Planning character image

The way an artist is represented through a music video is very important as it is the image that the sells to the audience. Although Jake and George are not the artists of the song it was still important for us to portray them as the DJ’s of the song.

Jake and George in real life are supposed to be two best friends who are DJ’s, who have created this song and are now making a music video for it. As we wanted to create a concept within our music video and put out a positive message to our target audience we decided to portray Jake and George as normal people. This is because we feel that our target audience are more likely to relate to the boys if the audience see them as ordinary people just like them leading to building a stronger relationship between the both of them and perhaps making our audience fans of the boys.

As Jake and George are best friends we wanted to portray them both to be quite similar. We decided to keep the boys as best friends within our music video as we thought it would create a cute bromance and would have built up the hype for the boy to stay best friends if they were actually famous. This follows one point of Dyers star theory, which states that a star must be simultaneously ordinary and extra ordinary for the consumer. The boys are being portrayed as ordinary boys who do normal teenage things like drink, torment each other, have interests in girls and have a normal family however when watching our target audience will know that they are actually far from ordinary as they are very talented famous DJ’s. This will lead to our target audience want to consume the stars more as they want to listen to all their along with knowing about their personal life, both simultaneously keeping them interested in the stars. This image is conventional to the dance genre to some extent as in many other DJ’s music videos such as Avicii’s version of ‘Don’t wake me up’ he is seen DJing and being worshiped by the crowd at his concerts however in The Swedish House Mafia’s ‘Don’t you worry child’ show them DJing and entertaining the crowd but also show shots of them doing normal things as brothers like riding boats.

Throughout our music video we portray the boys as very fun, loving, youthful, and slightly rebellious. We manage to do this through the mise-en-scene we used and how they acted when filming. We presented the boys as fun and youthful through showing them dancing and partying with all their friends at a party. Rebelliousness was conveyed through the boys waking up in London in the morning with beer and not seeming to care much of what the public thought of them, and the loving side of them was shown throughout the music video by their friendship and how they looked after each other yet where tormenting each other on the train and laughing together about it afterwards. These personality traits are very conventional to the dance genre as most people within dance music videos are portrayed the same as dance is very feel good music which make you want to have a good time with everyone you love. These personality traits would also help them build a relationship with the target audience as many of our young target audience are very youthful and have fun with their friends therefor may feel that they could also be friend with Jake and George!

Towards the end of the music video the way the boys are represented changes slightly. George comes across as the same loving, fun young boy as he goes home to his home where he kisses his sister good morning. However after this comes across slightly more serious as he begins to get ready to go out, as George is wearing a suit the audience would wonder where he is going and possibly believe that he has more responsibility than they earlier thought he had. The serious side of George is not conventional to the dance genre however it was important for us to use as we wanted to put across our message about growing up, finding yourself and taking responsibility.

We also represented Jake a little difference in the last part of our music video. Jake is seen entering a small apartment kicking a pizza box, then sitting down surrounded by mess looking annoyed, yet slightly upset and lonely. This again was not conventional to our genre however was important as we wanted to contrast Jake and Georges attitude to their home life to highlight how important it is and how much it can affect you, leading the audience to think about what is important in life.

These last representations of Jake and George may lead our target audience in different situations at home or in their life to relate as most of our target audience are at stages in their life where they are making important decisions whether it is choosing gcse’s, a-levels, uni courses, their future job or just having troubles with their family. Hopefully the representations of our characters will highlight our concept of having fun a young teen/adult but also knowing the importance of what is around you and how you are going to shape your future using it as it is very important. As the audience will recognise Jake and George as just like them, as they also go through tough times and act irresponsible by making silly mistake but just enjoy life they will feel a connection with them. This leads to my representation of characters to following Dyers other point which is ‘The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer’ as the boys will be present emotionally as they can relate as well as in the media however absent as the audience can not physically talk to them and see them every day. 

Planning setting and iconography

Setting

A setting is the geographical location in which a story is set. Setting is a key element of mise-en-scene as it is what the audience see in the background. Setting can be used to influence an audience’s emotions or simply help them understand the narrative more clearly.

The first setting my group and I chose to include within our music video was London. This setting will feature right at the beginning of our music video and throughout until the boys arrive home. We chose to use London for many reasons. One of the first being, it is the capital city of England, a very well-known, large city which is very busy. We will use this to our advantage, as the reputation for how big and busy London is will help us highlight to the audience how confused the boys must be feeling waking up in such a big busy which is such a long way from home and hopefully will help the characters and audience build a relationship as the audience will only be able to imagine how weird t must feel to woken up on a bench surrounded by strangers! We also felt that the busyness of the city would help us as we wanted the boys to wake up in a public place, by doing this scene in       London we were able to easily get the public setting we needed plus we were able to catch all the strange looks the public were giving the boys, this helped us make our narrative more realistic as the audience will be able to tell that the public generally are surprised at the boys waking up on a bench. Another reason we chose London was because we felt it was quite conventional to our genre, because of the fast paced lifestyle up London we were able to convey to the audience how quickly life passes by and how quickly the boys are growing up. This also helped us follow one of the points from Goodwin’s theory of the lyrics matching the visuals as the lyrics say ‘when I'm wiser and I'm older’ as it conveys how fast they are getting older and how fast life is passing them by ‘life will pass me by’, whilst contrasting their life to the busy adult life they will experience in the future when getting a job in the city ect. 

The second setting we believed was essential to include within our music video was a party. The party scene prominently follows the conventions of the dance genre. Party’s/concerts or having fun in general are very common within dance music video’s as the genre is all about dancing, having fun with friends and being happy. We also felt that the party scene could help us symbolize stereotypical teenage life, as it involves lots of partying and drinking irresponsibly (which is then portrayed when they wake up in London). Through portraying this lifestyle the audience may get better understanding of the concept of our music video as it is about finding who you really are and learning from silly mistakes you may make as you grown up. Our audience would also be able to relate to this representation as they themselves are teens or at the age where they are still partying and sorting out what they want to do with their life. 

The next setting we will briefly use in our music video is a train station and train. We will only use this setting briefly as we only intend on it helping our audience understand the fact that the boys are making their way home and it is quite far as they have to get a train. We did not want to use the setting for a long while as it would not help us build a relationship between the audience and characters and also does not follow the conventions of dance. 

The next setting we will also use briefly will be the streets which Jake and George walk down to get home after getting off the train. We decided to film them walking down quitter more open roads to distinguish the difference between London and their home town to make the audience think about how far they must have gone and how drunk they must have been to end up in a big city like London! Also it helped our music video appear more continuous as we did not just want the boys to be home straight after they got off the train as it would make it seem unrealistic. This setting is unconventional to our dance genre and does not really help build a relationship with our target audience however was necessary for our narrative to flow smoothly and come across realistic. 

The last two locations we decided to use where Jake and Georges homes. We combined two shots of Jake and George both opening their front doors in order to manipulate the audience into comparing both of the boy’s homes. Jake went home to a house which had been converted into flat that was very messy whereas George went home to a clean and cosy family house. We all decided on differentiating Jake and Georges homes as we wanted the audience to think about what family life was about as well as their social life, as teens are stereotypically known for going out with friends all the time and not spending time with their family. Jakes home represented him as being lonely when it got to his family life which is why he enjoyed going out so much and Georges represented his family life as something he looked forward to coming back to. This enhances our concept and hopefully will remind our target audience to remember what’s important in life when finding yourself, growing older, and wiser. 

Iconography
Iconography is the use of props within media. The use of iconography is usually used to represent a more significant meaning, or perhaps used in order to make a narrative more realistic and understandable. It is important for my group to use iconography within my music video for these same purposes. We especially thought iconography was important as the style of our music video is narrative therefore the audience will only be able to understand the artist and narrative through what they see and hear from the lyrics, unlike a film where they would know exactly what was going on.

The first piece of iconography which appears in our video is a beer can held my Jake. The beer can has the infinity logo on to promote the group as it is George and Jakes logo when they DJ in real life, we have attached their logo to a beer can as alcohol and getting drunk represent having fun amongst teens as many teens go out partying and get drunk. This makes the beer can very conventional to the dance genre as alcohol is associated with party’s and socialising and having fun which is what dance connotes. The beer can also shows the audience that Jake is asleep as it is spilling on the flour between his legs. 

I will also use a bench in the same scene, we thought it would be a good idea for Jake and George to wake up on a bench as it would make people stare, leading our music video to be more realistic. The bench is not conventional to the dance genre however it will assist us in making our music video more realistic.

The next prop we decided to use was a phone. The purpose of the phone was to show how the boys where remembering the night before by looking through their phone as they couldn't remember much. I feel our target audience would be able to relate to this and laugh at Jake and George for doing this as it is always funny to look at pictures you had taken or text sent the night before whist drunk. The phone is also not conventional however still important as it helped us show the audience that the flash backs where of the night before and their memory of it was slowly coming back on their way home. 

Flashing lights, speaker, DJ set up ect were the other conventional iconography we used. As we wanted to film at a party we decided that we wanted to film at a party where all this would be present rather than just a house party where there would be no flashing lights and just a stereo. We felt this made our party scene look even better as it was a REAL party with all the set up to go with it. The audience would be able to relate to this as they probably would imagine the party to be good and want to party with Jake and George (if they actually where famous DJ’s). The iconography we used was very conventional to the dance genre as it is seen in a lot of other dance music videos and very common to have at party’s.

Planning editing

Editing is an important stage within the post-production process of creating a music video as good editing can have a big impact on how it is perceived by the audience. Editing plays an important role as it can help the music video come across as more continuous but also have a good affect as the timing of editing and beat together can appeal to the audience’s visual and hearing senses. For example if a fast beat is accompanied by fast editing the audience may get more excited for the song and it may attract them more.

Fast editing is one of the main editing style we will use. One example we will aim to use is retiming shots (making them faster). We chose to use fast editing as we feel it will accompany the beat well as the beat of our song is quite fast paced, the editing and music together should work and appeal to the audiences hearing a visuals senses making them happy to listen to the song and ‘feel the music’. By using fast editing with the fast beat we will also be following one point of Goodwin’s theory ‘there is a relationships between music and visuals’ which may help our music video become popular as most popular music videos follow Goodwin’s theory. The fast editing style is also very conventional to the dance genre as generally the music has a fast beat. We also chose to use this editing style as it will help us portray Jake and Georges fast paced lifestyle as teenagers and how quick they are growing up, which hopefully our target audience will be able to relate to as they would have previously been teenagers or be in their teenage years.

We will also use straight cuts within our music video. This can be seen as part of fast editing however, we feel it has its own importance. The quick transitioning of the shots alongside the beat will help our music video become very conventional to the dance genre as it will match the fast beat, with the camera shot changing in conjunction with the next beat. Straight cuts will therefor accompany the beat whilst still allowing us to get our point across with the contents of the camera shots. Although this editing style will not necessarily build a relationship with the audience, it is still very conventional and hopefully will help our music video appeal to the audience by creating hype within the audience’s senses through the quick and snappy transitions.

Slow editing is another editing style we were discussing whether to include into our music video. Although our song ‘wake me up’ belongs to the dance genre and is upbeat making slow editing unconventional we decided it was important to use it. We thought it was important for us to include as there are part of the song where the beat slows down, using fast editing here would not look right and would not follow Goodwin’s theory therefore we decided that some slow editing was necessary. We also felt that using slow editing and fast editing together would create a good contrast for example slowing down the party scene for a few seconds then speeding it straight back up again. We felt the slow editing could highlight what is actually going on as well as indicating to the audience how drunk and vulnerable the two boys are as when you are drunk your reactions are much slower just like the editing will be. Although this editing style is not conventional to our chosen genre, we hope it will help build a relationship with the audience. The slow editing where the young boys are represented as being drunk will hopefully build a relationship between Jake, George and the audience as they will be able to relate to the state they are in. And also to see the party scene slowed down and to see how it looks when they are too busy enjoying themselves.

The final editing style we will definitely aim to include into our music video is a fade. Although this again is unconventional to the dance genre we felt it was important to use. This is because it will help the audience understand the narrative more, as they may not understand that while the boys are up London, they are having flashbacks from the night before of the party and it is past tense. By fading the flashback in and out of the London scene the audience will understand that they are flashback as it will be like the boys memory fading in and out. We hope that this will help our audience understand the narrative more as it is not conventional or is unlikely to help the audience, Jake and George build a relationship.
 

Planning cinematography

Cinematography is the creation of pictures in motion. It is known as a very important aspect of creating a music video as the use of different camera shots can help build a relationship between the audience and the artist. For example an extreme close up of an artist’s eye which is crying in a song about heartbreak may lead the audience to feel sorry for the artist and relate it to their heartbreak, therefore building a relationship between the artist and the audience. The use of cinematography can also help the audience understand the narrative/concept or performance more easily, as the camera shot allows the directors and producers to manipulate what the audience view.

The first camera shot my group and I decided to use was a panning shot. This shot is simply a camera movement technique that involves moving the camera horizontally to the right or left. The purpose of this shot is to establish our opening setting scene of London. The shot allows us to give the audience a wider view of London and how big it is, which will throughout our music video portray the big city that the boys are lost in. As this will be the first shot used in our music video we hope it will grab our audiences attention as London is a very iconic city and help them build a relationship with our actors as the audience can probably imagine and relate to what it must feel like waking up in the middle of a big city like London after a night out. A panning shot is not necessarily conventional to our chosen genre as it has many purposes however we feel it is necessary in order to portray the scene of how big London is. A similar panning shot is used in Swedish House Mafia’s – ‘don’t you worry child’ in order to show the empty space which later will be filled with fans of the group dancing to their music, this particular panning shot was used to highlight how popular the group are and how many people enjoy their music and will pay to see them.

panning shot highlighting empty space which will be filled 

long shot of space being filled 

The second camera we chose to use was a high angle. We feel that by including high angles and other camera shots which are not mid-shot will help add variety to our music video. Hopefully this will help us grasp our audience’s attention as our music video will not just consist of the common mid-shot and have variety. We specifically chose to use high angle for our party scene, this is because we wanted the camera shot to involve the whole of the party so the audience could see how fun it looked and how many people the boys where partying with, rather than using a camera shot which would only allow us the see the boys with a few other people. By using this high angle shot we can portray a big party scene where the audience can see exactly what’s going on, from the flashing lights, dancing, drinking and people having fun. By portraying this type of scene we are hopefully able to build a relationship with our target audience (15-25), as our target audience ranges from young teen to young adult we know that most have them would have been at a party. Therefore we hope that they will be able to relate to the party scene the boys are attending and know how much of a good time they are having and know what it’s like to be a drunk teen at a party. This camera shot is also very conventional to the dance genre as it is used in a lot of music videos to portray partying for example in Swedish House Mafia’s – ‘don’t you worry child’ high angles are used often throughout the music video to show the audience how many people attended their last concert and how many people where dancing and enjoying their music.

high angle showing audience what is going on 

The third camera shot we will aim to use within our music video is a close up. Close ups are camera shots which show something up close, they can be used to show the significance of something for example, a close-up of someone smiling may be used to show they are happy. Throughout our music video we will aim to use this camera shot for the same reason. We will try to include close-ups of important facial expressions in order to show the audience how Jake and George are feeling, helping them build a relationship with the audience as it may help the audience relate to their emotions for example; feeling lost when they boys are in London, happy and enjoying themselves at the party, feeling relieved to be home and sad that Jake has no family to go home to. We will also use camera shots in order to help the audience understand our narrative, for example a close up of wine glasses will show the boys are at a party where there is alcohol which will imply to the audience that they are getting drunk ect. I feel that close ups are conventional to any genre within the music industry as generally close-up are used to display emotion and songs are used to express emotion through words so it is common for a music video to include close-ups to help express the emotions of the song. Swedish House Mafia also use close ups within their music video to show people having fun. 

close up of people having fun at concert 

The last camera shot we will try to include while filming our music video is a point of view shot. This is a shot which shows you what the actor or artist sees through their point of view. We felt it would be good to use this as we could use it put the audience in the boys shoes, the audience could then relate to the boys and think what they would do and feel like in the boys situation and wonder what emotions they would feel. After watching some dance music videos I feel that in the typical party dance video with the DJ it is conventional for either a point of view shot from either the audience watching the DJ or vice versa, this camera shot is probably used for the same reason we aim to use it. Point of view is again used in The Swedish House Mafias music video for ‘don’t you worry child’. It the audiences point of view, watching the DJ’s (Swedish House Mafia), and highlight how good they are on stage.  

point of view from audience showing Swedish House Mafia 

We will also include more camera shots as we want to use a variety however we feel these are the main ones which aren't so easy to include. Therefore will try to include them in order to help our video build a relationship with our audience and make our music video conventional. 

 

Rough Cut

Once my group and I had filmed all the footage we needed and edited most of it we decided to share our video as a rough cut. The rough cut resembled our final product however did not yet have as much detail as we would like and was not fully developed. We felt it was important for us to share our video as a rough cut before completing editing as it allowed us to gain feedback from our target audience.

Gaining this feedback from our target audience is vital as we can use this feedback to improve our music video whilst it is still in production, saving time as we can make changed now rather than having to change it after it has been produced or even preventing it from being unsuccessful as we can change anything our target audience does not like now rather than sharing the final product thinking it will appeal to our target audience and it being rejected. Audience feedback is also important as it allows us to see what we have done successfully and how successful we were when carrying out and following target market research.

In order to gain feedback from our target audience we shared our music video on youtube. We chose to share our music video through this media channel as it is accessible to everyone who has the internet and also allows people to comment and like bellow, we felt this would be helpful as it would not take people much time and could get more feedback through this way of sharing our music video. After sharing our clip we emailed some students in our school who were within our target audience and told them to comment on what they thought of it. We also carried out interviews asking our target audience what they liked and what they thought could be improved.

What feedback did you receive?
How will the feedback assist you with finalising your final music video?

Storyboards

A storyboard is a graphic representation of a narrative, in our case the narrative to our music video. The purpose of a storyboard is to help plan production more efficiently. It helps us as a production team to do this as when creating the storyboards we can plan and consider fundamental elements of our music video such as camera shots/angles, editing techniques, sound, setting/location, characters and positioning, iconography, make-up/costume. This allows us to make most decisions now on what we feel will create the best music video possible and also saves us time during filming deciding what we want to film as we will already have a rough idea. Through using a storyboard our group can be more organised as we will have clear criteria of each shot and what we need to film allowing us to stick to our filming schedule as closely as possible.

When creating our story boards we had to consider what our primary and secondary research we had collected. We did this by putting our research into graphs and watching our vox pops over. We started off by specifying who our target audience would be and whether they liked the dace genre. The results presented to us that 11-25 did like dance and had heard of Avicci therefor we chose to stick to our first choice of song (Wake me up – By Avicci). We then considered what type of music video they would prefer which was narrative so then choice to add lots of close ups and mid shots to show the emotions of our characters. Other questioned we looked at when carrying out primary and secondary research where conventions the audience expected to see within the genre, all of which were conventional to the genre therefor we tried to include most of them and also what editing styles they expected to see which like we guessed consisted of fast paced editing ect therefor we kept our shots short but to the point as we wanted to meet the expectation of the audience.

Our group started storyboarding the music video by all suggesting ideas and ways we could create a good meaningful narrative while following conventions and the expectations of the audience. We all suggested ideas and then discussed who’s idea we thought would create the best music video and sometimes compromising and combining all ideas into one for example George wanted a shot of him waking up from a party however Amiee Austin wanting the setting to be in London there for me and Jake suggested that we have George and Jake waking up from a party and being lost in London after a drunken night out. Although we all input ideas into each shot and wrote our ideas onto our story boards, Amiee Austin put our ideas into pictures as she was most talented at drawing and making our storyboard graphics more understandable.

While filming, we used our story boards as a guide however we also added lots of shots as we discovered that we would need more shots to portray our narrative and create a full music video. These shots included shots such as, more party scenes in order to make the music video more consistent with the fast beat, close-ups and mid-shots of Jake and George to show their emotions, shots of the boys going into the train station to portray that they are going home and also more shots of them laughing and joking in order to portray their close friendship to the audience. Other than adding shots we followed a majority of the shots which we planned to within our story boards however perhaps divided them into 2 shots in order to make them more detailed and the narrative flow.

Research into major and independent record labels

Major Record Labels are large companies within the music industry that may also own smaller record labels. There are currently 3 major record labels who dominate the music industry. 

One of the top 4 record labels in the music industry is the Universal Music Group (UMG). Many well-known artist are signed to UMG. These include artist like Rihanna, Ellie Goulding, The Rolling Stones and Eminem. UMG also own smaller record companies within the music industry such as Republic Records, and Def Jam Records and many more. Artist signed to these smaller record labels such as Republic Records include: Arianna Grande, Drake, Jessie J and Nelly. UMG are linked with Vevo as the company helped develop them. This is an advantage to UMG as it allows them to stream their artist’s music videos for free helping to promote each artist. UMG also have their own website, which also helps to promote their artists. Their website is (http://www.universalmusic.com/) where the public can find out information like when artists will be releasing new singles and albums and even going on tour.

Another major record label within the music industry is Sony Entertainment. Sony manage/’own’ well known artists such as Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, John Legend and Justin Timberlake. Sony also owns, the smaller record labels including the less recognisable label ‘Arista’. The Arista music group manage artists like Alicia Keys, Christiana Aguilera and Ozzy Osborne. Sony Entertainment (http://www.sonymusic.com/) has their own website in order to promote their artist by publishing information about them along with the latest news, tour dates, and album releases. Sony also helps to promote their artist through their brand image. Sony are also recognised for its electronic products which sell within a wide market, there for the record label becomes more successful as audience find the brand name familiar and are more aware of it and more likely to pursue the brand name. 

The third record label I will be discussing is The Warner Music Group (WGM) , based in the US, who manage popular artists like Wiz Kalifa, Christiana Peri, Lupe Fiasco and Birdy. Subsidiaries in which WGM manage/own along with artist are smaller however still recognisable record labels such as Atlantic Records who manage artists like Meek Mill, Ed Sheeran and Marina and the diamonds. The Warner Music group is owned by Time Warner which is the world’s largest media conglomerate, meaning the music group has lots of link to film, entertainment, publishing and television. Allowing the Warner Music Group to promote their artist through a number of media channels possibly leading to attracting more audiences or being able to specifically target the certain audience they want to be interested in the artist.

The last record label I will look at which also dominates the music industry worldwide is Emi. The record label manages/have managed artists such as Robbie Williams, Katy Perry, You Me At Six, and The rolling stones. An example of a smaller record label that Emi owns is Capitol who have signed artists like Deana Carter. Emi are linked to Emi films and also HMV allowing them to have easier access to selling their artists records through well-known and trusted shops.

Although these 4 record labels dominate the music industry there is still room for smaller independent record labels. Independent record labels only operate one or few record labels however can be just as successful. They are commonly known for offering more ‘organic’ music rather than typical mainstream styles however style varies with artists.

Rough Trade is one example of an independent record label that operates in the UK. Rough Trade began as a shop in West London, which was opened by a man names Geoff Travis. After successfully promoting and selling record by Punk and early posy punk bands such as The Buzzcocks, Travis began to manage artists and began the label. The record label currently has artists like ‘Strange Boys’ and ‘Little Joy’ signed to them.

Another independent record label which operates in the UK is Boy Better Know, this record label are an English grime collective record label founded by JME and his older brother Skepta in 2005. Artists from Boy Better Know such as JME, Skepta and Wiley have featured on You Tubes SB.TV and helped mark their celebration of 100 million YouTube views.

From a music point of view I feel there is nothing wrong with 4 record labels dominating the music industry as it is that way for a reason. The audiences of the music those 4 record labels promote are obviously most popular so those record labels are bound to make more profit and dominate the market. This also allows smaller record labels to specialise and cater for the needs of niche markets which may like not so popular music genres and there for do not need huge record labels and promotion to sell their artists. Also having smaller record labels allows unknown artists to slowly become more recognised and if good enough go on to signing to bigger record labels, this is fair as if small record labels did not exist then unknown artist who still may need some practise may never be recognised however it is also unfair as it is the smaller record labels that may make the unknown artist recognisable however big record labels end up attracting the artist as obviously once the artist has made it they want to sell as many records as possible. Industry wise I feel it is slightly unfair that the 4 record labels dominate the music industry as independent record labels are less likely to survive there for need money although all the major record labels once started off small.

It is hard to judge whether major record labels are more successful than independent record labels as major record labels may make more profit as they have more artists and smaller record labels signed to them however independent record labels may take up more market share of the unique ‘organic’ music they do offer which not many there record labels offer, whereas major record labels may each only take up a quarte of the market share of the mainstream music.