Digipak - Sinners Never Sleep

Marketing a hypothetical band - "Morashele"

In order to learn more about how to market a band, we were given a hypothetical band - "Morashele".

Ways to market Morashele on Prezi

Music Video Director Analysis - Tom Mattia

Influential Videos for our idea

One music video that has majorly influenced the idea for ours is this: Stupid by Sarah McLachlan. Although the story is slightly different, she uses the same concept of different time periods to highlight the message in her song. In her video, she is seen with the same guy in three different time periods: 1800s, 1900s and 2000s, making the same mistake over and over. This amplifies the lyrics 'how stupid could I be", and is very effective. We liked the idea of using the different eras in our own video, and also liked the idea that the man was there in each era, as if she couldn't escape him. We thought this would also be appropriate for our video, with the girl trying to run away but failing miserably.

One thing we could possibly consider changing after seeing this video is the size of the set: Sarah McLachlan has tried to recreate the different eras on a private scale, whereas our initial idea was to do a full hall full of people. This would be extremely difficult to do, so perhaps we should try doing it on a smaller scale just as McLachlan did. 

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Another video that has influenced us is The Only Exception by Paramore. Although they do not go through significantly different time periods in this video, the lead singer does visit a variety of locations in order to figure out how she feels about a particular guy, and discovers towards the end that he was there for her all along and she decides to stay with him. This story is fairly similar to ours, except where the lead singer was running through locations ours will be running through time. It was from here we got the idea of using different doors as the gateway to different eras. Obviously we do not have the same kind of budget as Paramore did, so instead of building an entire set with different rooms we plan on using continuity editing to make the girl run out of one door and back in it again, with her seemingly in a different room when in reality we've just dressed up the same hall. We like our idea of the girl running through time as it fits well with the concept of her trying to move forward but actually moving backward. 

Star Image - Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has always been known for her particularly strong image, which has changed a lot over the course of her career.

In her first video, Just Dance, she is dressed fairly normally: she has a consistent, simple hairstyle and dresses in clothes that could be worn and pulled off by most artists. Her make up is fairly normal, with the only ostentatious piece being the lightning bolt on her cheek, which is worn as a tribute to David Bowie (her idol, who often wore a lightning bolt as character Aladdin Sane).

For the album cover it is much the same: she sports the same make up and what is presumably the same hairstyle, but this time we begin to see her more extravagant taste in clothing as she wears a blue outfit with a really wide collar.

In Love Game, Lady Gaga began to branch out from her set ways by experimenting with a new hairstyle. She also went further than this by wearing a costume which was practically non-existent: the first of Lady Gaga's strange outfits. This also marked a turning point in Lady Gaga's image as she began to present herself as much more sexualised. 

In her single 'Bad Romance', Lady Gaga was seen wearing practically nothing, showing off her naked back. She also wore a prosthetic spine: something that no other artist has been seen doing. This trend carried on as she made more and more public appearances with prosthetic bones.


            


As Lady Gaga rose in fame, she began to do more and more drastic things in order to keep her image fresh and interesting, and to keep her songs in the charts. The most memorable of these was probably famous 'meat dress' of 2010; Lady Gaga claimed that 'the dress was a statement about one's need to fight for what one believes in, and highlighted her distaste for the US military's don't-ask-don't-tell policy'. This was a radical move that she would not have done during the 'Just Dance' days, but something she could only done when achieving fame. This shows that her image has changed over the years as she has gone from a typically normal girl to an eccentric singer.   

To fully illustrate this, one of Lady Gaga's more recent covers showed her dressing up as a man, under the alias 'Jo Calderone'. This potentially could have been in response to the common rumour that she is a man in disguise, as Lady Gaga likes to confront rather than hide. It is clear that she does this in order to keep the media entertained, and successfully so. 

More of Lady Gaga's eccentric outfits:

Genre Research

A Brief History of Indie Rock

The Vaccines are an indie rock band from England. Indie rock came about in the UK and US in the 1980s, and has been developing ever since. Indie rock used to mean music that wasn't in the mainstream charts; music that came from 'indie' (independent) labels but then came to generally mean any music that is still seen as "outsider" rock in the late 1980s/early 1990s. During the 2000s it then developed even further as it became increasingly popular, enjoying commercial success for the first time due to the rise of the Internet and important changes in the music industry. This means that the term 'indie rock' has lost most of its meaning as 'independent rock', but has now come just to define a specific genre of music, to which the Vaccines belong.

As indie rock has now branched away from its original meaning, it is hard to define exactly what it is. No band can be defined by one singular genre as a lot overlap, and bands like to take inspiration from different genres to create their own style. For example, within the genre 'indie rock' there are several other sub-genres: 'indie pop', 'jangle pop' and 'lo-fi', among others. These are called sub-genres as they contain the main features of indie rock, but are slightly different, and can produce a different look and style. Indie pop tends to differ from indie rock by being more melodic, less abrasive and generally more angst free, whereas jangle pop differs as it encompasses bands that indie rock doesn't; for example, folk music.

   Analysing and comparing bands
One way we can try to define indie rock is by looking at other bands that belong to the genre, and looking at what they share in common; for example, the band Kids in Glass Houses.

Kids in Glass Houses are a Welsh indie rock band that consist of a vocalist, rhythm guitarist, lead guitarist, bass guitarist and drummer. This is similar to the Vaccines who also have a guitarist, vocalist, bassist and drummer, showing that the two bands put the same sort of emphasis on their music, rather than pop bands such as One Direction who have four singers and no instrumentalists. The two bands also have similar looks:  

 As you can see, the two bands consist of all male members with a very specific style. They all have messy hair, some of which is longer than average. However, they do differ slightly with The Vaccines having nice, tucked in shirts and Kids in Glass Houses having a scruffier style. 

This is all a style we must stay away from, as we do not want the style of our band to get confused with the actual band. However, we can use some elements as the genre of the song does not change, but within reason.

   Analysing and comparing videos

When thinking about the genre indie rock, we have more to think about than just the style and history of the genre: we need to know how it is practically used in music videos. For this, I have looked at several music videos within the genre to see what elements they share in common. 

The main feature of Kasabian's 'Fire' is the symbolism used in their video. The narrative shows them robbing a bank, and eventually getting caught, but what's interesting is the fact they've substituted guns and money for guitars and lyrics. When they enter the bank, they are holding the guitars like guns: this could symbolize how they use their music like a weapon, a way to express all their most passionate feelings. As people in the indie rock genre tend to connect emotionally with their lyrics more than some other mainstream genres, I feel this may be a convention of the genre: having symbolism showing the deeper meaning of their songs. Similarly, they use the music sheets as currency, suggesting the importance of music to them as they try to rob the bank and also showing how music is universal and helps everyone. The fact that both the police and the band are using the guitars as weapons could also be symbolic of the band's battle with society and with other artists to get their music known without losing its integrity. 

Kasabian also use some special effects in their video. As a successful band, their music video budget is substantial (and a lot higher than ours), meaning that they could spend a lot of time and money in post production focusing on effects.

One video that is especially good for looking at the use of special effects is the Killers 'Runaway'. They have done their video as a completely performance scene, using black rooms, lights, and a lot of post production to create the effect they need. The backdrop is what is edited the most: he lead singer stands in front of blackness, fiery skies, stages with coloured floors, walls and ceilings  and more. They also use clever shots to make it seem like the singer and band members are in more than one place at a single time: this helps with the idea of 'Runaways' as they are hard to track throughout the video.

They also use symbolism in this video with the shots of the road: by using this tracking shot they are bringing through the theme of running away as the shot looks like driving, very fast, as if to escape something. This suggests that symbolism might indeed be a convention of the genre.

A third video that demonstrates the genre is Snow Patrol's 'Run'. This video demonstrates the two key concept of symbolism and special effects highlighted above, but also brings in an interesting new concept: the use of lighting and colour. After watching this video it is made evident that another feature of the indie rock genre in music videos means dark locations, that are lit up with strips of colour. This was common to the Killers video and this one, as the band use red lights to light up the darkness. The lighting was particularly key in this video and the lyrics contained the words 'light up, light up', and they illustrated this by the use of flares, lit by the band, which lit up the dark scene. The dark background was also used to allow the singer to connect with the audience: as he sang directly into the camera, the dark background let him get his message across and led the audience to focus more on the lyrics. 

As far as symbolism goes, this video demonstrates it particularly with the use of the motorbike. The lead singer is seen walking alongside it in the first scene - he then leaves it and later it is set of fire and completely destroyed. This is symbolic as the lyrics say 'I'll be right beside you dear', and the motorbike can symbolize journey and escape: by destroying the bike, they are suggesting that escape is not possible, and that they will indeed stay. Special effects are also used in this video, by changing the lighting and amplifying that of the flare in post production. 

   CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the indie rock genre displays several key conventions.
- A general scruffy look with long shaggy hair. 

- A use of special effects in their videos in order to connote a specific meaning.
- The use of symbolism to connect to the audience and bring across a deeper meaning.
- The use of lighting and colour.
- They typically have a four or five piece band, containing a vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist and drummer.
- Usually all male bands. 

Our Initial Pitch

We decided to change the idea for our pitch slightly from our original brainstorm as we wanted to do something slightly more complex. The newer version is still a mainly narrative video with a deep storyline involving many different eras. The narrative would instead be centered around a boy and a girl and their relationship. In our story, the two are a couple in modern day, but they break up as the girl wants to search and take some time to 'find herself'. She runs from the boy, and from the relationship, but while trying to move forwards she finds herself moving backwards, through different decades in the 20th century.

Writing our pitch 

To do this, we plan to use one location (e.g; a hall), and dress it up in different ways in order to make the time jump obvious. We could use running through doors as a transition, by using continuity editing to make her run out of the hall, and just enter back into it again, as if the next era was on the other side of the doors. This would help to convey how stuck she is as well  as every time she tries to escape she finds herself even further back in the past.

The various scenes in this hall could include things such as dances, and using the iconic dances of the time - the Lindy Hop, the Macarena etc. This would also enable us to have a band on the stage: therefore including the performance piece of the task. However, we feared this may not be enough so we were considering a green screen to make up the rest. We were going to film the main boy (who is both the character in the relationship and the lead singer of our band) singing in front of a green screen and walking around. We would then put a black and white filter on it before layering it on top of the party image, making him appear ghostly and letting him be omnipresent during all the party scenes, with the change in colour also hinting at how disjointed he is from the main girl.

Obviously, to make this idea work we would need a lot of planning as the props, costumes and other general mise-en-scene is extremely important in order to avoid an amateurish look to our video. We have already begun thinking about costumes, and drew up some sketches of some typical costumes from different eras that we can try and resemble.

We do have one source for our costumes so far: authentic outfits from grandparents etc., but if we want to make this look professional we would probably need many costumes for extras. This would be extremely difficult to do and potentially very expensive, so to remedy this we will ask around all our friends and friends of the family to see if they or their parents have anything we could use.

Song Choice

When we were trying to find a song to do for our music video, we had a lot to think about. First we thought about our genre: we didn't want to do an acoustic song as the slow music wouldn't allow room for much clever editing. Similarly, we didn't want to do a rap song as they have a very specific set of characteristics and it personally wasn't our type of music. Comparing music, we decided on a rock or indie rock band, as we felt this would have an adequate story in the lyrics and also a good beat. We all went through our personal playlists looking for music, but found there to be simply too much so we decided to come up with an idea first and then try and find a song to fit. We had recently had a lesson on intertexuality, and we had all fallen in love with the idea of doing something set in a different era. Our idea grew quickly, and soon we were sure we were going to do a story about a girl not belonging and trying to find her place. We were going to cut from her getting ready in a mirror to her in different parties, different time periods, trying to find where she belonged and failing miserably.

We immediately started searching for songs, but it proved to be rather difficult as it was now too narrowed. Finally we came up with two possibilities, and after studying the lyrics and imagining our idea to each song, we decided on the Vaccines' song 'If Ya Wanna'.

Loverboy Music Video Analysis

Applying Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin studied music videos and came up with 6 key characteristics that music videos will usually demonstrate. The first of these is that the video will be representative of the genre: for example, performances will usually be more heavily focused on in a rock video as opposed to the video of an acoustic singer. The second is that there will be a relationship between the lyrics or the visuals, whether the visuals illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics. The same is true of the relationship between the music and the visuals, which is the third characteristic. The fourth is the idea that a music video will always contain lots of focus on the artist in order to sell them, and this is a demand of the record label to help them make money. The fifth characteristic is that music videos often use the concept of voyeurism: they play on the fact people like to look and often use the Male Gaze Theory combined with fragmented body shots in often to popularize music videos.  Finally, there is often intertextual references: the video will use the audience's knowledge of another text and build on that as a theme in their video. One video that appears to demonstrate  all these is Beyoncé's 'Best Thing I Never Had'. 

This video is a prime example of how Goodwin's theory can be put into practice. It is a video that illustrates the lyrics as the narrative of the video very much matches the story in the lyrics. In this video, Beyoncé is singing about the 'Best Thing (She) Never Had', and the video shows a failed marriage and relationship that turned into a successful one with another man. This shows it is illustrating the lyrics as she is presenting a story that runs parallel with the themes in the lyrics, but she is also expanding on it by giving details of the other relationship and the marriage. This was one of Goodwin's theories, as he said that the narrative of music videos would always either illustrate, amplify or contradict the meaning in the lyrics. As well as this, Goodwin proposed a similar theory saying that the music track would also either amplify, contradict or illustrate meaning. In this case, the music illustrates the song as it is slow, but uplifting, and these are the moods Beyoncé sings about during her performance. 

Beyoncé is a solo female artist, and by this she belongs to a genre. Most solo female artists sing directly to the camera and often appear as the only character in their videos. For example, Rihanna and Taylor Swift often do the same thing. This was another of Goodwin's theories: the concept that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.

 Goodwin also said that these shots were necessary in order to provide ample shots of the star for the record label, who would require them to be featured intensely. The purpose of this is obviously to sell the star, which is only furthered by the use of direct address as they look into the camera (creating a sense of intimacy between them and the viewer). These might also happen often against all of an artist's videos, which would create a motif for them: this is often true of artists such as Lady Gaga, who are famous due to a very prominent image which comes through in their music videos.

In Beyoncé's video 'Best Thing I Never Had', she is also shown through fragmented body shots and skimpy costumes. This shows off her figure and brings a voyeuristic element to the video: it allows those watching to look and admire her. Not only does this present a pleasure for the audience by allowing them to watch her, but it also presents Beyoncé in a positive light, whereby the viewers may want to watch her other videos and it would help to sell her music as well as her as an artist.

Jump Into The Fog - The Wombats (music video analysis)

In order to fully understand how to create a successful music video, it is imperative we look at some existing ones in detail so that we can decide what techniques make a video successful. I have here looked at a Wombats song.

(analysis begins at 3:35)

Intertextuality in Music Videos

This video is a classic example of intertextuality. As you can see, the entire video has been presented through a made up video game with pieces of performance cut in. The director/the band have done this so that the audience - particularly those that play video games a lot - will recognise the style and this will provide a certain pleasure for them. This in turn will lead to a positive outlook on the video as the audience will think it is cleverly done, and hopefully therefor a positive outlook on the song and the artist themselves.

The song itself is about the concept of 'Californication', which refers mainly to the Hollywood industry and widely spread dream to be involved in it as a star in some way. The use of the intertextuality in this video highlights this as the animated characters in the game represent each of the band members. Each complete a different sort of game: snowboarding, swimming, driving and roaming and complete tasks that would be impossible in real life. It is possible that this is a tactic used to suggest the dream of Californication is an also impossible in real life (for most), and that they do not support the dream.

Examples from Californication & Other Video Games

Here you can see quite clearly how the director/band have copied common elements of video games to add to their videos.