Pictures from the lip sync exercise

Lip sync exercise

Today as a class we completed a lip sync exercise as a means of practising the filming and editing process for our real music videos later this year. Prior to today we learnt the lyrics to the chorus of Taylor Swifts 'shake it off' to make the process in the studio at lot quicker and more professional. Also our group prepared what to wear and make up before the shoot to establish a military esk 'look'.

In the studio we were on a carousel of three different sets including a green screen, a set with a sofa and a set with a dolly with a rock backdrop. In our groups we rotated to roles of directer, camera operator, assistant director and talent. At each set we shot a variety of shots including tracking shots, wide shots, mid shots, medium close ups and close ups, to have a variety of shots for the editing process, where the talent would dance and mime to the track.

The only issue that we came across was that in some cases where the majority of us where in the shot, there was no one maning the camera so the footage  would be out of focus or the contrast levels were wrong. However this was easily resolved when we watched over the fottage.

I learnt when filming that it was important for all talent in shot to be looking at the camera/ moving to the beat of the song. As in some cases of the talent wasn't the focus of the shot they wouldn't be concentrating and hence the footage looked uncomfortable. 

Following the work in the studio we edited our footage in the editing suit, we used premier pro onac technologies. As a starting point we synced all the appropriate music to the the track; we achieved this by cutting the footage at the initial beat of the song and stacking the synced tracks on the time line, we learnt that this was vitally important to edit effectively and as quickly as possible. Following this we made editing decisions by selecting clips we wanted to use by starting from the start to the end of the track. We found the best way of doing this was by cutting back the videos and dragging the appropriate clip forward to view and use it and then cutting that clip using shift-c (to get out of the cutting tool, shift-v). We did this from the start to the end of the track. 

This process went relatively well although it didn't complete it as quickly as we  should have done. Next time it would be better to have a clearer idea about the structure of the video.

Although the edited product was only 30 seconds long I feel confident about our more sophisticated video for later this year.

Balancing the two

In practice, the success of synthetic acts will fund the development and investment of organic acts

Most big record labels will look to balance their roster with a combination of successful synthetic and  organic acts to ensure that there are funds available for the day-to-day running of the company as well as long term profit making potential-it is a business strategy.

Synthetic and Organic music acts

Synthetic vs Organic music videos

One Direction
Their video had a large budget and was heavily reliant on their star image and the comical qualities aiming to appeal to a mass audience.

Ben Howard
The video was arts-based and representative of the concepts behind the music eg. the symmetry of the parasol and chairs symbolises the stale mate in the relationship depicted, rather than relying on the star image.

British Phonographic Industry

Researching the music industry I came across the British Phonographic Industry.

"BPI represents the UK’s recorded music industry, which is one of the most exciting and thriving music sectors in the world. British artists account for one in eight albums purchased by fans around the globe."

Within the website includes an article labeled 'Sales by Type of Music – Albums', depicted the most popular music in the past 5 years. Personally I was surprised that Rock music has always been very popular and was the most popular genre in 2013, however it wasn' t surprising that Pop music followed closely as the second most popular genre. 

Within the British music industry pop music plays an important role, Therefore, 'manufactured' artists have been created in recent years to have maximum marketability and profit, a key example of this is One Direction who are the largest band in the world.

Experimenting with different creative tools

Here you can find a presentation that I made via a new online tool, PowToon.

Websites

Putting this knowledge of artists websites into practice, I created a simplistic website for the relatively low key artist Ben Howard. It included photography, a link to his new music video and also his social media links; as well as the typical menu titles being About, LIVE, Shop and Sign Up. It is in a blog format to mirror his status in the music world.

Find it here

Conventions of an artist's website

After looking at several artists homepage there were many conventions that many of them contained.

Headings
Hyperlinks
Scrolling Text
Images
Video
Sound
Drop-down Menus
Search box
Banners Navigation
Thumbnails
Frames

Artist's Website Homepages

Definition of a homepage:
The first page of a website that the user will come across. The page usually contains links to other pages on the website.

Taylor Swift

The focal purpose of Taylor's website is to promote her album '1984', which is demonstrated particularly through the artwork and design; also there are links to other websites where you can purchase music of concert tickets. The website also highly promotes Taylor's 'brand' and image through the use of social media and styling which represents her image. Through this soft and feminine styling the website is most likely aimed to appeal to female demographic from early teens to late twenties.

Miley Cyrus

Miley's homepage is far less sophisticated aimed at a more niche rebellious market due to the edgier and culturally unaccepted influences such as the drug imagery and less appropriated images of Miley. Due to this a older demographic is appealed to than Taylor's, however still a youthful one as she is promoting a young carefree image, due to the colouring of the website it probably attracts predominately girls aged early to late twenties. Ultimately the website aims to achieve the same things as Taylor's, being to promote Miley's image as demonstrated by the multiple images of her, and also to promote Miley-related material. The homepage also allows fans to directly sign up for her mailing list, expanding her influence.

Jason Derulo

In Jason Derulo's homepage the main purpose is to sell his album 'everything is 4' due to the consuming image and the link to iTunes. This is is also done so by promoting Jason's star image which consumes the page. The set up and graphics on the page are very stylish and sophisticated unlike Miley's so perhaps he is aiming to appeal to a slightly more mature demographic, also the dark colour scheme also appeals to a masculine market however a female audience may also find his image appealing however not as relatable as Miley's and Taylor's.

Presentation for Taylor Swifts 'Bad Blood' campaign.

Taylor swift media powerpoint from georgina123h

Script
We have chosen to do look at the campaign around Taylor Swift’s music video Bad Blood.  We chose this as an example of an excellent campaign as it was so unique and contemporary as the video was release thirteen days ago.

Taylor Swift herself has a very good brand image.  Her career began in 2006 when she was a 16 year old country singer, however she has since developed into much more of a pop artist, allowing her to remain successful.  She now however has an estimated net worth of $200M. Swift has also used much of her influence to promote feminism, a trend we have seen grow among other female celebrities such as Beyonce, Angelina Jolie and Emma Watson. She has channelled the fight for this cause into Bad Blood, which is arguably what contributed to it’s success and it’s widespread viewing.

As a contemporary artist, Swift chose to use social media as her main platform for promotion, as it is cost-effective and word of mouth is the most effective method of marketing.  Teasers were also released on Youtube in the week previous to the video’s release.  Furthermore, the video was released at the Billboard Music Awards which had 11.1M viewers in the US this year, thus exhibiting her video to the masses.  The video was then released online to allow social media users to instantly share the video, creating a viral campaign.

Her video was also promoted on her website.  The site has a notably large number of links to various social networking sites which encourages fans to share the video. [Follow link to view website].

However, despite these other platforms, her most important method of promotion was through Swift’s Instagram account.  For the ten days leading up to the release, two of the guest celebrities were posted on Instagram.  16 of America’s most influential and famous women were announced to be featured in the video creating a huge hype and anticipation among fans.

Each celebrity announced had their own niche group of fans.  For example Cindy Crawford was a supermodel who was at the height of her fame during the nineties and so has an older fan base.  However on the opposite end of the spectrum is Zendaya, who only recently came to fame in the past year as her younger fan base formed.  Swift used multiple other successful women in the media industry to promote her feminist message.

            While the director Joseph Kahn had directed previous music videos of hers, he chose  new approach with Bad Blood.  Her campaign destroyed the previous misconceptions which surrounded her previous romantic based campaigns. The design and theme of the video is very similar to great film classics such as Sin City.  As this is such a famous film the video has an established genre as well as immediately appealing to fans of that film.

Her video was so new and unique compared to her previous songs which added to the hype and worked the her favour for her marketing campaign.  The song is also a stark contrast to the CD digipack of her album.

It is clear that there are mixed views in regards to Swift’s video.  However, it is clear to see that her marketing campaign was a success as the video has been viewed so many times on youtube.  The video went on the break Vevo’s 24hr viewing record by accumulating 20.1M views.

Taylor Swift’s Star image in the ‘Bad Blood’ music video

In Taylor Swifts music video ‘Bad Blood’, Misé en scen, sound, camera shot and movement and editing have all been used by her record company, Big Machine records, to construct her image to the public.

Misé en Scen has been heavily used in the production to construct Taylor Swifts star image due to the strong music conglomerate backing Taylor and her previous huge success in the industry. A key example of this is the hostile, grey, male associated setting whereby Taylor’s dominating presence challenges the female stereotype as she takes on male roles as exhibited by her physical ability. Moreover an empowered image for women is created appealing to a large female pro-feminist market. In conjunction with this, the chiaroscuro lighting dramatizes the video to make it stylised as if it was Film Noir short showing parallels to Sin City. This limited colour scheme creates a clear message of pro-feminism with the present theme superheroes once again empowering women. Although, the functioning of everyday society is not present in the video in order to focus its attention on this important message, at the same time this super-realistic approach makes interesting viewing for both genders as it is like Taylor swift herself is superhuman and the video is an escape from reality. Taylors image in the video is also very sexualised, the repeated close ups of face with her hair blowing glorifies her own image challenging her previously established ‘girl next door image’ whereby she focuses on her personal struggles opposed to universal social issues, therefore a transitioning image is evident in the video. In addition Taylor and the rest of the cast are wearing revealing Latex costumes appealing to a male market but also confirming this transition, whilst also this suggests Taylor is a dynamic pop artist as the album 1989 is far less dramatized.

Sound has also been used in the music video to construct Taylor Swifts star image. The Asynchronous and diegetic lyrics of the song are far less extreme unlike the dramatized visual impact. Although there is violent imagery in the song such as ‘Still got scars on my back from your knife’ which is asynchronous to the action of one of the cast members throwing a knife. Hence, an edgier more serious image of Taylor is created however she still relates to everyday universal issues of love and loss creating an air of normality and relateability against the brutal action. For instance prior to the song starting there are diegetic sounds of alarms, screaming and crashing creating a suspenseful and extreme spectacle adhering to this dramatized image of Taylor. Furthermore the viewer is comforted by the sound of the song starting following the suspense of the action and the diegetic-crashing window calming the viewer by this influence of normality.

Camera movement and shot type has also been used to demonstrate Taylor’s image. The initial establishing shot of the London skyline adheres to the themes of extravagance and excess in the music video but also establishes Taylor as a successful and influential star due to the vast international setting. Taylor continues her empowered image throughout multiple shots in the video; for example in the opening scene the close up of her applying lipstick shows her ability to challenge male stereotype whilst having undertones of sexualised as she draws attention to her lips whilst wearing revealing latex clothes. This combination from a feminist stance glorifies female sexuality due to her superhero image in the video. Furthermore, the tracking shots of her walking through many of the scenes shows her control of her situation, alluding to her authority and command adding to her strong image. The video also relies a lot on the success of her star image due to the eye line matches of the close-ups and the zoom in’s to her face promoting Taylor as a brand throughout.

Finally editing had been consistently used in the video to construct Taylors star image. During the first scene the 180 degree rule was disobeyed adding to the frantic nature of the scene and there was a very fast pace of editing matching the brutal action occurring adding to the empowered female image created. Also, the pace of the editing slows and the length of the shots increase as the song starts signifying the importance of Taylors transitional strong image. The editing as whole was very stylised due to the ‘choppy’ cutting matching the mise en scen established, moreover in the video Taylor was portrayed as if she was a film star a key example being the wide shot of her lying on the car proving to be invincible, moreover these connotations create the image of glamour, success and influence ultimately creating the image of a empowered woman.