These songs
are potential choices for our music video and the launch of our new artist. We
are more towards having a girl band rather than a solo artist as we think girl
bands in general are popular and with girl bands there can be plenty of filler
footage. We would have to made our girl band out of girls from our school in case we need
some last minute film which can be done in the studio. We would have to chose
the song before choosing the girl band as certain songs would require a certain
aesthetic.
This week we focused on creating and finishing out movie trailers. By creating a movie trailer using the software we are going to use for out music videos allowed me to gain some basic understanding of how the software works and how I can use it to my teams advantage. We also began looking into what songs we could use for our music videos. There were rules we had to abide by when choosing songs such as it had to be from 2009 or before, it has to be an album track and it cannot already have a music video. So far, I think me and my team member has chosen to create a girl band for our new artist but we are still unsure if we will star in it/who will make up the members.
This week we focused on producing our movie trailer. We used Premiere Pro to create our trailers which had to be between one and three minutes. We sourced clips from already made films based on what type of genre we wanted. We had to download the clip, import it onto the program and then watch it to pick out bits we wanted in our clip. We had to watch the clips and select what parts we wanted in our own clip. In order to make the clip more effective we had to use the shortest bits of clips and slice them all together to make a trailer. Each 'scene' of the trailer would last no more than 15 seconds as then we would be including to much of one film so then it would become specific to that film. We then had to download a track that suits the type of trailer we were making. it then got difficult when I wanted to pause the soundtrack in ordet to hear audio from the clips, I was unable to find away where i can mute all the film clips except a select few.
Take Me To Church is a song by Irish recording artist Hozier. Released as a single in 2013 and taken from his EP Take Me To Church. The interpretation of the lyrics could be seen as a metaphor; comparing his lover to religon. Hozier told the Irish Times "I found the experience of falling in love or being in love was a death, a death of everything ... in a wonderful way ... if you see yourself for a moment through their eyes - everything you beleived about yourself gone. In a death-and-rebirth sense" He is comparing love to religion because after you lose your love its like losing part of your religion. Almost like something is missing. Although the lyrics talk about a 'she', the video is about two males. For this reason, its difficult to apply Andrew Godwin's theory of the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. But if a He was a mentioned then we easily could.
The video for Take Me To Church is very powerfull and echoes the wave of violence currently seen in today's same sex relationships and the gay community. The entire video is shot in greyscale and it follows the relationship of two men in a relationship. The local community of one of the partners leanrs of the gay relationship which leads to a horribly violent backlash coming from a homophobic gang. The gang break into the boys home and beats up his father whilst trying to track down his homesexual son. Failing to find him they go out and look for him and easily tracks him down in a feild. They drag him by the arms through the field in which a bonfire is lit and the box he was burying (we assume is filled with personal possesions to do with his boyfriend). His boyfriend notices from a hill that his boyfriends home is being trashed by this gang so he runs down to try and save him but with no luck. He then follows the trail to find the gang brutally beating up his boyfriend infront of the fire but is too scared to do anything about it. Instead he watches from a far. Due to the very strong narrative we are able to apply Simon Firth's theory of music videos being categorised into three broad typologies; performance, conceptual and narrative. Most narratives in music vidoes hold a strong connective to some kind of romantic relationship so the liner cause effect sequencing comes into play.
The actual lyrics "take me to church" could be related to the metaphor about religion. Taking someone to church is often to come clean of any sins and get rid of them. As being gay is seen as a sin in many cultures taking them to church may "wipe" away any feelings someone may have for another person of the same sex.
The video's contents is very true to todays society. There are still so many homophobic people in this moden day world even with same sex marriges being legalized in many countries. Its seen further in people who are religious. Often their collective God's say that same sex relationships is un natural and it is a sin to be in one or to have any feelings towards the same sex as them.
Hozier himself does not appear in the video at all and maybe because if he did, the focus of the narrative may have been taken away. By covering a such a strong topic in his music video it is important to focus on that topic so people understand whats going on in the video and whats actually going in in modern day society.
This week I carried out another video analysis of Pharrells Gust Of Wind. The video was released this week so I had not previously seen it and from what I already know about Pharrell and the type of music he makes, Gust of wind is very different to what he usually creates which shows how crucial it is to be diverse in the current music industry else you won't keep up with your audience. I also carried out research into the record business in which I learnt why the 'majors' have such power over the entire industry and even what music we listen to. From this, I also discovered how convergence can make a massive difference to an artist both current and old. Convergence in the terms of tv, social media or online has the ability to boost record sales and the fanbase for any artist.
The independents or 'indie' labels are labels that are now owned by any of the majors and there are two kinds of independent label; the major distributed independent which is a label that finds its own talent. signs its own acts, records its own music but then brings in the another label to deal with the other stuff such as promoting the act, manufacturing the CD's, packaging, distributing the music and advertising. Then there is the true independent which is a label that has no links to a major and does everything in-house. Often these labels specialize in a certain genre of music and have a niche market. Being signed to a big label often isn't the best option because they only care about making money and not the music itself and there has been many disputes between the labels and the act about what music should be released and what direction the act should be going in. Convergence has greatly improved over time and the way we see and hear music as well of live performances has expanded. We see live performances on websites, social media and live on TV which boosts single and album sales for that artist both old and new and a huge buzz is created by the fans.
From looking at past videos from the history of music industry and the most expensive videos I have noticed the development of both technology and the boundaries in which artists break. Technology because the way the videos are edited with effects added it has rapidly improved and the music videos we see now has such great quality almost at a cinematic quality. And the boundaries because people are no longer afraid to cause controversy. They are no longer afraid to do this because they know that controversy still makes people talk about them and whether its good or bad talk, its still talk none the less so its just more hype around the artist.
these are five videos that I think I could recreate. I chose these videos for a number of reasons including that it was memorable, the video seems fun to recreate or that there was a number of ways I thought of in which it could be re created. Although some of these songs are about romantic relationships it could possibly be filmed in a way in that it seems its not a romance. I think doing a love song with a romantic concept would be difficult to do because you would need a real life couple so it actually looks real. You can easily tell the difference between a real couple or a fake actor couple.
1) One Direction - One thing. Set in various locations across the central London, the video follows them around the city messing around and trying to be 'normal'. They busk in the streets and film on the top deck of an open top bus into the evening.
2) Little Mix - Little me. The video was filmed around a rough estate with various kids acting as if they are care free. Some actors also feature talking about their insecurities or where they want to be in 10 years time. The song itself is about girls have little self confidence because they were not told all the lovely things about them when they were younger.
3) Demi Lovato - Skyscraper - This video is purely Demi Lovato with a desert like background. The video is kept simple because she wants to show of the song as its such an emotional song with a lot of power. If i were to recreate this video I think I would do a good job of it but I may consider filming in a city to give it a slightly different impact.
4) Calvin Harris ft Ellie Goulding - I need your love. I think this video could be recreated quite easily because the concept of the video is that its supposed to be Ellie and Calvin recording themselves (the majority of time it looks as if one of them is holding the camera) and they film their time together and act 'normally'.
Animals by Maroon 5 is the latest video causing huge controversy in the industry and for the band. The song itself has a very good catchy beat with Adam's distinctive voice featuring and we don't think any further into the meaning of the song until we see the video. The timing of this video could not have come at a worse time with a number of stalking allegations, celebrity nude photos being leaked online and the recent headlines of sexual assault. The video can almost be so depicted that we can think Adam Levine himself is behind some of these awful headline, but we won't because we just see him as a very sexy male who happens to be in a band. The video at first starts out ok and seemingly innocent; with the actor (Levine's actual wife; Behati Prinsloo in real life) walking in to a butcher and choosing some meat to walk away with, we then see Adam looking over his shoulder at this stunning girl (we assume in an innocent 'i fancy you way') but we later realize it is not at all innocent. There are scenes in which Adam is in the back of the butchers with all the carcases covered in blood and he is climbing on them and hanging of the hooks as if he is testing if it can hold an actual humans weight. More scenes include him standing out in the rain (could be seen as romantic?) looking up at Prinsloo and taking more photos of her to put in his room with all his other stalker taken photographs. We then see him actually interact with her in a bar but he just gets dismissed by him which would annoy any stalker he then follows her home and waits until she is asleep to sneak in her apartment and take photos of her sleeping. He then risks it even more by getting into bed with her and stroking her hair as if they were really lovers. Then the final scenes may be the most disturbing. We see Adam and Behati embracing each other naked and then they are covered in whats supposed to be and what we assume blood from the animals carcases. they continue touching and kissing each other whilst this blood is being poured all over them. It's unclear if this was happening in real life or if it was part of Adam's psychotic dreams. The video hugely relates to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory and the alternative the female gaze theory. The male gaze objectifies women through camera angles showing off their bodies and the female gaze does the exact same thing but it objectifies men. The camera focuses on mens naked torsos, arms and their jawline. The video could also be put into Andrew Godwin's theory that states the lyrics and visuals relationship. In the song, Adam is referring to the girl as an animal and that he'll 'hunt her down' in which case he does; he stalks the female and has actual animals in the video (carcases, but animals none the less)His video could certainly win the award for the most disturbing video of the year and the opinions of Adam Levine may change.
Sam Smith born in may 1992 in London is the latest British soul singer-songwriter to take the entire world by storm. He broke though the industry by featuring on a disclosure track 'Latch' in 2012 and then followed up with the famous Naughty Boy track 'La La La'. In December 2013 he was nominated for a Brit award critics choice awards and BBC's sound of 2014, both of which he won. 5 months later, he released his debut album 'In the lonely hour' with Capitol Records. The lead single was Lay Me Down followed by Money On My mind and then Stay With Me which topped both the UK and the US charts and was insanely popular worldwide. Although he released EP's prior to his album and his first solo single 'La La La' from 2007 onwards, it was only in recent years in which he rose to fame. For an artist that shot to fame so quickly he has managed to keep his private life private with no one bothering to speculate. To this day we only know very little about him because he wants to keep his private and his music life very separate.
The song Money On My mind was based on this idea. The lyrics say a lot about Sam and how he unlike many, isn't interested in the money, he is in it purely for the music. For example the lyrics "don't wanna see the numbers" and "I do it for the love" this lyrics emphasise his feelings towards the music. He loves making music but he loves it for the music and not for the money it can make him. He also talks about how the record label industry is very controlling and allows very little freedom for artists such as him but he made a stand against that and is doing it his way as he mentions in his song "please, can you make this work for me? Cause im not a puppet, I will work against your strings".
One of Sam's most recent song and video 'Stay With me' is a very smart video for someone who is keeping his privacy. He lyrics talk about he isn't "good at a one night stand, but I still need love cause I'm just a man" and he goes on to say how he doesn't want his lover to leave him and that he wants them to stay with him but at no point does he specifically mention a girl or a boy. The lyrics match the visuals in this case because the video consists of him and shots of someone lying on the bed but it is impossible to tell if it is a man or women. He also had a mixed gender choir to further emphasises that he is keeping his sexuality a secret because he doesn't want to get judged on that or treated a certain way because of his sexuality.
