Idea 1

'Down South' by Jeremy Loops:



This idea is based more on a story line and the person singing would be a tall, brunette male with an indie, hip edge to him. He would be in a band of 4 performing to the camera with a drummer, guitarist, base player and the singer. The band have quite a fun side to them and are quite colourful, cheerful and have a lot of personality.

The story line I have in mind is a guy is filmed waking up, getting dressed and followed on his journey as he makes his way to see this band he loves and is basically obsessed with. He is more of a run down, less privileged character who always dreams of being a part of this band. I think it would be cool to get all types of different shots throughout the journey and use interesting shots to express this for example driving his car etc. When he is getting ready I am thinking many shots of very normal everyday necessities like brushing teeth, eating breakfast etc.

When he reaches the band playing it is almost as if there is a glass screen between them as he is standing outside of their world to demonstrate how fame puts you into a whole other world ordinary people can only dream of. He just stands on the side watching as the play and puts his hand up as if there was a glass door separating him from them. Then suddenly he finds him self singing in the band as a part of his dream and it keeps going between reality and his dream. I think this may be quite difficult to capture but could work well if done correctly and thought through. By there being the gap between them, the audience will really be able to capture the contrast between the bubbly band with everything and the lonely, poor man with nothing. It would make a real statement.

Campaign

This band would be fun as mentioned previously and would appeal to boys and girls in their teens and even adults. They would have a chilled vibe about them and a summer sort of feel about them. They are cheerful, vibrant and an attractive bunch with big ambitions; they would only be in their 20s.

This website here would be how I would aim to create my artists website as it's playful, fun and interesting. In fact the band 'Al Bairre' are really well suited for what I am going with with this band as they have the kind of look I am going for. I think if artists have an edge to them they become more well known purely due to how different they are from artists these days- they stand out. The band would attract all ages but mainly the younger generation as they are pretty inspiring. They would just simply be themselves and not too worried about what anyone else thought.

Idea 2

'When Will I See You Again' by Shakka:

For this music video something to do with colour would be cool. I would use a male artist of course and perhaps a good looking, mixed- race person who would add attractiveness to pull the female fans in. I am imaging a lot of colour projected onto a white back drop and the artist singing in the centre. I watched the music video for 'This Is What You Came For' and I really liked the idea the video has gone with. It is very similar to the kind of idea I would like to try as it is engaging, exciting and pretty to watch.

I really am interested in the idea of the artist staying roughly in the centre and the lighting doing all the work. Plus, I like how Rihanna literally is wearing a black jumper just so that she doesn't take too much attention away from the action going on behind her.

On top of this, it would be cool to have different colour powders to be thrown onto the artist as the lights stop. It could almost be a silent moment and then suddenly allow this powder is thrown in the shot in slow motion making the video extremely colourful and pleasant to watch.



I wouldn't want to add to much onto the set props wise so that it doesn't become overwhelming and messy to watch. I would rather have more of a simple set to make the colourful elements even more effective. Moreover, I would want the artist to be someone who is willing to go for it and give it all they have so that the video doesn't look pathetic or weak- the artist has to be extremely outgoing in the video as there aren't many things going on props wise other then the lighting side of things.

Campaign

The artist would be similar to MNEK's kind of style and the website would look similar to this. He would appeal to the teenage young girls who fall in love easily with male singers and love the indie hype. However, his music would also appeal to 18-24 year olds as it is pretty hip and cool. As you can see MNEK is quite alternative and playful and that's how I would imagine this artist to be. All the work of the artist will be along the 'colourful' kind of them, hence the music video idea. 

The actual look of the artist will be similar to Chris Brown however very chilled out and cool like MNEK.

Idea 3

'Nightcore' by TRNDSTTR:

              

Music Video

I would chose to use a female artist as the main focus in the music video  having quite a dark persona and would be a girl. I would chose a girl with long black hair who is around about a teenager. The video would be very much about opposites and a completely synthetic style. I would like to incorporate lots of neon lighting which will contrast with the dark clothing and ora of the girl. The beginning of the song is much slower then the middle section and for this reason i would like the music video to begin to become choppy and fast paced when the faster beat kicks in. There will be lots of different shots from different angles which will add a sense of disorientation to the music video.

               

Demi Lovato's 'Neon Lights' music video has the same kind of look I am going for as it has all the different colours and interesting makeup ideas in it. I want to aim to use as little people as possible for the video as I believe less is more in this case and too many people will just look messy as there will be so many things going on in terms of lighting, movement and shot composition.

For this idea I think it would be really fitting to have these kind of shots as the music is very 'basey' and there are a lot of different cool distortions on the sounds used. I would like the video from shot to shot quite rapidly however not too much at the start as it only starts to speed up at 1:14 properly.


The neon makeup idea would work really well and would blend in nicely with the idea of neon lights around. As you have probably guessed there will be no narrative to the video so the lighting arrangements will be pretty free in terms of structure. I want the whole vibe of the video to be clean and neat however with crazy lights so will be quite difficult to maintain that slick vibe but can hopefully happen. I just don't want it to be tacky and cheap because it is quite easy to become like that with all the lights.

Campaign

Tailor is a South African artist who fits the kind of look I would like the artist to be however my artist is far more synthetic then Tailor as she is quite an organic artist. Also the cover of her alum 'The Dark Horse' would be something similar to what I would like to go for as it is slick, precise and to the point. I could possibly add some subtle lighting effects behind the name of the artist to demonstrate the synthetic nature and to jazz it up just a tiny bit as the artist is slightly edgy, not just plain and boring.

I researched into different electronic artists and found that 'Nero' have a really cool website design which would be perfect for my artist. My artist will appeal to people into more electro music so perhaps people in between their teens and maybe even up to their 20s. I suppose this kind of music is quite alternative and have more of a niche audience. The artist would be quite a dark, indie character with an edge to her.

Research into the Pop world

POP MUSIC GENRE

• genre = style, context, form of production
• different sites of institutional support
• mash-ups
• characteristics in each genre

GENRE AND ARTIST IMAGE

• key paradigm for genre
• categorises the artist, social media
• can associate with role models

GENRE AND SALES

• customers normally stick to a specific kind of genre and don't branch out
• rely on genre for buying choices
• past genre choices for new music interests

STUDYING POP 

• the dead are still popular
• star power persists
• many artists die young
• can sometimes loose its value over time
• transcend context, music evolves
• originality and creativity burn out
• time becomes the enemy 

STAR THEORY

• personal tragedies become codes within songs
• a death = publicity 
• MJ sold more music when he died then ever before

DYER’S STAR THEORY WITH POP STARS

• pop stars can be quickly promoted (status) by their managers
• social media, famous family, magazines etc
• true pop stars last

STARS AS CONSTRUCTIONS 

• Artificial images
• Dyer proposes that star image is constructed out of a range of materials
• not automatic or understood

INDUSTRY AND AUDIENCE

• stars are manufactured to make money
• photocopied artists for the audiences
• artists are the product of their record label and they must be sold

Dyer says:

• stars are commodities
• all based around the fans
• lots of fresh artists (the ‘conveyor belt’) or one long lasting artist

IDEOLOGY & CULTURE

• stars initiate fashion trends which fans copy
• social media!!!
• enhances their ‘star quality’
• star scrutiny
• focal point for our cultural thinking

CHARACTERISTIC & PERSONALITY

• star transformation turns a ‘real’ human into a construct
• provides fans with expectations, conforming or not

Dyer says:

• stars strive for immediate success in first album
• establish characters through performance and songs
• person bases understanding of stars persona on sentiments expressed by their songs
• personal and intimate, songs listened to thousands of times
• 2nd albums are created to carry on this personality 
• bouncing off audience reactions

Lip Sync Practice

As a task, we had to create our own mini lip syncing videos. We were given just a snippet of the song 'All about that bass' by Meghan Trainor and we filmed on a couple of sets in the studio - one with a couch and a green screen in the background, a fireplace, a wall with light beams etc (you'll see them in the video). During the lesson I took the role of a director, camera lady, artist and the person who is in charge of playback. I enjoyed the tasks as they allowed me to see what I enjoyed most, didn't enjoy, felt I was better at etc. Personally I enjoyed doing the playback as I could stand back and see what was happening during the time of the shots. However, it did get a little tedious after a while. Directing was fun as I could put my ideas in front of me and I could see what worked and what didn't. Being the artist was definitely the funniest part as I enjoyed my self loads just taking the mick and miming to the worst song ever.

When we had completed all the shooting we needed, to obviously edit the shots together and make a mini music video. I edited by my self as I preferred it that way and got the whole thing done pretty quickly. I found that because Ben and myself had already used the music video technique in our thriller for A1 I knew how to do the whole process pretty easily and swiftly; I familiar with how to do the syncing etc. I simply lined all the playback beats up with each other in each shot and then picked and chose the ones I wanted in the order I wanted. There wasn't any problems and I labelled each shot in specific colours so I could read them easily. I just deleted all the ones that were no good for me.

Here is the final product of the task: