Target Audience Research Feedback

 These are the results of my feedback - the answers for multiple choice questions only as the other questions varied in answers so they have been shown in the picture I made using Wordle. These results show the answers from a random group of 10 teenagers - my target audience. 

* (second question in the lilac coloured option should be Pop music but for some reason isn't in the list.) From these results I can see that a large majority of the people surveyed listen to Pop music and do take notice of music videos.

With these other multiple choice questions we see the most popular reason why people watch music videos is when nothing else is on - it is important that videos have a lot going on in respects to the colours/costumes/narrative as people's attentions are instantly grasped by excitement and wanting to see the end. A music video should be like watching a mini film and this is what I intend to create. From the above results I see that it is also important to have dancing so I could work something into this as I know a few dancers. The least important thing seems to be seeing the band perform so I might not have to include that in the video at all.

As for the last question where I asked people to submit ideas, a lot of people said that my ideas were good but some people suggested the use of humour and cliches which would suit the narrative of the video. I agree with this and will refer to this suggestion later when making my storyboard.

CD Sleeve Analysis 2

 

LIGHTS BY ELLIE GOULDING

Genre: Ellie Goulding is a very alternative style of music with her earthy sounds mixed with Pop-py, techno, dance-y backing tracks.

Generic Conventions: Her alternative music is reflected in the way she represents herself, even on this cover we see the originality of her personality with the use of the lights in her hair. This converys to people that she is quite a bright and sparkly personality. The main focus is her face and the way she is presented makes us think she is pretty - maybe even magical
Connotations: Clothing -The black top she is wearing fades into the background, the image is mainly a headshot and this is because she is the artist and the image makes us focus our attention on Ellie's face and the bright lights in her hair.
Colour - The colours used are bold, yellow lights against black, stands out. Yellow is a very bright and happy colour which contrasts against the connotations of black which is quite a dark and morbid colour. Maybe this suggests Ellie has a darker/more serious side to her personality behind the happy and sparkly front she puts on for the audience.
Mise-en-scene - The only mise-en-scene shown is the lights. Lights semantically link/remind us of stars, lights around a celebrities dressing room mirror etc. All things we can link with fame and being "a star". Therefore we are given the impression that Ellie - even though she is quite a new and up and coming artist - is already as star in the making.
Font: The font is very glowing and golden which is not only eyecatching but also looks very "cool" almost like light-up signs you see in new york or on the west end. This interlinks with the idea that she is a star and also defines her as an artist to look out for because she has big potential.

 

Questionnaire Results - Wordle.net

As well as making pie charts showing my results I decided to use a website called Wordle to highlight important factors of information I got from surveying my target market. These words shall inspire my work - the story board especially.

Lyrics

So here are the lyrics of the song Electric Shocks which my video will be used to interpret visually.

Electric Shocks Lyrics

Friday nights, electric shocks feel the relentless optimism of the next twelve hours ahead,

Yet the fact is, games such as this,

They’re better played, not on my own but with you, running by my side instead,

When reality’s in doubt, in doubt, reality’s in doubt,

When reality’s in doubt, in doubt, reality’s in doubt,

All these electric shocks, they’re just things I start thinking of,

When cheaper energetic shocks, fall hard and fast, they’re scattered all around,

With fire and lightning bolts, their eyes fixed to the ground,

Confronted, lonely, lost our souls, find courage hard to shout, to drown about,

We drown the night, we drown the night, to drown them out,

When reality’s in doubt, in doubt, reality’s in doubt,

When reality’s in doubt, in doubt, reality’s in doubt,

All these electric shocks, they’re just things I start thinking of,

When cheaper energetic shocks, fall hard and fast, they’re scattered all around,

With fire and lightning bolts, their eyes fixed to the ground,

Confronted, lonely, lost our souls, find courage hard to shout, to drown about,

We drown the night, we drown the night, to drown them out,

We drown the night, we drown the night, we drown the night to drown them out, oh to drown them out,

Start, stop, electric shocks

Start, stop, electric shocks

Start, stop, start, stop, electric shocks, electric shocks

If there should be someone required to reaffirm faith in the land, let it be some nerdy, desperate type with courage hard to shout to drown them out, we drown the night, we drown the night, we drown the night, let’s drown our night tonight.

MAGAZINE AD ANALYSIS

In today's lesson we looked at and analysed 4 CD magazine adverts. I was given these 4 cd adverts:

I then analysed these adverts and created a table analysing the images used, how the advert links to the CD sleeve, the font and text used and any quotes from well known music reviewers.

TODAY

After making my questionnaire I handed it out, picking a group of ten teenagers in my target market. I will put up the results soon in the form of pie charts. I aim to find out as much as possible of what my target audience would typically expect from this genre and also what things they would want in the video after hearing the ideas I have. It is important to include my target audience in my work as they are who the video is aimed at and they would be the ones to go and purchase the song if it were to be shown on a music channel. Music videos can be a making or breaking point for a song as it is the visual representation of the song. Whenever you hear a song you are usually reminded of the video (if you have seen it).

Music Video Analysis 3

Goodbye Mr A - The Hoosiers

The music video begins with this animated shot from a very low angle, I am guessing it is looking up at the sky above all the skyscraping buildings in a city with a big light showing the letter H - referring to The Hoosiers band name and also using intertextual refences linking to the Batman comic book series, where a light like this is used to alert the comic hero that Gotham City needs his help.

Within the Hoosiers video they use a lot of animation techniques referencing towards comic books, using large onomatopoeiaic words which are commonly found within this genre of book.

Portraying themselves as superheroes also tells us a lot about the band themselves as in reality they look quite geeky and do not look the conventional stereotype of a 'superhero'. This shows they have a sense of humour as they are poking fun at themselves.

Within the video they also use the voyeuristic perception of women as being "tropheys", during a scene where they are receiving praise from the mayor we see a two shot of two blonde, pretty girls leaning forwards with autograph books. They are stereotypical representations of the fan girls that would be swooning over the superheroes and the band have used them to demonstrate this.

The band use stereotypical scenes from superhero films such as Superman where Superman is "flying" across the screen and where the newspaper the Daily Planet spins onto the screen producing headlines that link with the plot of the episode.

The Hoosiers also use postmodern references through mise-en-scene such as in the image above, a little sign that says "Hoosier Gonna Call?" referring to the famous slogan from the 1984 film Ghostbusters "Who You Gonna Call?"

 Again in the image above we see a possible intertextual reference to the film Toy Story where Sid straps Buzz Lightyear to a rocket.

 

Music Video Analysis 2

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE - YOU'VE GOT THE LOVE
 

The video starts with very dark lighting, a spotlight from the top right corner (unseen) highlights Florence’s face composed in the bottom left of the screen. The light highlights her signature motif bright red hair. As the camera zooms out from an extreme close-up to a medium shot of Florence, the lighting shows her face brighter making her appear beautiful/angelic. We can see her in a glittering costume with almost theatrical looking makeup. There is an obvious relationship between the lyrics and visuals, as she sings “Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air” and raises her hand to the light.

As the music fades to reach a dramatic crescendo the lighting abruptly fades out to blackness to mimic the dramatic change in the music. Once again we see the outline of Florence highlighted by a small spotlight that focuses on the motif of her bright red hair.

As the music reaches the chorus, Florence appears on a large glittering moon making her seem glamorous and dazzling with the high lighting. The mise – en – scene becomes the audience's main focus but also still keeps our attention on the main singer Florence.

The lighting now looks very blue and spotlights are used behind to appear like stars. Florence uses her body to create a strange pose to draw the audience’s attention - also linking in with the voyeuristic treatment of the female body, that she is simply an object to be looked at.

 

The camera shot changes position from facing Florence as a medium long shot, to a medium close-up from the side at a low angle so she appears slightly above us signifying her. Her movements appear very sexual and this tells us a lot about Florence as a singer and how she wants to portray herself to her fans and viewers of the video – she wants them to see her as a woman who is very sure of sexuality and confident with her body (exhibited by her skimpy costume).

 

One of the best aspects of this music video is the lighting. This is used very prominently to add colour and create special effects and compositions that could not be achieved any other way. The light is always focused on or appears to be coming from within Florence – maybe a metaphor?

She always seems to be addressing the light – suggesting many different ideas to what it could symbolize (God, a lover, the sun etc), which is left to the audience to decide who Florence is singing to.

Florence not only uses her body in a sexual way but also in quite a ferocious/exaggerated way. She makes a lot of fierce “head-banging” and sweeping motions which are shown close-up to capture the action (in match-on-action shots) and to give the video a fast pace to fit with the pace of the music at this point.

Florence’s passionate and vigorous movements not only work with the pace of the music but they emphasise the lyrics which are explicitly about love.

The shots then change dramatically as we see a lot of long shots that show the moon turning surrounded by smoke (mimicking clouds in the sky) as Florence leans back looking quite “fairy-like” as she sweeps her hand through the smoke – quite similar to Dreamworks. 

Florence then continues to use her hair and body to create excitement on the screen. She changes her position in the composition of the shots we see, making it feel as if there is a lot going on – when in reality she is just moving about a bit. A match-on-action shot is used to make her “head-banging” seem more exciting and showing it from different angles makes it look quite jerky and dynamic.

Within this music video there appear to be many references to other music videos and even films. As the lighting in the film becomes a lot brighter and we see a sudden use of transitions used to overlay shots they create a very postmodern looking music video. Whilst being post-modern looking it also looks very “Kate Bush-Wuthering Heights” with the use of smoke and very feminine/flailing arms etc.

However I also think the use of the shadowy hand against the white could refer to horror films such as Psycho and Scream – taken from many shower murder scenes.

We then see Florence shown sat on the bottom of the moon with her legs dangling over the edge as thousands of silver balloons fly up past her – with which the camera lowers the angle and Florence’s eye line follows the balloons making the audience do so too. In the back there is a small blue spotlight just seen (also used earlier to create the blue effect) it is now focused down on the smoke to give it a turquoise almost sea-like effect (Little Mermaid-esque?)

Magazine Advert Analysis 1

Target Market Questionnaire

I created a questionnaire to give to my target audience to find out what they would expect from the music video. My target audience are teenagers from 16 - 25 years old. I chose this target audience as they are a popular choice of consumer as they tend to spend the most on music that is in the charts and I think they would be interested in the genre of music I am looking at (Indie).

TARGET AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

For my A2 level project, my task is to create a music video. I would appreciate your ideas and input on what I could include in the video :)

1. Please circle your age…

16             17              18               19

2. What is your favourite genre of music? (Please circle)

Pop Rock Classical R+B Hip-Hop

Indie Rap Jazz Dance Soul

Other (please state) ____________________

3. Do you watch music videos? (Please circle)

Yes               No

4. How often would you say you watch music videos? (Please circle)

Exclusively

Often

Only when flipping through channels

Whenever there is nothing else on

Never

5. Is there a music video that you really like / that is really memorable? If so please state the artist/band and the song…

Yes                      No

Artist/Band ___________________________________

Song _________________________________________

6. What aspects of the video specified attracted you? (Only if answered Yes)

Seeing the band performing                                Seeing a narrative/story

The mise-en-scene/ props used                Dancing               Colours

Costume                   Other(please state) ________________________________

My video is for a band called Robot Disaster.

7. What comes to mind when you hear the band’s name? (Please be more imaginative than “robot” thank you! :P)
_______________________________________________________________

 The track is called Electric Shocks.

 8. What comes to mind when you hear the name of the song?

 __________________________________________________________________

 My idea for the video is that a ‘robot girl’ is conforming to a robotic life and breaks free and falls in love.

 9. What images would you expect to see, having heard this idea?

_______________________________________________________________

 

10. What would you expect the robot girl to wear/ look like?

_______________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

11. What effect would you expect the music video to have on you as a viewer? (Please circle)

 Excitement                    Poignancy                A desire to purchase the song

Aggression/Negative                               Happiness/Positive

To portray the point of the song

Other __________________________________________

12. Do you like the idea proposed for the video? (Please circle)

Yes       No

13. If answered No, please state what is wrong with the concept proposed…

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

 

14. What ideas (if any) could you put forward to appear in the music video?

_________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your time in filling out this questionnaire :)

Anastasia Gaylard-Hughes

Music Video Analysis 1

LADY GAGA FT BEYONCE-TELEPHONE

CAMERA SHOTS
 

Montage of close-ups + long shots of the prison setting of the first part of the video including shots of the wire fencing around the prison and guards on top of the roof etc. These convey the setting. 

Close-ups used throughout, especially used to highlight the fashion used in the video.  They are also used to create humour, for instance a close-up of the sandwich Beyonce throws out of the window shows it to say “Honey Bun” which is a nickname Lady Gaga uses for Beyonce.

Close-ups also make the audience feel close to the characters we are watching and therefore we understand the messages that Lady Gaga has included within the video. The way in which Beyonce seems very innocent and when she swears she covers her hand with a cheeky look on her face. This adds for comic effect.

Medium shots are used to show the dancing within the video and are also taken from a high angle (acting as surveillance cameras) and medium long shot to give more action and dynamics to the pace of the dancing.

 

 MISE EN SCENE

            Costume is very important to Lady Gaga as she expresses herself as a musician/artist through her clothing. In the video there are many costume changes which both Lady Gaga + Beyonce share as the lead singers.

All the costumes fit with the context of the plot of the video which is set out as the story of two lesbian criminals who end up poisoning a whole American service station restaurant of people. The use of the telephone as a hairstyle and headpiece, and as a way of linking the song with the plot is used cleverly throughout  - Beyonce contacts Lady Gaga via the phone but Gaga is “too busy” to talk.

EDITING

  

Opening titles in the style of a film – the font is used to mimic a telephone  

Caption at bottom of screen, mimics that of a police surveillance video in a prison

Montage editing is used throughout to add to the pace of the music and to make the audience look at what Lady Gaga wants to highlight in the video – e.g. the fashion, props that add irony such as the little pot of honey next to Beyonce who is nicknamed “Honey Bee”.

 

Transitions such as a fade are also used to add postmodernism to this music video – it creates the feeling that this is fantasy and weird compared to reality. It makes it appaear as though the phonecalls are driving Beyonce mad as suggested in the lyrics "sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station" which is a reference to the largest and busiest railway station in the world showing a feeling of rushing and claustraphobia.

      Another effect they use in Telephone is the technique of cutting up a small part of the film and repeating it to create the effect that there is a break/disruption/jump in the continuity – similar to a break in the connection of a telephone call  as Lady Gaga sings “wh-wh-what did you say? Huh? You’re breaking up on me”. Similarly towards the end they use this same effect when Beyonce is in her room in the military style jacket. She does certain dance moves/facial expressions and the shot is cut and pasted back multiple times making her appear to shake and again suggests that there is a loss in the connection (and possibly to make appear crazy). 

   They use a transition called a circle wipe, which is in the form of a rotary dial on a phone. They also use another special wipe which is in the shape of a knife and fork as Lady Gaga is presently in a kitchen.

 Again another wipe is used towards the end where stars meaning to immitate that of the American flag, spin into the screen in unison.

 As the “Pussy Wagon” drives off, a very cartoony Wacky Races style font appears on the screen in pink letters saying WROOM. This could be referencing to the 1960's Hanna Barbera cartoon Wacky Races involving a large number of quirky characters.

 Another effect used is where they split the screen showing two shots at once, to create the effect that is in the car driving away with Beyonce as well as being stood outside it dancing at the same time.

CD Sleeve Analysis 1

TEENAGE DREAM BY KATY PERRY.

Genre: Katy Perry's music style is very pop/electro pop - a very mainstream music genre you can dance to and is always in the charts.

Generic Conventions: Pop music is generally "up-beat" and "happy" and this is conveyed by her lyrical choice and the colours / font on the cover of the CD. Usually pop is also quite cheesy but I would say that this cover is very "tongue-in-cheek" with the sex appeal given from Katy's lack of clothing and position on the candy floss cloud.
Connotations: Clothing - As Katy is not wearing clothes we assume she is a very confident woman who is fine showing off her body and is aware of her sexuality. We also can see that part of the candyfloss covers her bum and her position hides a lot of her body showing that although confident, she is also modest and respects her body enough to not put it all on display. This links in with the title of her album, the naughty aspect of a teenage dream being quite sexy and the feeling of no boundaries / pushing the boundaries as a teenager.
Colour - The colours used are very feminine, both pink and red. Pink is a very "girly" colour and red usually connotes love. The pink balances out the sexual connotations of the red + nakedness of Katy, making her seem quite sweet - like the candy floss. The only other colour used is the blue sky, and blue usually is semantically linked with calmness and serenity and with the clouds the whole picture
Mise-en-scene - The only mise-en-scene we can see at first is the clouds used to cover up Katy's body and to interlink with this theme of candy. Looking closer we see how the font could become a part of the mise-en-scene as well.
Font: Looking at the bottom of the CD we can see that "Teenage Dream" has been written in a candy cane style font. Looking at Katy's name it, at first, appears to be written in swirly red lettering, but on closer inspection could easily be red strawberry laces. This writing used for her name has become a kind of symbol/signature of hers and tells her fans a lot about her personality - that she is sweet and flirty.
looks very dream-like and heavenly (fitting with the title "Teenage Dream")

The History Of Music Videos.

Music videos first became prominent in the 1980's when they first came into use by MTV.
Originally music videos were referred to as an 'illustrated song', 'filmed insert', 'promotional (promo) film', 'promotional clip' or 'film clip'.TIMELINE...
- In the 1930's animation artists were the first to make a series of sing-along cartoon shorts, inviting audience's to sing-along with the words displayed at the bottom of the screen. This is shown in such films as Fantasia and Summer Magic, as well as the Warner Brother's 'Merry Melodies'.

- Said to be "the ancestors of music videos" a feature film was created in the 1940s called, "Lookout Sister" in which Louis Jordan (a renowned American jazz/rhythm & blues musician) created a few short films which were spliced together.
- Musical films were another important predecessors to music videos, and several well-known music videos imitate classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl" which was inspired by the song "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. 
Several of Michael Jackson's videos include dance sequences influenced by classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and "Bad" which was influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story.

-  The Buggles 'Video killed the radio star' became the first music video to be shown on MTV in the 1980's.

- During the 1970s, Top of the Pops was born on the BBC showing top chart hits throughout the weeks.


-  During the 1980s, music videos began to change, from simply promoting the artist to using narrative, sometimes with the artist themselves not even being present in the video, such as  Queen's Under Pressure and George Michael's Freedom 90 in which he refused to star in.

- In 1986 Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer became the first music video to use special effects and animation techniques with the help of Aardman animation company.


-In 2005 yOUTUBE made its debut on the internet giving people the chance to view billions of videos that can be uploaded and accessed for free by anyone anywhere in the world. Many artists became well known and have found fame from uploading videos featuring themselves singing; artists such as Soulja Boy with his famous Soulja Boy Tell Em song and Justin Bieber who was signed to Usher's recording label in 2008.