Research
What is a music video?
A music video is a short promotional video with the music playing along. Music videos can be a slideshow of images with the music playing in the background or an action scene with the music. As long as the music is playing in it's full time length.
What is the purpose of a music video?
Music videos are important as their purpose is to boost sales of albums or singular songs. It encourages people to listen to new songs and react by making a purchase. Whether that purchase is made on a record or CD, it doesn't matter what format you listen on or purchased on. You'll still be boosting sales of the song(s).
The history of music videos
Music videos have been around for decades and have proved to be very effective in getting audiences to make a purchase. One of the first popular music videos came from Queen, Bohemian rhapsody. This is an iconic music video that helped set standards for future music videos.
Before Queen's video there were music videos by the Beatles and Billy holiday that had a short film to go with their music so the idea of a music video was there.
MTV - MTV was a channel that played music for people to watch and listen, so there was a reason for artists to make visuals to go with the music. Artists could also use this to promote music while touring away. Music was becoming universal.
The three initial purpose of a music video
Image construction
Artistic statement
Johnny Cash is a great example of this. He made a song called 'Hurt' about his memories with his dead wife. It's very creative and deep.
Synergy
Ghostbusters is a great example of this. The film was given a theme tune and so there was a link between the two that helped promote the movie.
Black eyed peas
The group black eyed peas formed in 1995. The group is known for it's range of electronic music. They use a range of styles in their songs combining pop with electronic sounds and rap. They are a very diverse group compared to a lot of the other groups in the early 2000s.
Black eyed Peas 'where is the love' is a song they wrote in response to the 9/11 event that happened in New York. The song asks why there is so much hate in the world. The message is very powerful especially because it's in response to one of the biggest terrorist attacks in history. The group are have made a few songs with political messages and they aren't afraid to put out a message to their audience. Their songs mostly focus on people staying positive and having fun.
'Get it' is another song with a political message. This song covers police brutality and racism. The music video directed by Ben Mor shows the police abusing their power and shooting dead bodies on the street as well as beating other people. The video is uncomfortable to watch which helps boost the message of 'Get it'.
Daft Punk
The group Daft Punk formed together in 1993. They are a french group known for electronic disco music. They are known for many classics such as 'get lucky' and 'around the world'. 'Get lucky' is their most famous song. They heavily focus on electronic music and are known for wearing funny helmets when performing on stage. The group has made a name in the electronic music genre. The 90s and 2000s was where Daft Punk found it's success and took off. The duo has stated that they take time on their work as they don't want to create crappy music.
Daft Punk have stated that they didn't want to be associated with any politics so they are neutral with a lot of the music. The music they create is purely made for entertainment and the enjoyment for others. The group has made a lot of banger songs that are listened to by many people. Despite not being known for hidden messages they did have one, for their song 'epilogue'. The song was the announcement of the band splitting up.
Epilogue is the title of the final song they made. The title itself is a synonym for conclusion or the end of. The title is what gives this song a message. The message is powerful as the group has been going on for decades. The message they put out broke a lot of fans hearts as they were an inspiration to many people.
Cold play
Cold play are a group that formed in 1996. They are a British group consisting of 4 members: the vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Johnny Buckland, bassist guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion. They create and perform pop music and have been active for a few decades and are still performing. The group use melodic piano-driven anthems in their music so it sounds slightly classical. Alternative rock is the best way to describe their music.
Their music consists of catchy melodies with driving drums and guitar lines. Their music also relates to sadness and love. 'The scientist' and 'yellow' are examples of this. People can relate to a lot of their songs. The groups main focus in their songs is deep emotion, a lot of people can relate to the messages of the songs there for connecting with the band more. In their recent album 'Every day life' the songs cover real world issues, going over the political status of the world. They aren't known for talking about politics in their songs though and are more known for covering emotion.
'Trouble' is a great example of how Coldplay channels emotion in to their songs. The songs is about forgiveness and admitting that you were in the wrong. The song was written because Chris Martin (lead singer) kicked his drummer Will Champion out the band because he did't think he was good enough. Chris would ask if Will could join back just a few day later.
Music Video
- To make money - This is called extension of income, this involves physical copy sales as well as streams on Spotify, amazon music, youtube and more platforms
- To promote the music and get it playing on multiple platforms. A lot of songs make its way to TikTok where it is played in mini videos made by creators. This is called extension of outlet. These songs can make its way to other platforms as well such as youtube.
What strategies do music producers use when making a video?
- Controversy
- entertaining
- Thought provoking
- demographic-centred
Whats the difference when working with a large budget to a small budget when making a youtube video?
There are three types of record labels:
Large budget - major label - They are largely focused on making revenue. The larger budgets will often have contacts for features with other artists making an appearance in the video. Larger budgets will find themselves having less limitations with what they can do with the visuals.
Small budget - independant label - Less revenue focused on making. The producer will have to be more creative in ways to capture an audience. The producer might only specialise on one genre.
ARCTIC MONKEYS - 'IBTYLGOTD' is a great example of this
low budget self artist produced - Just like an independant label the producers have to be creative with their budget but they have complete creative control with what goes on in the video.
Battle tapes 'no good' is a great example of this. The group used a cheap program for their video which made the video very robotic and unique.
Technical conventions:
Music video Styles
Performance music videos - These music videos focus on the band or artist performing on stage. There isn't really any narrative just different angles and camera focuses on the performances. This is a good easy style for big performers especially if they have a heavy workload or if they are on tour.
Narrative based music videos - These music videos have a storyline going on in their music videos. In these videos the main artist will not always feature in the video this can allow the band or artist to carry on touring if they are already. They won't have to shoot the music video so it won't be time consuming for them.
interpretive style music video - These types of videos aim to portray the lyrics of the song in a visual format. Thriller is a great example of this. The video has Michael Jackson scaring his girlfriend and showing the horror aspect of film in his video.
Animation music videos - Animated styled videos can either be made with stop motion, taking photos and making changes every few photos to get a moving video. The other way to animate is CGI, this is digital animation. Both ways are very time consuming and take a long process to make. The pay off is usually pretty good but it takes a lot of time to make these styled videos.
Pastiche - An artists work that imitates another piece of work. Rather than a parody pastiche acknowledges the work and celebrates it. Taking ideas from another piece of work but not necessarily respect the work that they are referencing. Below is an example of Queen doing a pastiche on Elvis as well as a song called Eternal rains by Opeth.
Parody - Means to mock another artist(s) piece of work. Music artists usually imitate poorly on purpose to get a funny video. Below is a video which is a parody of shape of you. A very famous parody artist The Weird Al Yankovic is famous for copying beats and changing the lyrics to something completely different.
Homage - Means to respect or honour another piece of work. referencing and respecting work that another artist has made. Below is an example of this. I believe the music video was a homage of the film saving private Ryan.
The problem with referencing material is that if the audience doesn't get it they won't get the video. It's important that when people do this they make it clear what they're referring to. What a lot of creators do is they reference an event or another artist's work in a 4 second clip of their video instead of dedicating the whole video. A lot of creators used symbols to reference, the illuminati symbol was used in a lot of music videos. Katy Perry did this in one of her music videos.
Audiences
Social economics - Social economics is the study of social behaviour and economics. This research will depend on the mediums in to the specific audience. For example how much time do you think someone would invest in a new copy of half life. A new video game/series. Relates to the activities of the target audience.
Ethnographic - Ethnographic's is the study of observation of another culture. A lot of marketing looks at the habits snd emotion in different social bubbles. You can look at different peoples reaction to videos, seeing what people think of different experiences.
Geographic - This is the main audience that support and appreciate your product. Spiderman cartoons for example are mostly watched by kids who are boys. This is a geographic because I have data supporting this making it a fact. I have a group of people that share something common.
Psychographic - This is the research of consumers habits, attitudes, lifestyle and interests. This allows for people to see what the majority of their market audience likes and does so that they can appeal more of their product to the consumers. Also the feelings that people feel about different subjects.
In media there are a lot of tropes that appear in different themes, in grime especially. Tropes means to be predictable and carry on something that has been used repeatedly. The audience become familiar with a genre and get used to recognising the different themes/conventions.
Grime music videos share a lot of themes in the majority of music videos. For example in a lot of the music videos the main rapper is surrounded by a group covered up in black. They where expensive jewellery (chains and watches).
Camera movement
Camera movement is really important when it comes to making a music video. It can change the style alone just by having lots of quick cuts. It'll be important for me to try and get as much footage as i can as this will come in handy in the post production. The post production is where I can make all these quick and flashy edits as well as zooming in and out.
Use of sound
Diegetic and non-diegetic
Diegetic - This is when a sound is coming form the universe of the performance, it's taking place inside the scene. For example people breathing heavily or talking in the scene of the performance is diegetic.
Non-diegetic - This is when there's sound not coming from the scene itself. For example music is often non-diegetic, as long as it's not a live concert or recording it is usually non-diegetic. The sound is not being emitted from the performance.
Violet city Song and band Mansionair research
Who are Mansionair? - Mansionair are an Australian band consisting of three members. The bands genre is alternative rock music. The group formed in 2014 signing with glass note records.
How did they influence me in to using their song for my music video? -
The overall tempo of the song is a bit easier for me to work with as it's quite slow so timing will be better
The message for why they made the song also kind of influenced as before choosing my song I knew I wanted to be focusing on great visuals. The song is about having anxiety and just letting go of everything so having this creative video will hopefully work well
There aren't too many lyrics so it would be easier to film something that still links with the music, less visualisation
Demographic
Who's mansionair's target audience?
The main demographic of Mansionair is people aged in their late teens to 30-year-olds. The band has been classified as an electronic pop group despite the group stating that they never really went for that genre of music. The band is Australian, so a lot of their audience comes from Sidney the place in which the group formed and grew together.
What is their audience classification?
The bands audience classification is young adults. A lot of this target audience are fans of Mansionair and listen to their music. Young adults in Australia are probably a bigger demographic since the band is Australian and formed in Sydney.
What's are the audience's preferences?
A lot of the audiences' preferences that are a fan of mansionair enjoy the indie rock genre. These groups go into various genres in the music industry having a selection of songs that are unique to the artists history
of work.
Who is the artists competition?
Other bands that have formed in and grown Australia are competition to Mansionair as they have a grab on some of their Australian audiences. An example of this is a band called 'loose tooth'. 'Moaning Lisa' is another band that has a very similar audience. They originate in Australia along with the band Mansionair and they also have been labelled the same genre as Mansionair.
Statistics
The video 'Violet city' on YouTube has three point three million views but a lot of their videos range a lot differently. Their songs range anywhere from 1 thousand views to 33 million. Their views on YouTube is very inconsistent. It seems like a lot of the band's music can be hit or miss. Their music recently has been declining in popularity over the past year. The way I personally found out about them is through a game called FIFA. In one of the years, they had the song 'Violet city'. So that's the way I found out about the group.
As you can see the top picture is the videos and views in their most previous uploads. Compare that to their first uploads on the channel. The views have been depleting over time, the group is declining in popularity.