-Opening outside a building (studio) music equipment being moves, mid shot, natural lighting
-Shots 1-2 seconds each showing guitars, amps, recording equipment (cut to each shot)
-Cuts of band getting ready to record, sound of them preparing
-Music starts, 3 quick medium shots of drummer from front and each side (in time with music)
-Average (low budget) looking recording studio, mise en scene= natural colours, bands costume casual yet still indie
-Zooms on each band member, showing them playing their instruments. Variation between cuts and movements.
-Close up Shots of each band member individually acting natural, each 3 seconds each.
-Some shaky hand held camera movement, zooming in on lead singer.
-Cut to outside, natural bright lighting. Costume change, Band together wearing indie dark colours and long coats.
-Close up of shoes, ideology giving audience a sense of personal identification, special effects include red flash, doesn’t draw attention to itself however.
-Band walk in slow motion
-In a bar, typical British pub each with pints, again focus is on the audience and what they enjoy doing.
-No obvious narrative, just band practicing and then going to pub, a typical thing for our target audience to do.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Textual Analysis; The Kooks 'Always Where I Need To Be' Video
- Transition between black and white shots and faded colour
- Extreme long shots of city, buildings and busy streets
- Long shots of band together, old look to the video
- Shots last about 3-4 seconds each
- Random close ups, no specific reference to the video
- Show band in high up building (like they are practicing)
- Indie costume, black skinny jeans, black boots, big brown coat
- Hand held camera, lots of zooming in and out
- Section in front of fountain, shots very fast almost like pictures of band in different positions from medium shots
- Arcade scene, close up of lights and surroundings
- Extreme long shot on beach and close ups on rides
- All band have long hair (social identity)
- In car, band seen through fish eye effect lighting shaky and follows camera
- Band eating pizza and drinking alcohol (British) a way to draw the target audience in by using their interests
- Shows sun going down like the video had been shot in one day
- Shots flash to the next shot like pictures
-Looks like band are in New York but their British culture is a focus in the video.
- Mise-en-scene, focus on instruments and city
Unfortunately the origingal video of 'Always Where I Need To Be' can't be embeded due to copyright and legality reasons, however here's a link to the original video from Youtube.
Always Where I Need To Be Music Video
- Extreme long shots of city, buildings and busy streets
- Long shots of band together, old look to the video
- Shots last about 3-4 seconds each
- Random close ups, no specific reference to the video
- Show band in high up building (like they are practicing)
- Indie costume, black skinny jeans, black boots, big brown coat
- Hand held camera, lots of zooming in and out
- Section in front of fountain, shots very fast almost like pictures of band in different positions from medium shots
- Arcade scene, close up of lights and surroundings
- Extreme long shot on beach and close ups on rides
- All band have long hair (social identity)
- In car, band seen through fish eye effect lighting shaky and follows camera
- Band eating pizza and drinking alcohol (British) a way to draw the target audience in by using their interests
- Shows sun going down like the video had been shot in one day
- Shots flash to the next shot like pictures
-Looks like band are in New York but their British culture is a focus in the video.
- Mise-en-scene, focus on instruments and city
Unfortunately the origingal video of 'Always Where I Need To Be' can't be embeded due to copyright and legality reasons, however here's a link to the original video from Youtube.
Always Where I Need To Be Music Video
Background information on the Record/Music Label
http://www.virginrecords.com/
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. Branson and Powell had initially run a small record shop called Virgin Records and Tapes on Notting Hill Gate, London. After making the shop into a success, they turned their business into a fully fledged record label. The first release on the label was the progressive rock album Tubular Bells by multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield in 1973.
To modern day Virgin Records are now owned by EMI and the company still have contracts with Korn, 30 Seconds to Mars, Tina Turner, Depeche Mode, Beenie Man, The Rolling Stones, Spice Girls, The Smashing Pumpkins, We Are Scientists, Darren Hayes, The Kooks, Lenny Kravitz, Meat Loaf, Placebo, Janet Jackson (contract ended in 2006), Daft Punk, My Favorite Highway, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Massive Attack, The Future Sound of London, Blur (US), The Chemical Brothers, Gorillaz, Paula Abdul (contract ended in 1999), Brooke Allison, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, The Almost, Mariah Carey (contract ended in 2002), N.E.R.D., Laura Marling, Swami, RBD, Thalía and Priscilla Renea.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Textual Analysis; The Kooks 'She moves in her own way' Music Video & Camera Shots
We collected different frozen images from the kooks video ‘she moves in her own way’ to gather information about shot angles, mise en scene, setting and lighting.
-Opening black and white, high angle shot looking down at road from moving bus
-Transactions between black and white and subtle colour in each shot
-Long shot of tour bus, band playing instruments, lead singer looking ‘cool’, wearing sunglasses
-Random shots of objects e.g. scrabble board- representing British culture
-Shots lasting about 2-3 seconds each
-Band members hidden in busy city
-Costume does not draw attention to itself, quite simple and laid back, black and white or natural colours
-lighting mostly natural
-no SFX
-Video ends with mid shot showing the back of the bus leaving
We noticed that the majority of the shots focussed on the band and their instruments with mostly natural lighting and little editing or special effects. There are many ‘random’ shots which show miscellaneous objects such as a scrabble board and a member of the band eating. We noticed that many of these objects were typical ‘British’ objects and many of the younger British audience would relate to them.
We also noticed that the bands costume is very plain, yet still in keeping with the ‘indie’ style. The lead singer wears a plain white top with a grey cardigan and jeans which is quite a laid back look that doesn’t particularly draw attention to itself.
Textual Analysis; The Kooks ‘She Moves in her Own Way’ Music Video
-Opening black and white, high angle shot looking down at road from moving bus
-Transactions between black and white and subtle colour in each shot
-Long shot of tour bus, band playing instruments, lead singer looking ‘cool’, wearing sunglasses
-Random shots of objects e.g. scrabble board- representing British culture
-Shots lasting about 2-3 seconds each
-Band members hidden in busy city
-Seaside shot, medium shots of band having fun and being typical ‘lads’
-extreme long shot showing cosmopolitan city
-Shots still lasting around 3 seconds -Costume does not draw attention to itself, quite simple and laid back, black and white or natural colours
-lighting mostly natural
-no SFX
-Video ends with mid shot showing the back of the bus leaving
Unfortunately we were not able to up load the original music video due to copyright and legality reasons, however here's a link to the original video from Youtube.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
“Media Industries manipulate media audiences. It is the industries that are in control, not the audiences.” Explain how your product could be consumed by your audience.
When producing my media coursework I discovered that it was me who was in control over my audience, as I was able to manipulate and mould the music magazine to the target market. This related to the theory created by Blumber and Katz, which was the ‘uses and gratifications theory’. This is a theory which is a humanistic and optimistic approach to the media and their audience, where the audience have control over the media and they are free to choose what they want and what to believe within media products. The ‘uses and gratifications theory’ is useful for media producers because the producers understand the audience and are able to market to their product to appeal to them directly. This makes products easier to sell and more successful in the market as the audience is more accessible and understood.
A key part of interpretation the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory is entertainment. My magazine, like most, is entertaining to attract the target audience. For the type of music genre the magazine is aimed at the audience would expect a laid back approached to new music and therefore a ‘light hearted’, entertaining articles. To ensure that I was creating entertaining articles I researched into similar magazines and analysed the language used, this gave me the ability to write funny and witty articles which the audience could relate to. I also attracted the audience by including competitions. These were an incentive to buy the magazine giving me some control over the audience as I played on the 60% of males which would be likely to enter the competition as they demonstrate a risky, laid back lifestyle. I gave the opportunity to advertise winning a iphone, this gave my music magazine as a product a consumable attraction, the audience find the magazine informative and entertaining. As well as creating successful music magazine I included articles about new film and DVD releases where critics can voice their opinion in an entertaining way, this would possibly attract a wider audience as some people could buy a magazine purely for new releases in media. By including both new music and new film and DVD releases I have covered a large media industry and made my magazine more appealing.
The ‘uses and gratifications’ theory includes information as a key part of the construction of the theory. My magazine is influential as it contains a variety of images of fashion in the music scene, the newest music and how it makes you feel and news updates in the industry. This is all part of the information in the magazine, it’s another way for the audience to consume the magazine and take something from it. Information like new music and artists can be presented in double page spreads and displayed to attract the audience for example exploiting the primary optical area and using star bursts to optimise the ‘dead areas’. I also used information to in the articles to give the readers an opportunity to learn about the music industry and give potential young bands and artists the chance to see how successful artists got found out and famous. This was shown in my articles such as ‘The Newbies – who are the new kids on the block?’ and ‘Marina and the Diamonds – her brand new album of 2010!’ and ‘Is there such a thing as ‘Chart Corruption’. These articles are examples of the features, news and reviews from the contents page of my magazine; they give the readers information about the different areas and elements of the music industry.
For me a huge part of the magazine was about engaging with yourself and discovering what influences you to make you, you. I understood from conducting my questionnaires that the audience were heavily influence by music and felt it was important to make sure that there was a strong sense of personal identity. This is another branch of the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory, it is one of the most important areas of the theory as it is aimed directly at the audience, about the audience. I believe that the audience will identify the most with the mise-en-scene, particularly the clothing and fashion set for the main article. This is because the band, ‘Alice & The Americans’ are demonstrating a great music lifestyle and are similar age to those in the audience. The band also acts as an admirable achievement in the new, young music industry as the audience can relate the magazine and the main article the audience can take something more from the magazine than just entertainment. Although the readers might not look positively at the images, because the audience are individuals and each will have their own interpretation which consequently could make them feel negatively about themselves. This is a flaw of the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory as the theory presumes that all readers of media are media literate which is a naïve approach to such a large number of people. The theory has unlimited interpretations because there as many interpretations as there are viewers, giving the readers of my magazine a strong sense of personal identity.
The last area of the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory is integration and social interaction, this means the readers can talk to others about a similar subject or topic. This not only gives the audience a socialising opportunity to meet new people but also keeps them interesting to current friends as there is a conversation topic. My magazine also shows artists lifestyles of the music industry and gives young people with talent something to aspire to, I purposely produced a main article which the audience could relate to. The artists I created where from a similar background and upbringing to those in the audience. This technique gives the audience a realistic sight of the music industry helping to give the younger generation a more positive outlook on life. I included feature articles about this year’s festivals and gigs which will give the readers a chance for them to meet like minded people giving them more social interaction between the similar groups of people.
Overall, I have created a magazine which influences a particular group of people who can interpret a magazine in more than one way, subconsciously through the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory. They are unaware of how they read and what they take from a magazine which ultimately means that a media producer is in control over the audience, even if the reader chooses to avoid a certain article it is still the media producers which gave them the choice. My music magazine represents how I was in control over my audience as I attracted them using particular media techniques and gave them articles which I had selected to put in.
Sophie Binns
A key part of interpretation the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory is entertainment. My magazine, like most, is entertaining to attract the target audience. For the type of music genre the magazine is aimed at the audience would expect a laid back approached to new music and therefore a ‘light hearted’, entertaining articles. To ensure that I was creating entertaining articles I researched into similar magazines and analysed the language used, this gave me the ability to write funny and witty articles which the audience could relate to. I also attracted the audience by including competitions. These were an incentive to buy the magazine giving me some control over the audience as I played on the 60% of males which would be likely to enter the competition as they demonstrate a risky, laid back lifestyle. I gave the opportunity to advertise winning a iphone, this gave my music magazine as a product a consumable attraction, the audience find the magazine informative and entertaining. As well as creating successful music magazine I included articles about new film and DVD releases where critics can voice their opinion in an entertaining way, this would possibly attract a wider audience as some people could buy a magazine purely for new releases in media. By including both new music and new film and DVD releases I have covered a large media industry and made my magazine more appealing.
The ‘uses and gratifications’ theory includes information as a key part of the construction of the theory. My magazine is influential as it contains a variety of images of fashion in the music scene, the newest music and how it makes you feel and news updates in the industry. This is all part of the information in the magazine, it’s another way for the audience to consume the magazine and take something from it. Information like new music and artists can be presented in double page spreads and displayed to attract the audience for example exploiting the primary optical area and using star bursts to optimise the ‘dead areas’. I also used information to in the articles to give the readers an opportunity to learn about the music industry and give potential young bands and artists the chance to see how successful artists got found out and famous. This was shown in my articles such as ‘The Newbies – who are the new kids on the block?’ and ‘Marina and the Diamonds – her brand new album of 2010!’ and ‘Is there such a thing as ‘Chart Corruption’. These articles are examples of the features, news and reviews from the contents page of my magazine; they give the readers information about the different areas and elements of the music industry.
For me a huge part of the magazine was about engaging with yourself and discovering what influences you to make you, you. I understood from conducting my questionnaires that the audience were heavily influence by music and felt it was important to make sure that there was a strong sense of personal identity. This is another branch of the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory, it is one of the most important areas of the theory as it is aimed directly at the audience, about the audience. I believe that the audience will identify the most with the mise-en-scene, particularly the clothing and fashion set for the main article. This is because the band, ‘Alice & The Americans’ are demonstrating a great music lifestyle and are similar age to those in the audience. The band also acts as an admirable achievement in the new, young music industry as the audience can relate the magazine and the main article the audience can take something more from the magazine than just entertainment. Although the readers might not look positively at the images, because the audience are individuals and each will have their own interpretation which consequently could make them feel negatively about themselves. This is a flaw of the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory as the theory presumes that all readers of media are media literate which is a naïve approach to such a large number of people. The theory has unlimited interpretations because there as many interpretations as there are viewers, giving the readers of my magazine a strong sense of personal identity.
The last area of the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory is integration and social interaction, this means the readers can talk to others about a similar subject or topic. This not only gives the audience a socialising opportunity to meet new people but also keeps them interesting to current friends as there is a conversation topic. My magazine also shows artists lifestyles of the music industry and gives young people with talent something to aspire to, I purposely produced a main article which the audience could relate to. The artists I created where from a similar background and upbringing to those in the audience. This technique gives the audience a realistic sight of the music industry helping to give the younger generation a more positive outlook on life. I included feature articles about this year’s festivals and gigs which will give the readers a chance for them to meet like minded people giving them more social interaction between the similar groups of people.
Overall, I have created a magazine which influences a particular group of people who can interpret a magazine in more than one way, subconsciously through the ‘uses and gratifications’ theory. They are unaware of how they read and what they take from a magazine which ultimately means that a media producer is in control over the audience, even if the reader chooses to avoid a certain article it is still the media producers which gave them the choice. My music magazine represents how I was in control over my audience as I attracted them using particular media techniques and gave them articles which I had selected to put in.
Sophie Binns
Background Information on The Kooks
Originally from Brighton, Sussex, England, the all male indie-pop band hit the music scene big in 2004.The first band members were formed by Luke Pritchard (vocals/guitar), Hugh Harris (lead guitar), Paul Garred (drums), and Max Rafferty (bass guitar). However at present day Paul Garred and Max Rafferty are no longer with the band due to illness, they have been replaced with Peter Denton (bass) and Chris Prendergast (drums).
The Kooks describes themselves as a "musical whores" because they are so widely and heavily influenced to create their indie-pop sound. Their music is also primarily influenced by the 1960s British Invasion movement and post-punk revival of the new millennium, and just 3 months after they formed Virgin Records signed them up allowing the band free rain so they could discover their "sound". Their influence can be heard in their music and seen in their style.
The inspiration to form a band came to Luke Pritchard as he and Paul Garred were out shopping for clothes one day. Speaking to MTV Garred said, "We had this vision on how we wanted the band to look and stuff—so we bought some clothes and these hats.” This shows us that the band wanted to have a specific look, quirky and individual. We want to portray this in our music video and therefore the costume is an important attribute.
We have looked into the background of The Kooks as they are a strong representation of the audience. The audience are heavily influenced on this band because of the clothing they wear, the attitude they have towards the society and the influence of their music. By discovering the background of The Kooks we will be able to produce a music video which resembles where The Kooks originally began, not only in location but in their music and lives also.
The Kooks describes themselves as a "musical whores" because they are so widely and heavily influenced to create their indie-pop sound. Their music is also primarily influenced by the 1960s British Invasion movement and post-punk revival of the new millennium, and just 3 months after they formed Virgin Records signed them up allowing the band free rain so they could discover their "sound". Their influence can be heard in their music and seen in their style.
The inspiration to form a band came to Luke Pritchard as he and Paul Garred were out shopping for clothes one day. Speaking to MTV Garred said, "We had this vision on how we wanted the band to look and stuff—so we bought some clothes and these hats.” This shows us that the band wanted to have a specific look, quirky and individual. We want to portray this in our music video and therefore the costume is an important attribute.
We have looked into the background of The Kooks as they are a strong representation of the audience. The audience are heavily influenced on this band because of the clothing they wear, the attitude they have towards the society and the influence of their music. By discovering the background of The Kooks we will be able to produce a music video which resembles where The Kooks originally began, not only in location but in their music and lives also.
Lyric Analysis; The Kooks, She Moves In Her Own Way
"She Moves In Her Own Way"
So at my show on Monday
I was hoping someday
You'd be on your way to better things
It's not about your make-up
Or how you try to shape up
To these tiresome paper dreams
Paper dreams, honey
So now you pour your heart out
You're telling me you're far out
You're not about to lie down for your cause
But you don't pull my strings
'Cos I'm a better man
Moving on to better things
Well uh oh, oh I love her because she moves in her own way
Well uh oh, oh she came to my show just to hear about my day
And at the show on Tuesday
She was in her mindset
Tempered furs and spangled boots
Looks are deceiving
Make me believe it
And these tiresome paper dreams
Paper dreams, honey
Yeah
So wont you go far
Tell me you're a keeper
Not about to lie down for your cause
And you don't pull my strings
'Cos I'm a better man
Moving on to better things
Well oh oh, oh I love her because she moves in her own way
Well oh oh, oh she came to my show just to hear about my day
Yes I wish that we never made it
Through all the summers
They're keeping us instead of
Kicking us back
Down through the suburbs
Yes I wish that we never made it
Through all the summers
They're keeping us instead of
Kicking us back
Down through the suburbs
But uh oh, I love her because she moves in her own way
But uh oh, she came to my show just to hear about my day
But uh oh, oh I love her because she moves in her own way
But uh oh, oh she came to my show just to hear about my day
The song is primarily about a a teenage break up involving two lovers who are unsure on how they now feel about each other. The song has contradicting lyrics, "I'm a better man, moving on to better things." compared to "I love her because she moves in her own way." These lyrics can be related to by the impressionable audience because teenage romance is usually portrayed as non-serious, non-committal and full of heart ache and ultimately fun. The catchy words make the song light hearted and easy to familiarise with, this has to be displayed in our music video so people can relate to the lyrics and the storyline.
Unfortunately the orignal music video can't be embeded because of legality and copyright reasons, however this is a link of the original video from Youtube.
She Moves In Her Own Way Music Video
So at my show on Monday
I was hoping someday
You'd be on your way to better things
It's not about your make-up
Or how you try to shape up
To these tiresome paper dreams
Paper dreams, honey
So now you pour your heart out
You're telling me you're far out
You're not about to lie down for your cause
But you don't pull my strings
'Cos I'm a better man
Moving on to better things
Well uh oh, oh I love her because she moves in her own way
Well uh oh, oh she came to my show just to hear about my day
And at the show on Tuesday
She was in her mindset
Tempered furs and spangled boots
Looks are deceiving
Make me believe it
And these tiresome paper dreams
Paper dreams, honey
Yeah
So wont you go far
Tell me you're a keeper
Not about to lie down for your cause
And you don't pull my strings
'Cos I'm a better man
Moving on to better things
Well oh oh, oh I love her because she moves in her own way
Well oh oh, oh she came to my show just to hear about my day
Yes I wish that we never made it
Through all the summers
They're keeping us instead of
Kicking us back
Down through the suburbs
Yes I wish that we never made it
Through all the summers
They're keeping us instead of
Kicking us back
Down through the suburbs
But uh oh, I love her because she moves in her own way
But uh oh, she came to my show just to hear about my day
But uh oh, oh I love her because she moves in her own way
But uh oh, oh she came to my show just to hear about my day
The song is primarily about a a teenage break up involving two lovers who are unsure on how they now feel about each other. The song has contradicting lyrics, "I'm a better man, moving on to better things." compared to "I love her because she moves in her own way." These lyrics can be related to by the impressionable audience because teenage romance is usually portrayed as non-serious, non-committal and full of heart ache and ultimately fun. The catchy words make the song light hearted and easy to familiarise with, this has to be displayed in our music video so people can relate to the lyrics and the storyline.
Unfortunately the orignal music video can't be embeded because of legality and copyright reasons, however this is a link of the original video from Youtube.
She Moves In Her Own Way Music Video
Album Covers of similar genres
We created a mood board showing the album covers of different bands of a similar genre to ours so that we could gather idea’s about typical conventions of album covers.
We noticed that many of the images on the covers are edited to black and white or the colour is contrasted or changed in some way to give it a more interesting and unique look. The majority of the album covers have either the band as a key feature or another model that represents the band as a genre.
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We noticed that many of the images on the covers are edited to black and white or the colour is contrasted or changed in some way to give it a more interesting and unique look. The majority of the album covers have either the band as a key feature or another model that represents the band as a genre.
Most of the album covers on this mood board are from British bands and this stereotypical ‘Britishness’ is presented through the images used. For example on the album cover of the kooks the key feature is the union jack in the image, therefore the majority of their target audience would be British.
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Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Other Bands within the Similar Genre of Music
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We gathered these images of various bands of the same genre to the one we chose so that we could gather ideas about mise en scene i.e. costume, backgrounds and props. We also wanted to see certain expressions and how these bands acted in front of a camera so that we could incorporate similar themes into our music video.
We noticed that many of the professional images are edited to black and white to give it the ‘old fashioned’ look, and this seems to be a common theme in many of the bands. We are planning on adding a black and white effect into parts of our video to follow some common conventions of indie video’s.
Many of the images are very unique in terms of camera angles, we noticed that there are many low angle shots to make the band look powerfull, and these types of shots may be use in our music video to express certain moods and emotions.
We also found it useful to include music video's from some of the bands listed above as they may contain simimlar shots, editing and camrea angles. It also gave us the opportunity see if the video's from a similar genre have more of a narritive, storyline based video or abstract. This research was enabled us to discover other bands that could also interest our target audeince.
Arctic Monkeys - I Bet That You Good On Dancefloor
Razorlight - Before I Fall To Pieces
The Killers - When You Were Young
The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes
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