Research

The research that I will be conducting for my first project will be allocated here! 

There will be multiple sections for easier navigation.

Day 1 Research- Artist & Song choices.

At first thought, I had 4 main artists in mind... Let's talk about them.

- POST MALONE

YEAR OF FIRST RELEASE.

Austin Richard Post was born in 1995 where he lived his early life in New York State. After dropping out of college at a young age he began writing songs with his lifelong friend, he didn't get a lot of recognition until he dropped his first major album called "STONEY". It included songs that gained millions of views overnight. 

EXCLUSIVE TRAIT (USP).

Post Malone has a very unique voice and tone which only enhances the quality of music, he sings about emotional topics such as heartbreak and heartache which connects with hundreds of millions of people all around the globe. As well as being an emotional singer, Post Malone also has a rock type personality where he is covered in tattoos head to toe which many people try to replicate but fail to match his insane lifestyle.

MUSIC FOCUS.

Like I said previously, his main focus in his music is too sing and write songs that are relatable to everyday people like you and me. Some Hit songs like " I fall Apart" and "Better Now" are absolute bangers but obviously has that sad undertone which makes him unique and where I personally think he shines brightest.

EXAMPLE OF ONE OF HIS SONGS.

"Better Now" uses the monochrome colour pallet of black and white with quite a fast paced video of him performing at concerts and travelling around with who I assume are his managers and members of his promotion team but the video is edited really good and the colour pallet defiantly has a big impact on the visual style compared to other songs that are filmed in normal colour.

LIL SKIES

After weeks of thinking, my chosen artist to re-create a music video too is LIL SKIES!

YEAR OF FIRST RELEASE,

Kimetrius Christopher Foose, born 4th of August 1998 from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania followed in his own fathers footsteps 9 years ago when he released a song featuring his own dad whose rap name was "SKIES" on the track, This was before Lil Skies had finished school and before he would reach the stardom he managed to attained, and before his first tattoo of course.

EXCLUSIVE TRAIT (USP),

Now, after Lil skies blew up in popularity, he had got tattoos... A lot of tattoos that is. His full body tattoos I think play so much into his character and his persona as a top rap artist in North America.

Also the fact that his own dad was a rapper too with the name Skies and his son being Lil Skies is just class.

MUSIC FOCUS,

Lil Skies prioritises on knowing his target audience inside and out, and is able to release music that suits his target audience so well that he constantly gets millions of views. I believe that his intended target audience and demographic are early teenagers to adults and primarily boys but girls love to listen to him too.

EXAMPLE OF ONE OF HIS SONGS,

"Creeping" is a narrative style music video, which includes a school bus, an attractive woman, the attractive girls dad and you can see where it goes from there. The video has a bright colour pallet of mostly orange, red and yellow.

DEMOGRAPHIC,

Like I previously said in the "music focus" section of the Lil skies research, I believe his intended target audience are young teenagers to young adults... The reason for this is because 1) The subject matter of some of his songs are quite explicit and would not be suitable for young children and would most likely upset older generations due to his use of language. And 2) A few of his music videos are actually set in locations that young people would be familiar with.

When it comes to Lil Skies "competition" he goes up against other American storytelling rappers with the same demographic which in 2021, the demographic of young teens to young adults is probably at the most competitive it has ever been but Lil Skies consistently gets millions of views on his songs which keep him at the top of his genre!

HISTORY OF MUSIC VIDEOS.

Many people believe that the first ever music video was created by QUEEN for their song BOHEMIAN RHAPOSDY but actually it was a song by an artist called TONY BENNET for his song from 1958 called "STRANGER IN PARADISE" The video is actually unavailable online in 2021 but possibly if you use something called a "WAYBACK MACHINE" you may be able to find it. If you have never heard of a "Way back Machine" before in simple terms; it is a browsing software that is able to visit old and dismantled websites as if they had never been taken down!

The main reason people think that Bohemian Rhapsody is the oldest music video is because it is the oldest one that is still available to view online in its original form... The music video for Bohemian Rhapsody premiered in 1975 which is why people often get confused about the first ever music video.

Some of the older bands/ artists like "THE BEATLES", "BLACK SABBATH" and "ACDC" are some of the early adopters of music videos but back in the early 70s late 60s music videos were extremely rare, (Rarer than ps5's in 2021) and bands would choose to go on tour to promote music instead. 

Music videos really hit mainstream audiences when there wasn't platforms such as YouTube, music videos would be televised instead on shows like "TOP OF THE POPS".

Below is the ICONIC group photo for THE BEATLES.

Day 3 research- Tracking Shots In Music Videos

Back in the early 80s, filmmaking technology was starting to improve drastically. The man leading the line of new filmmaking genius was a man called GARRET BROWN. Garret Brown was the man to design the worlds first ever "STEADICAM" all the way back in 1975. Cinema corporations and companies in the industry noticed his work and the steadicam was then being used by some movie directing heavyweights such as STANLEY KUBRICK and JOHN CARPENTER. Certain to say that this once brilliant idea morphed into an essential part of cinema till this day!

For anyone who doesn't know what the Steadicam actually is, here is a brief description.

Basically, A Steadicam is an apparatus that stabilises camera movements by isolating the camera away from the camera holder which allows the cameraman to get steady and smooth movements without the trouble of shaky or unsatisfying footage.

Below is a picture of the STEADICAM IN USE.

Like I said previously, The Steadicam became a huge name within the film industry in the late 70s early 80s due to popular directors using them in their productions. The best examples of this are movies like STANLEY KUBRICKS "THE SHINING" & JOHN CARPENTERS "THE THING" 

Below will be a youtube link to some scenes that show off the greatness of the Steadicam.

STEADICAM DID NOT STOP THERE!

To this day Steadicam shots are still used but now it's in more media than just films. MUSIC VIDEOS are now one of the primary ways Steadicam's are used. 

Here are just a few examples.

Steadicam's can be used in various different ways but the song and the set in the background is the way to change the tone.

MUSIC VIDEO STRATEGIES!

THERE ARE 4 MAIN STRATEGIES THAT PRODUCERS/ARTISTS USE TO ELEVATE THEIR PRODUCTION TO THE TOP. MUSIC VIDEOS ARE NOT ONLY MADE FOR VISUAL AID BUT TO ALSO TO ALLOW THE PRODUCER TO ANALYSE WHAT WILL GET THE VIDEO MORE VIEWS AND REVENUE!

1) CONTROVERSY-

A controversial music video can either help the artist get more views or can do the opposite and destroy their career for being too controversial. A great example of controversial music videos is the one below by Die Antwoord called "Fatty Boom Boom" this music video caused a lot of controversy due to their use of insensitive subject matter such as "Blackface" and by enforcing stereotypes which can obviously offend people if taken the wrong way! 

2) ENTERTAINMENT-

This tactic is used to draw viewers back to the video, possibly not for the music but for the video as it has a unique selling point about it. It could be innovative camera angles or could be something else like in the example below called "TRIBUTE" BY TENACIOUS D. This music video is a great example as they include a ton of comedic relief by the use of editing, music style and finally the great acting by Jack Black!

3) THOUGHT PROVOKING-

A thought-provoking music video should be made to linger in the audiences minds long after they finish watching, they can do this by talking about something relevant to the time or it could be about something that will connect with a lot of the audience members. The AVICII song below was known for being a very thought provoking music video due to the intense visual imagery alongside as the powerful lyrics.

4) DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETED-

A "Demographic targeted" strategy is when the artists or producers use the demographic target audience as a way to boost views, so by altering the video to fit more into the target audience can help the music video grow drastically! The Little Mix song "Shout Out To My Ex" is a good example as the demographic is clearly young teenagers specifically girls as the videos lyrics and visual elements are aimed towards young teens which is how the song got so popular.

LABEL STRATEGIES!

Here is how different Record Labels use artists work to their own benefit and how artists can work independently.  

1) MAJOR LABELS-

These consist of some of the biggest companies in the entire industry such as UNIVERSAL MUSIC, WARNER MUSIC & SONY BMG.

These types of music industry behemoths are revenue orientated which means they only go and sign the artists that the company know will bring in a huge amount of views and revenue. These sorts of companies will go long ways to ensure their artist has a big budget behind them to create the best and most quality videos possible, this often means pumping huge amounts of money into the artists video and budget in order to make a profit. The bigger the label, the more influence the label will have on the artists works, they label have the power to alter and change things about the video that purely the artist doesn't have a choice as they have signed for their desired record label.

2) INDEPENDANT LABELS-

Independent record labels is basically a smaller group of producers that aren't as well known as the Major record labels but still team up with artists and help but together budgets for videos and help distribute the artists work. Often its the smaller and lesser known artists who have an independent record labels to help them get on the map.

3) SELF PRODUCED-

This is where everyone starts off in the music business! Where the artist has to do majority of the work by themselves such as the budget for the video, no other help on creating the music and distributing the music! This has Benefits and some Cons... The benefits are that the artist can have all the creative freedom they so desire to make their videos but obviously the cons are that they are alone while they work.

MUSIC VIDEO STYLES-

There are MANY... MANY styles of music videos! Well lets not stop at that, lets get into them!

PERFORMANCE BASED-

These videos tend to rely on the artists performance of the song to make the video entertaining... often they use multiple clips from different concerts or gigs mixed with sporadic editing to create a good video.

TOM GRENNAN's music video to his hit song "FOUND WHAT IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR" is a picture perfect example of this style.

NARRATIVE BASED-

These videos as the name suggest have a main story to co-exist alongside the music track, the storyline usually has something in common with the genre of the music and can visually help portray what the song is trying to say but that leads into another style which we will get too!

ED SHEERAN's BAD HABITS has a cool narrative based video to go along with the music.

INTERPRETIVE MUSIC VIDEOS-

These music videos are made to visualise the lyrics on screen. So the video portrays what the lyrics are saying in video format... A good example is THRILLER by MICHEAL JACKSON as the video leans into exactly what he sings about!

ANIMATED MUSIC VIDEOS-

These videos are made by artists or computer geniuses who are able to create fake moving images that would be impossible to re-create without an animation style... There are 2 main animation styles- CGI( COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGES) & STOPMOTION. Both are very different in style but aim to do the same thing!

SURREALIST MUSIC VIDEOS-

The word SURREAL means bizarre or out of the ordinary so that can help lead you into what these types of videos will be like. Often surrealist music videos are made to be thought-provoking and to stay with the audience after they watch it. Personally I think a really good example is MACHINE GUN KELLYS song called DAYWALKER, The video is very strange and asks a lot of questions.

PASTICHE STYLE-

This is where an artist copies someone else's style and genre, This IS NOT done in a malicious or cold hearted way towards the other artist, it is normally made light-heartedly and made with respect for the original creator! the Pastiche music creators are normally lesser known artists and not fully fledged musicians therefore I will not get any examples.

PARODY STYLE MUSIC VIDEOS-

These music videos are made to poke fun at original artists in hopes of getting attention. The video below was created by a youtuber who makes parodies of famous musicians songs... It clearly works because he managed to get over 100 million views for it! Parody's are made to mimic the real life artist in a way that will conjure a retaliation from them in order to keep the back and forth going for maximum revenue and time in the spotlight.

HOMAGE STYLE MUSIC VIDEOS-

These style videos are similar to parodies except the mimicking is done in a way that is supposed to honour and respect the original artist, not to try make enemies with them but to try get the original artist to notice them. The music video below by NLE CHOPPA is actually a homage because the instrumental was from someone else originally but he put his own spin on it.

EXPLORING SINGLE CAMERA & MULTI-CAMERA PRODUCTIONS.

SINGLE CAMERA- 

A single camera setup when the footage that is captured is only done by one camera instead of multiple cameras, This has benefits and cons to filming this way though.

BENEFITS- When filming, the advantage to this set up is that you do not have to film in sequence and instead you can go back and record other scenes fairly easily so you can add more details and finer changes when filming separate scenes. Also filming this way is a-lot cheaper then filming with multiple cameras so productions costs are pretty much halved.

CON- The MAIN con to filming on a single camera set up is that it is extremely time consuming to film every scene separately, This can lead to time constraints while during the post production stage!

MULTI-CAMERA

Like the name suggests, This set up includes filming on a multitude of cameras... Could be 2 cameras or could be 5 cameras, Many high budget productions use this way of filming in order to capture many different perspectives compared to if there was only one camera.  This also has Pros and Cons to filming this way.

BENEFITS- Multiple camera set ups are able to capture many different shots and frames at once which gives the editors much more room to create a compelling and intriguing video.

CONS- Its a very pricey procedure that can end up going wrong, You need multiple qualified camera men to stay on each camera and this can punch a hole in the productions budget.

COLOUR IN MUSIC VIDEOS

Looking and witnessing colour is a part of everyday life, Colour is very important to many things and music videos are defiantly one, Colour can be used to portray emotion and tone just through visual elements. Below will be a few examples of my favorite music videos that utilize colour pallets to their advantage!

SOME LITTLE TASKS!

COLOUR ISOLATE TASK-

Paul had given us a short tutorial that shows and teaches us how to isolate separate colours from a monochrome background to enhance a certain character, scene or object within a scene, This tool will come in handy when it comes to my final music video editing process.

Below is just a single screen grab from the editing process.

COLOUR HYPE TASK-

This task was different to the colour isolation task as this one is more do to with saturation and the whole image apart from one separate section of the video. Creating this effect wasn't difficult as all I needed was a tool called "COLOUR BALANCE HLS" All this did was bring up some settings that I could alter such as brightness and saturation which is why the image has these contrasting colours!

Once again another screen grab to show how the final product is edited.

CODES AND CONVENTIONS IN MUSIC VIDEOS!

TECHNICAL & SYMBOLIC

WHAT ARE CONVENTIONS IN MUSIC VIDEOS?-

"CONVENTIONS" in music videos are basically styles and tropes that are subconsciously followed and recognised by the audience. Every music video tends to follow some form of Convention whether it is made obvious by the creator or it can be more of a hidden message for the audience to find!

Camera Movement- Including a music video analysis

Camera movement is a well known way that creators can imply certain tropes and conventions into their music video, some conventions of videography in music videos can be boiled down to a few key points. 

PACE & EDITING STYLE

COLOUR PALLET.

But for camera movement there are a few ways people can create innovative scenes, They can obviously be filmed at the time on the camera or they can be edited in post production and use software to create the façade that the camera is moving.

Here I'm going to briefly analyse some camera movement in a chosen music video. French the Kid- Thrill.

This music video uses multiple different angles, distances and camera/lens movement, The video starts with a medium close up with a few different people but then seamlessly includes lens zooms and an extreme close up. The video doesn't linger on the same shot for too long and always cuts away to a separate object or person, For example there are scenes of a low angle of French the Kid standing over a rail in an apartment building but it co-sides with various shots of a chef, a dog and French's companions. 

Below are screenshots from the music video, Including the scenes I described earlier I have also added some screenshots of angles that I think are cool and want to include in my own video.

CONVENTIONS #2- USAGE OF SOUND.

From previous projects we have already learned about the importance of sound... But its even more prevalent within the music industry.

I will now talk about how DIEGETIC & NON-DIEGETIC sound impact the overall outcome of a production.

First off DIEGETIC-

NON-DIEGETIC-

TECHNICAL CONVENTIONS- TROPES.

WHAT ARE "TROPES" IN MUSIC VIDEOS?

6IX9INE song "KOODA" is a brilliant example of genre tropes and clichés.

The video which is very violent in nature includes visually violent imagery such as guns, gangs and just overall anti-social behaviour within the music video which just re-enforces the genre and why tropes exist. 

SYMBOLISM IN MUSIC VIDEOS.

Symbolism in music videos are not obvious to the audience but normally if there is a hidden message behind the video it will be hidden from the audience.

Some forms of symbolism could be,

HAND GESTURES

SUBTLE MOVEMENTS

NON-DIEGETIC SOUNDS.

SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES

HIDDEN REFRENCES.

Many artists choose to use subliminal symbolism in music videos to add an extra layer of intrigue to the visual aspect, but also the lyrics of the track can actually be used to point out the messages. 

AUDIENCE CLASSIFICATION & MARKET RESEARCH

SOCIO-ECONOMIC SCIENCE-

SOCIO-ECONOMIC SCIENCE, This includes 2 main sub topics such as DEMOGRAPHIC AND PSYCOGRAPHIC.

These are separate ways to conduct research, Demographic is more leaning towards what AGE, GENDER and SOCIAL CLASS would relate to the topic whereas Psycographic is about peoples opinions.

Socio(Social)- Economic research basically means taking in all pieces of information from the subject of conversation as-well as the demographic group and putting them together to create a foresight into what is relevant to that particular group.

Let me break it down. 

For example; It's stereotypical that students who do not pay attention in school tend to have a more difficult adulthood, therefore the children who do not work hard are put into a social group where the others are put into another.

This relates to my research as I will need to conduct both DEMOGRAPHIC & PSYCOGRAPHIC in order to paint a bigger picture of what target audience I am aiming for.

ETHNOGRAPHY-

This type of research is when the person conducting the research take the back seat and observe their surroundings and chosen topic and try figure out the best way to move forward with their initial ideas.

For example; A theme park will have a team that purely observe the park itself to identify safety hazards and genuinely what people enjoy at the park and use that research to make the park better.

PSYCHOGRAPHICS-

Psychographics are a way in which researchers use peoples livelihoods and nurture to associate a certain genre or class with them, this includes researching their behaviours and interests. Often, people who are brought up with a certain social class or family normally follow in their superiors interests and beliefs, however this isn't 100% accurate and this is how psychographics are important as they allow researchers to have a more "complete profile" of their target audience and this will give them more insight into what will appeal to their target audience.  

GEO-DEMOGRAPHIC-

Geo-demographic talks about the location and how different locations cause people to have different tastes in music, fashion, movies etc. For example; People in London are more likely to listen to grime and drill music compared to the countryside towns due to the area and how the area can affect peoples behaviour and opinions.

LYRIC MUSIC VIDEO PRACTISE

On the 5th of October we was tasked to create a lyric music video to just use as practise for future. After finishing this i'm debating using lyrics in my final video.

Bear in mind that this video didn't take me long to make and the audio is slowed down which makes it sound a bit off but I feel the text was quite blurry but obviously for my final video I will put more time into creating it.

Here is a screen grab of my lyric video midway through editing.

MIND MAP FOR MY INITAL MUSIC VIDEO IDEAS.

I created this mind map on the helpful and easily accessible website called "Mind Mup".

I enjoy using this website due to its simple and easy to understand user interface aswell as it being a free of charge platform! As you can see in the mind map, Im split between 2 songs. 

Lil Skies - How You Feel.

& French The Kid- Thrill.

WHAT WERE THE MOST USEFUL PEICES OF RESEARCH?

Personally, I feel the most useful parts of research which had a huge impact on my chosen artist, song choice and video outcome was actually the research I had done myself such as looking at the intended target audience, looking at previous music videos and researching the artists background! I think the reason for me choosing Lil skies was defiantly because the way his songs and character stood out to me more than any other artist and I had already really enjoyed his music.

But that isn't to say that the other pieces of research wasn't helpful, every part of research helped me to some degree whether it was teaching me new effects or techniques to adapt a video to a target audience. But there had to me a LEAST useful bit of research and for me I think it would actually be the LYRIC VIDEO TASK as I didn't actually use any Lyrics in my final video and looking back on the lyric video I produced it was pretty low quality as I'm not the best with working with adobe software but every tutorial still had an lasting effect on me as I know more than I did the previous year!