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. 

History of Music Video - Timeline

History of Music Video on Prezi

Institutional Research - Columbia

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. 

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.

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.

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.