Watching past student work has helped us appreciate the potential we could achieve and has helped us clearly pinpoint the application of music video theories and conventions.
This video was produced last year by Latymer Students Bruno, Matt, Harry and Francis and uses the track 'love machine'. The video is purely narrative based (there is no performance throughout), and creates a story which illustrates the lyrics but in a twisted, almost too literal kind of way. The lyrics talk of a 'love machine', so the boys literally created a love machine, or robot, which helps the geek get the girl. The video uses comedy to keep the audience's attention, beginning with a prologue in black and white, mocking the old silent movies, immediately suggesting that the band don't take themselves too seriously, and are there to entertain.
As the main body of the video begins, the boys have effectively established the characters with the use of the camera. They use lots of CU movement shots around the geek to help us relate to him, and see things from his perspective, but also use OTS shots of the robot and CUs of his eyes to establish how we are meant to view the geek, and see the robot as a cool, heroic figure. They then use POV shots from the geek when the narrative first presents Hannah, the use of seeing her from Harry's eyes allowing the audience to understand that she is the 'love interest'.
The video conforms to convention in the sense that it tries to maintain a visual hook throughout the narrative. This video in fact uses two visual hooks, the first being the ECU of the robot's eyes as it changes expression from happiness to anger, and the second being the love interest character slapping the geek who tries it on with her. The repetition of both of these shots creates comedy for the audience, and makes us want to keep watching, as it holds our attention.
However, I felt that from watching the video from a student perspective there was not a huge range of camera angles, and the use of more effective and sustained lighting could have created a greater atmosphere, and a greater sense of professionalism. Furthermore, with the focus being purely on narrative it meant that there is no sense of who the band actually is - nonetheless, it does give a sense of what they are like, and what their interests are.
"A star is an image constructed from a range of materials"
So, in the music world, what do these materials include?
Dress, songs, genre, how they sound, attitude, interviews,
media, image, private life, live performance, music videos.
I focussed on music star Christina Aguilera, who releases pop and r'n'b music. Born in Staten Island in New York, she had an abusive unbringing (reflected in many of her songs) and entered lots of singing competitions such as 'star search', and became a member of the mickey mouse club along with britney spears and justin timberlake. She was signed to RCA record label after recording 'reflection' for Disney's 'Mulan', and her debut album was 'Christina Aguilera' (1999), followed by Stripped (2002), and then 'Back to Basics' (2006). She's sold over 30 million albums worldwide, has won 5 grammy awads and has had 16 nominations.
How was her status/image established in her earlier videos?
Girl next door image, young popstar, like Britney, cute, pretty, teeny - e.g. 'Genie in a bottle'
How was that image devloped later in her career?
She changed from 'poppy' teen, to sex symbol, to strong woman feminist, to a serious artist.
Her image change was made most obvious in her music videos; for example, in Moulin Rouge she plays a prostitute in a very sexy outfit, whereas in her video 'fighter' she dresses in very ugly clothes, so the audience just focus on the message of girl power and independence. However, recently she has been playing a 50s actress in all her videos, particularly 'ain't no other man'.
However, her motifs have always been her blonde hair, her stunning figure and her big powerful wailing voice.
Look at the very obvious differences between her first video (above) and then the slow delevopment of her image in the videos below.
Dirrty (2002)
Fighter (2003)
Ain't No Other Man (2006)
Are there Close-ups of the artist throughout her work?
All the time, she is a solo artist, so it's all focussed around her.
They are used to make her look attractive, they are very scopophillic and often voyeuristic.
How are camerawork and editing used to reinforce and develop the image of the star?
It always cuts back to her, she is in almost every shot, and she mimes everything.
The editing is often fast-paced because most of her videos are pop and dancy
Her videos are often performance based (she always sings) and in a majority of them she breaks into a dance routine in the middle.
What do I consider the wider cutural significance of the star?
A pop teen star who has grown up into a poweful woman
Myspace is an internet site where audiences can create and customise their own, personal webpage. They can leave blogs on their site, upload pictures or videos, add music to their page and fill in an ‘about me’ section for their friends to view. However, a fundamental section of this site is the way small bands and artists can create 'music myspaces', purposefully set-up to promote their music, their image and their upcoming appearances. By making friends online, you can establishing an online community or network of fans from all around the world, increasing an artist's reach. This site shows how easy it is to create an online community, and how integral websites such as MySpace are to the music industry; it encourages smaller, independent bands to make their own music and present it to their friends, acting as a form of their own small-scale marketing. Furthermore, it helps new bands such as Lilly Allen or The Arctic Monkeys to be recognised through MySpace, and helps already formed bands to increase their following and to give key information to the fans.
This site has been created by five friends Sam V, Sam J, Kamil, Martyn and Jobby, who are using their ‘space’ to promote their indie band ‘Open With A Joke’.
On the page: Top left of page: Title of band (‘Open With A Joke), location (London), Profile Views (7440) and a picture. Pictures: If you click on their pictures you can see a whole album of photos of them These consist of individual photos of the band members, the band as a whole, the band playing a gig, and friends of the band. All of the photos have comments left by their network of friends, such as under this photo of all the boys at a fancy dress party:
About the band:Friends: To the left of the page there is a ‘friends’ section where they’ve left their top 12 friends, and if you click on the link you can see their other 509 friends. These are all links so you could visit other people’s spaces, creating the real sense of a network of friends. Videos: OWAJ have linked on their space 3 videos from the site http://www.youtube.com/. One is their music video to ‘I don’t see the attraction’ showing them and their Lego alter egos, one is of them playing live as Jobby takes off his jumper to reveal his wife-beater t-shirt and one is of a bear falling out of a tree onto a trampoline. Comments: The rest of the page has been taken up with their friends’ comments (they have 520 in total).
Marketing needs to be produced from both above and below the line, ranging from mainstream television advertisements, billboard posters and national television appearances, to much smaller marketing techniques of audience word-of-mouth and discussion forums on websites such as myspace. With the boom of the internet, the audience are much more inclined to voice their opinions of an artist through websites, and the internet has recently been bombarded with 'fansites' spreading new information about the artists; in many ways, a free advertisement campaign for the record label.
An example of this is the ‘Mcfly maniacs’ website, is an unofficial site for the awesome foursome pop band (with guitars) Mcfly. The site has been created by fans for fans, to discuss their passion (Mcfly) and find out more about the band. The site states:
“Welcome to McFly Maniacs, the number 1 resource for everything McFly! We opened on 6th December 2003 and have suported McFly from the very begining! We have had alot of suport from everyone who visits and its been great running it over the past years, we will keep going as long as you keep visiting!We would just like to thank you all for the suport on the site over the years. Its been great running the site and we enjoy your company! If you wish to contact us, then click on 'Site' then 'Contact'. Hope you enjoy your stay! :) Amy and Emma”
The site is targeting all fans of McFly, and is using the website to:
Promote the band
Give the fans more information
Make the fans feel involved with the band, ‘in the know’
Create an online community
Give this niche audience a form of media which is solely targeting them
Personalised, narrowcasting.
The website contains: Menu bar: Home, band, gallery, music, fans, fun, tours, site, web ‘Video of the moment’ where Mcfly’s current video is posted via a YouTube link. A chat board News bulletin board, almost like a blog, where the site runners leave messages and updated information on the boys. Gallery: loads of photos of the band, from TV and Video stills, to scanned in magazine images, official tour photos or photos taken from live events. These are fan photos, not those you’d see on the official band website. Music: Find out all the details and statistics concerning their singles and albums (chart positions, sales, release dates etc), the lyrics and chords to all their songs. Fans: send in your pictures or autographs if you’ve met Mcfly, see photos of other fans bedrooms covered in Mcfly posters, send in artwork you’ve done of the band. Register with the site to leave comments on the forum or join in the chats. Fun: get Mcfly ringtones or wallpapers, play games, caption photos, read Mcfly cartoons, read funny Mcfly quotes, send photos of Mcfly look-alikes. Band: band members biographies.
Media texts involved are the internet, photography and video. The site is kept quite like a blog as it is an amateur site.
Video of the moment: Mcfly, Transylvania
For the industry: free market research; they can see the audience's interests, and what they like/dislike about Mcfly from this site. Free promotion - they are getting the promotion of the band and of their songs through a medium they have nothing to do with. In some ways this is scary - what's published is democratic, and therefore out of their control - but in other ways it is beneficial, they don't have to be reach audiences, the audiences find out more off their own backs.
"Born and raised in the Venezuelan city of Maracaribo, new star to hit the spotlight, ‘someone’ plays Golnessa, a girl who rises from a life of unattainable ambitions and distant dreams, to the world of stardom, glamour and fame. As dancers, Golnessa and her friends form the Gina Girls, and perform nightly at their local bar Mercado. After being spotted by British Producer Marcus (Williams) the girls are dramatically whirled into planet ‘celeb’ and find themselves dancing in full view of the world, performing at huge venues and attending a-list soirees. But does the rollercoaster of fame prove too much for Golnessa, and do the melodious sounds of South America seem far sweeter than the loud, harsh and claustrophobic bubble of London?
‘Mercado, the soundtrack from the original motion picture’ is an eclectic collection of sound. Intertwining Latin-infused tracks with new, gritty, London-based bands, the music makes ‘Mercado’ the spectacular film it has become. Dance is a major motif in the film, and the soundtrack totally reflects this...headlined by Papi Cazo’s ‘Takin’ it Over’, the album uses manic beats, riotous trumpets, and flamboyant melodies, to inspire listeners to get up on their feet and salsa like Golnessa.
In collaboration with the film, ‘someone’ will be making special guest appearances on MTV’s ‘TRL’, BBC’s ‘Friday Night with Jonathon Ross’, and Channel 4’s Saturday morning show ‘T4’, performing the film’s most spectacular dance routine, to the headlining single ‘Takin’ it Over’. Golnessa and the Gina Girls are also scheduled to tour next March with a multitude of artists from the soundtrack to truly show the world their stuff, and a dance along DVD to the film will be available to buy from December 10th, so those at home can learn the real dance moves from the experts.
'Mercado' is to be premiered on the 1st of December, and will be let loose to the public on the 5th. This is to be followed closely by the sublime soundtrack on the 10th of December. Find out more about the film online at www.mercado.com, and the soundtrack will be downloadable there from the 15th of December onwards."
Here are a collection of album covers which could be used as inspiration for our own cover. Our music video is meant to be a track from the film (which will probably be called Mercado). The star of the film is Golnessa, a fun and sexy character who enjoys spending time with her friends, performing and dancing. The film will probably have a love interest and is very inspired by the latin and south american genres - hence the music and much of our iconography. Our album, as the film's soundtrack needs to portray all the different themes of both the film and the music video and should star Golnessa, the main character, as a promotion tool for the film. The first album covers are real movie soundtracks which are very useful in terms of institutional information such as credits, film companies, various artists and so on.
This Chicago soundtrack successfully conveys the 1950s period as well as the musical film genre with the dance costumes and the title being in the same font as broadway shows. We liked the use of the extreme long shot as it makes the characters seem much more dominating and attractive, and the 3 characters shown are the film's headliners, actors we quickly recognise. We also liked the background of the big glowing letter, however this is very broadway, and may not fit with our latino theme. This soundtrack is from a spanish/south american film and the warm colours and dark skin tones are very similar to our music video. We particularly liked the central female character surrounded by the two males as it clearly suggests a story or a plot central the film. The title faded over the top of the image is very effective as it is big and bold but doesn't take away from the main image. We also liked the linear block down the side of the cover with the name of the artists.
Once again all of the soundtracks have the star as the dominating image. Jessica Alba in 'Honey' is dancing to convey the main theme of the film, and the direct address to the camera which Rachel Weisz and Susan Lynch draws our attention to the cover and anchors the title 'beautiful creatures'. The black white and red effect used in 'el cantante' makes the film look very sophisticated, arty and beautiful which is quite a contrast to most of Jennifer Lopez' films.
These covers are from real albums and I chose them as inspiration as they are all very feminine, very much like our video. These covers are particularly aspirational for girls for example the bright pibk feathers in the Garbage album and the very pretty and innocent close up of Christina Aguilera. Thse covers also offer great appeal to the boy audience, especially Christina who is directly addressing the audience whilst lying in a bed. I thought the middle cover was great because it uses a group of girls - like our vid - standing in a kind of dancy pose (one of our main themes) and are wearing 40s/50s costumes, a period which we have drawn from with our moulin rouge inspired costumes and our 50s boudoir. The garbage cover is great with the feathers as we also used lots of silks and feathery materials in our video. I think this cover and the 'It girls' cover would be really useful for our back covers which we could fade and put the track names over the top.
And very quickly, i thought the special effect on the iggy pop album cover with the bright clashing colours could look really good on our album, thought a font similar to 'heavy soul' could look very spanish/latino if spelling 'Mercado', and liked the central image as it reminded me of Gee's chair!
About the band:
Friends: To the left of the page there is a ‘friends’ section where they’ve left their top 12 friends, and if you click on the link you can see their other 509 friends. These are all links so you could visit other people’s spaces, creating the real sense of a network of friends.
This Chicago soundtrack successfully conveys the 1950s period as well as the musical film genre with the dance costumes and the title being in the same font as broadway shows. We liked the use of the extreme long shot as it makes the characters seem much more dominating and attractive, and the 3 characters shown are the film's headliners, actors we quickly recognise. We also liked the background of the big glowing letter, however this is very broadway, and may not fit with our latino theme. 
