Busted Prelim Task A2 Media Callum and Elliot

Types of Music Videos

In many recent years, the development and creation of music videos in the music industry specifically has grown and changed in many ways. The reasons are because of new technology, abstract images and fresh ideas which have encouraged artist these days to expand how they represent themselves in their music videos and how they want to portray the lyrics. It is all succeeded through 4 main typologies being:

• Performance
• Conceptual
• Narrative  

Performance
A performance video focuses on showing footage of the artist or band either in a casual environment such as socialising with friends, or performing, whether that be live performance or staged performance.

Concept
Concept videos based around a single idea or concept and are usually unusual and obscure, even surreal for the audience. The unusual context is an attraction to many customers, which draws them in. A successful concept video will keep the audiences entertained and constantly looking at what or who is on the screen.

Narrative

A song with a narrative based music video the song includes a narrative story of the lyrics/words being acted out in some way. This style relies on imagery to produce a story for the audience to follow and some narrative videos include clips from films that the song has been featured in. This seems to be used a lot in slower songs, often love songs.

 

Animation & Mixture

Animated music videos can range from the images being hand drawn, created by computer graphics or moulded out of material such as plasticine. This style of music is very creative and makes it very visually entertaining to watch. A song with a 'mixture' music video consists of more than one of the above. The most common video types to combine are performance and narrative.

Song Considerations

For this blog post, I will show 4 songs that in my opinion will be good song choices to use for the creation in this assignment and they also already have official music videos to support them so it will help choose ideas for our own because we can explore the meaning behind their ideas.

My first song I have got for consideration is a song by the Little Comets called 'Jennifer'. The Little Comets are a band of 3 from Newcastle and I have seen them 3 times and they are my favourite band without a second thought. The song is off their second album 'Life is Elsewhere' and this video was directed Michael Coles who is the lead Guitarist of the band which is ultimately my inspiration in the creation of my own. The Little Comets lyrics are so lyrically correct in many senses that they believe that their music videos can only be portrayed in the way that they believe is correct and in every way I have seen it has been a pleasure to watch and be inspired by, maybe not so much in this video but you can see the depth of creativity they have and its something that I would like to include in mine and my teams music video because I just love their characteristics and style. Also with Little Comets for every song they write that gets published the lead singer Rob Coles brother of Michael writes a mini blog on why the lyrics have been created which is important if you were to create a video for them because they write about first world problems and other things that you don't hear in common songs. http://www.littlecomets.com/news/

This next video is from a new band who are soon to be noticed and move up in the world called Catfish and the Bottlemen and this song is called 'Homesick'. I have seen Catfish and the Bottlemen 3 times and they are due to release their first album at the start of September 2014, they are a band of 4 members called Van McCann, Billy Bibby, Benji Blakeway and Bob Hall and are under the sub-genre of Indie Rock. With being new to this industry I believe that this video is very modern and up to date with the competition that they could have and I like the way the video is a performance which you could say suits the target audience and genre which is what I believe my group should do, create and produce a video that I know my target audience and genre will like because of the characteristics that we entail. Lastly Catfish and the Bottlemen have created themselves a look of Black and White which I really like because it adds character to them and if I was to create one of their singles into a music video I would make sure to include that characteristic as it would make it more realistic and depth.

My next video is single by The Kooks called 'Around Town' which will be available on their 4th album which will be available in early September called 'Listen'. I have followed The Kooks since their first album Inside In Inside Out and I have been waiting for their new music for a good 2 years since they released their last album Junk of the Heart in September and to see that they have created a video to one of their new songs that is very unique is a joy especially with this assignment I have been set because I am such a big fan of The Kooks and with this music video on mind I think I will be able to cut it up to find their routes for the ideas that created this video as their must be some relevance for the amount of effort and time that has obviously been put in to create this video. Another reason for why I'm using this video as an example is because they have used characters and not themselves which is most often seen in this genre of 'Indie Alternative Rock' so it will help me and my group within the process.

My last music video is by Bombay Bicycle Club and is called 'How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep' which was a film created by Anna Ginsburg. This particular song was off Bombay's third album A Different Kind of Fix and contrasts very well with the entire album. What I like mostly about Bombay and their albums is the have created individual albums that are suited to each member for instance their new album So Long See You Tomorrow has got a lot of bass in it which therefore means wouldn't work without their bass player Ed Nash. However this particular video I really like because it is unique and a lot of skill is required, it is also very appealing to the eye and supports the lyrics as well as showing a little short story to the aimed 'Indie Alternative Rock' lovers. On the other hand I believe this form of animation and music video is well out of mine and the rest of the lads capabilities however we can try similar techniques that could possibly create a similar effect that this video has created to myself and possibly other Bombay Bicycle Lovers.

Introduction

In our introductory lesson of Year 13 Media Studies earlier on this month, I found out that our assignment would be to create a music video which is to be completed over the course of the year in a team of my own choice. The music video itself will be to an already published song but we as a team will aim to create a final product that supports the lyrics and overall professionalism and interest of a real music video.

The music video will be part of a promotion package for an album release, which will also contain two of the following three options:
-a website homepage for the band.
-a digipak for the album's release.
-a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

 For me and my team to complete this assignment, we will have to work and complete tasks within a group as I said so the final product can be an accurate representation of a real music video that may have already been created which will be improved via working with my team members ideas and opinions which we can tie together. My group from today consists of 4 members - Sam Shaw, myself Callum Birchall, Elliot Robson, and lastly but no means least Jack Topping. I believe that us 4 within a group will be a good combination because we all respect each other and well as having the 'banter' we wont forget the overall target and assignment and thrive until completion. Also we all have similar music tastes therefore we will be creating a video that is close to ourselves which can help us search deeper into band characteristics and meanings to create and overall great assignment. And lastly we are all very up to date with technology with knowing how to use different software's and using equipment that will be needed such as Camera's, Mac's etc. so I believe that this assignment will be really interesting and entertaining to the audience and ourselves