Research & Planning: Representation

Stereotypes in media are common because the audience will instantly understand them; this means it can be used as a visual shortcut. They are often so repeated that people believe them to be normal or true. I will use stereotypes to represent the teenage target audience that I have. I will also challenge stereotypes such as teenage kids being depressed or ‘down about life’, I will do this because it creates a background to the song making the song mean much more. I will use some editing techniques such as sharp cuts at the more raw points in my song and when the beat slows down I will use swipe and fade transitions so that it gives a smoother and calmer impression.  These representations will appeal to my target audience of young adults, because they can make real life comparisons.  

Research & Planning: Research into the music industry

Pre-production

The first stage of creating a music video is to choose a production company who the artist believes are the best for the song. They may receive offers from several companies, but they will generally choose the most suited company or one that has done that genre of song already. They have to choose a suitable one as they are responsible for hiring the crew and finding the locations.

At this stage a story board is made for the whole plan for the video, from this filming starts to take place.

Production

Sometimes more crew are needed to be hired to help with the production of the video, when this is done, filming can commence. The video is filmed hundreds of times to get the perfect shot and extra scenes are also filmed that might not even make the final cut. Sometimes stills will also be taken for posters and album art and such.

Post Production

This is the final stage where a video is editing and put together this is generally done in a studio with an extremely powerful and expensive computer to handle the large file sizes. This is expensive software and is a skill that can be expensive to pay for, along with the fact it can take several weeks means it can be the most expensive part of creating the video. The video is then generally sent to the company where they deal with the distribution such as discs, iTunes and YouTube.

Why do artists create music videos?

The bottom line is money. It is a business and it has to make money and with millions of downloads and sales large artists make millions. Smaller singers/songwriters may create videos and upload them to YouTube because they find enjoyment, passion and they want to show off what they can do.

How do audiences access music videos?

• The internet

Music can be brought, listened to and illegally downloaded on a countless number of websites; this is easy to access and available to almost everyone.

• YouTube

YouTube is a way to watch music videos for free, they are generally uploaded by a company such as Vevo who monetise the video and make a healthy profit, an average ratio is 1$ every 1000 views from adverts played before the video. This means a video with 10 million views will make $10,000

• TV

Music videos are showed on TV channels such as capital that will again run adverts in between music videos, making a decent amount of money. Along with this some songs are brought for use in adverts such as ‘Jungle’ being used on the ‘Amazon’ advert. This raises the profile of the song and people tend to download more of the song.

• Radio

Songs are again played with adverts this again benefits both the artist and radio company as it raises awareness of the song and people download more of the song on websites such as iTunes.

• ITunes/Google play store

ITunes are download websites that charge for the song directly benefiting the artists, the company will take a cut but this will be a huge way of creating revenue.

• CDs

CDs are one of the oldest ways to distribute music but can still bring in large amounts of money, the record company will generally create a CD of the album and sell it to physical stores such as HMV who will sell the song as a physical copy for you to keep. This is generally the most expensive way to consume the media in question. 

Research & Planning: Storyboard and Lyric breakdown

Research & Planning: Mise-en-scene

I will use Mise-en-scene in my video heavily to keep my audience engaged. I will firstly use appropriate costumes for the dance genre. This means my actor will wear baggy colourful clothing; this will draw comparisons from my target audience and my main actor. This also represents the colourful life of DJ and how they tour the world having parties. I will use a bright location such as a beach and the sea as the song is mainly a happy song and this is represented in the lyrics ‘Live a life you will remember’ this promotes happy and wellbeing rather than sad and depressing, so I will use lots of natural light and some artificial backlighting. 

Research & Planning: Intertextuality

Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. When one piece of media makes reference to another media piece. Intertextuality can be seen as a way of promoting another piece of media subliminally as it brings it to the attention of the audience without them noticing. Some texts refer directly to each other such as remakes in a film for example. The interpretation of these references is influenced by the audiences prior knowledge of other texts. This is used to make the audience think about the song, and when the audience gets the list it is satisfying. I will apply this theory to my music video to create a larger appeal to my music video. 

Research & Planning: Crew list

Camera man: Louis Chadwick 

Subject: Jordan Cleaver 

Extra: Liam Carter 

Research & Planning: Goodwin’s and Mulvey theories

Goodwin’s theory

Goodwin’s theory is based on 8 main principles.

• Links between lyrics and video
• Links between music and video
• Genre characteristics
• Intertextual reference (when other media is mentioned)
• Notions of looking (The way women are treated or seen as)
• Voyeurism (Sexual references within a video)
• Demands of the record label (representation of the artist in question)
• Performance based, Narrative based or concept based music videos.

Mulveys theory

Laura Mulvey describes how the audience or view is put into the perspective of a male. The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the person being presented. The Gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience into perspective of man that is looking a woman.The women is usually displayed on two different levels either as a object or as a spectator. 

I will apply these theories to my music video, to help the appeal of the music video. I will meet the demands of the record label by showing a representation of my artist. I will also have continual links between my lyrics, video and song to make them feel like a complete product. I will also use genre conventions such as fast paced cuts, Kinetic Typography, long establishing shots and a hybrid narrative/concept based video. 

Research & Planning: Props list

I will use not any specific props as they are not needed for the creation of my video. I will use more on screen edited effects rather than physical props. My genre of Pop/Dance conventionally requires minimal props to make a music video and generally relys on editing techniques such as transitions, filters and CGI. I will try to incorporate these into my video to make it more interesting for my target audience.