s gender representations in the way that it is a lot less obvious or clearly displayed, but women are still today very much controlled by men if they are in the same scene as them or if alone made to look good and very sexually objectified so that they appeal to the audience who are watching.    

(1994) Mariah Carey-Hero is a very different style of music video altogether because there was a time when they started making the videos less narrative based and more performance based but still just as edited as most still are. The point of making a performance based music video has proven to show that it is because it looks like and psychologically tells people watching that the performer has loads of fans and therefor more people listen to her because they are interested in why she has so many crowds of people cheering for her. Comparing this idea of audience importance with the 2000 hit song ‘Oops I did it again’ I think that more audiences knew about Britany because of the slow and gradual advancement of modern technology in 2000 compared to the complete lack of online communication in 1994.

Finally, representations within an institutional media type such as music videos, can be both completely noticeable and obvious but at the same time have very different interpretations to other people, making it more of a guessing game for the audience. Oasis-Champagne Supernova shows clear sings of stereotyped gender. I wouldn’t go as far as saying sexism but it defiantly has a hint of a sexual nature towards the women dancers. There are only women dancers and they wear hardly anything when they are shown while the band (all men) are dressed very casually but also very covered up and a slight vibe of dominance is shown because the female dancers are always dancing around them and looking like they are trying to impress them. I look at this in a way that the band see this is how they want to be viewed by their fans, people who need to be impressed and set off a cool and collected/careless attitude towards the female dancers.                                                                

(research) Archer analysis Jacob Banks-Worthy

Jacob Banks-Worthy

When I watch this video it seems very bold and brave to me, there isn’t actually any strong beats at the start of the video and his voice is more of the beat because it controls the song and it starts off with his echoes being the beat. I also noticed that there are very few instruments that are playing and it is very simply put together, maybe representing honesty and getting straight to the point about something important he has to say. Every 4 beats, the camera angle changes or it shows a different person who is involved in the music video. This is giving the audience their first impressions of the different and obvious roles in society that people have and what each of their problems are/how different they are to each other’s problems. The fact that he voice echoes also is visually expressed because there are fades (in and out) of different characters in the video that represent maybe how no one is getting their say and others dominate them often.

I find it interesting how you actually see the actors in the music video before we see the artist and I think it is because his echoes are telling us that he is the one not being heard by others and the fact that we can only see his silhouette until the chorus of the song shows his way of hiding and having his guard up. This is a very interesting way to create star image because it makes him seem very mysterious and deep, the black and white effect on the music video also adds to the serious topic of what he is singing about. He doesn’t come across as a fashion icon because you never get a glimpse of what he is wearing; he is either a black silhouette or a close up of his face while singing. I think that because there is no connection between him and the actors, he is almost singing on behalf of them because they cannot speak up themselves e.g the alcoholic being yelled at and the girl who is ill in hospital.  This concept makes his star image seem very real and, and as he is singing, worthy.

The deep message behind this video is that you have to quit anything in your life that is wrong because people that love you are always going to be there to help. I think that the pure honesty of everyday issues that are displayed show how he comes across as a dominant character, standing up for what he believes is right and wrong; I think this is what the black and white represents. His clothes are also black and white to show the blunt truth he wants to sing about. This star image in particular is obviously very staged because it is how they want the audience to see him as, while singing with a straight face also shows us that we cannot read his emotions meaning that he comes across as an intimidation person even though he is singing about important issues which is defiantly not the image he was aiming to achieve from the perspective of the audience.

The speed of the song makes me imagine seeing a narrative rather than a singer singing because of the effects used like the echoes, I think this would look unrealistic and less professional if the singer lip syncs the lyrics that are so edited it doesn’t seem right visualising the singer speaking the words. The amplification of this song is understandably strong, if we see the director as the artist it makes the whole video seem very creative and deep that is aesthetically appealing for the viewer to watch because the editing, cinematography, sound and mise-en-scene works well together and in time perfectly. I watched the video without the music and interestingly and similarly as I have said before, the disjuncture of the video makes me think that the director and artist are just telling the audience the beauty of what happens when you let go of bad memories or feelings that you might have and let people help you because of how far it can help you get.

The speed of the video is very dependent on the editing like most music videos, this is because it has to be in time with the beat otherwise it wouldn’t be aesthetically pleasing to watch for the viewer. This is often motivated by the acting, dancing and singing of the performers we see. The singers face is shown as a close up for some of the video because it shows how honest he wants to be and it creates a sense of a personal message being said to the viewer from the singer.

(research) Archer analysis Birdy-Wings

Birdy-Wings

The thought beats to this song go very well with the video, the powerful instrumental that starts off the song dominates the song the whole way through and the artist, Birdy, sings in time to the beat and the music video is also edited around the strong beat. I also noticed that whenever the singer starts singing the small verses the dominating beat/instrumental stops so that you can hear her voice and make it sound amazingly in sync with everything you hear. As the beat changes, each time, you see different person/scene/camera angle of her.

Her image in the video is very important, she looks very upper-class and posh but also very sad as she never smiles. She wears hardly any makeup and has her hair down with a ripped red dress as she lies on a sofa, making her image in the video seem like she is innocent, vulnerable but also fun loving. There are also other people in the room asleep dressed like her and as she has flashbacks and memories it tells he audience that she has just had a party and it is over now. Some of the people from her flashback are also dressed as woodland creatures and are on horses next to campfires and his creates a lexical field of the theme of this music video. The fact that they are dressed like this shows that they are like children because it is the kind of things children do, play in woods, dress up as mythical creatures, have campfires etc. The morning after in the dark house, where they are all asleep and looking sad, shows that she is sad that all of the fun is over and they now have to continue being adults in reality again.

The lyrics also help us understand the meaning of what she is singing about, the chorus says ‘lights go down, in the moment we’re lost and found. I just want to be by your side, if these wings could fly. Damn these walls, in the moment we’re 10 feet tall and how you told me after it all, we remember tonight for the rest of our lives.’ This gives a powerful message across about how the singer feels. There are variations of what message you can take from this but for me it is like she is singing about how she wants to stay a kid because everything is so much easier and trusting. ‘damn these walls’ initiates her being trapped as an adult, ‘in the moment we’re 10 feet tall’ talks about how at the party they all feel like kids again and they don’t want to go back to reality. ‘you told me after it all that we would remember tonight for the rest of our lives’ makes us realise that being a kid again meant so much to them that they want to remember one night forever.

(research) Archer analysis Paolo Nutini-Let Me Down Easy

Archer analysis-music videos

Paolo Nutini - Let Me Down Easy

I love this music video because it is so simple, it starts with a close up of a drink that he drinks and it is in a studio with his band, the fact that the video is just an edited performance by the artist himself and his band makes me think of old style music videos. They also look like they are doing it for fun as they are smiling and laughing which makes the whole video an easy watch for the audience.

The clothes he wears are very casual and plain which makes his star image seem very cool and like he doesn’t care about his appearance like other singers do, also making him even more likable because it highlights that he might not be as self-obsessed and actually passionate about the music he makes.

There are lots of shot reverse shots between him and the backup female singers because they have a big part in the song and it creates the effect of them singing together or to each other.

The simplicity of the setup also makes the meaning of the lyrics more noticeable for listeners. ‘Let me down easy, boy I know your love for me has gone.’ This shows exactly what the song is about and the difference in what the female singers are singing and what Paolo is singing. They are singing about telling him to let them down easy and he is singing about being sorry. In depth this could represent that he (the male) has dominance over the women and being in control of the relationship. This could be seen as a bit sexist because the male is in control and the women are singing about begging him to be nice to them.

(research) Archer analysis Wilkinson-Too Close

Archer’s theory of framework analysis-what makes a successful music video?

Wilkinson-Too Close ft. Detour City

The first thing I noticed when viewing this video is that the video very much fits in well with the loud and obvious beats, it has a great contrast with the way that a song with a fast beat yet a slow video works well. The synaesthesia used makes the audience understand the psychological impact that the main character in the narrative of the video feels. The main character never smiles and remains showing a poker face all throughout the video, creating the understanding that the song is almost made for him, expressing the worthless and numb feeling he shows. I think he also is based as a stereotypical character in the way his costume is constructed, hood up, worn out shoes and baggy jeans or tracksuits, also implying that his personality is stereotypical too and represents the careless attitude of teens and less fortunate young adults on the street.

The way that the camera always shows the importance of him by using a tracking method at the beginning of the video that follows him through all the stereotypical places someone like him would go (vandalised and dirty places in a city) this also catches the attention of the viewer because Wilkinson have an average age of listeners being 15-20 meaning that they are at the age of actually relating to his character and being drawn in to what the narrative is about. Also relating to the first of Archers theory of ‘5 aspects of a quality music video’, the success of ‘thought beats’ or seeing sounds in your head meaning that the lyrics or the beat is almost just as powerful as when you read a descriptive book and you can clearly and easily imagine the scene, the repetitive chorus that is beneficially easy to learn is short and catchy, and has very deep meanings that you could imagine represent exactly what the main character is thinking. “Don’t come too close, I won’t give away my heart.” Showing clearly that the main character is troubled and stubborn about love/convinced he doesn’t need it and pushes it away like most people like him do. Also representing that he is defensive over feelings and love because of the way he pulls out a loaded gun at couples he sees in the street with the intention of hurting them and making the audience think he is the villain when in actual fact he is providing whoever he shoots with a golden glow that helps them fall in love.

Wilkinson have done what a lot of producers do when making their music videos, because they do not sing, just DJ they are not well known for their personal appearance and image. Also, very often they collaborate with singers who agree to feature in the track (as what has been done with Too Close) it is very common to have actors and a narrative in a music video rather than show the people who have produced but not sang the track.

I also love the way that the other main character, the woman he falls in love with, isn’t objectified in the video, she wears a baggy t-shirt and hardly any makeup. She is portrayed as completely the opposite of what women are displayed like in today’s media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWdYThgjDmU