Interview with a director

http://www.promonews.tv/2012/04/30/the-wanted-chasing-the-sun-by-director-x/

On Promonews, I looked at the interview section and found an interview with the director of The Wanted's new music video to their song, "Chasing The Sun".


"Following the hugely successful videos for Glad You Came and Warzone,The Wanted team up with Director X once again for Chasing The Sun - and more compelling eyecandy for their legions of fans as they conquer America.
The video begins with the boys on top of the roof performing in hues of blue, progressing to a party where all the boys pair up with respective love interests - but then there's a twist..."


Director X said "Great working with the guys again, and this time we caused some ruckus in LA. Very happy to see their star rising..."


After watching the video back, I saw the twist that was mentioned in the website article. As the boys pair up with their love interests and begin to get intimate with the girls, each girl turns into a vampire and bites each member of the band on the neck.

Below is the music video for "Chasing The Sun".





The Wanted
Chasing The Sun (Global Talent Records)
Director: Director X
DP: Joe Labisi
Producer: Michelle Larkin
Production company: DNA Inc.
Art director: Alex Delgado
AD: Jesse Sternbaum
UK Representation: Luti Media"

A Brief Textual Analysis of My Favourite Music Video

Artist - Jessie J
Title of song- Who's Laughing Now
Date of Release- August 10th 2011
Director of music video - Emil Nava
Genre - Pop / R&B/ Hip Hop

The video, filmed at King's College School, Wimbledon, is set in a primary school, where a young actress (Adrianna Bertola) plays a younger Jessie J. She seems to be bullied by preppy girls, while Jessie J is seen as different characters during the four minutes in the video - a school teacher, janitor, and dinner lady. The video ends with young Jessie J standing up to the bullies, and empties a fire extinguisher all over the bullying girls.

Speaking of the track, Jessie said "Music is about making a change but also being able to laugh at yourself. I think this song tells a story a lot of people have been through and I hope it will raise awareness to the serious issue of bullying."


Jessie J 'Who's Laughing Now?' from Pulse Films on Vimeo.

History of Popular Music

In groups, we researched different decades of music and created timelines of popular artists, songs and technology of the decades.

With a group I was told to research the 1990s.

 On the day that the task was set, unfortunately I was not in the lesson, but Lauren Head, a member of my group, did some research on the decade and shared it on a blog post. You can see the post here.











*Below are the pictures of the timelines produced by our group and the rest of the class, ranging from the 1950s to the present day.

Music Videos and Technology

Today I looked at www.promonews.tv, and found on their homepage an article about a new app, released on May 30th, by a company called BUG Music Videos, to celebrate the 5th birthday of the company. It is the first app released by the company and is now available to download for free on Apple and Android handsets. It is also on iTunes, available for download onto iPhones, iPod touch and the iPad, and available to download to Android-powered smartphones and tablets.

"The BUG 5th Birthday app contains a playlist of 30 videos – one from every original and unique show of BUG: The Evolution Of Music Videos at the BFI Southbank over the past five years.

There’s also editorial about the videos, plus BUG artwork created for each show, and a history of the hugely popular event hosted by comedian Adam Buxton that showcases music video innovation and creativity."

As videos of the different shows and performances are available to download straight to several different devices, this is a new method of music consumption for BUG MV. It is also a way for people to see different music videos, so I feel this may be helpful to my research. I am going to download the app and see what I can do with it.

Research - independent websites

www.bemuso.com

Bemuso is an independent website set out to de-bunk the music business. The site is for independent musicians so that they can advertise themselves if they are looking to get somewhere in the music industry. It also gives information about music industry and web.

http://www.promonews.com/

Promonews is a website dedicated to promotional music videos. The website contains interviews with top directors who have directed music videos. The site shows different videos by different artists, some that people may not heard of before, so it is a way of promoting their work.

Research - Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin wrote the book "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" in 1992. It analysed music videos and Goodwin shared his thoughts on what makes a good music video.

He believes there are 5 key aspects of music videos that as an audience, we should look out for:

• Thought beats - seeing the sound
• Narrative and Performance
• The Star Image
• Relation of Visuals to Song
• Technical Aspects of Music Video

Thought beats - Seeing the sound in your head

1) Look at the song itself. Take into account the structure e.g. verses/chorus.
2) The voice of the song. Every artist has a unique sound. (This theory is further explained in The Grain of Voice by French literary theorist Roland Barthes).
3) Artist's mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the artists are the storytellers. This makes the music video a 'two communication device'.

Narrative and Performance

-Goodwin believes that songs fail to give us the complete narrative! We only tend to get a gist of the meaning of the song and then tend to make up our own idea of what is being told.
-The artist acting as both narrator and participant helps to increase the authenticity.
- Lip syncing and any mimed actions are the heart of the video. It needs to be believable so the audience buy into it.

Star Image

- Star image is a vital aspect of music videos. It helps people to remember the artist or the song, for example, when people hear the name "Britney Spears", most people will think of the video to her song 'Hit Me Baby One More Time', where she is dressed as a schoolgirl.
- Artists need to consider their image carefully depending on how they want to be seen, and which message they are trying to convey, as different images can portray different messages and ideas.

Relation of Visuals to Song:

• Illustrate
• Amplify
• Disjunction

Illustrate - music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre. This is the most common.

Amplify - meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown through the video.

Disjunction - lyrics and meanings are completely ignored, the video normally has nothing to do with the meaning of the song.

Technical aspects

- Technical aspects hold the music video together through use of camera work, movement, angles, mise-en-scene, costume, editing, sound and special effects.
- Lighting and colour help to set mood of the video and help to emphasise key moments of the song.
- The setting of the music video is vital, and needs to look authentic in order to attain professionalism.
- Some videos use cuts to match the beat or rhythm of the song. This often makes the video more interesting and entertaining.

Me As A Consumer of Music

Me as a consumer of music on Prezi

Below are some pictures of some of the artists mentioned in my Prezi.

The Everly Brothers

Buddy Holly

Bullet For My Valentine

One of my favourite bands, Foo Fighters

One of my favourite bands, Muse

P!nk

What is a music video?

"A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these works were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional clip" or "film clip". Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action. Many music videos do not interpret images from the song's lyrics, making it less literal than expected. Other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a filmed version of the song's live performance." - Wikipedia





In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child". Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video.

In 1983, the most successful, influential and iconic music video of all time was released — the video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller", which lasted nearly 14 minutes. The video cost US$500,000 to film.

There are many ways in the modern day that you can listen to music and watch music videos. For example, on the MTV website you can scroll through recent music videos and videos for songs that are in the charts.









Here are a few links to some iconic music videos.


Michael Jackson - Thriller


Britney Spears - Hit Me Baby One More Time


Madonna - Hung Up

The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony


Fat Boy Slim - Praise You


MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This


Nelly - Hot In Herre

A2 Set Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

·         A website homepage for the band

·         A digipak for the album’s release

·         A magazine advertisement for the digipak