Welcome to my A2 media coursework blog, my name is Alice Cahill (0130)
I'm working in A2 Production Group 1 with Gavin Fraser (0245), Mahalia John (0345) and Kayvon Nabijou (0610)
Within the sidebar of my blog you can access a live link to The Latymer Media Music Video Blog, the archive to all of my posts and the labels to the A2 Preliminary Task, A2 Research & Planning, A2 Construction and A2 Evaluation
Thank you for taking your time to look at my blog.
MUSIC VIDEO
^Our Music Video
^Our Digipack Album Cover (Top to bottom, left to right: inside back, inside front, back cover, front cover)
This week we created an agenda to ensure we got as much as we could done. In the first group meeting on tuesday, we took a group photo, uploaded our steal-o-matic to Youtube and checked our chosen track for copyright. In our second, longer production meeting on Thursday we started deciding on the structure of the video, the costumes, setups, and image of the band.
Notes on the visual progression of the video
As we didn't want our video to have a proper narrative, we thought we should make a list of the ways that our video would progress over the course of the track. We came up with changes in costume (at least 3 or 4), faster paced editing towards the end, different setups, and the number/scale of props increasing (we would have bigger/more props towards the end).
Notes on different setups
We came up with 2 main setups (plus miscellaneous ones, which are to be decided), one being the performance setup with all the amps and instruments, the other being an empty set where the band will interact with various props.
Notes on the band's image
We created the personalities of the band members and the band as a whole. Our band is playful, fun, young, happy, laid-back, vintage and all friends with each other. Kayvon's character is the leader of the band, he's stylish, confident, cool and modest. Gavin's character is funny, relaxed and happy and my character is a tomboy, who is relaxed, aspirational and quirky.
By working out the band's identities, we could more easily create their costumes for the different setups.
Notes on costume
We made a rough list on costume options for each of the characters for the different setups. We had to take into account that all the band members had to have an individual style, especially the two boys. We also looked into some fun costumes, which we could use to help with the visual progression of the video.
Notes on the meaning of the lyrics
We also looked at the song's lyrics and analysed them, looking at key themes for the song. We thought we could use these themes of nostalgia, coming-of-age and youth as the core meaning of many of our creative decisions in the style of the music video, album cover and website.
A steal-o-matic is a visual and moving representation of a mood board for our music video idea. We did this to illustrate to others outside the group roughly what our music video will look like. It is also for each other within the group to make sure we all have the same ideas.
In our steal-o-matic we used captions to portray to the viewer exactly what we want from this clip for example in the George Ezra clip at 0:12, we stated that we only wanted the overlayed text. For some clips we didn't put any captions because we thought that they were so visually similar, to what we had in mind, that it was quite self-explanatory. For the majority of the clips we liked the playfulness of the band, the artist's image, the studio setting and the use of props.
To make it we made a playlist of all the reference videos we all thought were relevant:
Then we used a website to download all of the videos and developed a time-line for it on Adobe Premier Pro.
Overall, our steal-o-matic doesn't look exactly as we are going to have it, but it conveys a very similar playful and upbeat mood to how we imagine it.
So far we have only decided on a few key characteristics of our band.
We are firmly decided on a 3-piece band. However, at first we wanted the 3 band members to be male: Gavin on drums, Kayvon singing and playing guitar and Josh playing bass (a friend from outside our group) and we would have a boy band, but we then realised the band would look too generic and conventional, with three white males.
From this, we changed our minds and wanted to have a female member. Our band now consists of Gavin on drums, Kayvon on guitar and singing vocals and me playing bass. We felt that a female bassist will give our band an edge and make us different, also with the band being all within our group, we can rely on each other to turn up to rehearsals and shoots.
Our band will be called Pilgrim, which is reference to the Scott Pilgrim franchise, which is targeted at indie fans, so we hope the name will appeal to them.
The personality of our band is funny, playful, laid-back and generally happy. Our music is feel-good, especially our debut single 'Talk Through The Night' which is nostalgic and is based around the theme of friendship.
Here are some of the artists we took influence from:
'Talk Through The Night' is an upbeat and playful song from the indie-pop genre, released in 2012 by Dog Is Dead. The song conveys feelings of friendship and reminiscence towards youth. You can hear this through the lyrics and use of light and upbeat instruments used, such as vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar and a drum kit.
Dog Is Dead
The Band
The indie-pop band formed in 2008 and are from Nottingham. They consist of five male band members aged 20-30 and are signed with Atlantic Records. They have performed at many large UK festivals, like Bestival, Reading Festival, Leeds Festival, Latitude Festival and Isle of White Festival. The band members are known for their humour and playful personalities, which I think is reflected in their music.
The Song Shortlist
Before we decided on this track, we looked through all of our separate blog posts for 'suitable tracks for the single'. We agreed on four that we all liked (including the Dog Is Dead song), which are shown below:
'Always Like This' by Dan Croll
'Always Like This' by Bombay Bicycle Club
'Take It As It Comes' by J. Roddy Walston & The Business
These songs are all of the same genre and all sound fairly similar, which made it harder for us to choose. However, some of the songs such as the Dan Croll and Bombay Bicycle Club's songs conveyed a slightly different mood to what we wanted, as those songs were too calm and were not upbeat enough for ideas we had for the video.
We also had to take lyrics into account, so we looked at all of the lyrics and found that the J. Roddy Walston & The Business song didn't suit the mood we wanted well enough.
Permission and Copyright
We looked at the Soundcloud page for the band and the song and found that the song has a Creative Commons licence, which means that we can use their song for the purpose of our music video, as long as we give credit to the band.
We have created our own independent record label company called 'Alma Gavon Records', which is part of Beggars Group.
Beggars group are one of the largest groups of independent record labels in the world, containing labels like 4AD, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Matador. Beggars Group support record labels mainly of the indie genre which is reflective of our band and record label.
Our notes on record label
Alma Gavon Records specialise in indie and alternative music from young, fresh and upcoming artists. Our record label believes in giving new bands a chance to create a fan base and establish their brand and music in the industry. Our company would support bands like Foals, Daughter and Alt-J.
Alma Gavon Records was inspired from when we created an independent film production company for our film opening project at AS, last year.
We chose a primary audience of indie fans. We chose such a wide range of people, non-specific to gender, race or age, so that we could appeal to a larger number of indie fans. Also as the indie audience is generally quite a niche audience anyway, we thought the best idea would be to extend it as much as we could.
Visual representation of indie fans
Our secondary audience is more specific, of 16-24 year-old males and females who live in the UK. We did not make it gender specific but we made it age specific to 16-24 year-olds because indie music is most popular for that age range. We chose for it to appeal to a British audience because the band is based in the UK and it would mean we can make it more relatable to them.
Visual representation of 16-24 year-old, UK indie fans
This week we had a few production meetings, one on Tuesday lunch time and after school along with Thursday lunch time. We used these meetings to establish our ideas and make key decisions to move the project forward, such as choosing our audience, record label, track and band.
We decided on our audience
We looked at some of the different genres and audiences within the music industry and thought about which would suit our group best and where there is a gap in the market.
We decided on a record label
Before deciding on a record label, we researched a few different independent labels who promoted new, upcoming artists. Together we created a record label and chose a parent company that reflected our band and music. We decided on a track
We looked through all of our separate blog posts for 'suitable tracks for the single' and made a short list of for songs that we all agreed on.
However we liked all of the songs because they all conveyed the mood and style we wanted, so it took us a while to decide on this.
We decided on the members of our band
We tried to decide on some of the basic features of our band, taking into account that it must be different and have a USP, while following conventions. We decided on who the members of the band would be and a rough idea of the brand. We haven't decided fully on details such as costume design or the name.
I like this song because it is catchy and light-hearted and I think it would suit a conceptual video. However it is quite a long song, so it may be too long to cut down to three minutes.
'Norgaard' by The Vaccines
I like this song because it is catchy and light-hearted like the other one but this one is more upbeat. Secondly, this song is very short which may make the video easier to shoot, but it may be too short to introduce a proper narrative.
'Don't Look Back Into The Sun' by The Libertines
I enjoy this song for the same reason as the song by The Vaccines: it's catchy and upbeat. However this song is quite long and well-known.
'Inhaler' by Miles Kane
I think that this song would be best suited for our project because it is short enough to display a narrative but not too short. I like the track because it's got a memorable guitar riff.
'Best Of You' by Foo Fighters
This song is slightly different to the rest because it is heavier and it would give the music video a grungier feel. The song is still really fast-paced and catchy, which would make the video more exciting.
Screenshot taken from the 1975 music video 'Girls'
I like this video mainly for the camerawork. When the band is being filmed playing the song, it isn't taken as a standard wide shot from showing the whole area, such as in the video 'Girls' by The 1975. The Wombats are filmed from a high angle shot, low angle shot, profile, long shot, mid shot, close up and extreme close up, most of it being hand-held.
'Still' by Daughter
I like the use of mise-en-scene, camerawork and editing to form a narrative. I would want to include a narrative in my video maybe similar to this. Even though the band is playing their song on the TV in the shot, I would prefer it to cutaway to a full shot of the band playing because I don't really want to make an entirely conceptual video.
'By The Way' by Red Hot Chili Peppers
I like the fast paced editing and shaky, handheld camera filming of this video to match the song. If I do a fast paced song, I would take influence from the editing and style this video. I also like the lighting set up they used for the live performance scenes. The narrative they have is comical and matches the band's personality, which I thought was quite inspiring.
'Afterglow' by Wilkinson
Wilkinson's music video inspired me because it is so different from other conventional music videos, so it intrigued me to watch the whole thing.
'Dani California' by Red Hot Chili Peppers
I like the use of postmodern and inter-textual references throughout the video to portray the different eras of music throughout the years. I would like to include postmodern and inter-textual references in my music video because it makes the video more engaging because the viewer may look out specifically for references when they're watching it.
Album Covers
Personally, I like when an album cover subtly illustrates the genre, whilst looking appealing but striking, for example the Paramore album cover subtly portrays the punk-rock/pop-punk genre with the loud orange and blue colours and messy font along with the white and black scribbles and spray paint, which shows off the chaos and excitement of the genre.
I think a good album cover should also have an eye-catching colour scheme and a front cover which I would want to put up on my bedroom wall, whilst being simple and not too cluttered. An example I like is The Vaccines' album, which has a simple image in the centre and the band name in bold letters above it. The colour scheme is black, white, red and pink which is simple but also striking.
What Did You Expect from The Vaccines
Lost Reworks from Trentemøller
Banks from Goddess
The 1975 from The 1975
Still Into You (Single) from Paramore
Lastly I think that the artist's name should be advertised clearly in bold, especially if they are a new, upcoming artist who no one have heard about, so that audiences know who they are if they ever see their album cover. The font on Goddess' album Banks is in a very large, quirky font, which is her distinct logo as we can see from the front of each of her albums.
Websites
Two Door Cinema Club Website
I like the website for Two Door Cinema Club because it is easy to navigate with the toolbar at the top, it has a calm, pastel colour scheme and uses only two fonts (not including their logo) on the whole website, which makes it stylish and easy to read.
Biffy Clyro Website
I like the Biffy Clyro website because it was minimalist and also kept a clear colour scheme and font style. I also liked it because of the non-linear organisation of the posts on the 'Fan Feed' and 'Music' page, which makes browsing easier.
Both websites contained clear links to news, upcoming gigs, their videos, their music, merchandise and social media sites, which is necessary for a fully functioning and conventional artist website.
Pop music videos typically have large budgets due to their large audiences, universal themes and well-known artists. They are also more performance-based and have brighter and more obvious narratives (if they have any).
'Raise Your Glass' by P!nk
This video obviously has a large budget due to the saturation of high quality costumes, sets and extras. The video was also shot entirely in a studio, mainly because they could afford it, but this also means that they can shoot at any time of the day regardless of weather or availability of natural light. We have a studio space available for our music video shoots which would be ideal for a pop video.
'She Looks So Perfect' by 5 Seconds Of Summer
Again, this music video by a pop boy band, has a loose narrative and easy-to-understand themes of self-acceptance. However this video is more simply constructed than the P!nk video because it cuts to the same set of the band playing lip-syncing, which is what I would incorporate if I were to make a pop video.
Indie
Indie music videos tend to be quirky and different, or have a (complex) narrative. They are not performance based, as opposed to pop music videos, which may make it easier to produce because the actors in our videos will not be as experienced at dancing and performing as professionals would be, which may make our video look unprofessional.
'Undercover Martyn' by Two Door Cinema Club
The band's video is filmed entirely in a studio but only contains one set and very few props and costumes, illustrating the low budget of the band. Our music video will have a very low budget, so we could make a professional-looking indie music video like this with our minimal budget.
This indie video doesn't have a narrative but it is quirky and different to videos of other genres which classes it as indie. It's quirky because it plays with the perception of the viewer through the camerawork. I think if we can think of and achieve an original way of doing this, we could produce a good indie music video.
'Oxford Comma' by Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend's video is, like Two Door Cinema Club, low-budget and contains little performance other than lip-syncing. The video is conceptual but is also open to different interpretations because of the vagueness of the lyrics and meanings of the video, which is typical for the band but also for the indie genre. Also like the other, this video has a quirky trait as it is filmed all in one take and is set in the 1970s.
The music video from Vampire Weekend for the single 'Oxford Comma', directed by Richard Ayoade
This video points fairly clearly towards the indie genre. The fact that it is mostly natural lighting, contains few visual effects and is shot on location is typical of indie music videos due to their low budget. Also this video is not performance based and contains very little complex choreography as opposed to pop videos. They also show the conventional and iconographic instruments for indie bands, like the drums, guitar, keyboard and bass.
Oxford Comma: a comma used after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before ‘and’ or ‘or’ (e.g. an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect).
Ezra Koenig(the lead singer) discussed in an interview that the song "is more about not giving a fuck than about Oxford commas", which I think is also made obvious in the first line 'Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma'. The video also seems to be shot in one take and always as a long shot, and I think this may link to that theme as the uncut shot represents the lack of, and unimportance, of grammar. To me, the simple and clear structure for the video, which is put into chapters, represents how he thinks that everything should be as simple and easy as this.
There are many postmodern culture references in this video, the main one being style references to the American filmmaker Wes Anderson. They copy stylistic techniques such as tracking shots, slow motion running, extras in silly costumes, on-screen text in Futura font and picturesque freeze frames.
At 1:01 a woman dressed in green with a bullet belt satirically pretends to shoot one of the extras, introducing an old western theme to the video.
The costume of the band is stylised to the 1970s theme of the video. They all conform to a colour scheme of black, white and blue, wearing either a suit or a pullover jumper over a shirt. They are dressed this way to promote the eccentric and vintage style the band have. The mise-en-scene illustrate the 1970s theme further, for example the pieces of technology the cameraman and reporters use at 0:45 are classic and dated movie apparatus.
Another meaning I interpreted from this video was that he thinks that everyone should stop trying to be the same and perfect all the time because everyone is different. I think this is portrayed through the lyrics 'I met the highest lama, his accent sounded fine to me' and 'check your handbook, it's no trick, take the chapstick, put it on your lips', which has a visual representation of different people sat around the lead singer wearing different clothes to him and they are all comfortable with what they're doing. Lastly, at 2:07, Koenig walks past four other extras who are wearing the same clothes as him, have the same guitar and are copying his actions, adding to this theme of everyone wanting to be the same.
I created my own questions and interviewed four different people of different age groups and genders to learn more about different kinds of audiences in the music industry, and how they consume their music.
From this sample of information that I gathered, I can conclude that:
Younger age groups tend to value their music less and download it illegally
However, younger age groups listen to and consume music more than older age groups
Younger age groups listen more to genres like pop, rock and indie
Older age groups listen less to new music and more to older artists like Pink Floyd
All age groups consume music through similar mediums, for example through the iPod, radio or online
Whilst keeping the brief in mind, I did some research into UK, independent recording labels who are responsible for representing, funding and promoting new bands and artists.
XL Recordings
XL Recordings is a British independent record label, established in 1989. They support a variety of genres from alternative, like Radiohead, to Rap, like Dizzee Rascal. Other current artists I recognised from their list of artists were Adele (pop), Vampire Weekend (alternative) and The xx (alternative).
XL Website
Domino
Domino Recording Company (founded 1993), is an independent record label based in London. Domino generally releases artists of the indie-pop and indie-rock genre. Some well known artists they support are Alex Turner, Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand.
Domino Website
Hyperdub
Hyperdub is a London based record label and former webzine. The label was created in 2004. This company employs dubstep, electronic and grime artists.
Hyperdub Website
Rough Trade Records
Rough Trade is an independent record company based in London, formed in 1978. This record company release a variety music of different genres but focus mainly on indie rock, indie pop and post punk. Some current artists I recognised from their lists were Arcade Fire, Belle and Sebastian, The Libertines, Mystery Jets, Palma Violets and The Strokes.
To find out more about the UK's music consumption, I looked over a quantitative report about
the music consumption patterns of UK households, written by the BPI in November 2011, which used a sample of 1000 UK music consumers of different ages, gender and household composition.
Figure 1
From figure 1 I could see that consumption of physical CDs and free copies of music is slowly suffering, in addition to this the more increasingly popular approaches to consuming music are all free: free downloads, listening to the radio, free illegal streaming, internet radio and watching music videos on YouTube. However, legal and paid downloading and streaming of digital music has escalated due to the music industry's publicising of now well-known music stores and streamers like Deezer, Spotify, Shazam, Napster, eMusic, Lastfm, Soundcloud and BBC iPlayer Radio.
Yet looking below at the percentages in figure 1, I notice that the percentage of people who consume music through CDs is at 86%, which is the highest figure there.
Figure 2
Figure 2 demonstrates that younger age groups tend value music less, paying for an average of 38% of their music. Conversely, the older age groups prefer to pay for their music and own an average of 58% of their music share.
Figure 3 (Music Consumption by Age Group)
Figure 3 is taken from BPI's 2013 statistics. It shows that the music industry's main customer, who spend the most of their money on music than any other age group, are 13-24 year-olds.
Overall, from this information I've discovered that:
Even though CDs dominate music consumption in the UK, it is declining
Music is increasingly being downloaded illegally and also listened to for free on legal music streaming sites such as Youtube and internet radio stations, especially by younger age groups of people
Paid music streaming sites are becoming more popular among the UK consumers
