Analysing Websites

Website navigation bars

The first thing I noticed when looking into the navigation bars of websites was the colour scheme. They were all quite dark with one or potentially two feature colours to make it stand out, and this is something I could bring in to my work.

The reason I wanted to look into navigation bars was to look at what pages specifically I wanted to include. They all have a homepage, a tour/events page, a media/gallery page, and a store. Most of them also have social network icons with links to external pages. I could definitely include this into my work to make my website really impressive.

The pages I have decided to use:

Website Homepage Analysis

Now that the robbery has happened, we are trying to put as much focus as we can on our websites/digipaks because it is something we can do from home. I'm starting to think about building my website but before I do so, I decided to look at some homepages so that I know what to include in my own.

 

You Me At Six Website Analysis

Eye movement of participants when looking at websites

An article, published in 2006, suggested that when an audience read webpages their eyes travel in a typical 'F' shape. This means that websites have recently been designed to be very orientated to the left as the study suggested items on the right of the screen tend to be more ignored. 

We can see this to be true in You Me At Six's website, as the navigation bar is on the left and other items are in the middle, with the right of the webpage left blank. This means that the audience's eye movement would allow them to capture all the necessary information without missing anything. 

Digipak front covers

The Killers - Sam's Town digipak analysis

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One thing I found interesting in the digipak aside from that listed above was an insert. It advertised ringtone versions of the Killers' songs for the customers of the CD to purchase and download: this cross media convergence is something I haven't seen much of before in CDs, and it might be an interesting idea to incorporate it in my design too. 

Applying Todorov & Propp's theories

Both Todorov and Propp studied film in detail and developed their own theories about the structure of film products. These theories can also be applied to music video, and we can change and adopt them in order to ensure our music video follows the successful, established structure. This is particularly important for our music video as we plan to have it focused mainly on narrative (although we will have a performance element).

To demonstrate how these theories work I have chosen the video 'Like We Used To' by A Rocket To The Moon (ARTTM).

 

TODOROV

Todorov's theory consisted of five parts, and talked about the structure of film products in regards to the narrative. The picture below shows these five steps. 

                

In ARTTM's video, these five steps are clearly shown. 

1. The equilibrium here is when the main male character and the main female character are together in a relationship  This is shown through a series of flashbacks, which is an interesting concept as it disrupts the chronology of the video. However, it is made clear that this part of the narrative occurred first, which saves
                                                                      confusion. 

2. Next comes the disruption of the equilibrium: this is when the main female character starts dating the other man.

3. Following that comes the recognition of the disruption. In this video, they use over the shoulder shots in order to show that the main character recognizes this change in the narrative; here, he watches the main girl and her second boyfriend together.

4. The attempt to repair the disruption comes fourth, shown by the main character trying to reconciliate with the girl. In this video she pulls away, which shows this attempt to be unsuccessful.  

5. Finally comes the new equilibrium. This occurs when the situation has been accepted, either through a successful or unsuccessful reparation of the damage. In this case, the main character has moved on and begins to create new memories with another girl. 


PROPP
Vladimir Propp developed several character archetypes that he says recurs throughout most film products. They are:

1. The Hero – a character that seeks something
2. The Villain – who opposes or actively blocks the hero’s quest
3. The Donor – who provides an object with magical properties
4. The Dispatcher – who sends the hero on his/her quest via a message
5. The False Hero – who disrupts the hero’s success by making false claims
6. The Helper – who aids the hero
7. The Princess – acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the villain’s plots
8. Her Father – who acts to reward the hero for his effort

In this video, several of these are demonstrated, and some characters can even take on the roles of two different character types. 

1. The Hero – the main male character 
2. The Villain – the secondary male character
3. The Donor – not represented in this video
4. The Dispatcher – not represented in this video
5. The False Hero – the secondary male character
6. The Helper – not represented in this video
7. The Princess – the main female character AND the secondary female character
8. Her Father – not represented in this video

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. 

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.

Voyeurism in Music Videos

Voyeurism is an theory proposed by Freud that has been applied to media productions: it is the idea that the audience like 'looking'. This is usually for sexual pleasure, with the camera being the (usually male) gaze looking at an object (the woman) in the way they're being presented.

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One good example of voyeurism in music videos is in this music video, Satisfaction by Benny Benassi. 

Goodwin proposed that voyeurism often happens with fragmented body shots. For example, in the video there are many shots focusing on the bottoms or breasts of the girls. This emphasises the sexual treatment of them, focusing on attractive parts of their body rather than their personalities or story. 

Another way that we can tell that the video is blatantly aimed at males is by the tools used in it. Men are typically seen to be more 'handy' and therefore the tools used and the information about them would be more aimed at men. The tools and the women are the only two elements in the video, showing how it is the male's gaze being used. The tools could also be an example of phallic symbolism, which is often used to suggest male domination. It would also be pleasing for the men to see these symbols associated with sexually attractive girls, and help to sell the sex element of the video. 

However, it could also be argued that this video is extremely over the top, exaggerating and parodying the concept of voyeurism. The video contains nothing more than scantily clad women conducting manual labour, and the two elements discussed above suggest that the director was using very obvious techniques in order to create humour. 

The fragmented body shots of the women exemplify the techniques used to sell stars (particularly female) in other music videos, but as the women in this video are not related to the creation of the song this is obviously not the purpose. The other typical purpose of presenting a particular gender as sexually attractive is to make the main star look better: as shown in the picture to the right, from 50 Cent's video 'In Da Club'. In this video, the women avoid a direct gaze with the camera and instead look at the artist, presenting him as something to be admired. 

This is not what's happening with 'Satisfaction', as the girls are looking directly at the camera in order to connect with the viewer, again suggesting that the aim of the video is to parody.

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 However, the gender roles can be reversed by powerful independent singers. In Shania Twain's Man! I Feel Like A Woman she parodies an existing video that objectifies women and reverses the roles, therefore objectifying the men.

 
 Here the men are dressed in very tight clothing, showing off every contour of their body. They also do not look directly at the camera to avoid the audience connecting with them, suggesting they are there to be looked at and nothing more. Fragmented body shots are again used in the same way to show them off as objects.

However, often in videos where the woman seems empowered, the sexualisation goes both ways. There are two main theories for this:
1) Feminist: the woman only seems as if she's in power, when she's in reality still being sexualised to pleasure the man.
2) Post Feminist: the woman is perfectly aware she is being sexualised, and using it to create the effect she wants.

For example, in Shania Twain's video she undresses sexually and then is left in a shirt and corseted dress: this shows off both her legs and cleavage, presenting her in a sexualised way.

Reviewing my AS coursework piece

WHAT WENT WRONG? 

During the creation of our opening sequences, we encountered several problems.

- We didn't leave enough time for reshoots. Whilst editing, we thought of new shots that would look really good in the sequence and really pull it together, but unfortunately we were too close to the deadline and couldn't reshoot.

- We didn't storyboard in enough detail. This meant we spent more time shooting than we needed to, as when we were ready to shoot we weren't entirely sure what angles or shots we needed.

- It was hard to coordinate schedules as we left it too late. As we filmed during our January exams, we all had various revision sessions and extra lessons blocking up our individual timetables. As we only organised when to shoot very close to the actual date, it meant that we could all not be there at the same time, and we all missed out on various bits.

- We didn't book equipment far enough ahead. This was a problem as it meant we had to change cameras halfway through our filming, meaning we had to learn how to use an entire new piece of equipment, and slowing us down even further.

WHAT WORKED?
- Our group. The four of us were all on good terms during our coursework, and had a healthy balance of chat to make the filming fun, and focus so that we weren't distracted.

- Our problem solving. Although we encountered all the problems listed above, we managed to work through them. This puts us in good stead for A2 should we encounter similar problems.

- Our film!

WHAT YOU PLAN TO DO NEXT TIME:- Utilize spare time better.

By ensuring that we all have a job to do at any given time, hopefully we won't fall behind.

- Plan ahead. Increase the detail of storyboarding, and coordinate schedules as soon as possible. Once we know when we're shooting, we also want to book equipment immediately.

Reviewing previous A2 coursework pieces

Above is a playlist of the A2 coursework from my school last year. With a group and then in a class discussion, we analysed and deconstructed these music videos so we could know what worked well, and what improvements we would make, which would therefore help us out on our own video.

The first thing we noticed watching the music videos was the importance of the song. 13B6, the top rated music video, had a fast paced and energetic song (Ike and Tina - Jamie T), leading to a lively and thoroughly entertaining video. This song had allowed them to use a wider range of editing techniques and let them create their video in a way that was unique and imaginative. This, however, was not the case with all the videos. Several of the groups chose a song that was slow, obviously focusing on the storyline rather than the beat, and this meant that the videos not only lacked the editing displayed in 13B6's video, but tended to be dull and tedious to watch. They didn't grab the audience's attention in the same way, and it led to us deciding that the story of a music video should be equally balanced with a performance to grab the viewer's attention.

It seemed to be common in the videos that whilst many techniques that a media student should have a firm grasp of were used, the performance in the videos were sub par. Obviously, as media students we may not possess the correct drama skills, but it seems that the videos that were the most entertaining to watch had an excellent lip sync-er who was charismatic and believable as the character they were playing on screen. The videos where the performer was out of sync (either not singing in time with the music or with bad editing) proved to be annoying to watch despite the otherwise good quality of the video. In a group discussion, we decided that it would be best if we asked a drama student at our school to be in our music video, as the performance would be a crucial element in all of our music videos.

Another problem we found in the music videos was the issue of copyright. In 13E9's video (Today I Cried - Professor Green), they decided to put in a storyline element by using clips from the film The Truman Show. Although the clips did make some sort of sense with the lyrics of the song, the energy of the film and the music did not match and it was unclear to us as an audience the thinking behind it without having it explained to us in written work. Aside from this, making a music video like this would also be a major problem as it is unlikely that these students will have received permission from Paramount Pictures to use their film in their video.

However, there were also many elements of this past coursework that were very well done. Most of the videos used a variety of shots and angles, using jump cuts to paste them together, which was important as music videos tend to have more edits in them to bring across a certain energy. Most of them also had a good balance of interior and exterior locations, which was important for keeping the video interesting. One group, 13E11 (Prisoner - Jeffree Star) did not do this, and it was an almost unanimous feeling in our class that this led to a bland video.

In 13B2's production we saw something that is common in music videos, but surprisingly not in the A2 coursework pieces: an instrument. We felt this really tied together the music video, and made it different to the other groups', which had obviously not managed to arrange someone to star in their videos and play an instrument simultaneously.