existing music video analysis

Micheal Jackson- beat it

The video style is basically narrative possibly mixed with performance. This can be seen from the fact that the video is basically about a street fight which somewhat follows the lyrics of the song, and in which the singer or artist of the song is seen singing it. This we can say is to make us the audience connect with the singer or make us think that we kind of belong with him. Something that i believe was somewhat uncommon for artists at the time of the songs release in the late 1980's or early 1990's.

This is further emphasised in the fact that almost all the shots in the video are either mid shots or closeups either of the singer or the action taking place in the narrative in the video (e.g. neighborhood toughs gathering for a typical fight scene from an old gang movie= men in circle, combatants bring out knives and circle each other.). This is obviously meant to attract attention of audience or make people from the lower middle classes of society more likely to think that the singer is similar to them.

The evidence to show this is the fact that the costume of most of the people in this video is either biker or gangster from the late 1980's or early 1990's in America. All except for the artist who is wearing somewhat more normal clothes that is to say a white t-shirt, a pair of black pants, and an orange jacket. This is again meant to make us pay attention to him or see him as an equal if we are going to use the "male gaze" theory, or possibly make us think he is superior to us and trying to exert power over us if we are going to use the feminist-marxism theory. The location of the video only serves to further show this as it is a sort of gritty area of an american city in diners, bars, apartments, and a warehouse with mostly men in the general area. What women you do see in the video seem to subservient to the men or just there for the appearance of the men which further shows that the artist is basically showing off the typical male idea that they are superior to men.

Something further enhanced by the fact that the only instruments used in the song that the video is based around are the electric guitar and the drums. These are stereotypically used in rock music which is seen as a predominantly male form of music. The fact that they are used in a pop video is something to consider as somewhat eccentric or perhaps at that point in time it would have been seen as inevitable that they would be used.

finished storyboard

today tom and i went over the storyboard that he had done the detailing of. i spent the entirety of the lesson apart from ten minutes spent waiting for tom to show up drawing the accompanying drawings. this i find helps to get the image of the shot in ones own mind, and brings to mind possible future problems that could show up during shooting of the video. such as how do you do a shot of the seeker in a game of hide and go seek chasing the hider if he himself is the hider as well as the seeker. simple use two cameras and shoot from two different angles. will upload full storyboard when tom emails it to me. for now i shall tell you it is four pages of details about camera shots, lighting, sound, and camera angles with accompanying drawings with arrows and people. also did some basic details about location. enhanced the concept of an internal game of hide and seek with our last three shots which are of our hider and seeker chasing each other through all of our locations. these locations are three different places. the center, the sixth form, and victoria park. i kind of thought this sounded like the beginning or content of the old cartoon the pink panther in which a pink cartoon panther gets chased by a police constable through various locations. tom said that he sort of got the idea fro m a cartoon. he and i both kind of worry that an idea from a cartoon won't translate well into a real life video. though i also thought it sounded like it might work well but we'll just have to wait until the editing stage to see how this works out. we plan to use two cameras during shooting to cover as many angles as possible, and we also plan to make two or three copies of every shot we shoot to cover for the eventuality of computer malfunction during editing or camera breaks. i will upload the results of the target audience questionnaire as soon as tom and i get people to answer it on our facebook accounts.

real ideas for cd cover, magazine ad, and music video

cd cover

we discussed several ideas but finally decided on having the main actor for our music video be the person on the cover of our cd cover of which the image will be basically someone standing in the middle of a sidewalk or street with people walking around the side of them. we decided to have a couple of street signs with the words lost, and this way to town on them or something like that. we are still at this point discussing cd names and font as well as word positioning. Though keep in mind this idea might not be put into effect depending on what tom and i do later in this project.

magazine ad

for the magazine ad we decided that we would have a wheel of primary or odd colours surrounded by grays and blacks as our cd ad. the cd information- name, release, band name, and the like will be on the coloured wheel or disk. This idea is also tentative, and depends on decisions later in the project.

music video

for the music video we decided we would set it in the centre or near it. it will be a conceptual video of a girl or boy on a mission= finding a place in the centre or looking for a particular item in the shops. this concept came about because the track we chose sounds like the sort of music you might hear in a movie where there are spies or soldiers. we haven't decided on what we'll do for actors, costumes, or props yet but will get around to that next class.

will write more tomorrow

choice of track

well tom and i finally looked at the list of non-copyrighted music today and we went to about three different sites before finding the right song right at the end of school. it was actually on a website that wasn't on the list. of course i can't remember the name of the site but i do know it was composed and written by a man, and the track is called on an operation or something like that. the comment from the composer of the track said that it was perfect for if you were doing some sort of movie or video about someone on a mission. tom and i decided to do our video as a conceptual. we're thinking something along the lines of somebody getting lost in the countryside and trying to find their way back to the city or something. tom said if we needed to drive anywhere he would do it. should have the storyboard finished when next i write. in the meanwhile will be thinking up ideas for design of the cd cover, and magazine ad

project resolution for the week and ideas for digipak

project resolution- get Tom to make track for Coleman and myself or choose artist or track from list of uncopyrighted artists

digipak ideas- maverick design for cd cover= profile of an angel or a simple halo design/ anything that represents soft or sort of good if we end up with a rock band from the list, music vid location- posssibly the centre of town, magazine ad font- gothic script for cd name, have the release date of the cd be sometime this year, name of record company possibilities= tomcat productions, or gothic evening music

these ideas of course depend on how Tom Coleman likes them. i get the feeling there will probably be a lot of negotiating and listening to our track before we actually get any plausible ideas. i'll write on this subject again within the week.

common themes in rock music

there are several things that i think are stereotyped as appearing in rock music. references to sex or woman in a sexual manner, drugs or the use of drugs, alcohol, violence, possibly motorcycles. i'm really not sure that i like this genre of music much but just because it is the stereotype or commonly expected thing doesn't mean i'm going to do it. my current ideas for the cd cover part of this coursework are mostly inspired by the cd cover presentation involving the group which has the logo of the deathbat of which the cd was called nightmare. though for some reason i can't remember the actual name of the group.

target audience questionnaire

okay for the past two or three lessons tom and i have been working on figuring out what the target audience for our rock group digipak would be. i think we decided on people in the age range of possibly 12 to 18 or somewhere around there. we have also been working on a target audience questionnaire so that we can get the specific preferences of our chosen TA down on record. Miss Davies recommended a great way to do this was to choose 3 snippets or clips from three different music videos from our genre or similar to our genre and show them to a sample group of our chosen target audience while handing out the questionnaires which we're currently figuring out the questions we are going to use. here are the eight we have so far. we originally wanted to go to at the most ten questions but can only currently think of eight

1. Do you like rock music? yes, or no? if no what music do you like? Why?
2. What artist/band is your favourite?
3. Which type of music video do you like? Narrative, conceptual, or performance? Why?
4. What emotions do you associate with your favourite music video or band?
5. Please circle your age group. 12-16, 16-18, 18-21, 21-30, 30+
6. this question relates to the method that Miss Davies suggested to Tom and I. Rate the 3 music videos just shown to you 1-3 with 1 being the best and 3 being the worst, and give reasons why you gave them that rating.
7. What images would you associate with rock music?
8. Tom and I are not sure we are going to use this question on our questionnaire because we won't be able to think up any concepts or ideas for our video until we know what track we're doing. Do you think the idea we just talked about for our music video is typical of the rock music genre?

These are the videos we might show bits of to our target audience though nothing is finalised yet

• Fallout Boy- This aint a scene (This is an arms-race)
• Bon Jovi- It's My Life
• possibly a non-main stream group= e.g. Sabaton- uprising

bon jovi cd cover analysis

Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet cd cover

The image on the cd cover is a rainy night as seen through a glass window i.e. from indoors. This image gives the impression of both sadness from the rain and possibly comfort from the glass. This is further shown from the colours of the album which is predominantly black; which has connotations of darkness, possibly silence, or in some cases of evil, with touches of red and white which has connotations of lust, love, fire, passion, rage, blood, and possibly purity and good overlapping these sentiments.

This is further seen in the almost child-like font of the cd title which possibly gives the impression of love from the colours more of a rooting in the image given in the name of the cd.

This almost childlike quality is also seen in the fact that the placement of the three words that make up the cd title is somewhat diagonally crooked with each of the words below the other one giving the impression of both order and disorder of the mind of the writer as well as the impression that they wanted to see out the misty window something alot of people try doing when they are kids. This is possibly a way to connect with fans of the artist or members of the artists target audience which considering he is a rock artist is most likely people in their mid-teens to early thirties.

This somewhat more mature way of thinking is seen in the font of the artists name on the cd cover which is similar to either calligraphy done in the olde english style or news-type which gives the impression that this style of writing is similar to a symbol for the artist in question. Either that or that it was something he was trying at the time and wanted to attract more of a fan base than people in his target audience by changing his style.

possible inspiration for rock music videos analysis 1

Gorillaz- feel good inc. music video

Apart from anything else this is a typical sort of video for the Gorillaz. It is all in cartoon animation and involves mostly the lead vocalist of the band sort of leading you through a sort of fantasy world in which the location of the video is a floating island with a sort of lighthouse like windmill on it. Also in which men seem a lot more powerful than women.

This is seen in the fact that in the video the only women seem to be the band members groupies also in cartoonised form. Which seems sort of weird to me since the video is a performance video showing the band members actually performing the song with some almost narrative like shots thrown in to make it seem less boring because of the repeated shots of the lead singer singing, the drummer drumming, and the women lying next to the guy playing the electric guitar.

This is further enhanced by the fact that apart from the cartoonising of the setting and band members it is almost a typical punk rock video with the members of the band dressed in black clothing, and mentions of lost love.

This serves the purpose of giving the impression of both a fantasy world and the real world mixed. Something which is also a Gorillaz trademark along with the cartoon animation of the members of the band. Something which allows the agent of the band to change its members without people noticing, and creates the avenue of marketing the band towards mostly teenagers of both genders.

history of music videos

• somewhat officially began in 1894 as images projected onto the back of the stage during music performances
• advanced to animated music films in 1926 with the introduction of what was known as talkies
• in the 1940's people started making "promotional clips" which were short live music clips for the Panoram visual jukebox
• in the period of the 1930's - 1950's Hollywood and other movie areas made musical films which some music videos take dances from e.g. micheal jackson took some fightlike dancing from movie version of West Side Story
• 1960's period in which rock music became mildly popular- The Beatles made popular performance videos
• 1967-1973 the importance of music videos is seen
• late 1970's Top of the Pops starts broadcasting music videos
• 1981 MTV created, and invention of colour video cameras, new video editing equipment, and new special effects for videos made Music Videos more popular
• 1984 MTV Music Video Awards launched
• modern times- internet allows artists to share music faster as well as allow fans and other people to express their opinion of their music

some of this information might not be accurate because i found this on wikipedia but it should give a decent overview of some of the keypoints of how music videos became popular. at least it should give some good places to get inspiration for the music videos we are doing.

other ideas i could consider for a cd cover or a music video

another idea i could consider for a cd cover or a music video is the band green day. though again how we do the video and the rest of the digipak depends on the song Tom's band does for tom and i.

• Green day:american idiot cd cover

The image is of a somewhat comical almost graffiti-like image of an arm holding a heart-shaped grenade. An image that is possibly showing the bands opinion of the war in Iraq or Afghanistan which is obviously bad. A fact further seen in the fact that the grenade seems to be bleeding like an actual heart which seems to be giving the message that to go to war is somewhat like having to throw away your own heart. A sentiment further enhanced by the name of the album which is "American Idiot", and the colours used on the cover which are white and red on a black background. This has connotations of either purity and love shining through darkness or purity and love being eclipsed by darkness.

This sort of controversial cover is sort of a symbol for Green Day. So apart from anything else this sort of thing is neither a regressive or progressive cover for the band despite connotations of youth and rebellion being oozed from the very pores of the cover. This is obviously meant as a gimmick to attract members of the bands target audience which seems to be young men in their late teens to late twenties. Though the looks of the band members might attract a fair number of girls to the bands music.

music genre

we've just decided that we are going to do a rock genre music video. which should be fun i guess. though if i remember correctly there are several different sub-genres of rock. the name of the band we are doing is Splutter which i think sounds sort of funny. depending on the song they give us we can determine how we are going to do the video. personally i'm thinking we should start off with the set in darkness or just go for a complete performance video. though i might go for taking some ideas from the band called the gorillaz and cartoonising the video. to the right is an example of the type of thing i might consider in my own style of course. though it entirely depends on the lyrics of the song and the type of rock we are talking about. There is also the fact that I am really not that good at drawing so this idea might not work out as expected.

Though if this doesn't come out right that is to say if the band doesn't come through for us and come up with a track for Tom and I we might have to look at the list of copyright free artists that Miss Davies has.

greetings to another year of projects

hey this is eve again. since i have last written a blog i have grown a bit i think so my blog for this piece of coursework should be better than last years. currently i am partnered with a guy who was in a different group last year named Tom. We are currently deciding what genre of music we are doing. the band we are doing is one that another guy in the same class belongs to. this particular guy is going to write a track for tom and myself to make a video for. this should really be fun. personally i want to do the designing for the magazine ad or the cd cover. although i think i will probably just end up drawing or digitally drawing a bunch of characters from my imagination.