Research into the group

The group that my group is producing the video and ancillary texts for is for this jazz/ sould group called Goda and the Zoo who consist of a female lead singer and the rest of the band playing the musical instruments which are all male.
The lead singer is currently stuying music at westminister and spends her time recording her material for thier band. The image that the band is portrayed as would be very similiar to the current artist of the day Adele. Adele is widely known for her simplicity of her physical image and yet complexity of her musical style and the emotions she shows through every song. Goda which is her real name is compared massively to Adele in my opinion through the song we are using which is called "Floating". The tempo of the song is slow most like Adele's songs and also Goda vocal range and style is pretty much similair to Adeles aswell. Adele presents as to what a sterotypical soul singer should be like when they are more focused on thier voice and not thier image identity just like Goda and the Zoo are.
And as Goda and the Zoo are currently all in university so their age range would be from 18-23, they have to appeal to the young adults and relatively the adults aswell. As we are aiming to have our taget audience at that age range Goda and the Zoo is a perfect match for interesting the type of audience we are going for. Our overall idea of how we want the band to image themselves are would be having a music video that is not complicating keeping to the simple technique of using a narrative base surrounding them and performance based of just the lead singer standing on stage also keeping to the conventions of jazz videos where it's all stage performed. Not much work has to be done with changing how they represent themselves in the video as thier image is already suitable to the type of genre we want.

target audience research questionaire

In order to find out exactly what the audience is interested in in the first place my group produced a questionnaire designed so that we know what type of audience likes what type of music videos and any other information that is valuble to our research.

Please write N/A for any questions which are not applicable to you.

(Tick appropriately)

1.       Gender

Male (  )     female (  )

2.       Age

15 and under (  )    16-18 ( )      19+ (  )

3.       Do you watch music videos?

Yes ( )       no (  )

Why/why not

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

4.       What genres of music do you listen to?

Rap (  )   hip-hop (  )      r&b (  )    rock(  )   metal(  )    pop(  )    dance(   )    country(  )

Classical (  )   indie (  )   other (  ) please specify…………………………………………………………..

5.       If you ticked yes, which of the following do you use to view music videos on?

Youtube(  )   myspace(  )    yahoo music(  )     we7(  )

Music channels (  ) please specify which………………………………………………………………….

Other (  ) please specify………………………………………………………………………………………

6.       How often do you watch a music video?

Everyday (  )    weekly(  )      monthly(  )

Other(  ) please specify…………………………………………………………………………………

7.       Do you have a favourite music video and why?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

8.       Which of the following types of music videos would you enjoy watching?

Narrative- a video that tells a story (  )       concept-surrounds a certain theme or idea(  )

Performance-concentrated on the artist and dancers performing (  )

9.       Do you enjoy music videos with special effects?

Yes(  )

No(  )

Why?.................................................................................................................................

10.   Does product placement put you off? (when a product affiliated with the artist or music label is placed in the music video)

Yes (  )

No(  )

Why(  )…………………………………………………………………………………………..

11.   Do you prefer music videos that are slow or fast?

Slow(  )

Fast (  )

Why?(  )

12.   Do you prefer videos with lots of bright and flashing lights or one with more natural lighting?

Bright/flashing light (  )

Natural lighting (  )

Research into the music channels that would exhibit my video

                                        

A potential candidate that would exhibit the genre of our music video would be majorly mtv rocks.The most obvious reasons for deciding upon mtv rock would be that :
-- It's a 24 hour alternative music channel meaning that it constantly plays songs that are in the interests
    of people during the time period so it would play our video alot of times. Playing the video alot of times
    would eventually be watched by people.
--MTV rocks initially being in 1998 meaning that its been around for more then a decade. Music channels
   that have been around for that long would have played very known artists and also minor artists on the
   verge of becoming more widely known. As everyone is acknowledged of the mtv network, the band is
    bound to successful if it is played on a music channel that has been around for a long time.
--It constantly provides upcoming artists or bands in this case the band from our music video for a place to
   show their material as other major channels don't have room for them and this channel gives them the chance.


                                                
Another candidate that would exhibit my music video would be Q TV channel. The reasons behind this would be:
--Its a music channel based on Q magazine meaning that it would air the songs with the top rated songs from
   the magazine itself. Usually the songs that are top rated come from very known bands with similiar genres
   compared to our one such as snow patrol, stereophonics and coldplay.
--Its available on sky and virgin,  these days mostly everyone has acsess to these channels so they are bound
   to see the music video.
--It specialises in indie rock and alternative.

music video analysis 4

The music video that I'am analysing would be "the scientist" by coldplay. The song immediately begins with a close up shot more evidently showing only his facial features looking directly at the camera. This is so that the audience can familiarise themselves with the singer as being in the famous band cooldplay. As he starts singing the lyrics to the song we instantly realise its the concept of love and in actual fact its about the mans powerlessness in the face of love that nothing can fix it, not even maths or science also that love is a more comlicated matter then maths and science. As the camera pulls back we are revealed that he's lying on a matress placed outside and his body is disporpotionate as if his broken some body parts.
        At around 39 seconds the whole narrative plot is acknowledged to use reverse chronology from the boy in the bicycle riding it backwards and Chris rising from the mattress backwards aswell. At 57 seconds a low angle is shown on chris walking backwards in the streets of London. We know this is the streets of London majorly due to the angle the camera was positioned at, with Chris on one side of the frame and the scenary behind him clearly shown to the watcher of the video. What is unusual about this video is that whilst the footage is going backwards the lyrics coming out from his mouth seems to be shown singing it like any other normal person would. To achieve this effect Chris would have had to learn how to mouth the song in reverse which took him a month to do so. The reversed footage is also shown in slow motion to create more of a visual effect towards the audience. Throughout the video we follow Chris as to what he was exactly doing the moments before the beginning of him lying on the matress. It creates questions aswell as to what exactly was he doing and why would he be walking backwards in the woods picking up the clothes, a metaphor for the pieces of the story and putting them back on. The lighting at this point of the song is mostly natural lighting due to the scenary being shown to have the sky cloudy on the verge of pouring rain, usual for the British weather.
           At 2.54 two stories unfold due to a meduim wide shot of a woman presumably Chris's love interest, appearing to be lying dead on the grass. The sharpness of this woman contrasts with the background of Chris walking backwards not aware of this woman just carrying on with his story. The sharpness is used so that we can focus on the woman instead of the background and gives more detailed effects.At 3.05 the slow panning camera following Chris is then followed onwards with him getting inside a battered car with no front screens and parts of the car gone missing.The shattered glass that had been created by the car accident begins to come together with the woman moving in a reversed order into the car and the car rolling up the hill in a reversed order aswell. It is revealed that the car has skidded across the road at the top of the hill and there are shots of the drivers point of view so that the audience can experience the drive as if they were there themselves. Whilst the car is driving  backwards the woman on the passenger seat had taken of her seatbelt to put on her jacket the major reason as to why she had suffered tremendiously in the car accident. The song ends with a fading cut of the car driving continuesly backwards.
          In this video reverse chronology is very uniquely chosen as hardly any other videos contain this type of narrative telling. The main concept of using this reverse effect is for the first scene to be showing the conclusion to the plot in this case the car accident leading him to leave the place and wander of through the streets ending up lying on the mattress outside. The puposes of using reversing chronology would be leaving the audience and also the protagonist uninformed of the events that have unfolded beforehand.

postmodernism

post-modernism means when you are taking a certain object,movement, in relation to art, literature and so onwards, bringing it and reintroducing it into the modern world, merging them with today's modernist principles.

There are examples of videos today that have that post modernistic element to it such as Beyonce's
"countdown",The Queen's "want to break free" and "lady marmalade"

"countdown" gives a homage to 1950's actress Audrey Hepburn

"want to break free" shows similarities of how a house wife from the 1940's were expected to behave but in a parody

And finally "lady marmalade" paid tribute to the Hollywood film Moulin Rouge

music video analysis 3

The video that I'm going to be analysing is from the alternative rock band the script with thier music video for "the man who cant be moved". The first ten seconds of the song is made up of the melody in which the setting of the scene would be in the city mostly distinguished from the pavement and the cars and buildings that are set behind the lead singer of the group. He seems to be walking across the pavement looking down at his shadow with a used range of low meduim shots to capture his feet walking and a close medui shot of his face looking around. The setting that he's in is recognisable as being in the streets of New York city from the high angle shots of the tall buildings. The high angle shots are usually used in film to show the characters being more inferior but in this case it's the buildings that seem to be more grand, making the singer unnoticable and this would link in with his feelings towards the song of not listening to his surroundings but more concentrated on his break up. The lighting but would be natural lighting directly from the sun, this connotes that the topic of this song is real and it shows the authincity of new york city.
     From then onwards the singer is taking in the sights and strolling through streets. From around 20 seconds there's a wide low angled shot of him walking across the street and it immediately brings in an idea that this piece is going to be narrative based and as the camera follows his every move the audience is in a way following him aswell and interested to know as to where his destination is and his story. At 48 seconds there is a sort of an establishing long shot of the whole band in a parking lot playing thier instruments with the lead singer typically in the middle front singing the lyrics with his standing microphone. This scene is a convention of rock bands videos as they are usually established to be performanced based rather than in other genres which are usually the artists dancing to thier song or narratively performed. During the scene at the parking look happens another scene of him is interlinking in this time the lead singer coming to a stop in the street and sitting down on the pavement with a sign. This is shown in a meduim shot but at his angle rather then everyone elses who are walking past him. The reason why he may have decided to sit down is that new york is prominanly known for having under privilaged people with no money begging for it in the similiar way. He is not looking for the attention of money but instead wanting the people around him to know his story.
     At around 2.40 into the video the lead singer has seemed to draw in a curious crowd around him wondering as to why he is sitting there for a long time. Its established with a low angled wide shot, thelow angle to give the singer's point of view of where he is looking at and the way people in the high social status classes are represented in the eyes of a poorer man.At 2.54 a reporter has made her way through the crowd and is questioning the singer as to his actions. This meduim shoulder shot of the singer answering her question into her microphone is a convention of how the news is daily laid out with the typography of breaking news shown underneath him.At 3.06 the video footage of him sitting there throughout the day into the night is shown in a fastforwarding motion. this fastforwarding technique is usually shown to express the time going by faster then usual and it squeezes the content of the whole days into a few seconds or mintues suitable for a music video as they are not very long. During the last 30 seconds of the song, the fastforwarding continues revealing even the seasons that come by through wide shots of the sun setting and rising again against sky scrapers and the number of cars that drive through the roads everyday. The ending result of this video would be that his woman never comes back for him even though he's been apparently seated there for eternity for him.

music video analysis 2

This music video that I am analysing would be from pop singer Lady Gaga with her music video to bad romance. For the first 13 seconds of the video the actual song does not start but it primarily focuses on Lady Gaga dressed in a golden minidress with her trademark of a blonde wig and sunglasses so that audiences can familiarise the woman at the centre as being Lady Gaga and that she is the centre of attention. The people surrounding her who are standing up dressed up in sort of mafia clothing would cause curiousity as to why they are there in the first place.The first shot that is presenting all of these characters is shown in a long wide shot and eventually it zooms forwards in a slowing motion until a close up of Lady Gaga is revealed.
    The melody of the song begins with a faint lighted bathhouse with the natural lighting pouring through the room revealing what appears to be white coffins laid on the floor. A meduim close up shot of the lettering "bath haus of gaga" is displayed by the glasses door. This term would refer to the artist's own clothing line, in which she has managed to advertise on her video. By emerging the name of the clothing line into the video would mean that she is appealing to her audiences not just music wise but also in another way, in her art form. The first hook of the song is introduced and Lady Gaga and females emerge from the coffins dressed all in white even covering thier faces. They start dancing as if they are zombies being reborn. This reminds some viewers of the Thriller video where the zombies emerge from the ground right at the start. The scene with the female dancers is then shot striaght to a meduim long shot of the artist in a bath full of water dressed in a transparent material with her eyes computerised to make it look like they were bigger then they normally would be. During this scene with her in the bathtub the alternative scene of her facing a mirror with her back turned against the audience and her face being recognised in the mirror is shown. This two scenes are shown a bit at a time whilst she is singing the lyrics. Between 1.27 and 1.50 the chorus of the song is revealed and the dimly lit room is powered with flourescent lighting so that we can see the whole details of the props and mise-en-scene. During 1.50 she is forced to drink alcohol in the bathtub from two women also forcing her to strip her clothing off. This is shown in a close up of the struggle she is going though. Whilst this scene occurs another scene of her facial features is viewed of her crying. The crying is due to the emotional memories she had whilst being captured as a sex slave.
        As the second verse begins, there is a high angled shot of her dressed in diamonds surrounded by female dancers ripping of her clothing. The high angled shot was used to connote the insecurity and the strain she was feeling at the time. She seems to appear to be in a room full of men sitting down bidding for her. The low angle shot of the main man sitting in the middle is shown for him to be wearing a golden metal covering his jaw. The annotation of the low angle is to express his status in the room as the more overpowering person to the artist. Whilst she is dancing seductively towards the man she wins the main man over and the bidding finally comes to a stop. At 3.48 long shots of the man sitting by the bed and Lady Gaga dressed in a polar bear jacket is then shown. Immediately its revealed she was bidded in order to perform adult scenes with this man. A pastiche is then emerged with a long wide shot of her lying on the ground wearing red lace with her dancers leing beside her preparing the audience that a performance is about to take place. The two scenes go from one to the other in a faded affect. During the bed scene her emotions are more confident and has a strong look on her face as she walks to the man with the camera panning on the side of her. The chorus is repeated a few times at the end when she reveals what shes wearing underneath. The scene with her dancing is then shown and whilst she is singing the chorus in a more angry way the performance ends with the lights turning off and a long meduim shot of the dancers stopping around her in a sort of freeze frame. The switch to the bed scene its shown that the bed had combusted and the man is no longer alive but in a skeletal form with Lady Gaga lieing beside smoking in a calm state. The overall message of this video was to raise awareness of the cruelty of girls being victimnised to be sold to men. But seeing as Lady Gaga had to appeal to her target audience in this case between the ages of 13 and onwards she musnt seem like shes exploiting every dark trait of sex slavery. The fashion and how she portrays the scenes are also shown to be caught in your mind in terms of the visual effects and takes you more away from the song itself.

music video analysis one

This music video is from a rock band called my chemical romance and thier title of this song is famous last words. The first beginning shot of this video directly makes the audience focused on what appears to be presumably a "dead" person lieing on the unclean ground in front of a drum set and half a man standing before him. This high angle shot creates the whole idea of what type of music video it would be due to the conventional dimmer lighting and choice of clothing the band has put on. The audience would have a sense of apprehending as to what the concept of the song is about in this case it would be becoming broken hearted over a major breakup. The drum set also in the background indicates us that this is performanced based, also another obvious convention of rock videos.
            The first ten seconds of the video is basically the high angle camera panning across the scene of where the band is performing. A slowing panning shot would suggest that they want the audience to capture every detail of this scene because it would reveal the meaning of the song. The lyrics "now i know that i cant make you stay" is very ironic with the fact that the remaining band members are dressed up in the same way, a military dark style whose actions are either exhausted sprawled out on the floor along with thier props left furthur away from them. And as the band members are staying in the same positions it would perfectly go along with the lyrics of the song.
          Between 10-30 seconds into the music video the audience is introduced to the main lead singer of the band. Expressed in a medium close up shot, this is essentially for the sake of recognising who the band is in the first place so that audiences can familiarise with them and also for first time listeners who are keen on knowing who is singing the lyrics. The lead singer Gerard Way appears to be rough looking mostly due to the make up he has around his eyes. You would normally associate darkened eyes with someone who is very ill or who is dying and as he is singing the words he expresses it in a sort of a hurtful emotion, empathasised by the angry facial expressions he puts on. What is apparant in this part of the video is that whilst the lead singer is shot with a high angle the rest of the band members are shot with a lower angle. Lower angle shots are always identified as superiorty and importance so with the band members playing thier instrument in a hateful way,  its sort of suggesting that thier music that they produce with those instruments are more important to them then anything else.
            The guitars rift comes in at around 35 seconds with fire flaring out from behind the two members playing guitars. This fire comes in at this exact moment as it makes the guitar part seem more extreme in the way of how emotional they are and for the visual effects of interesting the audience.From onwards the continous use of close up shots of Gerard Way and the rest of the bands are used also what is in use would be handheld cameras in some aspects of capturing the actions of the band members such as when they are kicking thier feet against the sand or when they are moving more then usual towords the more dynamic lyrics of the song. The visual effect that is common throughout the video would be the use of slow motion particularly when again are kicking the sand and the drummer hitting the sticks against the drumset. The use of slow motion is very much in contrast with the tempo of the actual song as the genre is rock. The effect of using slow motion would be to demonstrate thier emotion towards the song so that the audience can capture every movement they are making.
At the end of the video when the building up of what the band is bottling up inside eventually comes out with the outburst of damaging thier intruments/props and giving up on wanting to be in the location itself so they "die". In addition he sings "im not afriad to keep on living" when they are actually appear to be dieing themselves would also be very contrasting.