When we carried out our research,
we decided that to get more of a range of results and opinions, rather than
just using a questionnaire, as this method doesn’t always allow the person
being questioned to give accurate and valid results, as they feel they need to
answer in a way that will benefit the user, thus we also carried out interviews
on four people from our year group. We interviewed them on our specific genre
type and what they’d expect from the genre. From this we got a vague range of
results regarding on how we could start using as a means of developing our own
ideas for the promo, making sure to include information we gathered from our
results that would help us create a music promo closer to our genre type. From our research we decided what clothing
would be worn during the video and where we would locate our promo so it would
meet the conventions of a typical indie genre music promo. I feel as this
method of collecting information has worked well as I feel as if we got honest
results from our interviewee’s, I also think we interviewed a good range of
people, all from different backgrounds and different interests.
The final research I undertook
was to post the final products onto a number of social networking websites such
as – Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. So that people could watch /see and comment
for themselves being as honest as possible. We emailed the band to show them
our final piece, but we received no response from them.
As well as this we also
interviewed people on our music promo, receiving positive feedback.
Getting this feedback was very
useful as we could then see what elements worked and what didn’t – this gave us
the information onto how we could have improved it and what worked well with
the track. It also helped us understand the message we was giving out, and
wanted to put across to the audience, thus it was clear enough and easy for the
viewer to understand.
Overall, we gained a large amount of positive feedback. Many or our peers said that they particularly liked the location of where we filmed our performance part of our music promo, as it seemed to fit the genre perfectly, giving us a very realistic conventional miss-en-scene for our band. lot of comments where also made on how parts of the narrative can be confusing, making people unsure of the specific message that we were trying to portray. This is unconventional for an indie genre as the narrative is normally easy to understand, we wanted our narrative to be taken in two ways, literally (death of the character) or theoretically (metaphor of the death of the relationship). This was a positive response for us as a group, as we achieved the main two things which we wanted to, creating a realistic music promo, which included both narrative and performance of the band, where the narrative was interesting and eye catching, yet slightly unclear on some parts. The main point that was made for improvement was to slightly tweak the lip syncing of some of the lines throughout the video, as some parts of it are slightly noticeable.
The three products we produced as a group all work well
together as they all clearly show off the band and the name of the single being
promoted. As well as this they all have a similar theme to them, meaning that
anything that relates to this will quickly be connected to this song and band
giving it a good amount of publicity and the people will recognise the band
quickly getting it well known. As well as this they all have a clear connection
with each other, which will help promote the band quickly making them easily
recognisable and due to the theme and images shown, all thoughts will be good
from the viewers, thus the publicity gained from these promotional packages
will be good.
Due to the magazine advert and digipak having the same
images, font style and ideas the track will be so easily linked to these two
promotions, this will help one another to promote each other, as they are so
easily recognised.
Each of these texts will be exhibited using traditional
media methods, for example – music channels, music magazine and record stores.
All of these methods reach a large number of our target market and keep in well
with the theme of images and skill we want running through our products, this
will help the band giving a good initial expression. Less and less people are
visiting music stores, so selling the song online, such as iTunes is a
substitute to selling it in stores. I will also exhibit the three texts on:
Facebook, Youtube, iTunes and the Internet. This is due to the increasing
number of people using the internet, be it watching videos, buying online, or
listening to music compared to the traditional methods, this method of
promoting music is much more efficient and successful – if we didn’t use this
method of distribution we may have missed out on a big chunk of our
audience/target market. The benefits of using and consuming music in this way
is much more efficient and the larger market of the audience will be exposed to
the band/track as it’s the modern way to sell music etc – a growing number of
people are using this method which will lead to an increase in profit.
Above our Digipak and our magazine advert are shown - These two types are media are very similar. We went for a very authentic style to our Digipak, keeping every panel similar to the others. The CD will be located on the top middle panel (the drums) - with the front panel being the top right one (with the band on it and the band name) the back panel is the top left one (with all the songs on it and the ghost face in the background).
The magazine advert was created using Adobe photoshop CS6 on the macs that are available at school. We tried to make the advert look as appealing as possible by making it look similar to our Digipak - this was so that the audience could relate to two immediately and wouldnt confuse the advert to be promoting another Digipak.
Our current project was based on the development and making
of a music promo and two other additional related promotional materials, as a
means of advertising the song and the artist. We had to choose an unsigned band
– so we chose ‘4Kicks’ this is an indie pop genre band. We chose to base our
project on this particular band. We had to choose one of the bands songs, and
create a music promo for it, along with a digipak and a magazine advertisement.
This was to advertise the band and their new single.
The purpose of these three promotional materials is to
advertise and promote the new band and their single. The music promo, digipak
and magazine advertisement will give the band an amount of exposure that would
otherwise not be achieved without these elements of promotional materials. They
aim to create a hype about the band, giving the target market an idea of what
the band is about and what their music will consist of.
A music promo video will help to show the audience the
personality of the band, as some of their own thoughts and ideas will be
included. It will also give the audience the ability to create their own
opinions of the song and band. A music promo will also – help out the record
company giving them a chance to show off new bands, giving the record company a
name, giving the audience a chance to put a name to a face.
The above music video 'Gangnam Style - PSY' is the worlds most popular music promo, this is because of a number of reasons. Its very unique in the fact that it has a very strange narrative - this video would be classed as disjuncture as the video has nothing to do with the actual lyrics, they cant be related in anyway. The visuals are very eye catching and its some what humorous in the way PSY acts, and how he is portrayed in the music promo.
The music video above 'Little Talks - Of Monsters Of Men' is a very popular indie song, the video is unique and has a very strange plot. The video would be classed as disjuncture once again, as the video has nothing to do with the lyrics and is very different. A lot of computer skills are used in it - giving it the feel of that you're going on an adventure whilst watching the music promo.
The purpose of a music promo is to give the audience
something to picture when listening to the song, helping create more of a story
– sex can be quite a big seller at this point, as if someone was to watch a
music promo and it was very erotic, then the person may want to buy the song
just because of the sexual image they may get in their head every time they
listen to the song, or buy the music promo. It will be seen by a large number of
people, so it will help promote the band giving them the exposure they need to
get their feet off the ground.
The above video is 'Call My Name - Cheryl Cole' its very provocative in the fact that she is seen to be very sexy and her female body is shown off a lot. Everything in the music promo is seen to be very erotic this is a big seller and is an example of how sex is used to sell.
A wide range of shots are expected to be used in a music
promo, shots of instruments are shown to try and convince the viewer that the
band are skilled in what they do, whether it be playing the drums or guitar as
well as giving an idea of the genre being performed, giving a better idea of
what style the band is trying to get across. As well as shots of instruments,
music promos tend to get a range of close ups, long shots, pans, mid shots, and
establishing shots of the band and the location, whether it be performance or
narrative, there is no one style of shot that is often seen as any can be used
to make an effective promo.
Music promos are expected to show a lot of energy through
editing and mise-en-scene. The shots have to keep in time with the beat of the
song and the structure, this is to ensure that the narrative and performance
works well. A lot of shots and cut types are used depending on the genre and
how fast the song is, however most are just straight cuts as these are simple,
but effective to keep with the beat of the track. Normally the only sound heard
would be the sound of the song being played, but in some more unconventional
music promos some of the sounds from the narrative can be heard to help set the
scene, this tends to be just at the beginning of the promo, but they sometimes
can be heard throughout the music promo. Close up shots are seen more than
others to try to keep the main point of focus on the band, be it the singer,
drummer or guitarist. A music promo gives the viewer a means of being close to
the band, which they may not get the same experience from going to see the band
live. The mise-en-scene in most music promos can vary depending on the type of
the genre that they are made from, they vary in the locations and the props
used to create different effects.
The narrative of music promos varies a lot depending on the
genre of the track, most tend to be straight forward narrative to help show the
ideas of the music and how creative it is, along with the emotions the band
want to portray with that particular song, but some music promos focus purely
on performance rather than a mixture of performance and narrative. The
narrative of music promos tend to be based around a few different types of
narrative: illustration, this is when the narrative is soley from the lyrics in
the song, amplification this is when one key idea or theme is taken from the
lyrics and then used to create the narrative and disjuncture is when the
narrative is completely separate from the lyrics to the song. An example of disjuncture is ‘RadioHead – No
Surprises’ this music promo is
completely narrative and has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song. The expectations for a music promo differ
from genre to genre, and artist to artist etc – depending on the type of music,
ideas and emotions they are portraying will effect the type of promo produced,
and so a number of different mise-en-scene, shot types and editing techniques
may be used and varied for each genre, to create the overall effect that the
artist wants.
‘Coldplay – The Scientist’ breaks some of the usual
conventions seen in music promos due to the entire video being in reverse. This
adds a very unconventional element taking away from the idea that the artist is
easily lip syncing the words where as this challenges the artist. It also
creates a more interesting and powerful video; the concept is amplified from a
single message in the song, creating a confusing appearance for the viewer. The
way the artist had to learn the lyrics to the song backwards is really defying
the laws of a typical music promo – creating something completely different and
expiring.
The song ‘Hall of Fame – The Script Feat. Will.i.am’ is the music promo which gave influence
towards our music promo, both being the same genre of indie pop. The band is
located in a warehouse, which gave us the idea to also do the same in our music
promo. The narrative is based on the lyrics of the song, and works with a theme
making the promo more exciting and eye catching to watch, amplification is used
here giving the promo a sense of triumph. This band is quite well known and has
produced numerous popular music promos, so following this band will
help/influence us, giving us ideas to put towards our music promo
Illustration:
This has been used by showing the breaking up of love. Illustration is the simplest type of video to create, due to the only challenge being demonstrating the literal meaning of the lyrics within the song. The song describes a male character feeling lost in the world, we show this male character looking very similar to a ghost in order to clearly show his "lost soul". We also show the anger inside the character which is demonstrated to the audience by the aggressive manner which the vocalist sings. Lots of passion and anger is shown through his voice, making the audience feel the emotion by seeing this frustration on our actors face.
Amplification:
This usually means some more information being added in order to promote the illustration. Although the break up of love is clearly shown, it is unclear why. We as a group, decided to allow the audience members to decide why this has occurred within the video and form their own opinions and views on the promo.
Disjuncture:
This is when the visual has no meaning with the lyrics or the song. Showing the male character to be dead, had no mention throughout the song, however we decided it could make our video be viewed by the audience in a completely different way that it would be originally viewed. The shock of seeing the male character in this way, will make the audience even more intrigued in the visual aspect of our narrative side to our promo.
The Digipak and magazine advertisement are part of campaign to promote the artist. These are things a campaign will typically include:
A regonisable font used across the campaign E.g. Album, Digipak or magazine advertisement.
The colour theme would stereotypically be simple and used throughout the campaign with little or no change.
Usually they're will also be symbolic objects, pictures etc that will refer to the band or artist. This will give the audience a little hint and arouse interest.
Here are some examples of the same genre we have chosen; Indie Pop:
These Digipaks are very symbolic to the band, they have the same look as the band. They arent completely different to the look of the band. The top one is a 4 side digipak where as the bottom one is a 2 sided digipak, this can differ from how many songs the band has in the album, to how the band likes to represent themselves.
Below are the conventions of a music promo:
We kept our music promo quite conventional, with the
location and what shots we did, be it long shots of the band or close up of
instruments. We got close ups of the
lead singer, concentrating on his emotions, showing all his expressions. Our
narrative had bits of performance in it, it both told a story and had singing
in it, this mixture was just an idea we thought of whilst filming. We kept most
of our editing fast during the chorus of the song, as its quite up beat and
quirky. As the song approaches a slow part, we slow the editing right down,
inserting long clips of instruments and singing. We used a variety of different
shots during our day out filming, ranging from close up, to pans, and long
shots as a way of showing the performance off from all angles, even during our
narrative we incorporated handheld parts into the promo. We used two different
locations for our promo, the first being quite rural and dark, used in the
performance to create an eerie feel to the song, we had to use a set of flood
lights to give us lighting in our video, so that the lighting would be even.
Unsigned: To overcome the issues of copy write within in this industry, both the artist/band and the track that we obtained were found using the free webiste www.unsigned.com. Finding our artist and track using the website meant that we could use the song this also meant that our artist/band would be alot easier to contact them and ask for their permission to use their track and band name.
Facebook: We used Facebook as a way to carry out research into what people expect of a music promo of a certain genre, through posting up a status of a questionnaire and getting our target markets feedback. Using this technology also meant that we could gain feedback from our final products as we could post them onto the website - this is a means of exhibiting our promotional package.
Twitter: We used Twitter as a way to post our music promo where a large audience could see it. On this website you can retweet an existing product meaning that others that aren't following you are able to see your media product as well and can then still provide feedback. This gave us a strong indication in the speed of which things can be spread across the internet and how quickly they can become 'viral' as such. It also allowed us to get alot of feedback from different people that we don't know but are still in our target market. As I have the most followers on twitter I was the one who was to post the music promo on my Twitter page.
YouTube: YouTube was used throughout the planning stages of our media products/promo. Due to not being able to the recorded track on any websites especially www.unsigned.com. We found another A2 Music Promo that used '4Kicks' as their band - so we detached the audio from their video, this gave us the advantage of members that would perform in our music video to learn certain guitar riffs, drums patterns and the lyrics to the track. We also then uploaded our finished Music Promo to YouTube gaining feedback both positive and negative from members of the public.
Photoshop CS5/6: Photoshop was used to create our Digipak and magazine advert. This programme is very complicated but once you are able to navigate round the programme easily you are able to produce very creative pieces of work - we used a variety of different effects and techniques to the photos which we then attached into another layer to create our Digipak. This programme also allowed us to keep colours in certain parts of photos and keep other sections black and white. Photoshop allowed us to use trial and error to create a successful ancillary task which will demand our audiences attention and make them potentially buy our products. After designing our Digipak and magazine article, we could also keep revisiting them in order to continually improve them.
Final Cut Pro: Within our group I owned an Apple Macbook, with Final Cut pro installed on it. This programme was easier to use compared to final cut, it took a few lessons in order to get used to the new software however it seemed very logical and easy to figure out. The programme is a little similar to iMovie which we used last year to create our Thriller piece - so we could kind of navigate our self round the programme, but I had a friend who was very familiar with the programme so he was able to give me some basic hints which I then passed onto the other members in my group.
Blogger: By updating our media blogs regularly, it allowed us to keep up with all of the thoughts and ideas which we have had through the whole process of our Alevel media experience. By recording all of our notes, we can see the improvements which we have made to initial ideas in order to get the best possible outcome.
Google: Throughout the entire process, Google has given our group the ability to research into our genre, look into potential bands, find us our successful band, and discover all of the information about the music industry we’ve looked into. Without Google giving us the wide range of different websites, we would be unaware of important information and be inexperienced on the world of media when concerning music promos. Things that we could have improved: Although we tried very hard to keep all of our shots centred and not shaky and also not including any external objects in our shots, a small amount of objects where included in some of our shots such as cardboard boxes and machinery from the warehouse where we managed to perform our performance section of our music promo. This added extra stress when editing our footage as it was difficult to try and remove certain parts of a shot without ruining our music promo. Although we had a high quality camera it would have looked more professional if we had access to a HD camera on both our performance and narrative - we had access to a HD camera that we used for our narrative side of our music promo. It is clear that we have used two different cameras on parts of our music promo, which gives us that lack in quality that we wanted throughout our entire promo. We also needed to make sure that each band member was performing during every take, if one band member thought that they weren't in the shot, then they would just sit there and do nothing - making us loose a lot of footage that would have been very useful.
Due to our lighting being positioned in one corner, shadows on the floor were visible and as a group we needed to pre plan every camera shot making sure that no shadows of the film crew where in the shots - this would make our promo look very unprofessional from the audiences point of view as the crew and camera are meant to remain invisible throughout the shooting of the music promo and editing stages. Using a wide range of technology that was used throughout our production has given me the confidence to perform other media tasks that I wouldnt have even attempted due to the fear of failure or not being up to scratch. I feel more confident in editing video and photos, especially photos as I am alot more confident in editing photos, that I regularly go out to take photos of my brother when he plays rugby. I also feel much more knowledgable about the music industry and have a further insight into how everything is created and the way of the music world.
