Location scouting

On Monday 11th December, myself, Jack and Kallum travelled to one of the locations we intend to use in our music video for DAZE. This type of location is conventional for our filming project and we believe as a group that this was the most appropriate as it is close as location and therefore easy to get to.

   

Lyric Annotations

Location ideas

Location Ideas

Myself, Jack and Kallum were talking about where we can take our pictures for the videos and also pictures we can use for our digipack. To go with the mood and genre of our song, we thought that most of it will be tunnels with low lighting. Some will be abandoned and some will have our artist (Jack) in it. Some of the places we thought will be good was Camden as it relates to our artist as that's his childhood place where everything started off for him. As well as this, we were thinking of taking some shots of the woods and trees to set the mood for the digipack. All of our digipack will look similar to each others as we will be using the same pictures. We chose to go to Danson park to take these pictures.

Teacher Feedback

Album cover research.

One of Drakes iconic album cover is the 'Nothing was the same', which is also the deluxe edition. 

Background of Artist
Drake is known for his soft melody and emotional lyrics he uses in his songs. His songs contain R&B and some hip hop elements. He believes that he is the "first to rap and sing at the same time"

Analysis of the album cover
The use of blue colour are seen to be the dominant within the album and is very eye catching the viewers in store or even online. The colour blue symbolises trust,loyalty. wisdom, confidence, intelligence, truth and faith which also relates to the songs within the song. Drake has many songs within the album that relates with real life struggles, an example of a song that does this is 'Fake Friends'.
The album cover has a picture of a kid looking to the right with a comb in his hair. The meaning behind this may be that Drake has developed as a person ever since becoming famous but still looks back at his childhood self and remembers his past.
The title of the album is not very bold and isn't eye catching. This is also backs my previous point to which shows the attitude of Drake towards his fame and how his name isn't really important but the music he right as well as the story behind it is the thing that makes himself is what should be noticed.
The facial expression on the kids face looks up and seems to be inspired. Almost as if he is looking up to his role model. This implies that Drake may want his viewers to dream big.

Nothing was the same (deluxe edition)
This version of the album presents the artist himself in the same position as the child from the previous cover. Drake is looking left instead of right. This suggest that current Drake is reminiscent of his past and feels nostalgic which also reflects some of his songs within this album like 'Started from the bottom'.
One both of the albums are put side by side, the faces will be staring at each other which suggest the idea of 'finding yourself' which was Drakes ultimate message towards the album.

The facial expression on the artists face suggests that he is trouble by something and has a lot on his mind which foreshadows the tone of is music within the album. The colour blue symbolises the same thing as it does on the previous album which is what the songs of the album is trying to portray. 

Music video analysis

This is my music video analysis which has the same type of genre with our music video "Heathens"

How does Goodwin apply to this video?
This video does meet one of the main aspects of Goodwin's theory, which is that music videos will display genre conventions. This can be seen in this video through the narrative which touches on sensitive issue, the unique editing techniques, the range of camera work and the cinematic style of the video. The video also meets the theory because the song and video are linked through pace of editing and lyrical content matching what's on screen.

Furthermore, this video does contain notions of looking or voyeurism, as we see characters secretly watching the main couple from a distance and the camera also focuses on the couple in close-ups when they are kissing and having sex. However, this video doesn't meet Goodwin's theory in the area of intertextual references, as this video doesn't contain any

Pitch

In this task I will be posting the pitch that myself and Jack presented to our class and the teacher. We got feedback on it later on.

What's next?

In this task I will be talking about what me, Kallum & Jack will be doing within the next week. We are close to finishing off our story board which will then be edited by me on final cut pro to be presented as an animatic. During this process myself, Jack and Kallum will be planning on a date to go and see the locations we have in mind as well as discussing the angles in which we will be taking.

Major vs Independant

Major vs Independent

Major vs Independent

Who are the big 4 music labels?

The big 4 music labels who dominate the industry are; Warner Music, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI (which is no longer a major record label as it has been bought out by Universal.) 

How do they function?

Record labels are the companies that market recorded music and recorded music videos. Record labels engage in a wide range of functions in the music industry including new artist recruitment and development, music publishing and copyright enforcement.

What are Subsidiary Labels?

A subsidiary label is a label which is owned by a bigger and major record label and receives the money from the major label in order to sign deals with artists and market their music. An example of a major record label with many subsidiaries is Universal Music Group. Their subsidiary labels include;

• Interscope Records
• Geffen Records
• A&M Records
• Capitol Music Group
• Republic Records
• Island Records
• Def Jam Recordings

Some of these labels also have subsidiary labels who are owned/created by major artists such as The Weeknd and Eminem.

Independent Labels

Independent Music Labels are labels which are not back by a corporate backer and fund themselves and there are some notable differences by independent labels and major record labels, such as;

• Major labels wont let their artists keep rights or control over their music, whereas independent labels do, meaning they can sell it to adverts, film, television etc.
• Most major labels give their artist 10-15% royalty of their music whereas independent labels give them 40-75% in royalty.

An example of a very successful record label which is independent is the Domino Recording Company. This company is based in London and have artists such as the Artic Monkeys signed to them. They are in fact the longest running and most successful indie label. They have had artists with albums and singles reaching number one in the UK's charts.

Another well known independent music label is Boy Better Know. This label was created in 2005 by JME, Wiley and Skepta, who have all gone on to be very successful grime artists. They have also attracted the attention of worldwide star Drake and have previously collaborated with them.

Music Lyrics Analysis

As I wasn't in, my group mates, Kallum and Jack printed out the lyrics to the song, Heathens. In the annotation, they put what shots we would have and what the Mise En Scene will be. Annotating the lyrics gave the group a good understanding of what our music video will include. This would make it easier for me and my group mates to understand and produce the music video. The next stage will be to make a story board and will be edited in final cut pro to bring creativity within our blogs.

Picking out the title

The font we have chosen to use as DAZE's logo is called Hand Shop Typography C30 by Fotnscafe.com as it keeps the line through the Z, which was an integral part of our original design and we feel as if we should keep it, and it is quite an edgy font which represents the genre of music we chose and it also represents our artist's personality.

Choosing a new font

As a result of our pitch, our original logo received negative feedback so we have decided to change the logo, but we will be keeping the same colour (purple). These are the logos we have chosen to be our final logo. We feel as if all of these logos represent the genre of music we have chosen and the personality of our artist.

Pitch

 

History of Artist

The name of our artist is DAZE and his real name has not yet been revealed by the artist. He is 16 years old and is from South East London and still attends secondary school.  

He has always had a deep passion for music and has and still does write lyrics at home in his room and during break, lunch and lessons at school. He has always had aspirations to become a musician and write his own music. After he had produced a few songs he put together an EP and go round shops truing to promote his EP and sell it to shops in order to develop his reputation. 

Despite pushing his music career forward and trying to sell his music to stores, he is a very shy character and is also quite mysterious, an example of this is the fact he has not revealed his name. He has hardly any friends at school and is very much so trying t0 find his place in the world. His core belief is that nothing is perfect and everyone and everything has its imperfections.

Song Choice

After a long discussion with Kallum and Jack, we came to a conclusion to pick Heathens from Twenty One pilots. The genre of the song is rap rock and alternative/indie which was released in 2016 as a part of a soundtrack for the film Suicide Squad. One of the reasons we chose this song is because we felt as if it is suitable for our artist as well as us having a connection with it as well.

Audience Profile

Class feedback on Pitch

Myself, Kaan and Kallum presented our pitch and idea to our classmates and received very useful feedback which we will try to use and take on board in order to make our artist and brand better.

Postive Feedback;

• The song choice
• The artist's background
• The label
• Locations made clear

Constructive Feedback;

• Narrative of video was not made clear
• Our artist's name was unknown
• Too young

Mood Board

                                                          Mood Board

This is our mood board which was designed by myself, Kallum and Jack. We went for a dark colour as it suited the song and the mood. The dark background gives it a moody vibe and we added the name of our artist in purple for it to stand out. The locations of our scenes are also on our mood board as well as some balloons which we will be using throughout our music video.

Feedback

Today the class teacher gave us feedback on our post. I will go through this sheet and improve on my blogs as well as the lay out of it

Daze

Myself, Jack and Kallum sat down to discuss the origin and background of our artist who will feature in our music video, Daze. The background we decided to give our artist was that he is a young boy from South East London who had always had a passion for music since he was young. During his school life he was never popular and didn't really get on with people at all and isolated himself. He had always had an interest in singing but never really told anyone about it, even his parents. He would record his own singles and then put them onto CD's and go around places such as Camden and Central London handing his CD's out to independent music stores trying to promote himself. He originally called himself 'Dizzy' as referring to his state in life, not sure where he is going or what he wants to do and had no real control of his destiny. After some feedback from people in the music stores someone suggested the name 'Daze' and he has stuck with that. One of his singles did very well in music stores and got some attention online and now he is releasing the follow up single 'Heathens'. He is an signed to an independent music label called 'Dirty Hit', artists also signed to this include the 1975.

Genre

What is genre?
Genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music s belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions.

Genre Theory - Daniel Chandler
Genre can provide structure which can allow a great deal of creativity and virtuosity. Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content. Genre provides key elements for an audience to recognise, so that they may further appreciate the variation and originality surrounding the representation of those elements.

Heathens - Twenty One Pilot
The genre for our song is Pop.

Group Discussions

Myself, Jack and Kallum started to discuss what songs we can pick. Our teachers advised us against any recent songs with a music video as she feels that our one would be heavily influenced by it. We originally decided with Logic 1-800 which is a song about mental illness, however, we came to a decision that it will be hard to make a video without being influenced by the video. At last, we decided that we were going to go for "Heathens" by Twenty One Pilot. The tone of this song helped us decide and give us an idea of where we will be filming. We picked locations such as alleyways, tunnels and tube stations. As well as this, we came to a conclusion that Jack will be our performer. We also discussed what the actor will be wearing and came up with something dark as it would suit the tone of the song. Towards the end of the lesson we started our mood board. We finally decided that the stage name for our artist will be called DAZE.

The Culture Industry

Culture Industries was first introduced by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.

Culture industry refers to the standardizations and false-singularity of cultural items, and how these cultural items are regulated.
It says that we, as people, have become standardised because corporations produced standard  product which fit our needs and demands.
So corporations produced our needs, and desires.

If the cultural products lode their sense of meaning and authenticity due to their mass production, so do the individuals who buy them.
We may not realize that each time we buy a new and trendy product, we are merely buying the new trendy "thing" to add to our very own material product of a self. The truth is that we are buying this product because it is frequently publicized through media only to illustrate this materialized commodity of "cool" that everyone must have.
We are truthfully as much of a commodity as the product it self. Regardless, we have a situation where the consumers are being victimized by the producers in that they know what we life and give us what a we want; therefore, we no longer have genuine experiences.

There are many examples of music videos that support Adorno's theory. A popular example is Justin Bieber. He fits into Adorno's and Horkheimers theory as he appeals to a passive audience. He has many catchy songs such as his 2010 hit song "Baby" which used repetitive words through out the chorus. Like wise, his song "Sorry" does the same thing. Justin also has the looks to attract his audience.

However, not all of music artists has been conventional to Horkheimers theory is Ed Sheeran. He is not as looking as Justin Bieber and his early music career wasn't as successful. He became a popular artist through his album which was released in 2011. In this album, Ed Sheeran has many songs such as The A Team and Give Me Love which aren't catchy songs and are particularly slow compared to Justin Bieber.

Post Modernism

What is Post Modern?
Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgements of value are merely taste.
Post modern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgements are merely taste. Anything can be art, anything can deserve to reach an audience, and culture 'eats itself' as there is no longer anything new to produce or distribute.

Philosophers within the post modern movement.
Baudrillard and Lyotard, both men shared a belief that the idea of truth needs to be 'deconstructed' so that we can challenge the dominant ideas that people claim as truth, which Lyotard describes as 'Grand narratives'

In the postmodern world, media texts make visible and challenge ideas of truth and reality, removing the illusion that stories, texts or images can ever accurately or neutrally reproduce reality or truth. So we get the idea that there are always competing versions of the truth and reality, and post modern media products will engage with this idea.

Postmodernism is also said to reflect modern society's feelings of alienation, insecurity and uncertainties concerning identity, history, progress and truth, and the break up of those tradition like religion, the family or, perhaps to a lesser extent, class, which helped identify and shape who we are and our place in the world.

Post Modern as an aesthetic
Hybridity
Hybrid forms are said to level hierarchies of taste. It is said that all distinctions between high culture and popular culture, have gone , or become high culture and popular culture, have gone, or become blurred. Postmodern texts 'Raid the image bank' which is so richly available through video and computer technologies, recycle some old movies and shows on television, the internet etc. Music, film and TV provide excellent examples of these processes.

Bricolage
This is used to refer to the process of adaptation o improvisation where aspects of one style are given quite different meanings when compared with stylistic features from another. Youth subcultural groups such as punks, with their bondage gear and use of swastikas were eclectic as they took clothes associated with different class positions or work functions and converted them into fashion statements 'empty' of their original meanings. A more recent, feminised example would be the combination of Doc Martens and summer dresses worn by girl.

History Of Music

History Of Music Videos

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos were primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

An early example of Music video - St Louis Blue's - Bessie Smith 1929.


Music videos are often called promotion videos or simply promos due to the fact that they are usually promotional devices. Sometimes, music videos are termed short from music videos to distinguish them from full length movies pertaining to music.

Another key note that made a mark in music video history was where Walt Disney released Fantasia, an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music. Furthermore, the invention of film and cinema brought the potential of combining music and moving images. This was to bring a better effect to the song and also give some sort of story to the viewers.

Andrew Goodwin analysis

Goodwins Theory
Goodwin's theory states that there are 5 key aspects to a music video;

1. Thought through beat (seeing what the lyrics mean in your head)
2. Relationship between the song and visuals.
3. Narrative and performance of the song
4. Technical aspect of a music video
5. Star image (protagonist), lots of camera shots making him/her the centre of attention. 

Thought Through beat
 The first step of this process is to analyse the music and its structure alongside the chorus and verses.


Second step is how the voice of the artist would be very unique compared to the others. The reason behind this is to give the star singer an identification.


The third step is how the artist is trying to tell a story within the song, which will establish him as a story teller. The music video shows this portraying the video through the vocals of the song.


Relationship between the music and visuals

Three ways of visuals are used to promote a song 


Illustrate
Music videos use certain shots and images to explain the meaning of lyrics to their song as well as the genre.


Disjuncture
This is where the song lyric is completely different to what is shown in the video


Amplify
This is the process where images and camera shots are shown regularly throughout the music video so that it is drummed into our vision.


Narrative & Performance of the song
Andrew Goodwin had a theory that it was important for an artist to be involved in the music video by performing or acting out roles as the main character or singer.
It helps to make the song look more realistic and also giving the audience a special connecting and good understanding of the song.
A good example of this is the song ROAR by Katy Perry. She is the main actor in the song an also the singer which helps the video by making the song and video look more realistic and this helps to engage the audience.


Star Image
Goodwin believes that the star image would be a vital aspect of music videos. The singer would make the music video look more appealing to the audiences as well as bringing a unique style to the video in the way he/she is portrayed to the audience.

Specification

Brief

• A media portfolio, compromising a main and ancillary texts;
• A presentation of their research, planning and evaluation in digital format(s)

Each candidate will evaluate and reflect upon the creative process and their experience of it. Candidates will evaluate their work digitally, this evaluation being guided by the set of key questions below. This evaluation may be done collectively for a group production or individually. Examples of suitable formats for the evaluation are:

• A blog

1. Evaluating practical

- Title sequence worth 25 marks

- Music video worth 25 marks

2. Representation of women in media: Collective Identity (50 marks)

- Magazines (print)

- Music Video