planning artist image

In this blog I will be discussing why a artists image is important within a music video and how we are going to represent our artist in our music video.
The way that we want our artist "Beth"to be represented and shown to our target audience is as a innocent girl in what seems to be a normal and steady relationship with "George"who is the artists boyfriend for the majority of the music video.

Costumes: In our music video we had 3 major costumes that we had our main artist and they were used to show the transformation of the artist as her relationship ends and new one begins.
The first costume we used was to show our audience that our artist was not of norm and dressed different to those in dance music videos. this follows the convention of indie pop as she is dressed quirky.  To achieve this effect we used a tartan patterned jumper as well as wearing a summer hat indoors in the winter, this shows that she does not conform to a stereotypical dress code of a typical woman.

As the music video progresses and the scenes we used moved outside we Decided that dressing our artist
in a white dress with a black coat over the top, We used this to give a sense of mystery about our character and to show that her being in the relationship has made her hide her true self away from the world and that he is making her change . the white dress was used to show the innocence of the artist and that it is not necessarily her fault that her relationship is slowly falling apart.

planning setting and iconography

The reason that setting and iconography are used in every music video is so that the lyrics and that actions that the artist show or do in the music video can easily be related to by the audience. without a setting there would be no relationship between the artist and the audience. Therefore, the audience may be confused. The same rule applies with iconography as withouts the use of certain props or costumes the video will not create a story or explain to the viewers what is going on, there will also be no way to symbolise or represent anything that is happening in the video.

. locations 
. Beth's garden
. high beach forest
. London
. pub
. train station
. a house
. villa nigh club

Iconography
. fireworks
. shot glasses
. big white board
. glass bottle
. picture of George and beth together
. glitter in speaker
. cans of drink
. mobile phones
. headphones

Goodwins theory

Andrew Goodwin  was a media theorist we came up with an entirely new way that music videos are analysed. this all was reviled with his release of his book in 1992, the book was called dancing in the distraction factory and with in the book were many codes and conventions.
the ideas he came up with are 

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
   (e.g. stage performance in metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band, aspiration in Hip Hop).    [this is also known as iconography]
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented with images.
   (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and atmosphere of the visual reflects that of the music.
   (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There are often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc)

each one of  is clearly shown in nearly every music video released before the book was published and every modern day music so far.

The music video i am going to analyse to prove that the points shown really are in every modern music video is " keep rolling by limp bizkit 

Limp bizkit are a hip hop/rap group from the 90 and in this music video there are many moments and actions  s that support Goodwins theory.

                               

this screen shot backs up theory 1 as it shows the lead artist rapping in centre screen while the dancers in the background are copping his every move, this proves the theory that iconography is a necessary convention in a music video.

this screen shot supports the second point as the lyrics relate to his hand movements and the actions he makes every time the chorus is sung we can see this because the line we are focusing on is keep rolling and this is being sung whilst he is waving his hands back and forth just like driving are car, which we also see several times throughout the music video.

theory 3 can be hard to show in a music video as you need some how relate the genre of music to the setting and surroundings. however in this case it is easer to see how this particular song and genre can relate to the lyrics. The way that this shot relates to Goodwins third theory is that the song is very heavy yet up beat and stereotypically the fans and creators of this genre of music are supposed to be very rebellious and break the rules, The way we can see this is that the band are performing on the roof of a ski scraper which is normally a restricted area and also the lead guitarist is dressed in a black and white robe with face paint showing that he does not want to be recognised which links into  theory 4 

Rough cut

Why is a rough cut important: The importance of a rough cut of your music video is so that you can get a general gist of what the final product will look like and also to see where shots need smoothing and if effects need to be put in place. The reasons behind a rough cut of a music video is to make sure that all shots flow with the lyrics involved in the music video and that the artists image is shown correctly.

 Audience feedback:The reason for feedback of a music video is so that you can see where you need to improve the music video to fits conventions of the genre and how to make it more appealing to the audience. Constructive criticism is a way that can make a standard music video stand out and more authentic and individual.

Feedback:The way in which I received feedback on the rough cut of my music video is by uploading the rough copy onto YouTube. doing this enables me to receive feedback by a wide a varied audience, this is because YouTube publishes you music video on a World Wide Web browser that is easily accessible by anyone with a computer and internet. 

Another way how I received feedback on my video is by showing several people in my class and asking them on the over all opinion on the video. I also asked for both pros and cons of the video and how I could improve it to make it more enjoyable for the viewer to watch.
The feedback I have received after uploading my Music video to youtube is mostly positive and encouraging, however we have focused ore on the negatives that have been commented about our music video.
The comments that  we most closely focused on were that most people found that the music did not fit  perfectly in time with the artist and that some shots were either jumpy or did not smooth into the music video.
The way that i will go about improving my music video is by first looking at where the main faults are within my music video and improving them to fit more of a convention of the genre of music if that is the case, if not then i will use the former feedback that i received to make the music video more appealing to the audience