Brief History Of The Genre
1960's- Experiments with promotional short films began in the mid 60's such musicians as The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The ability to show a short film of the latest release meant that the act themselves didnt need to acutally appear 'live' to perfom the track. Therefore the appeal of bands grew furthur. Some Examples of Pop Promos: Bob Dylan; The Animals; The Beatles; The Rolling Stones; The Small Faces.
1970's- Pop Promo Examples: Queen; David Bowie; The Jackson Five; Abba; Roxy Music (Bryan Ferry).
1980's- With the launch of Mtv in 1981 there was now a real need to create music videos in order to ensure your music was heard globally. Initialy however it was mainly british acts creating the videos for the broadcast- hence a massive 'brit invasion' into the us charts in the 1980's.
1980's Examples of music videos: Duran Duran; Adam and the Ants; The Cure; Michael Jackson; Aha. Promotional It is a visual representation of a piece of music and is a further opportunity for the track to be 'heard', it's also a great way to promote a particular artist or track to illustrate three/four tracks from an album.
Extension of Income.
To keep the artist in the public eye for as long as possible, this could be months after the album has been released. Its also to help recoup some of the production costs of recording the music initially.
Extension of Outlets
Television- Mtv; Vh1; Kerrang; 4 Music;
Internet- Youtube; Voolpool; Video Cure;
Downloads- Ipod; Mobile; Phones; Mp3's; Blackburrys/Iphones;
From some of the Youtube figures we can see that pop promo videos have taken over, and most people see them, as youtube had internet 14.8 billion online videos viewed in January 2009 alone, if we take that as an average for each month then youtube would get around 177.6 billion viewers a year showing that internet technology and pop promos on the internet have really taken off over the last few years.
Links to Film or Tv Programmes (synergy)
Soundtracks- Clips of films appear as part of narrative/performance.
X-factor; Battle of Bands; Live and Unsigned;
Celebrity appearances.
X-Factor is another show that has publicised music and pop promos this show has taken over and become a lot bigger over the years that it has been running. When it first started in September 2004 it did 23 shows in that year and it got an average of 6.90 million viewers. Now in August 2009 when it was last on it had 31 shows and got an average of 13.31 million viewers which shows us that it is another thing that has taken over in the last few years.
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Textual analysis of two contemprary music videos
Chelsea Dagger By The Fratellis
Directed by Ben Crook , and released in August 2006, 'Chelsea Dagger' was part of The Frattelis debut album 'Costello Music'. It is supposed be named after Jon Fratteli's wife Heather, who is a burlesque dancer, and her stage name is Chelsea Dagger. This song is well know around most football grounds and is mostly played to celebrate a team scoring a goal, it also appears in eight different Tv Commercials/Film Trailers so is a widely know/used song.
The video comprises of both 'as' live footage of the band playing and of different pieces of action which links to the lyrics of the song. It works well together, and it keeps you thinking of when the next piece of footage could be, although at times it doesn't link as well with the lyrics such as at 1:06 where I dont think that the lyrics and the footage link too well, if I was to do it I would have had a man and a women in shot playing as 'Steven and Joanna', However one thing that I think works really well is the start where when they first start playing they have, some as live footage, I think it works where they have each person get lit up as they start to play, and how they keep cutting to shots of the different girls this builds up a bit of tension, and gives a bit of an insight into would could happen when the video gets into full swing, and the song starts properly.
The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is usually very good and they relate quite well, however at 1:06 they dont relate as well as they possibly could, the music and the visuals is again around about the same, most of the cuts are to the beat and the video is to the same pace and tempo of the music. Other than just cutting from as live action to video recordings that go with the lyrics there isnt really any interesting editing or visual effects.
In this video most of filmed shots which are supposed to link to lyrics are mostly of long shots, also so are all of the shots of the girls dancing around which are often cut to during the chorus. However when cut to live action there are a few close ups of the different band members singing or playing there respective instrument. Other than this most of the other shots of the band members singing are of long shots where we can see them all in the shot, playing there instruments and singing the lyrics.
When it cuts to a long shot we can see the lighting where it is more of a spotlight on each band member so its only them and a tiny bit of the background that is lit up when in shot most of the rest of the background is dark, which shows that it could be a deep and mysterious song/video, this works well as it puts all of the focus onto the band members and of them singing the lyrics and playing the music, it also creates some nice shadows which work well.
There isnt really any interesting ise of mise-en-scene, as most of the shots are of the band playing as live or of the different girls in the video acting along relating to the lyrics, or when they are in the background dancing, so not many things that could be used as mise-en-scene are able to be seen in the video.
Once again there arent too many interesting uses of cinematography, as nearly all shots in the video are of long shots, so they arent to interesting, although they have some nice close ups of the band singing, although there are quite a few nice low angle shots, which create some interesting angles.
Be Somebody By The Enemy
This song was originally released by The Enemy in 2009, to start of with it was only released for download and the video was put onto youtube, as it became so popular it was then put into the charts, this meant that it had a lot of views on youtube. This is another song that is really well known, as it features in fifa 10 and it is also part of the opening, stings, and credits to the itv's f.a cup shows. Its not as well know as most people only know the lyrics rather than what the song is called or who it is by.
This song is mainly made up of footage from there tour which was at coventrys ricoh arena ground, as part of there tour. Once again there is live footage of the band singing, this is combined with the fans dancing along with the music, this is once again live footage, nearly all of the footage in this video is live.
There are some very interesting cinematography, there are so many different varietys of shots, there are long shots, close ups, pov's, and even some fish eye. The fish eye shots are especially interesting as they are not used very often, this also gives the illusion of us seeing through there eyes or as if we are looking through our own eyes. The Close-up's give us a good chance to see the band up close, as if we are there, and the long shots, of the crowd show how many people there were there and how well supported the enemy are. There are also some shots of the road, going upto the stadium, this shows traffic jams and lots of confusion and many people waiting to get there. This again shows us how well supported they are and how many people actually went to the concert.
Again there isnt much mise-en-scene in this video as its nearly all of live footage of the band and there fans. Although there are a few shots of the coventry city fc badge and a few of the advertising hordings get into shot, so this could have been on purpose to give them advertisment, although I think that this was more of it got into the shot, so they just got the advertisment for free, and I dont think that too many people would notice it if they were watching, I think if it was meant then it would have been more obvious such as close-ups of the different signs. As I dont think too many people would notice them from afar in a long shot.
There arent too many interesting editing or visual effects, although you can notice that some of the sequences have been slowed down or sped up to fit with the beat of the song, this is a theme all the way through the video where it keeps up with the speed and tempo of the video, this works well. There isnt really a relationship between the lyrics and the video as all the video is live footage of the concert and a few parts of them kicking a ball about, its the same with the music and the video, although with this the video does keep up with the pace and tempo of the music so they are related in one way.
For this video I think that the intended audience would be the late teens to early adults as I think it would be too 'heavy'/'rocky' for older people and younger ones wouldnt really understand it. Also we can see from the people that are at the concert that appear in the video, mostly range from late teens, to early adults, thus why I think that this video and song would be aimed at this age group.
Directed by Ben Crook , and released in August 2006, 'Chelsea Dagger' was part of The Frattelis debut album 'Costello Music'. It is supposed be named after Jon Fratteli's wife Heather, who is a burlesque dancer, and her stage name is Chelsea Dagger. This song is well know around most football grounds and is mostly played to celebrate a team scoring a goal, it also appears in eight different Tv Commercials/Film Trailers so is a widely know/used song.
The video comprises of both 'as' live footage of the band playing and of different pieces of action which links to the lyrics of the song. It works well together, and it keeps you thinking of when the next piece of footage could be, although at times it doesn't link as well with the lyrics such as at 1:06 where I dont think that the lyrics and the footage link too well, if I was to do it I would have had a man and a women in shot playing as 'Steven and Joanna', However one thing that I think works really well is the start where when they first start playing they have, some as live footage, I think it works where they have each person get lit up as they start to play, and how they keep cutting to shots of the different girls this builds up a bit of tension, and gives a bit of an insight into would could happen when the video gets into full swing, and the song starts properly.
The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is usually very good and they relate quite well, however at 1:06 they dont relate as well as they possibly could, the music and the visuals is again around about the same, most of the cuts are to the beat and the video is to the same pace and tempo of the music. Other than just cutting from as live action to video recordings that go with the lyrics there isnt really any interesting editing or visual effects.
In this video most of filmed shots which are supposed to link to lyrics are mostly of long shots, also so are all of the shots of the girls dancing around which are often cut to during the chorus. However when cut to live action there are a few close ups of the different band members singing or playing there respective instrument. Other than this most of the other shots of the band members singing are of long shots where we can see them all in the shot, playing there instruments and singing the lyrics.
When it cuts to a long shot we can see the lighting where it is more of a spotlight on each band member so its only them and a tiny bit of the background that is lit up when in shot most of the rest of the background is dark, which shows that it could be a deep and mysterious song/video, this works well as it puts all of the focus onto the band members and of them singing the lyrics and playing the music, it also creates some nice shadows which work well.
There isnt really any interesting ise of mise-en-scene, as most of the shots are of the band playing as live or of the different girls in the video acting along relating to the lyrics, or when they are in the background dancing, so not many things that could be used as mise-en-scene are able to be seen in the video.
Once again there arent too many interesting uses of cinematography, as nearly all shots in the video are of long shots, so they arent to interesting, although they have some nice close ups of the band singing, although there are quite a few nice low angle shots, which create some interesting angles.
Be Somebody By The Enemy
This song was originally released by The Enemy in 2009, to start of with it was only released for download and the video was put onto youtube, as it became so popular it was then put into the charts, this meant that it had a lot of views on youtube. This is another song that is really well known, as it features in fifa 10 and it is also part of the opening, stings, and credits to the itv's f.a cup shows. Its not as well know as most people only know the lyrics rather than what the song is called or who it is by.
This song is mainly made up of footage from there tour which was at coventrys ricoh arena ground, as part of there tour. Once again there is live footage of the band singing, this is combined with the fans dancing along with the music, this is once again live footage, nearly all of the footage in this video is live.
There are some very interesting cinematography, there are so many different varietys of shots, there are long shots, close ups, pov's, and even some fish eye. The fish eye shots are especially interesting as they are not used very often, this also gives the illusion of us seeing through there eyes or as if we are looking through our own eyes. The Close-up's give us a good chance to see the band up close, as if we are there, and the long shots, of the crowd show how many people there were there and how well supported the enemy are. There are also some shots of the road, going upto the stadium, this shows traffic jams and lots of confusion and many people waiting to get there. This again shows us how well supported they are and how many people actually went to the concert.
Again there isnt much mise-en-scene in this video as its nearly all of live footage of the band and there fans. Although there are a few shots of the coventry city fc badge and a few of the advertising hordings get into shot, so this could have been on purpose to give them advertisment, although I think that this was more of it got into the shot, so they just got the advertisment for free, and I dont think that too many people would notice it if they were watching, I think if it was meant then it would have been more obvious such as close-ups of the different signs. As I dont think too many people would notice them from afar in a long shot.
There arent too many interesting editing or visual effects, although you can notice that some of the sequences have been slowed down or sped up to fit with the beat of the song, this is a theme all the way through the video where it keeps up with the speed and tempo of the video, this works well. There isnt really a relationship between the lyrics and the video as all the video is live footage of the concert and a few parts of them kicking a ball about, its the same with the music and the video, although with this the video does keep up with the pace and tempo of the music so they are related in one way.
For this video I think that the intended audience would be the late teens to early adults as I think it would be too 'heavy'/'rocky' for older people and younger ones wouldnt really understand it. Also we can see from the people that are at the concert that appear in the video, mostly range from late teens, to early adults, thus why I think that this video and song would be aimed at this age group.
Research into a Music Video Director
Tim Burton is a 51 year old american director who was raised in Burbank, California, who specialises in dark, gothic and quirky-themed films and has recently started directing music videos.
We can see a few of these themes reflected in the video Bones by The Killers which he directed.This is the only music video that he has done so far, however I'm sure that he'll be directing more in the near future.
This video was a big hit with fans of 'The Killers' but also with fans of Tim Burton himself as he has a large fan base due to all the big hit films that he has directed. The video recieved a range of positive reviews on YouTube such as "Trippy Video","This song is amazing, the video is awesome, brandon is hot... what more can I say? love the killers!" and "Yet another Tim Burton classic...Love it and Love Him!" so once again this show that is is a succesful video. However, not all of the reviews that this video recieved were good ones such as "I hate the thought of breaking bones. Seeing or even hearing people talking about it makes me feel sick!" and "why are they skeletons? what is that symbolic of? what is the message they are trying to send?" which suggests that not vryone understands the video and how it relartes to the song but also that it is appealing to a certain type of audience which in this case is Indie fans.In another review someone said "The Clip at the beginning and the CGI are obvious and cheap looking" showing that this person was disappointed with the video and thought that it could of been beter as Burton is renound for his creativity and brilliant use of CGI and other visual effects. Overall, I think YouTube is a good source for directors and artists to use to show the public their work as the people who go on there are a variety of ages which means that thye will recieve comments from a variety of people and not just a specific target audience.
Burton's work sugests to us that his target audience is most likely to be Late Teens to Early adults, as most of his films have been animated. For example "The Corpse Bride" and "Alice in Wonderland" have both been popular wth this particular age group.Also, most fans of 'The Killers' tend to be teenagers as 'Indie Rock' has become very popular wiht younger generations ove rthe past couple of years.Some teenagers are into gothic/emo themes which are mostly dark and mysterious and this is why Tim Burton has such a high teen fan base.
We can see a few of these themes reflected in the video Bones by The Killers which he directed.This is the only music video that he has done so far, however I'm sure that he'll be directing more in the near future.
This video was a big hit with fans of 'The Killers' but also with fans of Tim Burton himself as he has a large fan base due to all the big hit films that he has directed. The video recieved a range of positive reviews on YouTube such as "Trippy Video","This song is amazing, the video is awesome, brandon is hot... what more can I say? love the killers!" and "Yet another Tim Burton classic...Love it and Love Him!" so once again this show that is is a succesful video. However, not all of the reviews that this video recieved were good ones such as "I hate the thought of breaking bones. Seeing or even hearing people talking about it makes me feel sick!" and "why are they skeletons? what is that symbolic of? what is the message they are trying to send?" which suggests that not vryone understands the video and how it relartes to the song but also that it is appealing to a certain type of audience which in this case is Indie fans.In another review someone said "The Clip at the beginning and the CGI are obvious and cheap looking" showing that this person was disappointed with the video and thought that it could of been beter as Burton is renound for his creativity and brilliant use of CGI and other visual effects. Overall, I think YouTube is a good source for directors and artists to use to show the public their work as the people who go on there are a variety of ages which means that thye will recieve comments from a variety of people and not just a specific target audience.
Burton's work sugests to us that his target audience is most likely to be Late Teens to Early adults, as most of his films have been animated. For example "The Corpse Bride" and "Alice in Wonderland" have both been popular wth this particular age group.Also, most fans of 'The Killers' tend to be teenagers as 'Indie Rock' has become very popular wiht younger generations ove rthe past couple of years.Some teenagers are into gothic/emo themes which are mostly dark and mysterious and this is why Tim Burton has such a high teen fan base.
Lip Sync Project
Lip Sync Project
For our Lip Sync project we were given the task of creating a video for the song 'Could It Be Magic' By Barry Manilow in which we would have to lip sync to. The first problem we had was to be able to listen to the song outside so we used my Mp3 player as I was the only member of my group with a cable to connect it to the macs to transfer the song. The first thing we decided to do was to buy a set of speakers to plug into the Mp3 Player so that we would all be able to listen to the song out loud, we thought that this would be easier when we came to the lip syncing part, although it turned out to be unsuccessful as the music was a bit to quiet so we decided to use a set of headphones instead. The second problem that we came accross was that the only version of song that could be found was nearly seven minutes long which meant we would have to fill around about 3-5 minutes of instrumental time. Also when given the lyrics for the song it turned out they were the wrong ones and were for the take that version so we had to take extra time to re-write some off them by listening to the song a few times over this took out some valuable shooting time. We thought that it would be best to start of by filming the actual lip sync, it took a couple of goes but it went fairly well. Although we still had some fairly major problems with it mainly because of the lyrics and the fact that the tripod we were given was broken and kept falling apart. After lunch we returned to college to edit our video, whilst doing this we realsied that the tape/camera had been faulty and this resulted in most of our work having stripes over it, we are not really sure why this happend we think that it was because of a combination of the camera heads where dirty and that in places we filmed over old footage thus making it stripy. This meant that we did have enough footage to fill the gaps and some of our actualy lip syncing was now not useable, so we had to go film some more footage during the afternoon to make up for the recordings that we had lost. In the end we were able to get most of the footage that we wanted, however it was not as good as we would have liked/hoped as some was rushed as we did have much time. If we were to do this lip-sync again, we would like to get a better version of the song so that we didnt have as much time to fill and we would get a better way of hearing the music so that the actual lip syncing itself was of a better quality, we would also make sure that we were shooting in the correct size so that our video didnt play as widescreen and look a little bit silly when played back on a normal video or a normal screen.
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