Copyright

1) Introduction
Explain what the copy right law is and how it is used within the music industry

2) Applying for copyright
- Explain why you had to apply for copyright
- Discuss in detail what you did. Identify the record label, email, phone, etc (step by step account)
- Response - did you get a response from the record label, how many times did you contacts them, are you still waiting a response?

My group had to apply for copyright so that the company didn't sue us for using their material. Copyright gives the creators of the origional piece of work legal rights to own our work. The copyright holder to a song can therefore take credit for our work allowing them to sell, reproduce and display it to an audience.

Initial planning ideas

My group memebers are myself Amy Fountain, George Hoy and Jake Poulter. The four of us have chose to work together because we are stronger in diffrent departments, as a whole we believe our group will work really well togeteher because we will be able to contribute our skills, so far we have come up with some really creative ideas for our narrative which the whole group seem to be happy with at the moment.

The style for my groups music video is based on around 20% performance, 20% concept and 60% narrative. This is because we believe our target audience will be more interested in the story behind the song, the dance part of the song will be left the same. Our target audience is mostly young adults and teenagers. We will use strobe lighting, dancing teens and highlight the use of alcohol throughout the video these codes and conventions are specifically used in dance videos. However we will be breaking the codes and conventions in our second half.

At the end of the music video the two male characters used (George and Jake) will walk home and go their separate ways. This is to highlight the concept of our music video. - Our concept being that although parties are good fun in the moment what you go home to afterwards is more important. Jake goes home to a messy apartment and George goes home to a loving family. Although being lost in the music is fun and exciting the reality is so much better.

Our music video will follow both Goodwin's and Dyer's theories. It will follow generic characteristics such as dancing, flashing lights, party atmosphere. Our music and visuals are in time with one another and our lyrics and visuals have a connection because of the highlighted words from the lyrics. We have slightly objectified the women's bodies within the party scenes. There will be slight intertexual references such as the apple logo and a brand of alcohol.

Our characters will wear normal party clothes and the lighting will be low-key throughout the party scene's and natural lighting will be used throughout the day-time scene's.

VOX POPS

My group conducted VOX POP interviews in order to collect primary research to use for our music video. The questions we asked were:
1. What style of music do you like?
2. We have decided to create a music video for the song 'Wake me up' by Avicii do you know/like this song?
3. What attracts you to a music video?
4. Are you more interested in a performance based, narrative based or concept based music video?
5.What elements would you expect to see in our music video of the dance genre?

By asking these specific questions in allowed us to know what kind of people we should ask for advice. We found out what kind of people knew and liked the song of our choice and what kind of aspects attract what kind of audience. We was able to discuss the different opinions on what percentage our music video should be in terms of narrative, concept and performance. We was able to finalize what elements we would include and decide what would make our music video most successful.

Pie Charts

My media group decided to collect our results and put them into pie charts so they are easy to read and to apply to our music video. 

Questionnaire

After deciding on my groups plan of action for our music video we knew we needed to have some sort of target audience to appeal to in order to make a successful music video. To find out what kind of target audience we was staging our music video for my group conducted a survey for people to fill out. By doing this it allowed us to tick all needs of our audience whether they be young or old or middle aged etc. This survey will enable us to know to include certain qualities. Knowing and having a certain target audience is important within the music industry as it is a competitive market so you need to know which age, gender etc are watching your music videos. We will use the results from these questionnaires to know what our audience enjoy, what they expect and what they want from us. By creating the questionnaire ourselves it allowed us to collect all the information we primarily needed. It benefited us massively as all of our questions for our audience were answered in comparison to using an online questionnaire where the results would vary and not be as useful. We used a variety of questions open and closed to retain the type of information that would help for our music video. We gave the surveys out equally between boys and girls to get a fair response. 

Diversity of music videos

Diversity of music videos

Why would an artist chose to create a diverse music video?

To appeal to an audience a music video usually needs to contain a strong narrative, big celebrities and memorable settings. The type of clothing they wear or even the clothing they don't wear needs to grab the audience's attention, the iconography in the video using has a part to play in the narrative and is usually linked to some sort of product for fans to purchase. Some artist miss behave or swear to gain viewers too. However Chris Cunningham and and Michael Condry go against these typical characteristic's and to create diverse and unique music videos instead.

Chris Cunningham has produced music videos for stars as big as Madonna. He also worked with Aphex Twin these are the two videos i will be analyzing.

Madonna - Frozen

In this music video 'Frozen' Madonna is not portrayed as the typical pop artist she is. The video is set in a desert and is breaking all the conventions of a pop video. This is to stand out from the crowd. The positive points about doing this is that Madonna is now being seen as different which is targeting a different type of fan base potentially increasing her fan base and the video is memorable which means that people are going to remember Madonna for doing this phase. Negatives can also become of this type of video as the target audience cannot relate to it. The current audience for Madonna will show no interest as it is not her typical type of music video this could mean that she would potentially loose a lot of fans also, in a way this video could make Madonna unpopular.

 The style that Madonna has gone for in this video is 'Gothic' which matches her song as it is about problems, love, depressions and emotions. Black is a shielding colour and represents a dark time.

In the lyrics 'love is like a bird' is said the visual on the left (crows) represents this and follows goodwins theory. Madonna transforms into an animal (right) in the video representing her untamed video. This is a sad video representing an emotional artist at hand, this was her 1990's image.

Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy.

This music video is more of a short film than anything, it goes against all the conventions of a typical dance video and is completely unique. There is no club setting or strobe lights used and the artist is unknown. This is unusual as the artist in dance videos are usually the center of attention and there would be a lot of close ups of them through their videos. In this video the beat is fast pace and the visuals mask this beat. The characters are scary and somewhat frightening to the audience making the video uncomfortable to watch, almost like a nightmare. There are no censorship rules present and their is no relationship built with the artist through the video at all. The narrative features an old woman being terrorized by a group of creepy small children, this video is memorable simply because of its horror theme and masked characters.

 The old woman at the beginning of the video is showing fear through her eyes to the audience to let them know that this video is a frightening piece of work. The dog barking allows the audience to know that their is paranormal activity present as the TV is not plugged in and yet turns on.

The characters in this video really emphasis the horror theme as the audience will be frightened of their presents. Their is a link between lyrics and visuals as it says 'Come to Daddy' the 'children' run.


Michael Gondry on the other hand worked with Kyle Minoge and White Stripes. I would describe his videos as more creative rather than strange in comparison to Cunningham's work.

White Stripes - Hardest button to button.

In this music video the guitar and drums are used to highlight the genre 'Alternative Rock' the artists wore leather and dark colours such as red and black with leather this also highlights the fact that they are rock artists as that is a stereo type. The visuals match the beat throughout the entire song this is due to the fact that at every beat a new instrument or piece of stage set up appears on screen. The video as a whole was 100% performance. This video is a lot like his Kyle Minoge video in the effect that everything on set is increasing in amount when the beat hits or chorus is repeated. 

 On the left the make up and costume shown is dark, this is evidence that the music video has some 'rock' characteristics. The lyrics to visuals have a slight relation as it says 'box' and a man with a red box appears (right hand photo).

 The increase of instruments is a theme throughout the entire video the instruments are placed to the beat and go up and down as the beat does referring to goodwin's theory of visuals to lyrics.

Kylie Minogue - Come into my world 

Goodwins Theory

Censorship

Should music videos be censored?

Ofcom takes complaints about communication services such as television, radio, magazines, newspapers etc. They have a wide range of powers across these regions. It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of the citizens and consumers and aim is to protect the public from what might be harmful or offensive material. The main areas of Ofcom preside over licensing, research, codes and policies, competition and protecting the radio stations from abuse. Whenever viewers and listeners complain about a program they’ve seen or heard. The Ofcom assess it against the code. 

Music artists such as Eminem, Rihanna, LMFAO, Lady gaga etc have had their music videos censored because they have broken boundaries. The reason for doing this is to stop audiences from hearing or seeing what they don’t want to know. In Rihanna’s video ‘Man Down’ it promotes the idea of murder as being a way to battle rape.

We held a class debate in order to get the views of the parents of children who like Rihanna’s songs and allow them to listen to her and those parents who want her videos to be clean and censored in order to allow their children to listen to her safely. We also looked at the views of the fans, the artist, the music producer, and the music radios etc.

The parents who believe Rihanna’s music and videos should be censored believe this is not what children should be listening to parents do not want their children to be fighting fire with fire. They don’t want their children thinking that if Rihanna can shoot a man then it must be ok for them to do so also. Parents ask that she would tone down the drug use, violence and the skimpy clothes in her music videos, to realize she is a role model for little girls and they are going to look up to her so she is causing parents issues. Kiss radio will only play clean-censored music; Rihanna should cut back and stop breaking boundaries.

Rihanna does not believe that her music should be censored because otherwise the music being played to the audience is not a true reflection of the message she is trying to get across, she believes artists have a freedom of speech and should be able to sing whatever they like and not have every other word in their song blanked out because some people may not like it, if you don’t like the music simply don’t listen to it. The narrative is really up to the viewer as to how they interpret the music and the feeling it gives them and what they lyrics mean. The music videos simply present what the artists intentions where when making the song. The record producer states that Rihanna’s fan base isn’t aimed at children but aimed at teenagers and young adults that clearly understand her lyrics and will not copy what she does in her music videos but listens to and watches her for entertainment value.

Parents who allow their children to watch and listen to Rihanna say that if you educate your children properly they will understand that they don’t need to copy Rihanna or idolize her in any sense but that her music is purely for entertainment and that her music shouldn’t be treated any differently to television shows. You don’t ‘ban’ or censor television shows because the main character isn’t an ideal role model. No music artist is going to be perfect and Rihanna isn’t going to change the way she produces music in order to please those who want to listen to her ‘clean’. If you want to listen to her it will have to be how the song was originally wrote.

I can understand that some children or young teenagers are going to listen to Rihanna’s music and enjoy it, they will sing the lyrics and could possibly idolize her. But if their parents teach them the clear difference between right and wrong then there really shouldn’t be a problem. The children probably wont understand the lyrics and if they do then their parents should have taught them whether they think it is ok for them to sing them, if they don’t like the lyrics then they shouldn’t let their children listen to the artist. The artist’s fan base was not made for children it was simply made to get out her messages as an artist in hope that people will agree and appreciate her lyrics. It doesn’t need to be censored; by censoring music you are destroying the song and ruining the artist’s message. Censorship puts a mask over the image of the artist and only portrays them as what Ofcom wants them to be.

When watching the music video for ‘Slim Shady Eminem’ the song is full of bad language racist comments, rude comments, mocking the mentally insane etc. The artist is an awful role model for children and his music is aimed at older teenagers and young adults the humor in his songs can be viewed as offensive and people really do take it seriously. But I believe that the artist is entitled to have his own music the way he likes it, his music but be enjoyed otherwise he wouldn’t be as popular as he is. His own lyrics are talking about how children known far more than we think they do and they already know about sex and violence so music isn’t going to make a difference at all. 

Analysis of a music video

Analysis of a music video

The purpose of the music video I chose ‘A team – Ed Sheeran’ was to inform and educate. He does this through showing the life of a young woman who evidently dies. Throughout the narrative it increases the viewers emotion towards the character building a relationship with her. The narrative includes the songwriter and singer ‘Ed Sheeran’ who helps the young woman by sitting with her and giving her a cup of coffee in the cold. This makes the artist portray a sweet and caring character alluring the audience to want to listen to what else they write and judging their type of character.

This is a narrative based music video. It is telling the audience a story about the life of a young prostitute and her use of drugs to get her through her life. It is a sorrow felt story to trigger the concept of drugs and the poor, and the extremes people will go to, to get money. The music video becomes memorable to an audience as it makes you empathise for the character and think about how horrible their life must be and how lucky you must have it. It highlights drugs in a harsh light and portrays them as an evil source. This educates and informs teenagers and young adults.

This video is under the ‘Indie’ genre, this means it should be down to earth and pure. By using the drug overdosing prostitute’s story it shows the audience life as they will hopefully never know it, however it brings the audience to realise what is going on in the world that surrounds them in a tone much softer and bearable. Indie music usually has an acoustic guitar used in the instrumental part of the song this is to give a light melody and create a soft tone to show the artist as being down to earth. The video is in no way gender bias and usually has a young female fan base.

The music video appeals to teenagers and young adults of both genders. However the artist is a male, which could attract more girls to boys. The lyrics of the song are somewhat un-clear and the video really helps the audience to get a further understanding of the lyrics and their real meaning. For example 

Music Channels

Music Channels

A) Music Television

 1) The audience for MTV is teenagers and young adults mostly but brands to a wide audience. – Because they show mostly new pop and dance music videos that attract a younger audience.

2) This channel plays the top records in the charts and old classics and some futuristic hits. – This is so it appeals to the majority of audiences.

3) Types of artists presented on MTV are Rhianna, Beyonce & Justin Bieber.

4) Magazine, Geordie Shore, Jersey Shore etc.

5) MTV’s logo is black and white with clear bold font. It stands out and makes a bold statement.

B) VH1

1)    The target audience for VH1 is young adults and teenagers; this is because it displays new releases and futuristic hits so young people will most likely watch/listen to them.

2)    This channel plays pop, dance, R&B, rap, etc. Anything placed within the charts.

3)    Types of artists presented on VH1 are Olly Murs, Katy Perry & Justin Bieber.

4)    This channel is

       5)    The logo appeals to a young audience as the logo displays bright colours such as pink, blue, green and yellow. This allures the younger rather than the elder generation.

C) THE BOX TELEVISION

 1)    The target audience for the box television is mostly for young adults, this is because of their choice of music selection and the types of music they present and play.

2)    This channel plays the 40 biggest hits of that time presenting the most popular bought and played music from around the world.

3)    Types of artists presented on the box Is Will.i.am, Bruno mars &Jason Derulo.

4)  This channel is used to advertise new futuristic songs that have yet to come into the charts allowing them to be heard by audience members gaining them interest and allowing the audience to be familiar to their work

5) The logo used for ‘the box’ is black and white the same as MTV this is to show a bold channel that will stand out in comparison to the rest. The use of black and white allows the channel not to look bias in any way. For example using pink and purple would attract a more feminine audience. The black and white works well and creates a sense of domination

D)  SCUZZ

1) The target audience for the music channel ‘scuzz’ is those who enjoy heavy metal and rock music. This channel is targeted at the more ‘grunge’ audience as it is known for its loud and heavly instrumental music choice. These types of people can range from 12-60. Usually around late 20s.

2) Scuzz play heavy metal and rock music.

3) Examples of the types of music Scuzz play is Blink 182, BlackVeilBrides & Foo Fighters.

4) The channel is used to advertise new bands, host competitions, sell concert tickets and promote festivals by showing interviews.

5) This channel widely appeals to their target audience as it updates them as to when their favourite bands are playing in festivals; it advertises competitions and prizes to fans and allows them to view their band’s music videos.

E) KISS

1) Kiss appeals to a large target audience of around 7- to late 20s. As its ‘clean’ music allows parents to let their children listen to their radio station and their music channel up until watershed times. From morning until 9 o’clock KISS will only play clean and censored music. This means that no swearing or unsuitable content will be shown allowing it to have a young target audience. Although manly aimed at teenagers and young adults kiss targets adults and their trust to therefore allow their children to listen to the station for example on the way to school in the car.

2) This channel plays hip-hop, dance, R&B, house, garage etc. This gives them a large number of audience members. This is useful when wanting to be the biggest radio station and music channel. They need to appeal to a wide range of audiences.

3) They play the following artists music frequently Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.

4) This channel is used to display news, advertising and new singles

5) The logo for this music channel is blue, this is to symbolise a ‘cool’ flowing music channel appealing to all audiences and all ages. It is a light blue which mostly symbolises freedom and peace in reference to their music it allows the audience to relax and enjoy their music.

• Why do you think MTV is broken down into different channels (base, hits, dance, rocks, classic?

I believe that MTV is broken down into different channels because it wants to appeal to a large target audience and to do so they need to cover all genres of music therefore appealing to those who like rock, dance, classic etc. By doing this MTV is not only appealing to the typical ‘teenage/young adult’ market and are extending their viewers/listeners. It is an easy way to earn viewers whereas, a music channel like ‘the box’ will only appeal to teenagers and those who are interested in the hits and futuristic music.

• Why do you music channels are important in appealing to a target audience?

Music channels are important because they allow the audience to get a better insight into their artists song by viewing the video. Videos are allowing the audience to gain the artists true perspective and views of their own song and allow the audience to interact with them on a much deeper level as appose to just listening to the song on their Ipod or the radio.

• Why do you think there are a variety of music channels?

I think there is a variety simple because not everyone likes the same music, by having different music channels it allows the audience to listen to different types of genres, it allows them to listen to something they wouldn’t usually listen to and it is an easy way to create diversity between artists creating a more popular fan base. There is too much music for there to be only one channel. There needs to be multiple channels in order for audiences to be able to switch between songs and genres to their benefit.  

• What have you learnt from analysing music channels and how will it help you with your own production?

I have learnt that in order to appeal to a large target audience my music needs to be clean in order for it to appear on the majority of music channels. I have learnt that music channels are a target for listeners that want the ‘stories within the song’. This will help me with my own production as I know what I need to include in certain genres in order to appeal to my target audience.

Research and analysis of a star and Dyers theory

I chose Britney Spears as my star because of her rebellious nature as an artist in the pop industry. I chose to show her transformation through the three following video posts as these were published under the eye of the media. "Baby one more time" (in 1999) "Piece of me" (in 2007) and Finally "Work Bitch" in 2013. by analysing the following videos i am able to show the growth of a young, innocent pop princess turning into a monsterous nihilistic woman.

Baby one more time (1999)

Baby one more time was the first song on Britney's album in 1999. Within this music video the young star began her career being the ideal role model. The teenager wore a slightly skimpy uniform with plates and a fringe. Although aiming to be quite provocative Britney was still seen as being a cute girly role model. The back-up dancers in the video showed the following the typical characteristics as they all wore the same outfits (uniform) and practiced a dance routine behind Britney in which Britney lead in front of the group. This creates an orderly fashion within the video, the use of typical boy/girl colours is popularly used within pop videos and is displayed in the second half of Britney's song. The use of these colours brings a more childish appearance to the shots, high lighting Britney's youth. The school environment again adds to the youth of the video.

The use of the school bell and the teacher at the beginning of the music video emphasises Britney being tamed and under control as she waits to start her performance. She has limited freedom and waits for the teacher/bell to dismiss her. 

 The childish hairstyles, using pink ribbon and furry hair bands adds to the innocent look Britney is presenting in her video the plates, bunches and fringe are typical for a young girl to have and they represent innocence well in both the first and second half of the video. 

In the pop genre it is common for the dancers to wear the same outfits and to dance in time behind the main star. This technique is used in Britney's video. However in the second half the outfits changed and Britney wore pink and the boys wore blue. The boys and girls didn't contact one another. The use of the colours showed the divide clearly and high lighted the fact that there was no direct contact between the sex's and again to high light Britney's innocence yet again.


Piece of me (2007)

Piece of me shows the clearest transformation of Britney's life as a star. Her pink fluffy hair bands and school uniform disappear and the woman within her is released. Britney is wearing a black sparkly bra with a pair of baggy jeans her low-on-modesty outfits scream out to the paparazzi. The 'young teenage audience' has now drawn their eyes to a new look, Britney's fan base has now extended to older girls/women. Throughout the video there is intertexual reference by using a magazine cover to tell her narrative in pieces. Britney wears a fur gullet in this video that could represent her 'wildness' escaping. The use of the magazine allows the audience to realise what the media is doing to her. Britney has become more mature through her life as a star but the media has changed her into what they wanted her to be, she now has more attitude and is in full control of her attributes in life.

 Fur is used twice in Britney's wardrobe for this music video. This is showing the release of the 'animal' inside her that has been hiding from the eye of the media from a young age.

The use of this 'vulgar' language in both the left and right (swearing gestures and the word 'bitch) is to show that Britney no longer cares what people think about her she will
do as she pleases and has an attitude against the world of media now.

In these photos Britney is seen fighting off the media and in the right she is standing over a camera man, this is to highlight her place, she is no longer vulnerable she is in total control.

Work Bitch - INCOMPLETE