R+P Post 20: My Music Video Timeline

To aid us in making the video we created a timeline. We broke the track down into small timed sections and worked out what would happen in each sections and roughly which shots would be used in each sections. The timeline is split up into the timings where there were changes in the music that we had found in our analysis of the track. By having this, we could decide exactly where the scene would change and how much we could include in each part. We used post-it notes to put down our ideas onto the timeline in case we changed our minds about something.

The timeline will be useful when it comes to the shootboard and editing, since we can refer to it to have a rough guide on where shots will go.

R+P Post 19: My Influences and vision for the project

Steal-O-Matic



This is a visual pitch for our music video idea. It shows off the different ideas our group has had using different sources, mainly from other music videos. In it, we show that we would like to focus on the use of special effects and post production in our video to create a kind of dream like world like the one that is shown right at the start. It also presents the fact that we want to have a mixture of performance, narrative and concept. There are also some other ideas which we showcase in our steal-o-matic that we would like to use in our video, such as setups with our performers and also the ways in which we want to transition between shots.

We would like to use transitions similar to the ones used in Jake Miller's Rumors, with the scene sliding to one side to reveal the next one. This would be to make it seem like the different scenes are all connected in one big world.
There is a part in Kygo's Stole The Show in which there is a DJ shown performing, this justified us putting in a DJ in our video.




We were also quite influenced by the music video for Intoxicated. This is because it uses mainly simple backgrounds ,with different scenarios happening in each scene. These scenes each stood out as different to each other, through the use of the colouring on the background as well as the actors and props present. This was especially important to us, as it was something that we could also achieve in the studio.

R+P Post 18: Analysis of my tack's lyrics and instrumentation

The lyrics are as follows:
"
Gonna break it, break it, break it, break it down for you, once more
When the sun goes down
And your eyes cannot see
When the sun goes down
And your hands cannot reach
When your bones feel like breaking
And your heart cannot take another run
I'll be there when the sun goes down

All that I want
Is just to be crazy when the sun goes down
And all that I need
Is for you to be my baby when the sun goes down

When the sun goes down
We'll be dancing in the dark
When the sun goes down
To the beating of your heart
As the Earth moves in orbit I will always be the one
Who stands my ground
I'll be there when the sun goes down

All that I want
Is just to be crazy when the sun goes down
And all that I need
Is for you to be my baby when the sun goes down
All that I want Is just to be crazy when the sun goes down

And all that I need Is for you to be my baby when the sun goes down
When the sun goes down
When the sun goes down
When the sun goes down I see you around
"

Analysing the track in this way has helped us visualise exactly what we are going to include in our video. It also helped us split the video itself up into smaller sections, making it easier for us to decide what content will go in which part of the video.

R+P Post 17: My Chosen Track

Sun Goes Down" is a song by French producer David Guetta and Showtek, featuring vocals from Canadian reggae fusion band MAGIC! and Sonny Wilson. It was released as the fifth official single from Guetta's sixth studio album, Listen (2014).

Pros

• Good build-ups, which we can use for performance (dancing)
• No official music video when we decided to use it, meaning it our ideas will not influenced by it
• Can use the idea of the sun going down in our music video
• Easy lyrics to remember

Cons

• Long periods without vocals, meaning it might be hard to fit in a lot of shots of the singer
• No clearly defined instruments, which means we can't have others performing, however we could circumvent this problem by using a DJ.
• Warner Music Group, who are notorious for taking down videos on YouTube for including copyrighted songs, own Parlophone, who have the copyright for the song; this could mean that we might not get permission to use the song, or that our video may get taken down if we upload it to YouTube.

I wrote an email to the record labels associated with the song, What A Music and Parlophone. I had to send this message to both of them through Facebook, as neither had an official email. We have yet to receive a response.

The email I wrote

R+P Post 16: My Band or Artist

The song features four people, but we decided we only wanted to have two artists in our video. So, our group had a choice in what the artist would be like, he could either be a DJ or a singer. In the end we decided our artist would be a singer with a background in producing his own music. We thought that this was the best choice as it would be easier to market a singer, as opposed to a DJ who would be more focused on the song rather than his image.

We surveyed people if they liked the name

We chose to call our artist Orlando to follow the naming conventions of EDM artists, several artists use just one word as their name, such as Diplo, Zedd, Avicii and Madeon. Some artists use a full name such as Porter Robinson or Steve Aoki, however we thought that if we used one word it would have more of an impact.

To make Orlando appeal to the target audience, we thought we would have him have a similar personality to his fans; he will be an upbeat, energetic performer, but will also be laid back. For his costume, we want him to follow other artists' fashions, this typically includes plain looking clothing. We may use an accessory to make him more recognisable to people, such as sunglasses.

Survey asking if our artist fits the genre 

R+P Post 15: My Record Label

The record label logo

Our group decided to use the name Detrimenetal for our record label for a number of reasons. First of all we thought that it would be a memorable and original name. Secondly, we thought it reflected the genre quite well, as traditionally EDM and House music was underground, with its own subculture surrounding it - it was only recently that it has gained mainstream popularity.
We used the word records as we found that many record labels had the word in the name; examples include Spinnin' Records, ESA records, Columbia Records and Boysnoize Records.

R+P Post 14: My Target Audience

The genre is more focused on a younger generation of people, of about 14-25. It is the older end of this group that are more likely to attend events (18-25), but the younger fans of EDM will still listen to the music online using services like soundcloud and spotify as well as YouTube.

EDM fans are hyper-active in their social media usage, we will use this to our advantage and make accounts on several different social media services to provide the audience ways to interact. Twitter seemed to be the most popular of social media platform, with 90% of posts about EDM on it; because of this we should try to focus our social media presence on it. Furthermore, EDM fans talk more about concerts and events than other music fans, which means we should try to make any information about public events very prominent.

In comparison to fans of other genres of music, EDM fans show less interest in specific artists and instead like EDM as a whole. Instead of fans focusing on their favourite artists, EDM is more centred around the EDM lifestyle.

Festivals and raves featuring huge crowds are very widespread in EDM. These festivals are a big part of EDM culture. There are also some negative stereotypes associated with this, such as the assumption that attendees of these events usually partake in illegal drugs or are out of control.

Our secondary audience would be clubbers and people who attend festivals and/or similar events, since EDM is popular at these places.

Our tertiary audience would be anyone who is interested in the artists featured on our songs; although we have yet to decide the list of songs on the album, we will be sure to include several featured artists, to attract their fanbase.

R&P Post 13: Influences and inspiration from art, fashion and culture

We drew inspiration from a range of sources for our ideas. Many of these ideas came from watching other music videos, however we did also look at art, fashion and culture when thinking of our plans.

Festival Culture:

A picture from the Tomorrowland festival

Festival culture is something that heavily influenced our ideas for the project. This was because there is a huge culture around EDM music and the two are intrinsically linked. The majority of these festivals take place in the summer, which we hope to encapsulate in our video - the theme of the sun is prevalent in the song, and we wish to reflect this by using a setting that shows off a relaxed, tropical tone. The fashion of the festival goers is also something we want to portray in our music video, and as such we will make sure that the characters in the video seem as though they belong in a festival setting.

A scene taken from the film.

Sin City:
This film used greenscreens which allowed for backgrounds to be digitally added in, I think this gave the film an interesting aesthetic, something that we can try to achieve in our own project, however I think it would be better if we were to use a more bright and colourful colour scheme, since it would fit in more with the genre.

R&P Post 12: Artists/bands that have influenced my ideas

Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris is a DJ who is well known in the EDM genre. He has a relaxed personality and a plain wardrobe, something I think would work well with our own artist.

Sonny Wilson

Sonny Wilson
Sonny Wilson is a singer-songwriter, and is the vocalist for the song Booyah, which has similar vocals to our song and is the same genre. He is still fairly early on in his career, but has achieved quite a lot of success,

R&P Post 11: Artist websites that have inspired and influenced my ideas

Daughter (www.ohdaughter.com)

The homepage, with links to other pages on the website

This was the first website  researched, before we were certain about the genre of the song we were going to use. I thought that this would be a good website to look at since it belonged to a fairly small band and it was also new.

The website includes a news feed, a store, a list of upcoming live appearances, a list of all their releases, a page for music videos, contact information for bookings, licensing, labels and press. In addition to this they also have links to social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, YouTube and Bandcamp. These all help the audience to find out more about the band and invest in it if they wish, the social media links also help to spread awareness and allow people to stay updated on what the band is doing.

I think the website is designed well for the target audience; the wide range of social media links would appeal more to younger people. There is also a mixture of interactive things, such as music videos, and merchandise available for purchase. The website is also fairly new (made 23/9/2015), so the 'Coming Soon' page could encourage people to regularly check the page for further updates.

The news feed

The pictures used on the homepage promote the members of the band. The news feed ties into their different social media accounts and provides the audience with updates on the band, be it photos of related things or news about their music/tours. The live page offers information about upcoming tours and has links to purchase tickets for these. The releases page has all of their previous releases listed and gives the option to buy them in vinyl, cd, and mp3 or to stream it on Spotify. The video page has a list of different music videos, and can lead the viewer to the band's YouTube channel if they want, letting them see more of what they have available there.

The website does not have that many opportunities to purchase things, but that could be either because the band isn't that popular or because the website is only a week old and they will add more stuff to buy in future. On the store page you can buy the MP3 of the "His Young Heart" EP, a "Wild Youth Logo" tote bag, or pre-order for their next album, which comes out in Jan 2016. The releases page also gives the option to buy releases in vinyl, cd or mp3 from external websites. There are also tour tickets available for purchase.

 Apart from the band/artist, concert tickets are being sold, and there is also contact information for institutions behind the band.



I then chose to research some websites from artists of similar genres from the one we were planning to use (House).

Glowinthedark (www.djsglowinthedark.com)

Front page has news feed available straight away, with a links bar along the top. If you scroll down there is a "Follow us" section, where facebook, twitter, YouTube, Last.fm, Pandora, Soundcloud, Email and instagram following links are. There is also a small section with images from the instagram feed.



An interesting part of this website was the inclusion of a bio section, which detailed the artists' background. This presented their careers as a sort of journey, which let the audience know how much effort they had put into their work.







Afrojack (afrojack.com)

The front page has their new music video as first thing you see, immediately giving the audience something to do as they first access the website. There are social media links along the top (stand outs include spotify, soundcloud, beatport, itunes). There is a bar along the bottom with links to different parts of the website, however it's all on one page, you just scroll up and down to navigate between them.
Special "Limited Edition: Afrojack Sunglasses" available to purchase, advertised on website, perhaps a gimmicky product like this would be useful to spread awareness for our own artist, however it's possible that artists are only able to sell things like this once they have a large audience and a well established brand to market the product with.
He also promotes his weekly podcast "Jacked Radio", which is hosted on Spotify, on the website.

R&P post 10: Album covers that have inspired and influenced my ideas

I found in my research that all house albums usually follow these conventions:

• A simplistic colour scheme
• A simplistic design
• If there is a person on the cover, it is usually just one, the artist
• Bold, simple fonts for the band name
• Similar or entirely different font for the album title

I made this prezi to highlight some of the research I did:


These albums followed the conventions, however there seems to be some variety in the inside of the albums. 2Future4U and Knife Party had a list of shoutouts/thank yous, however I Created Disco simply had the title repeated several times.

R&P Post 9: Music videos that have inspired and influenced my ideas

Tuxedo - Do It (Official Video)

• 0:18 Intertextual reference(?) Tuxedo "Do it" dance audition parking (postmodern?)
• Character progression - 0:27 it looks like his co worker was annoyed with him for not working hard enough. By the end of the video at 2:40 he becomes the centre of attention, with people gathering around him and imitating his dance style. There's also the progression of him doing simple, silly dance moves at 0:45 and 0:55 to him doing a full dance sequence at 2:00, perhaps him taking off his work shirt at 1:15 and letting down his hair adds to this as it connotes that he's going to let loose and focus more on his dancing.

At 2:40, everyone loves him and is dancing with him

• This character progression is also emphasised by the use of contrast throughout the video such as the switch between shots where he's doing his own moves and the professional dancers are practicing, the dancers look much more organised and more energetic compared to the confined movements he does while in the car.

All in all, I think despite having analysed it before deciding on the genre of our video, this music video is a good reference point for our own ideas as it has made me think about the various different ways in which we can present progression within a narrative. I think we will mostly be using contrasts in our video, but perhaps more drawn out with less quick cuts between different scenes.

R&P Post 8: Possible tracks for the single

During our group meetings we decided to choose a song to use in our music video. Unfortunately I did not have as much knowledge on the EDM genre as Eddie and Mario, so was unable to come up with a suggestion, however I still contributed to the discussion of the tracks.

David Guetta & Showtek - Sun Goes Down

Mario suggested this song as he felt as though we could possibly do something in our music video based on the build ups. The song had lyrics in it as well, which meant that we would be able to include performance shots, which I felt would be very important for our video in establishing an artist which we could sell. Finally, one of us suggested that we could have the setting of the music video change to reflect the lyrics of the sun going down - this would have been a good opportunity to use the idea that Eddie and Mario had come up with during the prelim of using UV paint in the video, this could be done during a 'night time' scene.


Felix Jaehn - Ain't Nobody (Loves Me Better)


Eddie suggested this song, which we liked as it had lyrics that would have been easy to portray in a narrative music video. Despite this we decided not to use it, since it would require having a female vocalist; this would have been troublesome as we would have had to work around their schedule, and would probably have to teach them how to lip-synch, as they would not have had the training we received during the prelim.

R&P Post 7: Record labels of interest

Spinnin' Records

Spinnin' Records is a European independent record label, founded in 1999. Besides their main imprint, Spinnin' Records hosts about forty sub-labels, which all mainly focus on progressive house, electro house and big room house.

Astralwerks

American based label, founded in 1993. Originally parented by EMI until 2012, and from then on Universal Music Group, as EMI was purchased by them. Focused electronic and dance music.





Big Beats

Founded in 1987 as an indie label, it was bought by Atlantic Records in 1992. Originally focused on house music, but then grew to also include hip hop as well. Recently relaunched as  a dance focused imprint in 2010.

R&P Post 6: Current trends in popular music

In Europe: EDM has had a very wide spread throughout Europe in recent years. Dubstep and Drumstep started to break into the mainstream by 2010. This was particularly true in Britain, where it evolved from Grime, a genre that moved into the mainstream in 2009. Eurodance music, which has been popular in Europe for about 20 years, has broken into the mainstream outside of Europe, primarily in North America. There has also been a development in the subgenres of house music, there has been the creation of Future house and Tropical house, with European artists being influential figures within both. There are a number of popular European DJs in the past 5 years, which include; Kygo, Calvin Harris, Martin Garrix, Nicky Romero, Avicii, Tiesto, Afrojack, and David Guetta.

In the UK, Dance (EDM) was the third most popular genre, behind Pop and Rock, which have always been extremely popular in the UK. EDM. Four out of the ten highest rated songs in the UK top 40 were in the EDM genre.

YouTube and SoundCloud helped fuel interest in EDM and the current mainstream success of EDM made it increasingly attractive to investors. In the early 2010s, a type of electro-house known as "big room" began to develop, particularly gaining popularity through electronic dance music-oriented events and festivals such as Tomorrowland.

R&P Post 5: The kind of video I would like to make

I want to make a video that is visually appealing to people, but not too difficult to create. One way in which we could do this is through the use of different coloured backgrounds; this should be easy enough to do with the studio we have, as we would just have to light the infinite white background in the correct colour. I also don't want there to be a huge focus on performance or narrative, and instead want a mixture of the two.


Radiohead - Just
This video had a good mixture of narrative and performance, and the two connect to each other at the end when the band look at what has happened. I think this was a very interesting way of telling a story through a music video.

R&P Post 4: Audience groups of interest

Fans of EDM and festival goers were our primary audience. There was not a gender division in the target audience, as the genre does not particularly appeal to one gender more than the other. The age of our target audience was 14-25, although the people at the younger end of our target audience would not be attending festivals, it is still possible they would be fans of the genre and could listen to the music by other means, such as online.

R&P Post 3: Music genres that interest me

I have a very varied taste in music, and I like songs from many different genres, though I generally tend to avoid genres such as heavy metal and hard rock.


Jazz

One of the genres I particularly like is Jazz, and the sub-genres that fall under it, particularly funk and acid jazz. Acid jazz uses elements of jazz, funk and hip-hop, and  the style of the genre is often characterised by long, repetitive compositions. Typical ensembles include horns, a full rhythm section, a vocalist that may sing and rap and often a DJ. I researched some music videos in the genre, and found two examples; "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroquai and Cantaloop by Us3.


Both of these music videos featured a singer/rapper, and revolved mostly around performance, with Cantaloop including performance shot for instrument players. Virtual Insanity seemed to be more of a unique idea, with the performer dancing on moving walkways with the scene and furniture changing. Obviously that would be very hard to recreate, but performance would probably be easy to do in our music video.

Hip Hop

Jay Z

Another genre I'm fond of is Hip Hop, I first became interested in the genre after listening to albums by Nujabes, who focused on a lot of instrumental hip hop and also mixed hip hop, rap and jazz  samples. I then went on to develop an interest in older hip hop artists, such as J Dilla and A Tribe Called Quest, and also rappers such as Dr Dre and Eazy-E. More recently I have become in current hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and MF Doom. Music videos in the genre usually seem to glorify urban neighbourhoods and the subculture of hip hop musicians, but there has also been a commercialisation of the genre and this had led to genre changing somewhat, with artists such as Kanye West and Jay Z portraying themselves as an elite and focusing on materialism.


House
I first got into house music after a recommendation from a friend, who was very into the music. I listened to music by artists such as Aphex Twin, David Guetta and Phuture (below is a House song I particularly like); I found that I tended to prefer Deep House, perhaps because it contained elements of jazz and funk. I think this genre could be useful for a music video, as since there is not usually a focus on lyrics, the video itself could be more conceptual than with other genres.

R&P Post 2: Myself as a music consumer

I usually listen to music whenever I have nothing else to do, or as background noise, in this sense I use it as a distraction to help pass the time, but I also listen to it to enjoy it or relax as well.

These are three songs from throughout my life:

Childhood:
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood



I remember listening to this song on TV as a child and finding it very entertaining (perhaps because of the animated music video?). I would later go on to become a fan of the band, and I remember my dad buying me some of their albums, it was pretty much the only band I followed as a kid.


Early Teens:
Nujabes - Feather




This song is important to me because it was the song that introduced me to hip hop, albeit a very chill version of it. I remember hearing it in the background of some YouTube and thinking it was very relaxing; so that prompted me to look into the artists that made it, which led to me listening to those albums and gaining an appreciation for the genre.


Today:
Jaberloop - Area51

This song is significant to me because I found it through a friend, and I listen to it every once in a while (whenever it shows up in my music playlist). I find the song very upbeat and energetic, and it is nice listening to in the background while doing something else. Although I don't talk much with the friend who shared the song with me anymore, the song reminds me of the good times we had, and how sharing music with each other was a part of the friendship we had.

R&P Post 1: My A2 group

During the A2 project, I will be working with Eddie and Mario.

My group, from left to right: Eddie, Myself and Mario

I think I we all have a mixture of different technical and creative skills that will work well together; for example Eddie has a high amount of expertise using editing software and cameras and Mario is very creative. I think I will be able to help a lot with the organisational aspects of the shoot, deciding shots and making sure everything goes smoothly.

To work efficiently as a group, we organised meetings throughout the week so that we could meet and work on the project together. These meetings are at a set time during the week, where we work on whatever needs doing at the time. If one of us were to miss a meeting, they would have to put in some work individually, to make up for the time lost. However, that isn't to say that we won't put in individual work, we plan to put in as many free periods as we can into our work, and in this regard it is very useful that Mario and I share the same free periods, so we can work together.
We also decided to set up Facebook and WhatsApp groups so we can quickly convey our ideas to each other at any time. This will mean that we can continue to share ideas during the week.