Planning setting and iconography - Miss Georgiou

Planning setting and iconography - Miss Georgiou

Settings and iconography is an important aspect of our music video as they both set the scene and nature of the music video if using a narrative as they create a backdrop for the artists and also can represent the video such as a music video within space would create a sci-fi ethos that generally comes from the electronic genre. Iconography is important as props can help further the realism of a narrative or can be more entertaining for the audience as it adds more elements to the video for the viewers aesthetic pleasure.

The first setting within our music video, is a house, specifically one of my group members Luke Durance's house, the house will be used as the main protagonist  and his girlfriends house that they live in together, before he gets kicked out. We will also use this house for the flashback sequences within our music video as the house is a good place to show the couple being happy together, the couple could be sitting on the sofa or in the bed. The outside of the house will also be used for when the protagonist leaves the house after being kicked out, he will then walk away from the house and onto the street, where he goes to the next setting.

The next setting within the music video is Hainult station and then Liverpool street station. Hainult station will only be used to show that the protagonist is travelling away from his home, there will however be an implementation of shots on the train and of the train pulling up at Liverpool Street station. Liverpool Street will be used for many different shots such as a time lapse and the implementation of the protagonist believing he has spotted his ex girlfriend. After the several shots are taken the protagonist will move to the next setting.

The next setting is Stratford and Docklands, this setting will be used to introduce several establishing shots and shots that don't specifically correspond with the narrative of our music video, as there are several nice buildings and pieces of scenery we can implement within our video. Such as using the cable carts to get a high view of London with the use of a long shot, these shots although do not link with the music video give an entertaining mix up of shots and can help further the enjoyment of the video as it is not the same and is unpredictable.

Lyric analysis - Miss Georgiou

Lyric analysis - Miss Georgiou

Lyrics are an integral part of music and the implementation of these lyrics with music and music videos are incredibly effective for the audience for many reasons. Firstly in terms of Goodwin's theory the lyrics can link with the visuals within the music videos, this ultimately creates a relationship between the song and the music video, meaning it is more enjoyable as the video corresponds with the song and thus is not confusing or ambiguous.  Lyrics are also an effective technique within the music video as again corresponding with Goodwin's theory, performance based sections within the video entirely almost always feature the artists performing the song and lip syncing the lyrics of the song, this adds to reality of the video as it seems as though the artists are giving a live performance of the song which is enjoyable for the audience. Lyrics can also aid the music video in terms of implementation of motifs and symbols, as if the lyrics within the song make constant reference to a particular object or instance the music video may emit this within the music video. 

Within our groups we printed off a sheet of the lyrics for Tame Impala's 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,' for annotation. We all took turns discussing the many possibilities the lyrics gave us and were pleased to find ideas were not sparse, as we began to gain ideas for the cinematography, mis-en-scene, editing and setting for our music video with the lyrics alone. Below is the original annotated lyric sheet we used to come up with many ideas that would soon be implemented in our own music video.

I will be analysing the lyrics within Tame Impala's "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards," I will be looking for hidden messages and meanings within the lyrics and analyse them in order to implement features within the video, and to correspond with Goodwin's theory. The lyrics will inspire me and lead my music video as it will determine the overview of the music video's narrative or at least help give us ideas that will further our video and create a link between the video and the song.

The first lyrical element within the music video I have identified is the reoccurring motif and title of Tame Impala's song, "it feels like I only go backwards, baby." This lyric creates many possibilites for expansion within the music video, firstly the lyrics could be used to directly correspond with Goodwin's theory of lyrics and visuals linking, the lyrics "I only go backwards" could be reflected within the music video by the actor within the music video moving backwards, thus the music video is emitting the literal meaning of the lyrics and thus this both creates a link between the video and the song, and it also corresponds with Goodwin's theory. The lyric can also provide many possibilities for editing and special effects, as the word "backwards" could again be taken with literal meaning and thus within our music we could use editing effects such as a rewinding effect, a time lapse of some sort, or a slow motion effect that emit the feeling of moving backwards or slowly. The occurrence of this line within every verse means that the several different features and editing can be used when the line is sang again and again, this thus is beneficial as the audience do not know what to expect due to the unpredictability of our music video that reflects the conventions of our genre Psychedelic Rock.

The lyrics also make several references to relationships such us using the words "baby," "darling" and "I've got my hopes up again." The implementation of these lyrics corresponding with relationships and love gives me inspiration to make our music video narrative about relationships, with the idea of a male protaginist and a female love interest within the video, this is effective for many reasons: firstly the use of a relationship within the music video is relatable to the audience and they may enjoy it more as the elements within the video may represent an relate to them thus furthering the relationship between fan and artist. The use of relationships within the music video is also effective as it is conventional to most mainstream music videos, and although our genre of music genre is not of the mainstream we intend to make our music video more relatable and conventional to the masses and thus this results in more views and a widened audience. Our group intend on implementing a relationship narrative within our music video and to correspond it with the narrative of the song itself, to do this our group decided we would use a conflict between two people in a relationship as it is relevant to the lyrics within the song.

Digipak analysis - Miss Miller

Digipak analysis - Miss Miller

A digipak is a patented style of CD that adds to the album, it usually consists of the CD, a promotional poster and other special features that add to the audience's experience .  They consist of a gatefold or book style case that folds out and is made of cardboard or paper and they competition with plastic CD cases as they are bigger and provide addition features that can appeal to the audience and create a further link between the relationship of the audience and artist. Digipak's are generally used for CD singles or special editions of albums, and are very popular and common within the music industry. Digipak's are effective and beneficial for an artist for many reasons, firstly the digipak's are a method of both appealing to and addressing the audience. 

Magazine advert analysis - Miss Miller

Magazine advert analysis - Miss Miller

Magazine adverts are an integral aspect of artist and album promotion within the mainstream for many reasons. Firstly magazines are widely read by young people interested in the latest trends and topics, thus the majority of magazine readers would be interested in mainstream genres of music such as pop, hip hop and electronic, meaning artists could promote themselves and appeal to the audience as they enjoy the genre of music. The magazines could also be used as a platform for lesser known artists to gain a wider following, as magazines are read by hundreds and thousands and thus the advertisement and promotion could be extremely useful and could boost sales and awareness of the album. Magazines also are effective in terms of promoting an artist as they could essentially create a new image through design and layout that appeals to a different criteria of audience, which again in turn could result in an increase in sales as the album is not only being promoted to those already interested in the genre but the widened audience that read magazines. Within this blog I will be analyzing two different magazine advertisements deriving from the genre of Psychedelic Rock, and investigating the styles and conventions of these advertisements so that I can use these elements to inspire my own magazine advert for my digipak.

Within this magazine advertisement there are several conventions in terms of design that I have taken inspiration from and I intend to use within my own magazine advertisement as they could be effective in terms of promoting our song and appealing a wide audience. Firstly the colour scheme and design of fonts within the poster is unique and may stand out to an audience, as it is different to what would be normally seen within a magazine, as within the mainstream there is generally an abbundance of bright colours and trendy graphics that appeal to the pop culture and audience the magazine targets. The fonts within this magazine poster are again also very unconventional and may be slightly different to what the audience of the magazine is expecting to see within. The font style is retro and unique, this font stands out from the norm and thus may inspire me to create a font style or implement a stlye that is not normally used within posters.

Research into chosen music artist - Miss Georgiou

Research into chosen music artist - Miss Georgiou

Our group decided to use the song 'It Feels Like We Only Go Backwards' by Tame Impala, we were interested in using this artist's song as we agreed that the genre of the music would allow us creative freedom for a more diverse style of music video due to the conventions within psychedelic rock music videos, such as the use of bright colouring and an array of special effects that add to the psychedelic ethos the song emits. Tame Impala is a unique band that play enjoyable music, we agreed that the song was especially enjoyable and that the lyrics were relatable and thus we could expand and create an effective music video from it. Tame Impala consists of 5 members: Kevin Parker, Jay Watson, Dominic Simper, Cam Avery, and Julien Barbagallo. It can be seen below that Tame Impala have many accolades and have been nominated for many awards, mainly being given credit for their album of 2012 Lonersim, which gained critical acclaim and worldwide renown. The band name "tame impala" refers to an impala, a medium sized antelope. The band began in Perth and raised in prominence through posting their music on MySpace.

Below are two Tame Impala music videos, me and my group took inspiration from, we analysed these music videos for their aspects and elements in order to both further our knowledge of conventional psychedelic rock and discover the conventions of Tame Impala's own music videos. 

Target Audience - Miss Miller

Target Audience - Miss Miller

Finding the correct target audience is essential in terms of creating a successful music video or any media product for that matter, in order to do so I first researched into the psychedelic rock and found that the target audience for this music is 15 - 35 year old, in order to find out what aspects and features people would like to see within the music video and to discover what makes a successful music video me and my group designed a questionnaire, with 10 questions and asked 40 different people, we also filmed vox pops, asking questions relating to both our artist, Tame Impala and their overall opinions on music videos.

The 5 questions used for my vox pops were:

1. Do you like Tame Impala
2. Did you enjoy the Feels Like We Only Go Backwards music video, why?
3. What elements did you enjoy about the video?
4. What elements didn't you enjoy about the video?
5. What improvements would you make?

The 10 questions used for my questionnaire were: 

1. How old are you?
2. What genre of music do you listen to frequently?
3. Do you prefer Concept, Narrative or Performance based videos?
4. Have you heard of psychedelic rock?
5. What makes a music video enjoyable?
6. What makes a music video unenjoyable?
7. Do you prefer your artist to be in the music video, why?
8. What do you think of Tame Impala's music?
9. What do you think of their music videos?
10. Do you prefer the use of CGI and special effects in music videos?

Below are my vox pops:







Below are the results for my questionnaire in the form of a pie chart:

The majority of the people targeted within our questionnaire were aged 25 and younger, there were many reasons for this in terms of acquiring information in order to aid our music video. The main reason for this is due to the fact that our music genre - Psychedelic Rock's target audience are those aged 25 and under, meaning we can gain the most relevant information in terms of what people would like to see in a music video.

We decided we needed a variety of different answers from people who liked different genres of music as this would help us decipher any patterns in terms of what makes an enjoyable music video. The majority of those questioned enjoyed Pop the most which aided us as we could look into the possibility of implementing pop themed conventions within our music video to appeal to the masses.

We decided to discover what style of music videos people enjoyed the most. The fact that narrative got a 42% shows us that the audience will enjoy this aspect and that performance got 38% grew me to the conclusion that within our music video we should implement both narrative and performance aspects within our music video as these elements are both popular.

Predictably 83% of the people we questioned had not heard of psychedelic rock, this is because of the underground nature of the genre as it is a sub genre deriving from rock. The people who had heard of psychedelic rock would aid us in terms of what fans of the genre would like to see in the music video, however everyone can aid us to improve our video.

Our results, once again were predictable as the majority of people said that unconventional elements reflecting upon the genre made a music video the least enjoyable. This could aid us in terms of improving our music video as we now know that in order to make a succesful and enjoyable music video we must stick to the conventions of the Psychedelic Rock genre to appeal to the fans. The second highest feature was the use of excessive swearing, as it causes offence to many people, this again could be avoided by the selection of our song as the song "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" has no swearing within the entire song. 

The majority chose that they enjoyed the artist to be in their music video because they want to see the artist, the 65% majority tells us that we must implement our music artist within our video. There are many benefits to including our artist into a video, firstly the promotion of the artist is a key feature and a element of Goodwin's theory and thus according to the theorist Goodwin this will make the music video succesful and conventional.

The fact that 52% of people asked said they did not enjoy Tame Impala's music shows us that the audience for this genre of music are niche and thus must be adressed in a specific and cautious manor to ensure we don't dissapoint the fans of the genre of music. Because of the unconventional and obscure themes within the Psychedelic Rock it leaves many people confused or don't enjoy it as it is different to the mainstream/pop conventions. 

The 62% majority that stated they had not seen again shows us that the music and genre itself are both considerably unpopular and are not mainstream. The 23% that had seen their music videos said they enjoyed it which over shadows the 13% that didn't enjoy them, this suggests that the music videos were popular and that we should gain inspiration from them.