Planning - Initial Planning

In this lesson we were put into our production groups to discuss our ideas as individuals, allowing us to come together to make one big idea for our music video. Also allowing us to create our own idea through the use of our questionnaires and our own research.

Idea 1: Marlyn.

Narrative: the video opens up with the star walking towards the chair as she’s recording with her band singing whilst sitting on a chair in an empty room, she then begins to have flashbacks of her and her partner having fun, running around London, he time comes back to the present and her singing in an empty room, then two dancers appear as they are contemporary dancing as she sings, then it goes back to a flashback.

Narrative structure: performance and narrative based.

Characters: one couple (boy and girl during the flashbacks), two dancers (two girls contemporary dancing).

MES:  hair and makeup (sweet, innocent makeup/messy curly hair to portray the young teenage carefree look) low key lighting during the flashbacks, there should be an important object like necklaces (iconography) that she remembers receiving. The setting will be in a crowded place when she has flashbacks.

Application of theory: 

- Dyer star image-  The female artist will be represented as a star in the video, by looking glamorous although she will look like an average teenager so the young female audience can relate to the star and the video. 

- Mulvey's theory- I will be going against this theory, as i do not want to sexualise the female character. 

- Goodwin's characteristics- The characteristics Goodwin has identified in his theory will be evident within my video. Characteristics will include: 

• Genre characteristics: The genre of the song consists of three genres combined, therefore, i will use conventional characteristics from each genre, including a young , female artist, who is attractive and relatable to the audience, dancing, exaggerated genre reflecting their young ages. 

• Relationship between music and visuals: The visuals will reflect the music as the music has a slow pace which will reflect the artists sadness and the difficulty she is experiencing. 

• Star image motif: The artist will be perceived in the video through the numerous close-up's and mid shots. 

• Performance, narrative, concept: The narrative structure will consist of performance and narrative, with a story forming supported by the artist singing about her relationship.

Advantage: 
-Has a message behind it, promoting that we should not be pressurised into having sexual relationships, and reinforces that building a strong friendship in a relationship is what matters. 
- The female artist will be easy to find. 

Disadvantage: 
- The narrative needs to be clearer and structured through storyboarding in order for people to understand it, and for it to be portrayed clearly.  
- The length of the song is only 3.53 minutes which is too short. 

Popular Culture: I will be using most of the popular culture  characteristics like settings.

Idea 2: Fatma.

• Song: Kandi – Don’t think I’m not 
• Genre: R&B

• Narrative structure:  Performance, narrative and concept 
• Performance: The artist will perform and appear in the music video to ensure she makes herself familiar to the audience.  She will sing and dance during the chorus. 
• Narrative: The narrative will include a female who argues with her boyfriend and then walks out on him.  She then goes on to show her independence by partying and having a good time suggesting that she is over her boyfriend. 
• Concept: The narrative sends a message to women in unfaithful  relationships and women in general to be independent and to stand up for themselves promoting gender equality and women independence. 
• Characters: 
• Female (artist)- The artist will dominate the music video as she will perform throughout the video. 

• Male (female’s boyfriend) – He will be trying to persuade his girlfriend that she is innocent and will chase after her trying to get her back. 

• Backing dancers- They will be the female’s friends partying with her and will also dance with the female. 

• MES: 
• Lighting: - Low lighting- Make it more mysterious                                                                       - Colours: Red, pink, 
• Costume, hair & makeup: 
• The female and backing dancers should wear short dresses, miniskirts, and crop tops with heels, with their hair open to make them look ‘sexy’, ensuring their independence is portrayed. 
• Facial expression & body language : 
• The male should have a regretful facial expression and body language suggesting that he doesn’t want to lose his girlfriend and regrets his unfaithful behavior. 
• The female should be aggressive at the beginning and abusive when arguing with her boyfriend portraying her anger at him.   
• The females should have attitude and comfortable body language when performing. 
• Setting: 

There should be various locations, including; 

• A house- The argument between the male and female takes place 
• A party/club- The female portrays her independence and has a good time partying.   
• Green screen should be used when the artist and backing dancers are performing. 

• Advantages: 
• The characters will be easy to find.   
• There is a clear concept behind the video suggesting that women should not fear their partners and should stand up promoting gender equality and women rights. 
• The narrative will appeal to a wider audience, as females will be encouraged to become independent rather than reliant on their boyfriends. Males will also find the narrative appealing due to the females that will perform in the video. 

• Disadvantages: 
• The setting of a club may be difficult to use which is one of the key locations that will enhance the music video, making it more realistic and believable. 
• The narrative may be perceived as too mainstream, typical breakup situation.

Idea 3: Carlie (Me).

Song: "Run This Town" - Rihanna, Kanye West and Jay Z (Trap Remix)

Genre: R&B/Trap

Narrative: Females going out into the streets to be rebellious and start riots to prove that they run the world/town, hence the title of the song. Violent attacks to the street, may start damaging shops and other areas around them to prove they can do what they want in the town. They come across another gang of maybe guys to prove the gender battle is won by the females.

Narrative Structure: Narrative and Performance.

Characters: 5 girls, a mixed race girl as the artist who is part of the girl gang. Artist is the leader who wears all black costume and is scary/intimidating.

MES: Low key lighting to represent the darkness and violent attacks in the scenes, costumes are all black to represent darkness, settings are the streets of London (cold and dark), and iconography can consists of bats or other items used for weapons. Black and grey colours used to create a dark and negative atmosphere.

Application of Theory: Mulvey won’t be present as I am not showing the girls in a sexual way as they are aggressive and violent.

Dyer is present as the artist is structured to be a powerful and violent character.

Popular culture also is present as the song is mainstream but with an element of controversial as it’s a trap remix of the original song.

Goodwin is present as a lot of the 8 things will be present, such as; Relationship between visuals and music and Relationship between lyrics and music.

Hebdige will be used to show their type of people (gang) as it is represented as a subculture. This shows them as different to everyone else.

Advantages: Promoting equality in genders, empowering woman.

Disadvantages: Difficult to show violent attacks on the street as it is illegal and causing damage isn’t something we can physically do for a music video.

I created my own source of primary research by creating a questionnaire which is easy to fill out and sufficient for me to gain feedback on my idea and what is best for my idea.

My Questionnaire:

The initial idea that i like the best out of the three of my groups is Marlyn's. I think the song is very powerful and the idea with it is creative and sweet. I like the fact she used the idea of her flash backing while rehearsing as this shows that the song means something to her and she wrote the song because its from her deep feelings and thoughts of her past with relationships. I also really like how the narrative is conventional to the R&B genre. These three ideas have made me think about how people go through many different situations which can be represented through music videos. It would be nice to represent many different situations in one music video so an audience can connect to more than one character in the music video. This would be relatively successful towards teenagers and young adults. 

Research - Censorship and Music Videos

Censorship is the act of altering words, statements or visuals in order to conform with and abide by the rules and laws of society. It helps protect the public from offensive/explicit imagery.

Explicit Content Logo is used to help the audience identify if the visuals they are about to see are inappropriate for the audiences eyes that are under aged or even audiences that feel offense towards what they are seeing in the visuals.

Explicit Lyrics Logo is used to help the audience know that the lyrics they are about to hear are explicit and inappropriate for audiences that are under aged or even audiences that feel offense towards what they hear.

14 things get censored:

·         Nudity/sex

·         Language

·         Violence

·         Drugs, solvent abuse

·         Religion

·         Political/controversy

·         Graphic representation

·         Corrupt the young

·         Sexual violence

·         Class

·         Shock

·         Culture

·         Race

·         True events

Nudity/sex:

Rihanna’s music video “S&M” was censored for the explicit imagery of not only Nudity/Sex, but sexual violence as well due to the sexual movement, revealing so much skin, whipping and tying of the body in a sexual manner.

Religion:

Madonna’s music video “Like a Prayer” was censored for the sexual imagery with Madonna and a black Jesus. This was very controversial in the 1980’s and the way she is dancing and revealing a lot of skin in the church was very offensive to religious audiences.

Lyric Censorship:

Blanking: Entire word is not heard however, music is still playing.

Repeating: Having last word said twice in place.

Disc Scratching: Using a scratch sound of a DJ to cover the word.

Bleeping: Putting ‘bleep’ sound over the word.

Cut and Banned:

When a music video is cut, this means the music video is edited to hide the explicit imagery or to bleep out explicit imagery. This is so the audience isn’t harmed by the imagery or lyrics. On the other hand, when a video is banned, it is not allowed to be shown on TV because of the visuals or even listened to on a radio because of the lyrics in the song.

Advantages:

·         Children are protected from copycat behavior.

·         Promotes a political/appropriate world.

·         Protects children from explicit imagery and lyrics.

·         Protects people’s emotional/physical emotions.

Disadvantages:

·         Freedom of speech.

·         Creativity is restricted/limited.

·         Artist is restricted.

·         Decrease in the views.

·         Blocks legitimate criticism.

·         Individual taste.

·         Compromise entertainment.

Overall, researching censorship has helped me understand that it is an important part of the production stage in making a music video. The industry need censorship as this helps protect the public from inappropriate imagery and lyrics being released onto the internet for them to see. Also, this could help artists abide this and not use explicit imagery and lyrics for their music. In my music video I would like to use imagery which will represent explicit behavior but only in an appropriate way. This is so the audience feel the events happening but can watch it without anything being censored.

Research - Hebdige's Subcultures

Subcultures are groups of people who are united through common value systems and tastes (clothes, music, politics, etc) and are also seen as a group of people who are positioned outside of the mainstream culture.

Conformity and Rebellion are not liked by subcultures, they like to rebel against common values and systems.

Attitude to Capitalism and Communism is only followed by subcultures in the communism values. They have their own set of rules and behaviour conduct. They consume their own lifestyle.

Rivalry between subcultures is expected, they don’t like mixing. They traditionally have stereotypes to groups they don’t like.

Traditional Ideas are made within their subcultures. They make beliefs which make them live their own lives in their own way. Do not take upon ‘Neophyte’ ideas.

Music Interest is very unique as they only listen to Niche genres.

For example;

Punks have their own genre of music which complement their style of living. They wear leather jackets, boots, studded clothing and usually have crazy hair and sometimes crazy make up. They neglect mainstream ideas as they don’t match up to their interests.

Teddy boys like to listen to the genre Scar (white reggae music). They believe in the bourgeoisie and have a very smart appearance, which contradicts the fact they are working class citizens. Teddy boys came around in the 1960’s as a threat to society as they were lost, angry boys who were extremely violent, dominantly white young boys. They aren’t around anymore due to new subcultures forming and their lifestyle dying out.

Bikers consists of white old men who are extremely violent and racist. Their hobbies are simply riding motorbikes all day and they are pretty loud, intimidating people. They listen to rock music to symbolise anger which they have in them a lot. They wear denim clothing as well.

Queers are very happy, mellow people who listen to niche music which keeps them in a happy place. They are usually homosexual and rebel against social norm, as well as coming across as quite flamboyant. They believe in happiness and Freedom.

McCracken said that the postmodern world is full of diversity, dynamism and creativity. He said that if we look at the array of values and the ideologies, then we can’t say all subcultures come from one culture.

Birmingham School assume that all subcultures come from one culture (reaction and rejection to mainstream culture) which goes against what McCracken said.

Hebdige said that although some people think subcultures appear to be different, deep down they are the same. He said that ‘Subcultures’ are ‘Little Cultures’, as they are all doing the same thing of resistance. They also say we are all active consumers. Active process, different audiences read the same cultural product. This allows us to resist mainstream and this becomes a sub culture.

Current Day in Relation to Hebdige

Hebdige's theory can still be seen in the public as clear subcultures are seen and will stick in society. However, some subcultures died out, such as; Teddy boys.

Who are you targeting your music video towards? Are they a Subculture? Yes/No? Why?

I dont want to aim my music video at a subculture as my idea doesn't apply to any specific subculture, it can relate to a lot of different audiences with themes such as love and violence. I believe any type of audience can watch it and engage into the events of my music video. Serious events in music videos can reach out to any audience.

Research - Audience Identification

Audiences are groups of people who consume the entertainment given to them which suit their interests. Audiences can be categorised with age, ethnicity, class, status and income so they can categorise audiences with their basic features. It’s extremely important for an artist to measure their audiences because they need to know who they are aiming their entertaining with their music videos.

Social Categories:

A	Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals.
B	Middle management, teachers, many ‘creative’ e.g. graphic designers.
C1	Skilled workers, trade persons (white collar).
C2	Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff, etc.
D	Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar).
E	Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers.

Advantages of Categorising Audiences:

·         Easier to target.

·         Allows us to make specific choices.

·         Idea of what people are interested in.

·         Use information to encourage companies to advertise on your radio station.

·         Knowing what products they would buy.

·         Being content to suit a target audience.

Disadvantages of Categorising Audience:

·         Doesn’t consider that people are different.

·         Doesn’t consider peoples interests, just income and status.

Audience Reactions:

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT	This describes how an audience interacts with media text. Different people react in different ways to the same text, linking to Hebdige’s theory of subcultures.
AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS	These are what the audience thinks about an artists and their music, for example audiences expect certain aspects from different genres, which links to one of the 8 things Goodwin mentions in his theory, which is a music video always has Genre Characteristics.
AUDIENCE FOREKNOWLEDGE	This is what the audience knows about a music artist and their song/video.
AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION	This is how an audience relates to an artist, linking to Dyer’s star theory.
AUDIENCE PLACEMENT	This is how the media producers target a particular audience and make them feel that the music video is specially ‘for them’.

Different Artist Appeals:

Bands/artists such as; one direction and Justin Bieber appeal to young girls who are between the ages of 8 and 19. So the content of the album, artist image and the music video. Another example is the arctic monkeys, they are an indie rock band who appeal to older, more mature audiences.

This information has helped me understand that I need to do a lot of research on which category of audiences would I like to target my music video at to be more successful in the release of the music video. Although it’s hard, I would love to be able to aim my music video at all audiences and give out a message. However, picking an audience would leave me to deciding that I would like to aim my music video at an audience who would be smart enough to take in the message and understand serious events which will potentially occur in my music video. This means I would be interested in aiming my music video at a higher class audience, so they get the deep message in the music video.

Different genres definitely appeal to different audiences as they express different themes and conventions which only certain people appeal to.