Analysis of DVD Covers

From looking at this DVD Cover you can see straight away that Beyonce has been contrasted to make her look dominant in the photo to stand out and look bold so she’s the main focus in the image. The image has a flowing colour scheme of neutral colours such as white, light beige and silver. The disco ball is quite eye capturing which has the same pattern as her dress showing she’s a ‘Disco Diva’. The font used is quite fairytale like and girly which represents she’s a strong woman and can stand up for herself.













This DVD Cover is quite masculine based with the Blue, Black and White colour scheme. It’s quite a simple image yet very effective, for example Akon is placed to the right of the centre line looking into the distance showing how ‘free’ he is. The background image of the sea and sky looks very claming as there are no waves in the image to make it look busy and you can see out into the distance showing that he’s free to move around. The suit he’s wearing makes hi look quite important and sophisticated but then the sunglasses make him looked dress down showing he’s more laid back.

This DVD Cover is very unique and different from other artists. Straight away you focus on the image of the band which has been turned into an eagle. The cover has been sectioned into 4 bits showing that there are4members in the band. Eagles represent being strong and dominant so I think this has been a good representation of the band because there all masculine. You can see that there is only a colour scheme of dark green which could represent jealousy showing that the DVD could be quite emotional.

Analysis of Music Videos

Steve Appleton- City Won’t Sleep

I think this is a good video to analyse as the artist is quite young and new so it has its own sense of style from others of different age groups. It’s firstly set in a cheap hotel room as you can see the room is quite plain and dull, straight away you see Steve go up to the window and look out into the city showing he’s an outdoors person and wants to explore the world. This song has a performance based section where Steve is playing guitar on top of city buildings showing n establishment shot of all the lit up buildings behind him linking with the ‘city theme’. You see Steve join with friends who are quite dressed up, for example the females are wearing dresses and high heels looking as though they’ve been out partying out all night linking with this ‘City Wont Sleep Tonight’. I would say the audience age range is 16-21years old because you see a straight cut of a piercing place showing it’s an environment for youngish people to be in to young adults as there are night clubs in the mise en scene.

Example- Watch the Sun Come Up

I have chose to analyse this music video as this is a newly released song and it’s different from the other videos as it’s got its own technique of animations throughout the video which is quite unique. The music has a fast beat and they use animations to turn the person into a cartoon which makes this video interesting and different from others. I would say the target audience is probably 17-25 year olds because its set on holiday with a young loved up couple having fun spending time together. The animation picks out key lyrics from the song, for example it says ‘you in that red dress’ showing that’s the girl for him and the colour red represents love. I personally think the animation is used really well in this video as it changed the scene throughout and makes the video more interesting to watch because its been cleverly done.

30 Seconds to Mars- The Kill

I’m analysing this video because the genre is different to the other music videos ad has an unusual style’ Straight away from the mise en scene you can see by the bands clothing/make up that the genre is Rock. The clothing is mostly all black and the males are wearing black eyeliner. Te lyrics in this video match the visual as it says ‘what if I fell to the floor’ and you see a male skate boarder skating boarding which shows a sign of risk and bravery to take chances in life. This music video has an intertextual with the film ‘The Shining’. As the genre is Rock the video has a performance of the band singing on stage where you see close ups of the artists faces which relates to Goodwin’s theory which he believes is what a music video needs to be successful. The word ‘Burry Me’ is sang quite aggressively and relates to in which the lead singer s wearing which is a black suit so once again lyrics and visuals link.

Kings Of Leon- Use Somebody

This video shows many establishment shots showing the city life which could be representing there quite internationally based and like to visit new places. This video is performance based as you get wide shots of fans at their concerts and also every time the band is shown playing its been edited in Black and White. The mise en scene shows that the band are quite Indie/Rock as they are wearing skinny jeans, rough/dirty looking tops and have quite shaggy hairstyles. This video is concept based as it’s quite random as there are no relationships between the lyrics and music. The beginning of the video and ending link well together as the same shot has been used of the lead singer quite close up to show expression to the audience. I would say the target audience is probably 18-25year olds because it shows smoking and drinking in the video which is more popular amongst young adults.

Cheryl Cole- Fight for This Love

I have chosen to analyse this music video as it’s a new release and will be interesting to compare to an older music video to see how different they are from one another. Mise en Scene is very effective in this video, for example Cheryl has dark eye make up on which reflects to a theme of a boxer/fighter as they get black eyes ‘fighting for love’. At one point she is wearing a red military outfit which corresponds with an army theme going into war for love; this proves that the lyrics have a relationship with the visuals in the music video. By making the military outfit more fashionable this links well with making the music video trendier and modern to appeal to a younger audience. This video has a performance based section in it where Cheryl is dancing with other dancers in the background, making her the main focus in the foreground especially since she’s wearing a different outfit to show she’s the artist. Many animations have been used in this video, such as the letter with the lyrics on the screen and splashes of red which could represent blood proving that you have to ‘fight for love’, proving it’s quite a tough job. The letter looks like it’s been ripped out from someone’s personal diary which could have been used to write about someone’s love life linking in with the song lyrics. Cheryl repeatedly uses the word ‘fight’ at one point where she’s wearing a hooded jacket which yet again represents a boxer/fighter.

Questionnaire Results

For my media audience research, we decided to make a questionnaire and film asking our target audience the question’s to get the data we required for our planning stage of your music video.

Are you Male or female?

From our graph we can see that half of our respondents and half are female,
this is beneficial as we can relate to both genders.

How old are you?

From our results we found that we asked 1 person who is 18, 2 people who are 16 and 5 people who are 17, this gives us a little range of the ages.

What’s your favourite music genre?
All of our respondents said that indie was their favourite genre, this may have been as we aimed to target these people, apart from a few people who said rock/indie and electro/metal/indie, and this means we will aim our music video indie fans.

Do you like your music video to be concept, performance narrative based
video, or a mixture?

From this we can tell that 49% of the audience said that they prefer a mixture of all three, so we will try and make sure that our video is a mixture of all three.

Do you like effects on music videos such as black and white, or sepia?

As we can see from the graphs 75% of the respondents said that they didn’t mind if effects were used in the video, this means that we can look into if we want to use effects or not.

Do you like the band to be shown in the video?

As we can tell from the 87% of respondents like the band in the video, we will make sure that we have the band in our own music video.

Do you like other artists performing in the video even if they’re not singing?

From the results we will not have another artists performing in our video as 62% of the respondents said that they didn’t like artists performing in the video.

Do you like animation in music videos?

The majority of the respondents don’t mind if animation is used in the video, so the decision is up to use if we would like to use animation or not.

If the song is off a soundtrack do you like the video to relate to the film?

50% of the respondents said that they didn’t mind if the soundtrack was off a film if it related to the song.

What’s your favourite music video?
Each respondent had different answer for this question, they were as followed;

Example-what the sun come up
Steve Appleton- city won’t sleep
Kings of Leon- use somebody
Bowling for soup-what all the bad guys want
Beyonce-Halo
Kings of Leon- sex on fire
Artic monkeys- crying lighting
Steve Appleton- dirty funk

Animatic and feedback

Feedback
We created an anaimatic by drawing pictures of each scene we wanted in our music video. This helped us look in depth of our music video, deciding what camera angles to look at, mise en scene and editing options we can use. We got feed back from our peers and teachers on our Animatic and this is what they said:
At the beginning where the alarm clock is ringing we got told that we shouldn’t move from shot to a similar shot, for example they were both the same angle which doesn’t look good or flow well in a music video, so when we come to make our music video we will change this and get different angles.
The extreme close ups of the eye and the teeth getting brushed were liked as it shows in depth what’s happening in the shot and it’s not an angle that’s used a lot throughout music videos’
The over shoulder shot of the girl lying in bed and you can see the main artist in the background was liked as well, as it’s a unique angle and you get to see what’s happening in the background of the shot.
As we were filming quite a few shots indoors we got told that we should be wary of lighting indoors as we don’t want the shot to be dull or to bright so we will use artificial lighting to get the right lightning.

Storyboard

Initial Ideas

The song I have chosen is ‘Music made a man of me’ by Steve Appleton, I chose this song because it doesn’t have a music video and I find the tune and lyrics really catchy, also not many people have heard of this artist which appealed to me.
For my music video I have decided to make my video aimed at teenagers, I have chose this target audience because the genre of music I have chose best fits this group and I think that they would find it most appealing, this is aimed at a both male and female audience.

The main singer is going to be tall with medium length hair; I have chosen him because he has the indie image I am looking for, is confident and can sing. There is also going to be three girls in the video to go into the narrative side also including the singer.

I have decided that there is going to be a lot of short cuts as the song I have chose has a fast pace, there is also going to be close up’s showing expressions and lip movement for lyrics. I have not decided yet on effects that I am going to use. At the start of the music video the music is not going be on instantly, the singer is going to start the music in the video by hitting a beeping alarm. Also at the end of the video the music is going to fade out by using the singer to turn the music down in the car, which will make another parallel sound.

This music video is going to be performance-based and narrative-based, the main story line is going to be the singer as the main focus and he is romantically seeing three women throughout the video however they don’t know, same of the visuals and lyrics are going to link and at the end of the video he realises as throughout the lyrics have been ‘music made a man of me’ that he should be a man and not mess people around. We are going to have props in our video such as a car, fashion such as choice of clothes/make up.

Questionnaire

Are you Male or Female?
Male [ ] Female [ ]
How old are you?
………………………………..
What’s your favourite music genre?
…………………………………………
Do you like your music video to be concept, performance, narrative or a mixed range?
Concept [ ]
Performance [ ]
Narrative [ ]
Mixed [ ]
Do you like effects on music videos, such as: Black and White or Sepia?
Yes [ ]
No [ ]
Don’t mind [ ]
Do you like the band to be shown in the music video?
Yes [ ]
No [ ]
Don’t mind [ ]
Do you like other artists performing in the music video even if they’re not singing?
Yes [ ]
No [ ]
Don’t mind [ ]
Do you like animation in music videos?
Yes [ ]
No [ ]
Don’t mind [ ]
If the song is off a soundtrack, do you like the video to relate to the film?
Yes [ ]
No [ ]
Don’t mind [ ]
What’s your favourite music video?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………....

Organisational Timetable

Planning Timetable

In lessons
Out of school hours
Achieved
Checked by Teacher
Monday 7th September
Discuss matters
Completed the 5x analysis of videos/covers/adverts


Tuesday 8th September
Research songs without music videos



Wednesday
9th September
Chose a final song for the project



Thursday 10th September
Find background information on the song such as lyrics and release date etc to make sure the song isn’t going to release a video anytime soon



Friday 11th September
Begin Pitch Powerpoint



Saturday 12th September

Continue Pitch Powerpoint


Sunday 13th September

Continue Pitch Powerpoint




A2 Practical Production ; Planning Timetable

In lessons
Out of school hours
Achieved
Checked by Teacher
Monday 14th September
Complete Pitch Powerpoint



Tuesday 15th September
Show Pitch Powerpoint



Wednesday 16th September
List of roles within the group for the filming



Thursday 17th September
Storyboard showing the first verse ideas



Friday 18th September
Storyboard showing the first chorus ideas



Saturday 19th September

Audience research


Sunday
20th September

Audience research


Monday
21st September
Storyboard showing the second verse ideas



Tuesday 22nd September

Storyboard showing the second chorus



Wednesday 23rd September

Storyboard showing the third verse



Thursday 24th September

Storyboard showing the last two chorus



Friday 25th September

Theory application to a video