Lip Sync exercise.

In the continuous process of exploration of the music industry we did a Lip Sync exercise in order to learn the basics of how the music videos are created. The song chosen was 'Shape of you' by Ed Sheeran.

When we came to the studio there were three sets set up for us:

A section with neon lights behind the white cloth.

 A blue set with fireplace and a picture of Beatles.

 A green chroma key with a sofa in front.

Each section had a camera, and a neon section had a dolly as well, which allowed us to film tracking shots. We all divided into three equal groups and were swapping between the sets and between different roles - from behind the camera to in front of the camera, e.t.c. We also had a role of the floor manager and a playback person.

Floor manager was kind of a director of all three sets and the process as a whole - that person made sure people on every section were ready to film by calling: 'stand by' and then 'camera rolling' in order to make the filmmaking process more organised. When floor manager got responses from every group he gave instructions to playback person, who pressed on the play button, which showed the countdown before the song was played. All the cameras had to focus on that playback when the countdown starts (we used an iPad as a source of playback), before showing the characters on the set, as it's key in the editing process. 

Me and Ilana in front and behind the camera.

On the set we've learnt to communicate with each other, give instructions and listen to instructions and also it was the first time when we used a dolly.

After finishing filming we went up to the edit suite. 

In the edit suite things slowly started to make sense. We found out why we needed that playback - cause it helps to match the time of the song with the time of the video as it's very crucial in music videos as the actors' moving lips have to match the lyrics 100% otherwise it looks unprofessional. 

So we started editing:

1) First of all, we put all the rushers into the bin and started dragging the ones we wanted on the timeline.

2) We dragged all of the clips on the top of the soundtrack 'Shape of you', one on the top of another, in order to make it easier to edit.

3) After that we started to cut videos in the order that we liked to create a music video.

Overall, it was a very valuable experience - we learnt how to film and edit music videos professionally and in my opinion it's good we had that practice so that we wouldn't do the same mistakes on the actual thing. For example, we had an hour to edit our 30 second of music video, but we haven't finished! We really tried to  make it look good, so we've ended up spending too much time organizing it, rather than actually editing, which we wouldn't do on the actual thing - we would try to plan everything more carefully and spend our time evenly. 

Our final outcome for the Lip Sync task, which we had to finish editing outside of class:

Draft album cover.

This is the album cover I've designed for the music band Time Travellers, who are mainly preforming in the genre of Indie Rock, and their new album is called 'Space Key':

As you can see the front cover of the album doesn't give away any information about the band, it's members or the album name - it's just an abstract colourful design with a symbol at the front, which stands for 'Space Key' album name = S and K.

The back cover has a signature of the soloist and his correction in the word 'travellers', which is made to almost look handwritten due to the choice of the font. This is done to kind of 'draw a line' between the band and their label, as this little moment looks as if the soloist just saw the brand new album cover his manager did, and quickly with a Sharpe, while no one is looking, made it more personal to the brand.

I've chosen such colours in order to reflect the genre of the music the Time Travellers play - so that the audience get an instant hint it's something chilled, relaxed, so definitely not rock or rap. There are different colours on the white background, which may connote Time Travellers is a very diverse band and everyone would found something they would like in their music, just like people do in terms of colours. The font of the text and the symbol add accompany the style of the album cover. Overall, I tried to keep it relatively minimalist, because I believe it drags attention much more effectively than an album cover, which has many details on it, due to minimalist design makes you want to know more about an album, for example:

The XX, 'Coexist'

Daft Punk, 'Get Lucky'

As I've said above - the album cover makes you want to take a closer look at the album cover in order to understand the meaning and learn more about the band. In other words, it's targeted for the imaginative people, who like to interpret things in their own way - and that is why they would spot our album out on the shop shelf.

Moreover, it's specific for the Indie Rock fans, who like creative music. The album cover gives the genre away by both symbolic genre conventions (different colours with white being the dominant)
and technical genre conventions (the way the information is portrayed and laid out on the page).

Obviously the star image of the band is constructed around their music more, then around their personalities and the album cover highlights it successfully. Time Travellers produce simple, but nice songs which are catchy and that is their main aim - to make music, rather than promote and 'sell' their USPs based on their personal characteristics.

Overall, both technical and symbolic conventions help to maintain the same style of the album cover, which reflect the band's artwork and attracts customers.

Designing a draft album artwork.

As a part of the preparation process for our final piece we were told to create an album cover (only front and back) for the music band or an artist we've made up.

As I'm a huge fan of Indie Rock I've decided to create an Indie Rock band. It was relatively hard to come up with the name in the time given, but after several unsuccessful band names I've stopped at 'Time Travellers'. I like the way it sounds and the name itself reflects something magical and marvellous, relaxing and light, which fits with the overall mood of Indie Rock music.

Time Travelers 'Space Key' album cover:

The name of the album is 'Space Key'. I wanted the album name to carry on with the same mood as the name of the band and also I quite like the irony in here - when you read 'space' you instantly think about cosmos, starts, sun and all that kind of staff, but then 'key' brings you back down to the earth, making the whole phrase to completely change it's meaning so that 'space' no longer mean anything magical and beautiful. Also, 'space key' - is what you press on the keyboard if you want to watch a music video, so it's also quite meaningful in that sense.

What are music albums?

'An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape or another medium.'

In other words, music album includes multiple tracks or songs all related to a particular artist or band, for example:

                   Imagine Dragons 'Night Vision'                     Pink Floyd 'Money'

All of these things should be on the music album - artist, barcode, logo, e.t.c:

 However, there will always be some bands and artists that would go against these 'rules', for example Pink Floyd's album 'Money', the front cover of which doesn't say neither the name of the band or album, nor any other further information apart from the picture. 

Using wix.

In order to create a draft of the website we were advised to use 'wix', as it's one of the easiest platforms for creating websites. To be honest, in the video I've made you can pretty much see how I've used wix - uploading and moving pictures, adding text, trying different fonts, e.t.c.  

However, I just want to sum up:

1) I've saved pictures from the internet and uploaded them onto wix, which was relatively easy and straight forward.

2) I've easily wrote and pasted the text and could choose from lots of different fonts, to find one that would best fit the style of the website.

3) I could easily move and change the size of any photographs or text paragraphs in order to place them where I want. 

4) I've saved regularly in order not to lose my work.

5) It was easy to maintain genre conventions as the website allows you to pretty much change and create anything you like (colors, picture size, font, e.t.c)

6) It took me 30-40 min to create a website so I would say using wix is relatively easy and there is not much to learn, which makes the creation process faster and more efficient.

7) Obviously, I would spend much more time on my actual website, trying something new and creative in order to add more little details, which would make my website unique.

8) Well, eeeeer....

Analysing and comparing websites.

In order to practice for our final piece we were told to create a website for a music band. I've chosen The Lumineers as I've blogged previously - it's one of my favourite bands. I used Wix software and it took me about 30-40 minutes to create a homepage for that Indie Rock band.

Check it out: https://darinamartin.wixsite.com/mysite

So, when you click on the website link - this is the first thing you see. The picture from one of their concerts works as a background, and the band's name is in the projectors from the photograph, which kind of connotes they are popular, 'in the spot light', and also establishes they are already quite big due to you can see a lot of people on the photograph, who came to see Lumineers performing.

When you scroll down there is a short biography of main members of the group. This would help to build up a star image by informing the audience about how the group was formed and what are its members like. Richard Dyer called it one of the star image paradoxes: 'A star should be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer', just as we can see here - audience do not see Lumineers right in front of them, however they get a slight sense of knowing them personally from reading their biographies. 

If you scroll even further down you would find more information about tour dates, new album and would also be able to watch their new video: "The Ballad of Cleopatra'. This is done in order to attract the target audience of Indie Rock and let them know about the updates of The Lumineers and their artwork. 

               

Overall, the homepage is designed in a very simple style, with a few pictures, a bit of information - to not let the audience get bored - and in the nice colours like white, grey and purple (symbolic genre convention) which reflect the relaxed and emotional music the Lumineers play.

After creating a homepage myself I've looked at the official Lumineers website in order to see whether I was close enough to the truth.

This is their homepage. Well, my guess with colours was quite right - they used pinky-purple and grey as well. Moreover, they've used one picture as the whole background as well as I did in order not to distract the attention of the audience from the main parts of the homepage - new album and new music video.

The rest of the homepage is kept in the same colours and style. Other than the music video they've advertised their new album and their tour dates on their homepage.

Overall, I would say both websites have something in common, and both reflect the music genre the Lumineers play through symbolic genre conventions (colour, pictures) and technical genre conventions (how everything is organised and laid out on the page), which helps to inform and attract the target audience of Indie and Folk rock.

Creating a website for music brand.

This is the website's homepage I've created for the band The Lumineers: 

https://darinamartin.wixsite.com/mysite

 I've also made a short 1-minute video of the creation process:

What are websites and homepages?

'Website - is a collection of related web pages, including multimedia content, typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server."

In other words, website is an official online page of an organisation, which introduce some kind of content to a customer, for example toys, clothes, services or it can also be a profile of the musician or the band, created for the marketing purposes. Website contains several web-pages, which provide different functions, for example, on one page you may see an advert for the new music album and when you click on it - you are transferred onto another page, where you can buy this album on the same website, but another web-page. This is done to make the process of buying the products as easy for the customer as possible by making a website multi-functional. 

Homepage - is the first thing you see when you click on the link to the website. Arguably, it's the most important page on the website because it has to attract attention of the customer so that he doesn't leave the page before buying something. It's also very important as establishes the artist and his work through symbolic genre conventions (colors and the style of the website's homepage) - straight away giving a hint to an audience of what the artist is like and in what genre he produces his artworks.

Hollywood Undead - LA rap-rock band created in 2005.

This is a screenshot of their homepage, which contains the name of their band 'Hollywood Undead', name of their new album 'Day of the Dead' and a lot of pictures mostly in black and white colors, showing the artists and the kind of image they all share - wearing masks, hoodies and just looking creepy and dangerous. Pretty much, this is everything a homepage needs to have in order not to distract the audience from their main focus - the band and their products. Everything else also relevant to the group like their music videos, tour dates, their shop - can be included on the other pages of the website, which customers can find in the menu. For example, on the 'Hollywood Undead' website the menu is on the same line with their band name.

Instantly we get a feeling about what kind of music they produce - rock, so it's reasonable to say their homepage is doing it's best to follow the ideology of their target audience. For example, they use symbolic genre conventions by creating a website in black, white and red colors or use pictures of themselves with masks on their faces, which adheres to their 'star image, all of which helps to appeal to their target audience.

Tiago Iorc - a Brazilian singer, playing acoustic music in the pop genre.

This a screenshot from his webpage. In contrast to 'Hollywood Undead' his page is quite minimalist - we can only see his name, a menu and one black and white picture. However, this picture tells us a lot about him straight away - he plays an acoustic guitar and sings his own songs. Of course, it means that his audience are mostly fans of pop or guitar music and single-person bands. You can't really see much symbolic conventions used here, but definitely, colors, as a part of mise-en-scene tell us something about the artist. The 'Hollywood Undead' also used black and white colors, but their pictures are quite dark, where Tiago's photograph is light and he is the main focus of the picture, everything else is in smoke, which again connotes that he write songs, plays and sings himself therefore he is a single star. In other words, his main message is about individualism of his own character, which is a USP of his 'star image', compared to 'Hollywood Undead', who are more about getting hype based on their group image of young rebellious rock performers.

It's hard to say which one is more successful because you cannot compare a rock group to a single pop singer due to they have completely different messages to send across to the audience. 

However, if I HAD TO choose one - I would give my preference to 'Hollywood Undead', just because I feel like they've put more into their website - the collage they've created from their pictures works quite well as a tool to present their ideology to the audience, in my opinion.

Analysing 'Like A Prayer'

Music videos are created in order to visualize the artist for the audience - to show what he/she looks like, their personalities and image, so that people can appeal to something material rather than just voice in the song.
'Like A Prayer' - is a song by Madonna, released in 1989.The clip for this song is one of the most controversial music videos of all time because it covers sensitive topics as religion and race. To be honest, most of the Madonna's music videos are quite controversial, which creates a certain type of image for her as an artist.

During the first 15 seconds of the clip we can see a shot of a burning crucifix, which on its own is an anti-Christian sign, but also, you may argue, it is a link to KKK. KKK - is an abbreviation of Ku Klux Klan, a secret organisation, which members were pro-segregation and were lynching black people back in the 50s before the success of the Civil Rights movement. As this is a part of the mise-en-scene it is known as 'symbolic genre convention'.

When Madonna comes into the church we can see that she is wearing a rather revealing outfit - a red dress with decollete, her lips are red and the hair is not tied up. However, she is still wearing a small crucifix on her neck, and this juxtaposition, arguably, was one of the main reasons to cause such controversy in the society about this music video.

Later on, she sees a Jesus trapped in the cage. The Jesus is black. This image of the black Jesus is quite unusual and not everybody sees it as a positive thing to show in the Britain - a country of white Christians.

Madonna sees Jesus crying, he 'becomes alive', and she lies down on the bench. In her 'dream' she is in the Heaven and is greeted by the black woman. The mise-en-scene and the character positioning connotes this black woman in a God. Again, this is very controversial - portraying a God not like a white man as it usually appears on the British TV, but as a black woman.

When Madonna comes back from 'Heaven' she releases Jesus from the cave into the church. This move may be interpreted in a quite symbolic way - Madonna kind of 'got the permission' from the God to release the Jesus.

After she released him - he is coming out of the church. Madonna picks up the knife, which Jesus was holding in his hand while was in the cage. She picks it up and accidentally cuts herself. When she looks at her hands - there is a stigmata. Stigmata -  is a term used by members of the Christian faith, which describes the body marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ, such as the hands, wrists, and feet. This is an example of intertextuality - this symbolic convention (make-up) in this context refers back to the Bible and the crucifix.

In the next part we see the Madonna coming out of the church and seeing the woman getting attacked by the group of white men, which are portrayed as being criminals, violent and aggressive, which doesn't adhere to the stereotype of white men always being the heroes.

The group of white man stab the woman to death. When the black man appears and tries to help her - he is caught by the police. This is an example of racism in the police forces - the black man at the crime scene is treated like a criminal at the first glance, which is known as the racial profile.

After that Madonna is dancing in front of burning crosses, which links back to the KKK idea.

The scene where the black man is taken by the police is contrasted to the scene in the church - where Madonna is dancing with the God and other people, who came into the church.

There is also a very strange shot where the black Jesus and Madonna are kissing on the bench. This is really confusing in such religious context, to be honest))

The music video finishes with Madonna releasing the black man, who was wrongly accused for the murder, from the police office by convincing the policeman that he didn't do it. This refers back to the part when she released black Jesus from the cage in the church. 

The whole music video for 'Like A Prayer' :

By making such music videos there has been a certain image created around Madonna - people see her as rebellious, sexy freedom fighter, who can pretty much say and do whatever she wants in her songs and videos. The whole image of a 'star' is constructed for the audience for the marketing purposes, following the dominant ideology of the masses. 'Stars' are not real people, as well as such image of Madonna is not what she probably would be in the real life.

Richard Dyer in his theory claimed that stars are constructed out of range of materials like their appearance, artwork and music videos, with a great emphasis on the USP(unique selling point).

Star image = construction + commodity + ideology.

Dyer has come up with two paradoxes in his theory, which explain the success of artists like Madonna:

1) 'The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer' - for example, Madonna sings about ordinary things that are close to everyone in some way or another, however, the way she acts in her music videos may be considered as 'deviant behaviour', not normal for ordinary people, which is attractive for her target audience.
2) 'The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer' - for example, Madonna shares some interests of her audience (like she may visit some popular cafes, where her audience tend to go as well), but she also owns things and does things, which normal people cannot afford (like owing a really expensive car), which make them wanting to be 'like her' and therefore her image is 'sold' better.

Music campaign: Simple Plan.

This is a prezi presentation I did in order to analyse the marketing music campaign of the Canadian rock band called 'Simple Plan'.