Voyeurism - 'The notion of looking'

Voyeurism is used in many music videos. One example is in Rhianna's video, Don't stop the music, where she is lip syncing while looking in the mirror. This is a 'notion of looking'. Others include, watching a scene through a glass window, telescopes, looking glass, screens within screens and the use of eyes.
Another music video which uses a lot of voyeurism is Justin Timberlake - Cry me a river. This uses it repeatedly which involves looking through glass, looking through gaps, and using a screen within a screen.We have decided to use this in our music video as it appears in lots of videos so fits the conventions. It is also fitting the conventions of Goodwin's theory.

Voyeurism creates depth to a video as the audience can see through the individuals own view or from a view that is either inside or outside whats going on in the video. It makes it more interesting and more personal to the artist when the lyrics fit. For example from our lyrics, the line, 'Please inform me if it may seem too unkind', are referring to the artist or main character in the video, so an act of voyeurism, e.g looking into a mirror, makes it more personal as the lyrics say 'me'.

Storyboard

This is our first draft of the storyboard. We have come up with ideas for our narrative based video which we feel best suit the lyrics. I have briefly sketched out our storyboard for verse one, two and the chorus. The bridging music in between we have decided we are going to have our individual running as this creates a feeling of fear or panic. We can now work on this and develop it for our second draft.

Lyrics

These are the lyrics to our chosen song by The Vinyl Junkies. The song is called Dear Diary. As from the lyrics it was not clear to us what the song was about, we contacted the lead singer and writer of the band and asked them to give us a brief summery of the story behind it. From the lyrics we can see that is is narrative based although there are lots of words involved which makes it less simplified. The story is basically about a bully victim as we can see from the lyrics the individual is very unhappy, even suicidal, so they decide to punish everyone at school who has made them feel this way. The victim does this by taking a gun into school. As a result of this, some are injured and some die.

I have made some notes on the lyrics to ideas for our video, and time length of the track. As we feel the track is very long at 5 minutes 5 seconds, we have decided we are going to cut the track at 3 minutes 35 seconds. This is just after the second chorus. We will fade out the music so that it does not come to a complete stop. I have also timed each section in the verses so that we know the length of time we need to fill for that part of the track.

Advert Analysis

The Vines
The first thing you notice looking at this advert is the green vines standing out on the while background. The visual representation uses links with the name of the band and the colour being predominantly green may represent their style of music for example being new, fresh and organic rather than almost processed e.g. techno. The same font is used in the whole advert which shows continuity. The design is quirky and is at an angle on the page which may link again to vines as they do not grow straight. Also, the time of release is clear to see as well and the simplicity in the advertisement makes that stand out more. The advert makes you want to go and buy the CD and listen to as it does not give much away as an advert. The quirkiness also suggests the target audience the band are aiming for are a young target audience.

Ellie Goulding
The first thing you notice is the main central image of the artist. This draws attention straight away as we know who the advert is advertising and we immediately have a connection. The artists name is written clearly underneath with the album name in a slightly smaller font. This tells us that the album name is not as crucial to know as the artists name but it is still clear for the market to see. As the font is the same style, this shows a sense of continuity. On the advertisement there are quotes from newspapers with a star rating which tells the audience that the artist and album are thought of as good and worth listening to. The colour scheme used is golds and browns which are very natural, complimenting the artists blonde hair.

Gwen Stefani
This advert is layed out very differently to the ones above. The image is linking in with the font used as it is portraying an almost fairytale style. In the picture, the artist is holding a crown and various items containing jewels. This makes the cover very glamorous and almost like a fairytale, not reality. The font also adds to the glamour. The bright colours represent the genre of the artists music as the audience can automatically guess this is a pop artist. The hair covering one eye brings a sense of mystery to the artist so maybe it is not everything you might expect. The eye we can see is looking directly at the audience which creates a sense of connection and draws an audience in. The cover looks exciting and is clearly recognisable as promoting the album, 'Love.Angel.Music.Baby.' as there is a small image of it at the bottom. The information including the record company and website is clearly stated at the bottom but in a smaller font so we can see this is not the information that it is most important to get across to the audience. The artist name is in a much bigger font to make it clear which artist this is, and the name of the album is slightly smaller but still big enough to be noticed. The colours used may also represent the personality and style of the the artist and album. Bright colours represent excitement, confidence and fun which may attract an audience also.

How do record labels promote releases?

-Magazines
This is a great way of promoting an artist to a specific audience for example particular genre music magazines.

-Television adverts
This is for a general audience, although artist adverts can be placed  after shows such as X Factor as many young people who are obviously interested in music to be watching the show will view the advert.

-Internet
-TV guides
-Radio
-Magazine covers

Amy Winehouse promoting herself on the front of a magazine cover.

-Billboards
These are huge and are ideal for places like football stadiums or busy cities. They are a great way of promoting an artist as loads of people will be sure to see it.

Bon Jovi promoting an album on a billboard in a stadium.

-Using synergy

Analysis of Digipacks

Click to enlarge

 

What makes an effective album or single cover?

I think the cover should link to the iconography of the artist. This is what represents their music so the colours and images used should represent how the artist wants to come across. Also the style of the single or the album should come across on the cover, for example Katy Perry's album 'Teenage Dream' represents the style of the music on that album. The theme is mainly baby pink and blue, with pink candyfloss clouds and candy cane colour font. The candyfloss clouds are also scented. This links with the title of the album because it is almost a dream world. This represents her as fun and original and represents the poppy style of music. The colours make the cover look very feminine yet the sense of nudity makes it slightly less innocent. The text on a cover should be easy to read yet be in a style that links to the rest of the cover or a style that is also used on other things involving the artist e.g. websites, music videos.



This is Katy Perry's official website. The clear link between the album cover and the website is the theme.

Intertexuality in Music Videos

Intertextuality is a text referencing another text which is used in lots of music videos. This may be a video doing a parody of another, or a video that's referencing to a film or television programme. Some videos reference to video games also.The Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Californication’ is an example of a video game influence.

An example of a reference to fashion is Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted to Love’. It was parodied many times for its use of mannequin style females in the band. Shania Twain used it in her music video 'Man i feel like a woman' but instead used men.


In Madonna's music video 'Material Girl' the inter textual image is from a film called Diamonds are a girls best friend. The image we see is a look a like of Marilyn Monroe and the layout of the scene in the film.

Artist Chosen

We decided to chose Vinyl Junkies as our artist as we liked a song called Dear Diary which we have some ideas for. We asked permission from the band and they said yes. This is evidence that we asked their permission and they allowed us to use their song.

As we know the band personally we felt we did not need to ask formally so we decided to ask permission via facebook message. Originally we thought we were going to be in a group of three, with Samuel Lai too but we later decided to stay in a group of two, Jasmine Bual and I.

Vinyl Junkies are an indie style band consisting of four members. One member has recently been replaced due to leaving for university. The members are all 18-19 year old males. As myself and Jasmine have both seen them perform live, we felt that we could connect more with this band as we know them and their music well. All their songs are written by themselves which is a  typical thing for an indie band to do but it shows the audience their raw talent. This makes their lyrics seem more "real" and the audience may find it easier to relate. The fact that our artist are of a similar age group and are a very down to earth, exciting group of people, swayed our decision towards choosing them as our artist. Their voices are very unique and sound amazing together. As Vinyl Junkies have already built up a wide fan base in their local area, and now in different areas due to them touring at the moment, this is very positive for us when releasing and promoting their music video.

Finding an Artist

As a group, myself and Jasmine have found a short list of 3 artists that we could use for our music video. To help us find these we looked on www.myspace.com/music in the unsigned section. The pros and cons of each artist will help us decide who will be our first choice to ask permission from.

Vinyl Junkies

http://www.myspace.com/vinyljunkiesuk
Pros:
-Know the band personally
-Local
-Good music and lyrics
-Lyrics could link visually
-Band have a good image and a fan base
-We may be able to record the band playing at a gig, but only with permission from the venue.
-Easy to get hold of them to get a copy of the lyrics or to take photos of the band.

Cons:
- Not known out of the area
- No Twitter account to promote them
- No singles released

Panda Police

http://www.myspace.com/pandapolicemusic
Pros:
- Built up fan base
- Twitter, YouTube and Last.fm set up
- Local radio stations have played their tracks
- Know them personally
- Local
- Released singles
- May be able to record them playing at a gig and take photos of them for our digipack.

Cons:
-Haven't got many songs on the my space so we don't know if we like any in particular
- Not known out of area
- We wont be able to meet with them to take photos of the band

Semi Precious Weapons

http://www.myspace.com/semipreciousweapons

Pros:
- The band has a blog and video blogs
- Supporting Lady Gaga on tour as she is friends with the lead singer
- Built up fan base
- Original and fresh
- Will be known by Gaga fans worldwide from the monster ball tour
- Lyrics to songs will be online

Cons:
- Live in New York so may be hard to contact
- May be harder to get permission as they are signed by a few labels
- More of a performance type artist
- May be hard to get hold of

Goodwin's Theory Analysis of Videos

Florence and the Machine - The Dog Days Are Over

-Images on white background
- Quirky
- Relationship with tune, visuals and syncing
- Instruments shown in video when playing in the song
- Choir in the video clapping the beat of the track
- Indie, tribal feel to the video and image of the artist
- As tempo increases the movement increases and becomes quirkier
- Artist has her own iconography (individual style, alternative, clothes and makeup build on this iconography)
- Closeups of artist

Rihanna - Don't Stop The Music

- Voyeurism used in the opening (looking into a mirror watching herself)
- Quick cuts create a relationship between the editing and the beat of the track
- Club style tune, links with the visuals as the artist is shown in a club
- Dancing is used by the artist, links in with the beat
- Cuts to artist alone, and back to club scene, creates a more interesting video to watch
- Actors in the club and the artist clap to the beat
- Artist lip syncs through the whole song

The Vines - Winning Days

- Artist lip syncing in parts of the song where the band are seen
- Quick cuts, e.g clouds moving through the sky, stones appearing in a sequence
- Performance for chorus of track
- Repetitive scenes e.g. stones, sky, wood on fire
- Closeup of lead singers face
- Matching visuals to music, visuals link with the lyrics
- Images of things 'finishing' e.g fire burning the wood, links with the lyrics

Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin came up with a theory to analyse music videos. The key features of this are;

- There is a relationship between the music and the visuals(with visuals either illuminating, amplifying or contradicting the music). The editing might match the pace of the tempo of the music.

- A particular music genre may have their own music video style and iconography (such as live stage performances in heavy rock for example).

- There is a demand on the part of the record company for lots of closeups of the main artist/vocalist.

- The artist may develop their own star iconography, in and out of their videos, which over time becomes part of their star image e.g. Lady Gaga.

- There is likely to be a reference to voyeurism, particularly in the treatment of women but also in terms of systems of looking. (*Voyeurism = screens within screens, cameras etc. Watching something from the outside and enjoying it)

- There are likely to be inter textual references, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts.

* inter textual- a text referencing another text e.g. referring to a film in a music video.

* iconography- e.g. Indie - performance, guitars, band members.
Pop - narrative, dancing, glamour, quirky, bright.
Hip hop- money, cars, bling, women
R&;B- darker colour setting, narrative, relationship between male and female character, glamour.

Websites

Akon. The first thing you notice when you go on Akons website is the theme which is blues. This may be representing a masculine character. The music genre is R&B which I think can be seen by the images and font used. It is very simpolistic but gives a 'cool' representation. Music plays when you go onto the website which promotes his songs before youve even read anything. The I-phone application advert is right underneath the image which is promoting that also. The artist name is in a simple clear font, in a big size so it is clearly recognisable as his website. The image of the artist is central and represents him as 'cool' as he is dressed smartly and wearing sunglasses. This is a typically cool image. There is a strip at the bottom, underneath the image promoting the album.
There is lists of options on the right, this links to different pages which is simple and easy to do. The clear layout makes the website more user freindly and is more likely that people will use it if it is simple.
There is a parental advisory in bottom left corner which is a clear warning to the audiece that there may be some unsuitable lyrics for young children. At the bottom of the page there are sliding adverts, advertising things to do with the artist.

Amy Winehouse
Her image and name clearly across the top in a large font. As soon as you go on the website this is clearly noticialble to the audience. There is search bar on the top right where popular tags are listed to click on. These link to various pages and is simple to use. In the centre at the top there is a large box with news and blog.This lets the audeince know anything recent about the artist to make them feel included and so they can get to know the artist. On the left there is a box for members to either sign in or sign up


A column down the left hand side of the page called 'Member Activity' connects with the audience as it advertises which people have signed up 'this week' and so on. The simplistic colours of the website page make the photos and videos stand out. There are many links and images/videos to look at which makes the site interesting for the user. There is a box called 'Amy cam' where a music video plays automatically when entering the site. This starts off with a song by the artist and then goes onto another artist (her best friend) whom she is promoting also. There is an advert below for this other artist.  The end of the video consists on the other artists track playing in the background with footage of Amy Winehouse and the artist talking about it which shows the relationship between them. Below this, a box called 'Music Tracks' has a list of tracks to play which the user can click on to hear. At the bottom of the site there are links to various websites such a Facebook, Twitter and Bebo which contain updates on the artists for people to follow and become involved.



To enter the Blink182 site, a link stating 'Enter' appears over a logo in the background. This instantly makes the website exciting to a user.  The site is set out quite simply with boxes for each set of information. This layout makes it easy to use and memorable. At the top there is a show of images of the artist along with the artist name and logo clearly stated. This makes it obvious who the artist is. There are a variety of links clearly across the top of the page which go on to different pages, for example, Tour, Blog, News, Media. These are extending on the initial information given on the home page. Down the left hand side is news about the artist. This is letting fans know what is going on with he band and tour dates available. In the centre of the page is a video of behind the scenes of a music video. This is letting in the audience to what they are really like, and what they are up to. A box on the left is if anybody wants to 'sign up to become a fan'. This is very simple and easy to do. Also, links to sites such as Facebook and Twitter are available, to get regular updates on the artist. There is also a box to get updates sent to a mobile phone.

CD cover Design

Eminem


Katy Perry


Rihanna


The Kooks


Calvin Harris

Branding

Branding is a great way of promoting an artist or an album. If an audience see the artists brand they know that its an official piece of merchandise and immediately recognise it is that artist. A brand has a logo which is easily recognisable and linked to something, in this case an artist of a band. Bands and artists use merchandise such as T-Shirts,posters,stickers,badges,hoodies and more to promote them selves or a new album to a global audience. It is usually global because merchandise sites are online and can be accessed by anyone. A good example of a band that is recognised by their logo is The Rolling Stones. The logo is used as a branding tool to advertise and promote the band. The logo has been copyrighted so that no body else can use it. Wherever the logo is online, there is always small print explaining the copyright rules. It is one of the worlds most recognisable symbols of rock and roll.

Having a 'niche'

Having a niche is when an artist has something original about them and this appeals to specific audiences. This creates a secure fan base within that market and creates an image that they are known for. Lily Allen is a great example as when she first came on to the music scene she wore big dresses with trainers. This was her trademark as well as her unique voice that no other female singer had sounded like before. She created an account on My Space and began posting demos in November 2005. Her unique style of singing was recognised and she attracted thousands of listeners and My Space 'friends'. Her talk singing was different and made her stand out from everyone else in the music industry. She also influenced fashion as she created her own clothing brand and girls would dress in trainers and dresses. As she has built up a name for herself she is now very popular so can be more creative with her music. Her fan base is already secure so she is always going to be successful as she is not like anybody else. Lily Allen is already starting to change her image as she matures but people already know her so this doesn't affect her popularity.

Another example is Lady Gaga. She is known for her image and outrageous fashion sense but this attracts people to find out more and listen to her music. She too is very successful and has her own brand identity.

The online revoulution

The online revolution is a major deal in the music industry as it has caused a massive effect on the money made my artists and record companies. Almost everyone has access to the Internet these days and websites like Youtube and Spotify are being used to listen to free music every day instead of spending money downloading or buying a CD. Although these are reducing the amount of money made, the promotional tactics are good. Many people are going to view adverts on Youtube and Spotify making them want to listen to their music. People may want a good quality version, or a selection of the artists songs so this may in fact cause them to buy an album.

How are music albums promoted using the media?

Target Audience and Album Promotion
LADY GAGA
http://www.ladygaga.com/theremix/
To promote the album 'The Fame', Lady Gaga did several performances worldwide. She also performed on various american television shows and performed in Vietnam for a beauty pageant during the swimsuit competition. Three songs off The Fame were used in the series Gossip Girl and she performed the single 'Pokerface' on American Idol. She also performed on Xfactor and then talked about her upcoming tour. Performing on programmes like these targets the right audiences as people watching are people interested in music and are mostly young people that would go to a concert. Also, news that Gaga would be appearing on the show would have spread so the audience watching are most likely fans. To celebrate the launch of the show Dirty Sexy Money, ABC created a music video of Lady Gaga's song 'Beautiful, Dirty, Rich'.

The album received further promotion from her first headlining concert tour The Fame Ball Tour. For her album 'The Fame Monster' which was combined with The Fame as a deluxe edition, Gaga did a Monster Ball tour over all the main cities in the world. This is targeting an international market. Merchandise such as t-shirts and glasses were sold at these events to promote her album. Alternate versions of the show with minimal variations were planned by Gaga to accommodate different venues to suit the different target audiences. Her concerts and merchandise are mostly aimed at teenage girls to young woman and her many gay fans. The genre of music is pop.

An active twitter and face book account can help promote an artist and is a great modern way to keep fans updated and to advertise upcoming albums, videos, gigs and more.

GREENDAY
http://www.greenday.com/billabong_splash/index.html
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. Green Day was originally part of the punk scene.The band's early releases for independent record label Lookout! Records earned it a fan base. As the band have been going since the late 80's I think its hard to say a specific target audience although the majority seems to be teenagers or young adults involved in the punk scene. To promote their albums Greenday go on worldwide tours to promote to as wider audience as possible. This is called global distribution.

Greenday also have a twitter account and a face book which lets them communicate with their fan base and let them know new updates involving the band.

JUSTIN BEIBER
http://www.justinbieberofficial.co.uk/home
The album My World is R&B influenced pop and is compared to the work of artists such as Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Chris Brown. The lyrics are based on coming of age situations and teenage love. This indicates that the target audience is going to be mostly teenage girls as they can relate where as teenage boys wont be so interested in hearing a boy singing about love. The way Justin Bieber is promoted attracts a fan base of girls. During 2009, Bieber went on a tour to promote his debut single, visiting several radio stations and performing exclusively. This included American Top 40 and Radio Disney.The 'My World Tour' was announced on March 13 2010. It started in June and is scheduled to end on December 23rd 2010 in Justin Bieber´s hometown Atlanta. Justin Timberlake was apparently in the running to sign him but he eventually signed with Usher. Usher introduced JB to the industry in April 2009 in LA just after he had finished recording his single "One Time". Usher described Bieber to the crowd as a "young phenomenon". Having Usher as he manager and mentor means he probably gains half of Ushers fan base as well. I think this was a wise move being signed with Usher as he is very successful and has a very large fan base. The songs are mostly inspired by teen romance and typical coming of age situations and the album is R&B influenced pop. The R&B being down to Ushers influence. After the albums release JB became the first solo artist in Billboard history to have at least four singles enter the Top 40of the Hot 100 before his debut album's release. This shows he has aimed at the right target audience and has promoted his album in the right way for his image.

His twitter and face book account update fans on his latest news, new releases and tour dates available.

Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fame
http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/green-day.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Breakdown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_World_(EP)