Digipak

This is the second version of the digipak. I created another version because I wanted to see if my audience preferred the first version or the second one. This particular digipak links with our magazine advert also. I used the same piture for both the magazine advert and the digipak, as I found that many other artists do this when promotoing their album. Also on the firstone we did we didnt link the digipak and magazine advert picture. By using our audience research we will determine which will be the final one.

Vernallis analysis of a music video

I chose to analyse this particular music video because it was one of the many videos that inspired many of our shots in our final cut of 'Better Together'. 

Narrative: There are two locations for the narrative sections of the video, however one location is more obvious than the other. One of the locations is a church, which we straight away associate with a wedding. The mise-en-scene in these shots clearly shows it is a wedding. By the expression on the man's face we can see that something is not quite right at the wedding. The shot below shows the artist sitting alone at a bar, which is the second location for the narrative sequence. This shot suggests that he should be at the wedding and they are waiting for him to arrive. 

These two shots in the narrative sequence show that he hasn't gone to his wedding and the people at the church are now packing up. There are various transitions between the bar scene and the church scene. The narrative cuts between the performance and the different narrative scenes.

Editing: This shot on the right shows the artist playing the guitar in the video, this is towards the beginning of the song, this shot corresponds with the music as there is a guitar piece at the beginning. This second shot of his performance on the left gives us a clearer view of him as the artist, but however still keeps a sense of the character as he is wearing the same clothes. The editing keeps a good flow of continuity as we always see the artist singing every part of the song as well as the cuts to and from the narrative part. However in one of the bar shots we see him singing in what we think should be the narrative which can confuse the audience to which part is the narrative and performance. 

Camera Movement and Framing: Most of the frames in the performance part of the video the artist is framed on the side of the whole frame. Here are some examples of how this is done throughout the video: 

The narrative part of the video is framed differently from the artist, most of the shots are medium shots and the characters are kept quite central to the frame, whereas the artist is framed to the side. his is how we can differentiate between the narrative scenes and the performance scenes. These are some shots from the narrative scene where framing distinctively shown to be different: 

Diegesis: The story portrayed throughout the video I didn't understand straight away as I saw some of the shots from the narrative looked like the performance shots. For example this particular shot where he lip sings in the narrative as apposed to just the performance: 

We can see the story progressing through the linked shots of the church and the bar of where he is for most of the video. Towards the end of the video we see the two narratives come together at the bar which confirms the audience's view of what story the narrative was telling. Here is the shot that shows this: 

Magazine Advert Analysis

Magazine Advert Analysis

Magazine Advert's

Magazine Adverts

Storyboard

Lyrics Annotation

Representations in my music video

For our music video by Jack Johnson 'Better Together', we have decided to be a bit more creative with the video and not stick to the conventions that are portrayed in his other videos and similar genres. Most of his videos do not include and women and mostly focus on him as an artist. The conventions of a Jack Johnson video is performance based, with the main focus on him and his performance. Many of his music videos are in black and white such as, 'If I had eyes', 'Hope' and 'Buddha'. His videos also feature a considerable amount of close up's and extreme close up's, not only just of him, but also of the instruments he plays in that particular video and sometimes the mic and his lips. However some of his videos have shown to be narratives, for example his song 'Upside down' is animated and features a well known cartoon, curious George. This is one of his different videos expressing more of the narrative of he song, as it tells a story throughout and shows a more fun and creative side to the artist.


In our video we are going to try and represent the artist a bit different from Jack Johnson. We are looking to portray him with a bit more character than we see of him is his videos, the reason we wanted to do this is because we thought he was a bit dull and wanted to allow the audience to see more character. We want our artist to be represented as a more masculine person, we have decided to incorporate this characteristic into our costume, by having a signature piece of clothing such as, a hat or a scarf. Another way we are showing him as a more masculine artist is by having a girl in the video. We feel that this will represent him as a more masculine person as it shows him in a relationship with a girl. However we have chosen not to represent him as the 'sexy male' as we want a more reserved and sensitive view of him in this video. We will have many close up's of the artist as well as we want him to be more established, this is one of the conventions used in his music video that we want to keep to represent him in a certain way. He will also be acting as the male lead role, this will allow the audience to gain more information on his personality.

moodboard of similar artists album covers

Copyright E-mail

Due to copyright issues of the track we are going to use I have to write to the record company, asking permission to use the song. I have drafted an email to the company asking permission and informing them how I will be using the song.


Dear Copyright Holder,


I am an A level student writing to request your permission to use  Jack Johnson's track 'Better Together'.


With your permission, this track would be used in our current A-level Media Studies project, which involves creating a music video, as well as producing an album cover and a magazine advert for the artist. The artist in my music video will not be using the original artist's name, 'Jack Johnson' as I will be creating a new marketing strategy for a new up and coming artist.


If I receive your permission, this track would ONLY be used in an educational context, and will be viewed by my media class, my media teacher and the OCR examination board moderator. It would NOT be used for any financial purposes or gain, nor the school or I intend to make any profit out of using your artist's track. 


The artist and your company would of course be fully recognised throughout pre-production and the final video itself. A copyright notice, with wording supplied by you can be recorded in the project. If this is required please send full details. 


I look forward to hearing from you.


Regards, 


Miss Shreyaa Pattni 


Park High School, UK

Music Director

Director - Mark Romanek on Prezi

The Evolution of a Star: Britney Spears

Britney Spears appeared in the show 'The Mickey Mouse club' in 1992 after she had been a contestant on the show star search. She stayed with the mickey mouse club show until it was cancelled. 
In June 1997 Britney pitched to various record labels, after finally being signed by Jive Records at the age of 16.

From 'Baby one more time'

She briefly joined all girl pop band, Innosense in 1997 but soon broke away to pursue her solo career. 

From 'Baby one more time'

Her debut album 'Baby one more time' was released in January 1999. It became the biggest ever selling album by a teenage artist. The video to the single 'baby one more time' also became well known and showed her as a school girl. This video became very famous because of the school setting and outfits and the dancing.

From the single 'Crazy'

From the single 'Crazy'

The single 'Crazy' was released after the album and the video was quite similar, as she was dressed in a waitresses outfit in the beginning and then changes into similar clothes when dancing. 

'Oops i did it again' was the next hit single from the album. The video to this song showed a much more sexualised Britney. It was also a change from her previous videos in which she was dressed as someone, catholic schoolgirl/ waitress and then changed into a crop top and baggy trousers. 

In 2001 her videos became more narrative and this showed Britney as a more matured woman, 'Lucky' and 'I'm not a girl, not yet a woman.' This also allowed her to change her voice from a 'pop voice' to a more adult and recognizable voice. These screen grabs on the right are taken from the video 'I'm a slave for you' which was released in 2001. Many of her videos from 2000-2004 show her as a sexualised woman, other songs include 'Overprotected', 'Toxic', 'Piece of me', 'Womanizer' and many others. As she became more famous her videos were of a higher budget and included stunts and better settings. Shown in the screengrab on the right below. From 'Toxic' to 'Piece of me' Britney had changed in her videos from being very very sexualised to a less sexualised woman after her rehab and children. 
These are screengrabs from toxic, the first two at the top and the bottom two are screengrabs from Piece of me. 
Her most recent video 'I wanna go' is a narrative based video with some elements of performance. This is her newest song and shows how she is still continuing to be successful  in her own way. Here are some screengrabs on the left.

Adele 'Rolling in the deep' music video analysis

This music video is a narrative, as again this video tells a story however it is not as clear as other videos as it is mainly portrayed in metaphors. The song is a story of a break up. This could also been seen as some sort of performance video as Adele is the focus and only main performer in the video. The genre of this song is soul/rhythm and blues.


The editing of this music video flows with the very strong beat throughout the song. As the beat changes in the chorus, it gets faster, the editing gets faster with it. this strong beat also controls most of the shots in the video.




The mise-en-scene of this video is very dull and a constant contrast between black and white, with quite natural colours as well.

Some of the hidden metaphors in the video relate to the lyrics, this song is about a break up, and with Adele sitting in the chair represents defiance throughout the video. 

 

The constant breaking of the cups and plates represents the constant fighting in the relationship, how regular they are.

In the video we see a dancer, dancing in powder throwing it in the air, this distorts the image and links to the lyrics by showing that the relationship itself is distorted. 

In this video like many others there is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals. Adele is the main focus of the video, and we see many close ups of her. 

The visuals are constantly amplifying, illustrating and contradicting the lyrics, however the links between the visuals and lyrics are not blatant and are shown through metaphors.

Chris brown 'I can transform ya' music video analysis

This song is by an artist named, Chris Brown, his songs are mainly RnB, urban, hip hop, pop and soul. This particular song is has more of a RnB and hip hop type of genre.

This music video is a performance based video, featuring Lil Wayne and Swizz Beats. We can see that it is a performance based video as Chris Brown is dancing in most of the video, and the other artists are seen holding instruments.

There are many effects used in this video to illustrate the title of the song, 'I can transform ya'. Many of the effects are various objects such as cars or motorbikes transforming into people or a group of people.

The Lyrics at the end of Chris Brown's first verse, 'red lips, red dress, like em like a fire truck' becomes visual as him and the people he is dancing with transform into a firetruck.








In the video most of the lyrics are put into visuals, by using the title song as the main theme, 'transforming'. Most of the transformations are into cars and motorbikes which are stereotypical of R&B and hip hop songs. Here are some screengrabs showing the objects and transformations.

Michael Buble Music Video Analysis

This music video is a narrative, as what you see tells a story and also the various shots in the video illustrate the lyrics of the song. Michael buble's genre of songs, are mainly traditional pop and jazz, this particular song is traditional pop as there is a fast beat and this is the style of some of his other songs
In this video you can clearly see that it is all shot on multiple sets.
Michael is the main person in the video as we see him walking around and appearing on different sets, according to the lyrics heard in the song.

This is an over the shoulder shot of michael looking onto the first set, in which the lyrics are 'Could you be a teenage idol?' The teenager in this shot is meant to look like the famous teenage idol at present, Justin Bieber. 

In this shot Michael is dressed up as the teenage idol Justin Bieber, while he lip sings to his song.
This video of Michael's song shows us many stereotypes, such as the teenage idol, the rockstar and the typical western cowboy.

This here is one of the many typical western shots, as the lyrics in this particular verse are 'Well you can do the mighty tango'. In the rest of this shot we see the 'non-western' Michael shoot the western Michael with trigger fingers (His hand in a shape of a gun).

This is Michael's stereotype version of a rockstar, again we see him dressed up as the rockstar. The first lyric to this verse is 'So you want to be a rockstar' and then the 'rockstar' appears with two 'groupies'. The women link to the second lyric which is 'with blue eyed bunnies in your head' as the women are blue eyed and would stereotypically be seen as 'bunnies'.

Lotus Flower Mashup

Marketing Strategies: Music Industry

Kaiser Chiefs: 
The kaiser chiefs are the first band to launch an album via digital platform that lets music fans create their very own unique 'Kaiser Chief album'. This marketing strategy was created as an attempt to discourage illegal downloading of albums and tracks before the actual official release.
The band put 20 of their new tracks online, and the fans can choose any of their favourite 10 tracks, in order to create their own version of the Kaiser chief's 'The Future is Medieval' album. Once they create their album they can then download it for £7.50. the platform also encourages the fans to promote the album that they have made to other fans, they can do this via social networks. Fans then receive £1 for every version of the album they sell through a personal transactional  website. Celebrities will also be creating their own versions, and all profits made will go to charity, in aid of the Alzheimer's society. 
This is the website where you can create and view personalised albums: http://www.kaiserchiefs.com/


Interruption Marketing:
Kanye West took this marketing strategy to a whole new level when he interrupted Taylor Swift to promote Beyonce’s video. So here’s what happened, Taylor Swift was awarded her very first ever VMA Award during the 2009 MTV VMA Awards Ceremony. As she was giving her acceptance speech Kanye West came up from behind her, took the microphone, and began to humiliate her in front of everyone in the audience and on national TV. He interrupted her speech to promote his own agenda. Kanye felt that Beyonce should have won the award and he wanted to promote Beyonce and her video. Kanye didn’t take out an Ad in Rolling Stone the week after the VMAs. Kanye didn’t use the situation to create new content by recording a songexpressing his views. Instead Kanye West followed an Interruption Marketing Strategy. Unfortunately for him, as with many of the businesses who also use this strategy, he fell flat on his face. The footage can be seen on youtube via this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_DsLWAqncw 

Evaluation Of Lip Syncing Task.

What are you most happy with in your lip syncing task and why? 
I am most happy with the precision of our lip syncing, with the visual clips to the separate audio track. This proved to be quite difficult in the process of  putting the video together. The image was either to fast for the audio or too slow, by using the image of the wave forms and the audio from the clip we were able to successfully sync the audio and clips. 
Another part of the task that i am most happy with is the different shots we used, the fist main shot is a medium shot of the two boys throughout the video. The second shot we used was the walking shot, which was when the girl (devki) was walking towards the camera whilst singing, I enjoyed filming this shot and I think it came out very well. One of the most liked shots was the spin around shot, we used it twice, once where there was a clip of one girl (me) lip singing and the camera is going around me whilst the long note is playing out. We also used it at the end when we see two girls dancing at the end as the music was fading out and we though people dancing would be appropriate as there was no singing. 

Lady Gaga, Born This Way: Market Strategy

Born This Way is the second studio album by American recording artist Lady Gaga. 

"Born This Way" was released as the album's lead single on February 11, 2011.

The album was formally released on May 23, 2011 by Interscope Records. 

Inspired by a variety of modern social topics, the songs featured on the album include themes of freedom, attitude, sexuality and religion, amongst others. Musically, the album was highly influenced from contemporary pop music from the 1980s and 1990s yet is also notable for the incorporation of several other musical genres, including the use of elements of heavy metal and opera.

The single was released before the album was released. 

Two months later, at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, she announced the album's title, declaring that she had promised that she would reveal it if she won that award. This revelation was followed by Gaga singing a few lines from the title song: "I'm beautiful in my way, 'cause God makes no mistakes; I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way.” She revealed the album's cover artwork on April 15, 2011 on Twitter. Born This Way was met with negative reception from the Lebanese government, who considered it to be offensive and mocking of Christianity. The album was temporarily banned in Lebanon until June 9, when the government lifted the ban.

http://www.ladygaga.com/bornthisway/

She used her website to promote the album, by advertising limited editions of her new album ‘born this way’. 

http://www.facebook.com/ladygaga

http://twitter.com/#!/ladygaga

She also used Facebook links and Twitter to promote the album. 

Lip Syncing Task

This is our lip sync video we made using final cut. The song was of our choice also where we filmed it was our choice. When we were editing the clips and syncing the audio to the image we found it particularly difficult but I think overall we successfully achieved what we wanted our lip syncing video to be.

Research Task: Lady Gaga

Background Information on Artist:

Name: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (better known by stage name - Lady Gaga)

Born:  March 28 1986, New York

Age:   25 years old

Career Began: 2005

Genre: Pop, Dance

Record Labels

After performing in the rock music scene of New York City's Lower East Side in 2003 and later enrolling at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she soon signed with Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. During her early time at Interscope, she worked as a songwriter for fellow label artists and captured the attention of recording artist Akon, who recognized her vocal abilities, and signed her to his own label, Kon Live Distribution.

Lead Single - 'Born This Way'

"Born This Way" was released as the album's lead single on February 11, 2011.The single was released before the album was released. Two months later, at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, she announced the album's title, declaring that she had promised that she would reveal it if she won that award. This revelation was followed by Gaga singing a few lines from the title song: "I'm beautiful in my way, 'cause God makes no mistakes; I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way.” 

Many comments were made about the song ‘Born This Way’ shared a lot of similarities with Madonna’s Express Yourself" and "Vogue”. Even Madonna's brother, Chris Ciccone, got in on the action, saying that he too recognized the similarities.

Album Release 
Born This Way is the second studio album by American recording artist Lady Gaga.Inspired by a variety of modern social topics, the songs featured on the album include themes of freedom, attitude, sexuality and religion, amongst others. Musically, the album was highly influenced from contemporary pop music from the 1980s and 1990s yet is also notable for the incorporation of several other musical genres, including the use of elements of heavy metal and opera. She revealed the album's cover artwork on April 15, 2011 on Twitter. 'Born This Way' was met with negative reception from the Lebanese government, who considered it to be offensive and mocking of Christianity. The album was temporarily banned in Lebanon until June 9, when the government lifted the ban.

Advertising/Promotion/Distribution

She used her website to promote the album, by advertising limited editions of her new album ‘Born This Way’. She also used Facebook links  and Twitter to promote the album. 

Lady Gaga has managed to hold on to the official UK album chart top stop with her new album 'Born This Way'. The album has already become the fastest selling number 1 of 2011 and has helped Gaga push past 3 million sales mark in the UK after sales figures to that of her debut album 'The Fame'. 2 million CD copies were made and sent out to the retailers. Gaga sold over 1 million copies in the first week.