Genre research

The song we have decided to create and music video for is ''Beautiful People'' by Chris Brown. We have chosen this song as we feel it fits very well with the concept we are trying to create. We want to show our audience all the different people of London and to create a happy and joyful mood throughout the video, we believe this song compliments our ideas nicely. "Beautiful People" is a song by American recording artist Chris Brown. The song was released as the third single from Brown's fourth studio album F.A.M.E. on March 11, 2011. Musically, "Beautiful People" is uptempo song which draws from the genres of Electra house, dance hall and Euro pop, and contains influences of R&B. The song's lyrics revolve around Brown encouraging "everyone on the dance floor to keep their heads up and discover the beauty inside." An accompanying music video was released on March 22, 2011, and features personal footage of Brown's everyday life which we thought was important as in our music video we are trying to portray everyday life and people in London.

From my research into pop and hip-hop music videos, I have found that they are very bright and upbeat, appealing to a teenage audience, often including dancing and parties. Usually, the emotions throughout the video are upbeat, excitable and happy. Sophie and I fell in love with this song and genre as we like the fast paced dance rhythm, and felt we could do a lot with it.
One particular music video that gave us a lot of inspiration was ''Louder'' by DJ Fresh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE-dwpWpscU as the song was extremely upbeat and the video is normal people roller-skating, skateboarding and dancing. We really want to show the performing side of London in our video and this example has really helped us understand camera angles and shots that we should include within our music video.

Music Conventions in Hip Hop videos

• Locations tends to be a party, club fancy location
• Use of alcohol
• Recognised brands and clothing
• Expensive cars and houses
• Camera shots tend to long and establishing to show the money involved. Close ups to show the jewellery and assets of the artists.
• Attractive women
• Does not follow a storyline, only follows the genre
• Artist(s) tend to be involved

Examples:

• 50 Cent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qm8PH4xAss
• T.I.       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK082mbeBZ0
• T-Pain   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui86peQZ74s

Music Conventions in Pop videos

• Bright and colourful
• Close ups to show the cheerful and upbeat emotions
• Extreme close ups – these tend to show the purity and innocence in the personality of the artists
• Aims at the teenage audience
• Very upbeat

Examples:

• Beyonce         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY
• Madonna        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWTDR6ztcnQ
• Alesha Dixon   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-503QA6F08g

Music conventions in Indie/Rock:

• Tends to be black and white
• The artist/band is shown throughout the video
• Use of extreme close ups and long shots are popular
• Dark locations
• Fast paced
• Some use of special effects

Examples:

• Arctic Monkeys   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30w8DyEJ__0
• Kings of Leon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iun3RtbCE6A

The conventions of a CD cover and a magazine advertisement for the DigiPak

I have researched the main conventions of a CD cover as this is a part of our A2 coursework, to design a cover for our chosen song and music video. The CD cover is an extremely important part of marketing and selling the CD to the targeted audience, and depending on how good the cover looks, can determine whether this CD will sell successfully or not. As well as grabbing the audiences attention, CD covers are also there for informing the audience about who the artist/band is, what the song/album is called, how much it costs etc.

I believe the following points are the main conventions of the front of a CD cover:

• a simplistic colour scheme, but should stand out on the shelf
• a simplistic overall design
• a picture of the band/artist or something that relates to them/the songs
• the band/artist name clearly stands out from the cover- bold? different colour?
• hidden meanings within the cover
• a title or stand-first that explains to the audience what the song/album may be about
• a unique selling point- a picture? the design? abstract?

I believe the following points are the main conventions of the back of a CD cover:

• the name of the band/artist at the very top
• the name of the song/album underneath the artist name
• a list of the song titles, usually centred 
• a bar code in the bottom right hand corner
• the name of the record company
• the copyright and the year
• a name of who owns the copyrighted material
• who the album has been distributed by
• a different picture from the front cover of the band/artist 

To make a professional and sell able CD cover, I feel it is very important to follow these main conventions as the audience should then recognise it as a CD cover, it should stand out on the shelf, it should give the right amount of information to the audience and most importantly, it should sell.

I have also researched the main conventions of a magazine advertisement for the CD. I feel an advertisement is another extremely important factor in marketing and selling the media product successfully. As well as the CD cover, the advertisement can determine whether the product will sell to the audience and the album/CD will be successful overall.


I believe these following points are the conventions of a magazine advertisement for a DigiPak:

• release date
• place of purchase
• an image of either the CD cover, the band/artist, the actual CD or a prominent symbol/logo
• artist/band's name
• record label
• various reviews of album
• genre of the band reflected in the adverts fonts, colours, text and images
• information about what is included in the DigiPak
• tour and/or event information
• persuasive text and eye catching images

It will be vital to follow these main DigiPak advertisement conventions when creating a magazine article for the CD, as they should lead to a successful advertising and marketing campaign which will help to target and inform specific audiences about the CD and therefore to hopefully sell the CD successfully. 

The conventions of a music video

Conventions are the way something is usually done and are used in music videos and film, as it allows the audience to become familiar with a certain genre and they will subconsciously be accustomed to seeing certain things. When producing a music video, it is extremely important to research these conventions and try to follow the main conventions so the audience know exactly what you have produced and will be able to recognise it as a music video, not a short film for example.

Camera Shots:

Music videos tend to include many long shots, close ups and mid shots. This is to create emphasis on the artist, location and emotions. Also, close ups are used not only to show emotions but to reflect the words of the song with the movement of the lips of the artist.

Camera Movement:

The movement of the camera is used to follow and trace the artist or band. Camera movements include tilts, pans, tracking and crane shots.

Mise-en-scene:

This refers to the arrangement of performers and props on stage or in a scene for a production of a music video or any other media text. Mise-en-scene puts importance on the representation of something. An example is, ‘Mad’ by Neyo. The mise-en scene involves him walking down a road alone, being in an isolated room. This reflects the isolation from his lover. Also, the props include hats and dark clothes which represent the down mood of the song. Similarly, the lighting is kept very dark as it is black and white; this connotes the angry and depressed mood. This is just one example to give an idea of how mise-en-scene works.

Neyo- Mad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAYuOc7_TKg&feature=fvst  

Editing:

Jump cuts is the predominant editing technique used in music videos. This is because this allows a sudden change from one scene to another. Similarly, transitions such as fade and dissolve are very common in music videos as they create a different effect to cuts.

Lighting:

Some music videos are black and white which help emphasise a particular mood and some videos have artificial lighting which put the artist/s in an enhanced look. 

Sound:

Sound is mainly the vocals or the song but in some cases such as Michael Jackson – Thriller, the producers can make the music video into a short film.

Michael Jackson- Thriller:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA&ob=av3n

Props:

These are a vital in aiding to add to the scene and create significance on particular objects or people.

Costume:

This goes with the scenes in the song and reflects the genre. Costume is an important factor because it can have a slight influence on how the viewers will dress, because they use some of the celebrities as role models

Colour:

Colours tend to set the mood of the song through creating an atmosphere. For example, dark colours are used more in rock songs such as Kings of Leon and bright colours are seen to be used more in hip hop and pop videos, such as Katy Perry.

Kings of Leon- Sex on Fire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF0HhrwIwp0&ob=av2n

Katy Perry- California Gurls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F57P9C4SAW4&ob=av2e

How our AS coursework has helped

Our AS coursework required us to create a 2 minute opening to a film of a genre of our choice. After a huge amount of research into film opening conventions and watching many different genres of film, we decided to do the genre gangster, as we believed this would be interesting and attention grabbing, whilst having a unique selling point.

I have learnt a huge amount from the production of our AS media film opening, such as the importance of the large amount of research that must be done pre-production. Without this research, I feel it would not have been possible to create a gangster film opening that fitted the standard conventions and we would have lost a lot of marks. I also learnt how vital organisation and planning is for the filming process, which we learnt a few weeks before the final deadline! For various reasons, we fell way behind our brief schedule, which did not give us the same opportunity to edit and tweak our film in great detail.

Overall, I think our lack of organisation and not sticking to a planned schedule gave us a huge disadvantage and lost us many marks in the end. On a positive note, we really got to grips with how to use a camera and how to use the editing program (which we were clueless about before!!) which was extremely interesting and fun when we finally made progress in editing our film to music, and eventually finishing! I have learnt a huge amount, and will be definitely be taking our mistakes from AS and turn them into positives for our A2 coursework.

The Introduction

My name is Dana Millard and I attend Parkstone Grammar School, currently completing my final year of A-levels, doing Media, Theatre and English Language. For our A2 coursework, Sophie and I decided to do a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with a cover for its release as part of a DigiPak and a magazine advertisement for the DigiPak. My group consists of just myself and Sophie Goode, who I believe is extremely co-operative and hardworking. Meaning we will work well as a team as well as having a passion for music and film, which will help us throw different ideas together, to make a successful production.

To begin our filming process, we must research many different music videos, throughout different periods of time, such as, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is considered the first music video and in the 1960s: The Beatles made a cartoon video, 1970s: Top of the Pops was aired and 1980s: saw the release of MTV which showed various music videos and had a profound impact on the music industry.

During our research the different conventions we should be analysing are – camera angles, sound (digetic and non digetic), mise en scene, and editing. By examining these genres we will be able to determine which we wish to base our music video on.