Star Image

Kanye West has created an iconic brand image.  The idea of this is that when people see this image they will recognise it to be associated with Kanye and his music. Kanye’s image has helped him to stardom, not just his music.

He has links with other types of media,  he does concerts and has been known for his outbursts during award shows, which has also assisted his brand image. Kanye West uses connotation in the sense of acting cool to reach out directly to his target audience.

Kanye West tends to wear sun glasses in all his videos and even when seen in public, this shows a form of connotation as he is acting cool and this relates to his fans.

Cross media convergences have been used by Kanye West as he has featured in video games and some movies.  The idea of Kanye constantly being in the spot light makes more people listen to and buy his music.

West's mascot and trademark is "Dropout Bear," a teddy bear which has appeared on the covers of three of his five albums as well as various single covers and music videos.

Group Meeting

We met up to discuss how we are going to start our group blog and how we can make the work load even, we found that it is best to just blog once a week each. We believe that this will make the work even and will make our group blog have loads of posts.

Preparation

Before we start out music video, there is a few steps we need to take. First being the innicial idea and choice in song. The song we have chosen is Magic - B.O.B ft. Rivers Cuomo.

Image: Rivers Cuomo & B.O.B (Magic).

We chose this song as we feel it is very suitable for the upbeat idea we have. Our idea is to have a person waking up in the morning and making his way to an audition which he is the judge of. When he gets there, all different auditionees will sing the 1st verse of the song and when the chorus comes back, the man will walk out the audition through a door and go on to sing the chorus, ready for him to come back to the audition to watch more hopefulls sing the 2nd verse. for the final chorus the man will get annoyed at the lack of talent and sing the rest of the song himself. This idea goes well with the song as it is very upbeat and we can use a variety of shots and quick cuts.

After we seltected 'Magic', we had to create a shot by shot storyboard which will assist us and give us guidelines when filming. Storyboards are very important when filming as if you don't have them you may go off track and lose control of what you are filming.

Editing the Lipsync

Whilst editing our lipsync-ing, I found that the software was not that hard to learn once you get the hang of it. We firstly looked at the instructions and it made the software seem really hard to use, but then I started using it and found it wasn't that difficult after all. We made all the cuts we needed and made the sound in time with the video to make it seem as real as possible. Afterwe had put all our cuts in and put it all in line, we tried out all the effects to see how they would help us for our final task. We found that some of the effects didnt really do much but others will come in handy in our music video. I feel I have learnt all I need to know on the software to create a good music video and overall I am happy with the progress out group is making.

Snatch Analysis

This is a screen shot is from the film Snatch. I chose this image as I felt it had a massive effect on the film. Brad Pitt is sitting there very casually smoking a cigarette whilst his two ‘trainers’, Turkish and Tommy (because of the gun) are looking extremely nervous, due to the fact that they will be killed if Brad Pitt doesn’t go down in a specific round. Brad Pitt’s outfit is very ironic and doesn’t match what you would expect a normal boxer to wear; he is wearing a trilby hat, trousers, casual trainers and boxing gloves whilst smoking. The effect of him wearing boxing gloves whilst wearing his every day clothes suggests that this is no abnormal day for Brad Pitt; this is a normal day to him, fighting and death.
This image makes the audience feel as though he is either very confident or doesn’t care about the fight like Turkish and Tommy do. Turkish and Tommy are wearing suits, this emphasises the idea that they are both trying to be professional and want to win (lose). In the background you can see a group of un-orderly men who do not care who wins but just want to see a good fight; the background has a huge input to this image as Turkish and Tommy are in the complete opposite position, they do not want to see a good fight and they do care, they just want it to go well for them.
In the top right hand corner you can see the referees hand with a light shining from it onto Brad Pitt; this is lighting shows how the referee has the power and is in control of the fate of Turkish and Tommy’s life. The dull lighting within the boxing ring conveys a dull mood and the fear of the two boys; they are both wearing black to carry on this portrayal.

Ideas

In a nut shell... We have been discussing ideas to do for our music video, and have came up with a few ideas. We have came up with a few ideas with a variety of songs:

B.O.B - Magic ft. Rivers Cuomo: We feel this song is suitable as it has a good beat and will allow us to use various types of shots in out video. We will all enjoy filming this video as it is the type of music we like which will give us motivation when filming. The idea that we have is to have one of us walking to an audition whilst singing and using a variety of shots, show the person entering the audition and setting him self up to be the judge, then various artists will do an audition singing this song to create irony within our filming.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Can't Stop: This song has a great fast paced beat which will force us to make quick cuts which I feel will make the whole video better as fast paced cuts generally build up tension and make people want to see it more. We want to use the same idea as we believe it will be the best idea.

The Stranglers - Peaches: Peaches by The Stranglers is a slower song to the rest of our ideas, but we feel we could get a great effect from the song. There are not much lyrics to this song, although it has a great beat and goes very well with our idea.

The White Stripes - 7 Nation Army: The bass and guitar solo's in this song will create a good effect and allow us to make good and fun cuts in our video. We like this song as a group and feel it will go down well in terms of using it for a final piece.

Lil Wayne - Prom Queen (Analysis)

The opening lyrics correspond to the video as he mentions the girl he fancies and shows him looking at her across the classroom. This agrees with Goodwin’s theory.

Lil Wayne is seen looking all scruffy and on his own at the prom as he is bullied just as the boy in the No Love video is.

He talks about how she ‘laughed and walked away’ and now she should regret her decision to bully Lil Wayne as he turns into a superstar.

The video agrees with Vernallis’ theory as it is a typical Hollywood style continuity.The video is correspondent to the lyrics as well as following Vernallis’ style.

Tinie Tempah - Written In The Stars (Analysis)

In the opening of the video, it starts with Tinie Tempah and Turner doing there own style to show a bit about them. IT then shows the little boy sitting outside of his flat and then he transforms into Tinie Tempah suggesting that this was him when he was younger.

The mum is then shown taking a man into her flat and throwing her son outside again as she is a prostitute. The boy sits down and puts his head-phones on like this is his normal routine. The lyrics say ‘I want my family back’ as the boy is kicked out; the lyrics correspond with the video which agrees with Vernallis’ theory.

As the man finishes with the boys mum, he taps him on the head as he feels sorry for him and the little boy throws something at him in anger at his mums job.

When the boy is in the basket ball court, sitting there writing with his head-phones on, (trying to hide from the real world.) a boy comes up to him and throws all his work on the floor; this shows that he gets bullied just as they do in Prom Queen and No Love. The lyrics say ‘Every one’s the kid that no one cares about’ just as he gets bullied (agreeing with Vernallis’ Hollywood style theory).

Towards the end of the video, the boy comes out of his shell and dances on the roof to show his passion for music and this is his way to express himself.

It finishes with the boy standing there with his arms in the air to show that he will make a name for himself just as Tinie Tempah has.

Eminem - No Love ft. Lil Wayne (Analysis)

Opening powerful image of a child with a black eye, this is a close up shot to emphasise the pain; this instantly suggests that he is being bullied in some way, whether it be his family or bullying at school.

Flashbacks are shown to give the audience an insight into how the black eye came across. The pungent image of the three boys within the opening sequence show the extent of the bullying.

The bullying continues as the lyrics read ‘No more’ showing the boys pain and how he is feeling at this current time.

1:24 in to the video, the boy stands up to his bully’s and doesn’t back down, he gets barged but deals with it and doesn’t run, showing he is growing as a person and it doesn’t affect him any more.

The lyrics are corresponding to the video as the lyrics say ‘Do not knock me down’, which is a contrast as he gets knocked down (1:55). The camera shot at this point is aimed directly to the boy with his bully’s higher than him to show status and power.

The boy walks around with his hood up to emphasise that he fears the bully’s and doesn’t want to be seen.

The boy has earphones in whilst Eminem is rapping, this may show that he is listening to the long that we are listening along to.

In the background to where Eminem is rapping, there is an image of chains to show that the boy is chained up and cannot escape from his current situation.

Once the boy stands up for himself and punches one of the bully’s, we see a sequence of flash backs to portray the effect of how he is trying to forget the old and continue with his life.

The last shot is a medium shot of the boy walking away with his head held high showing he has put the bullying behind him and stood up for himself.

Lipsync Task

We came together as a group and decided to start our lipsync exercise. Together we researched the web, using YouTube, to find a suitable song to use for our lipsync task. When looking on YouTube, we felt that we had to find a song that we knew every word to and wasn't too fast for us to sing along to. We looked for a while then came across Micheal Buble - Everything, two of us knew most of the words so we wanted to do this song, we looked at the lyrics and felt that it wasn't that suitable and felt we could get a better song. After a bit of discussion, we looked at some more songs and saw Giggs - Look What The Cat Dragged In. We decided we would do this song as we knew the words and it was slow, it also has a good beat so we could have fun with it and practice for our main task.

The way we are going to film, is by playing the song out loud on a mobile phone, and filming us sing along to it. We felt this would be the best technique as we can cut our voices out whilst editing and it will look as though we are singing the song.

Camera work within our lipsync task will be important, we want to practice different angles and types of shit which will benefit us for the future. Once our Lipsync exercise is filmed, we will put the footage on FinalCutExpress and edit using this software. This will help us for the main task as we do not know how to use the software yet, but this task will teach us and improve our editiing skills as a team.

Types of Shot

Match Cut

The Match-cut shot is where an object which is of a similar style to another object, making the two ideas a metaphor. E.g. The film A Space Odyssey shows a dog bone being thrown in the air, linking with a satellite in the sky.

30 degree rule

The 30° rule is where the camera should move at least 30° between shots in the same sequence. The shots must be different enough to avoid a 'Jump Cut'. Too much movement in the sequence may come under the 180° rule.

Up Shot

This shot gives the object higher status by making it seem larger and as if they are above us it makes it seem as though you are in a live performance due to looking up at the object (audience).

180 degree rule

This rule means that the two characters involved should always have the same left to right structure to prevent confusion of the audience (music videos tend not to abide this rule).

Tracking Shot

This is where the camera is mounted onto a dolly and wheeled along a track to keep the camera in line with the moving scene.

Cross Cutting

Cross cutting is a editing technique which flicks between two scenes to create an effect; the usual effect being tension and fear, a lot of horror movies use this technique.

Jump Cut

This is a type of cut where two sequential shots of the same object is taken but varied only slightly to make the camera seem disorientated.

Establishing Shot

This is a shot which is usually shown at the start of a new scene to show the new location of the sequence, an example would be to show the building of the sequence.

The Music Industry

The music industry sells compositions, recordings and performances of music to the public. Music is produced and sold by two groups; the act and the organizations that operate within the industry. In the late 19th century, the industry was mainly controlled by publishers of sheet music; sheet music is a hand-written piece of music on a hard copy of paper that uses music notes to display the music. Technology improved and music was moved to audio in the 20th/21st century; this was due to Thomas Edison, he invented the phonograph which assisted the industry in recording music and allowed them to play music via radio. The record industry then replaced sheet music publishers as the largest force. Record labels were then introduced e.g. Columbia Records. Labels came and went, but in the 1980s the "big 6" were formed; EMI, CBS (Sony), BMG, PolyGram, WEA and MCA (Universal).

We entered the 21st century and technology was improving daily. Consumers were spending less and less money on CDs, Vinyls, cassettes and digital downloads, they eventually dropped 25% world wide; this was due to the vast number of illegal downloads. Illegal downloading became a 21st century phenomenon, everybody seemed to be doing it. Websites were being created with a 'front' (selling things to make the website legal), but allowing music sharing, for free! Napster was the leading site for illegal downloads, in 2001 Napster was shut down, but this was just the beginning; one website closes down, 2-3 websites open. This was a massive issue for the music industry as a whole.

The opening of the iTunes store in 2003 lowered the rate of illegal downloads due to easy access of music. Digital sales improved but still have not recovered the loss due to illegal downloads.

In 2010, a study shows that MNCs (Multi National Companies) such as Wal-Mart and Best-Buy retail more music than stores that just sell music. Due to the massive decline in the sales of music, artists these days rely on live performances and merchandise to bring in the majority of their money; this has made artists more dependent on labels and has created a market for record labels.

Changed in the industry has given consumers a wider variety of choice and at an extremely low price.

Universal account for 25% of the industry, closely followed by Sony at 21%, Warner and EMI also have large shares. The rest of the market falls down to independent record labels.

Album Sales and Market Value

# Country Album Sales Share Share of World Market Value
1 USA 37–40% 30–35%
2 Japan 9–12% 16–19%
3 UK 7–9% 6.4–9.1%
4 Germany 7–8% 6.4–5.3%
5 France 4.5–5.5% 5.4–6.3%
6 Canada 2.6–3.3% 1.9–2.8%
7 Australia 1.5–1.8% 1.5–2.0%
8 Brazil 2.0–3.8% 1.1–3.1%
9 Italy 1.7–2.0% 1.5–2.0%
10 Spain 1.7–2.3% 1.4–1.8%
11 Netherlands 1.2–1.8% 1.3–1.8%
12 Mexico 2.1–4.6% 0.8–1.8%
13 Belgium 0.7–0.8% 0.8–1.2%
14 Switzerland 0.75–0.9% 0.8–1.1%
15 Austria 0.5–0.7% 0.8–1.0%
17 Russia 2.0–2.9% 0.5–1.4%
18 Taiwan 0.9–1.6% 0.5–1.1%
19 Argentina 0.5–0.7% 0.5–1.0%
20 Denmark 0.45–0.65% 0.5–0.8%

Music Video Analysis Presentation

Miss kazam music analysis final

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Marketing a Music Video

Artists can use multiple ways to promote/market their music video. A very common method of marketing is called Viral marketing; this form of marketing is used worldwide. Viral Marketing is where the video is uploaded to a site, such as YouTube and Vevo. Sites such as these, are a great source of marketing for artists and help them promote their music for free; a lot of unknown artists us YouTube and Vevo to create a fan base for themselves. The artist that we create as a group will want to use Viral Marketing as one of the main sources of promotion as it is cheap, easy, free and very effective. In addition to Viral Marketing, using websites such as MySpace and Twitter; social networking sites assist artists as they can upload their music on to these sites and start creating a fan base. Many artists use social networking sites to promote new music, Kanye West, Jay-z and Rihanna all use MySpace to let fans see exclusive music. Once tracks are known by fans and recognised, companies such as Apple and HMV will pick up on this and begin to sell their track; Apple use software called iTunes to sell music on whereas HMV sell hard copies in store. Album covers are very important when selling as even on iTunes you purchase the album cover as well as the track; iTunes also allow you to purchase the video for many songs. Once the track is known and the artist has picked up fans, the artist will do gigs to further the artists reputation and pick up more sales and one day become a global phenomenon.

Music Video Ideas

Me and my group have been doing a lot of research and looking all over the web to find the right track to use for our Music Video. YouTube has been a great source for us, and we have used it to our advantage. After a lot of debating, we decided that an Indie style song would be the best for us as we feel it will allow us to use a variety of shots and a quick paced video. Originally we wanted to do a Hip Hop style video but then realised that choosing music that we like is not necessarily the best idea.

Song Choice Possibilities:

·         All American Rejects - It Ends Tonight

·         Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Can’t Stop

·         Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent

·         The Kooks - Naïve

All of these songs have the style we would like and start off slow as we agreed. We want a song that has a slow start and gradually gets louder and faster; this is due to one of the ideas that we have come up with for the video; I suggested that we do an audition seen to start off slowly, with the artists being the judge watching different style auditions sing the chosen song, the when the song gets louder and faster, the artist gets fed up and sings the song himself. This is just one of the idea we have come up with.

Album Cover Analysis

Album art covers are very iconic and influential on the sale of the album. The genre of the music is generally established through the album cover, so it is crucial for the artist to get it right. The album cover is there to attract customers to the specific album, and many artists to choose an iconic image to create awareness of the album.

Mika - Life in Cartoon Motion

By looking at Mika’s album cover, you instantly see the colour and that the album is fun and bubbly, this is the image that Mika wanted to create when creating his album cover; the design was illustrated by his sister Yasmin, who works under the name of DaWack. The album is very easy to the eye and symbolises fun and excitement. There is a man seen sitting on a floating sofa and around other relaxing objects and more furniture, this is within a cloud suggesting that it is a dream like style and Mika’s album will allow you to achieve this dream by listening to his album.

The whole idea of colour and cartoons on the album cover emphasises that this album is aimed at the younger generation, rather than older men.  As well as being aimed at the younger generation, I feel that the album cover suggests that Mika’s life is like a fantasy and he lives in a dream world of fun and happiness. The title of the album is very discrete on the cover, whereas the artists name is written in capitals in a large font; the album title is written in a hand-writing style font showing the child like state of the album.

Young Money - We Are Young Money

In the Young Money album cover, we are instantly drawn to the bottom of the cover, saying ‘We Are Young Money’ and the roses, this is due to the red that stands out; they do this so that the name of the group is shows clearly. The idea of the all black cover suggests the whole gangster images and the idea of mystery. The roses which are shown at the front in red may symbolise the idea of death and that they are mourning over a death. Lil Wayne is seen as the head of Young Money as his image is portrayed looking over everyone else in the group, shown in a God like fashion. The whole image is very glamorous and shows the wealth of the group in a subtle way. They all seem laid back and relaxed to show the customer that whilst listening to the album you can sit back, relax and enjoy the music.

The name of the group is portrayed intensely on the cover in a very attractive style; ‘Young Money’ is in a ‘rich’ style font covered in diamonds, showing that these guys are very wealthy. On Lil Wayne’s forehead is a Christianity symbol, agreeing with the idea of him being a God like figure.

Discuss the way Gender is portrayed in the music video ‘Love the Way You Lie’ by Eminem Ft Rihanna.

In the extract which we watched and listened to in our Media lesson portrays Gender in many different ways. The initial view which the audience will emphasise is the fact that Eminem is the dominant male and controls the way Rihanna thinks. Rihanna is portrayed as a typical female and is upset over a little problem in love. I have a strong opinion towards the title of this song, as I believe that it is very ironic and possibly sarcastic; I think it is sarcastic; this is because lying cannot be loved no matter who does it. There is a short movie going on in the background, with Megan Fox as the actor, she acts along to the song and it creates a massive effect, this effect is the feeling of the audience being able to visualise the song as well as hear it. The attention is taken off Eminem and moved more to the actors, this idea makes the audience want to see Eminem more as you see little of him; it could be called a small type of reverse phycology. In the physical video which you see, Megan Fox is dominated by her boyfriend, which agrees with dominant ideology as the man over powers the woman. Eminem’s voice is very dominant and over powers Rihanna’s just like ideology suggests; Rihanna’s voice is very high and soft to make Eminem seem more in control.

Eminem’s dominance in this music video is teased out in many ways; through the sound, the actual video and also the lyrics. The idea of sound portraying the representation of Gender is a key theme in the video; The music tones down Rihanna comes in and gets stronger when Eminem raps, popular belief suggests that men should have a stronger voice than women and this is the case in the video ‘Love the Way You Lie’. The acting within the music video also agrees with dominant ideology, as the woman (Megan Fox) is trying to say no to the man but she ends up kissing him due to his over powering character (male). As well as this, the man is also seen stealing some alcohol from the shop, the male steals it and not the woman, this emphasises that it is a man’s job to do the dirty work, not the woman’s. The lyrics, “I laid hands on her; I guess I don’t know my own strength” shows that the man is stronger than the woman and can do what he wants to her if he wanted to, but he suggests that he doesn’t want to but did out of anger; men are portrayed to be angry and strong and this lyric shows this. Rihanna says, “Just gonna stand there and watch me cry, that’s alright…” this means that she will accept that her boyfriend doesn’t care about her feelings and is going to have to accept the fact he doesn’t care; this shows the male dominance that occurs in life even though women now have the same rights as men in the modern era.

‘Love the Way You Lie’, the title of the song. I feel that the title is very ironic as I cannot see how anyone can love the way somebody lies, even if you are in love, you will not like them lying. The title is a lyric that Rihanna says and not Eminem even though it his Eminem’s song; this shows that men have a lot of respect for women even though are over powering; it also shows that men do have emotions and can be sensitive just like women, which challenges dominant ideology.

Whilst the song is playing, a short movie is shown; Megan Fox stars in this and so does another famous male actor. In this video you can see that the man tells the woman what to do but she gets fed up and tries to leave, then she falls back into the trap of the male and kisses him again, this has a massive importance on the entire music video and suggests that the male is in control even though the female hits the man, the man does not retaliate as he has respect just as ideology says, you could call the man a Gentlemen.

Eminem’s voice is very deep and manly compared to Rihanna’s, her voice is very soft and high which makes you immediately know it is a woman singing; Eminem’s voice dominates Rihanna’s just as a man shouting would over power a female shouting.

The overall effect of this music video emphasises that the male is more dominant compared to females and shows this is a few different ways. The idea of this song is to show that men can be affectionate just as women are and to also show that women are not just ‘textbook’, they can be horrible (punching the man) just as males supposedly are, and how they are presented.