Facebook Poll Results

These are the results from when I did some research from Facebook.

Initial ideas for Pitch

Ideas for pitch

 

-          Use a video recording to engage the audience at the start.

-          Use Q cards to make a short presentation on the concept of the music video, digipak and magazine advert

-          Round it up by giving dates of release, showing the logo for Prestige Worldwide.

Everything you need to know about Prestige Worldwide

Prestige Worldwide Logo

How to create a good pitch

The Pitch

- No powerpoints
- Be creative
-You are a company promoting a new artist
-You want to pitch your music artist in order to get signed by a big record company!
- Introduce yourself and who you are
- What you are doing? (creating a music video marketing campaign for new artist)
- Who is your typical audience?
- Logo? Brand name? E.g. HHProductions
- How will you promote the artist?
Media convergence
What media platform will you use to promote your artist?
How will you use synergy to promote your artist?
- What is your music video concept and USP? (Whats different about your music video?)
- What is your digipak USP?
- What is your magazine advert USP?
Where is this poster featuring?
What kind of magazine? Genre?
- How will this video give you a long term investment?
- What are your future plans for your artist?
- What sort of image is your band creating?

Magazine Advert

Just like digipak's, at first glance, we see that the advert is at a simple format giving us the information that we want to know. In this instance, they are advertising a show that is being put on. It's clear that the house colour in this magazine is red as it contrasts with the black that they are wearing.
The main thing that captures the audiences eye when turning through the magazine is the big, bold logo advertising the band 'the killers'.

Digipak Analysis

After doing research, I have found that there are not many artists that distribute digipaks from an indie-rock genre. So I have chosen David Guetta who is more R'n'B as an example to analyse.

The front cover is very simple and in a way basic. It gives the audience a clear idea on what they are going to be listening to and the person who made the music. There is also a very clear house colour of the gold as the photo has been made that everything else is at a grey scale.

Keeping the same sort of 'fun factor' of the front cover, as well as keeping it simple, we know straight from looking at it that this is the song page. This is the page which tells us the names of the songs and the tracks. I also notice that there is also all the licensing information at the bottom below the barcode.

The other side of the digipak most probably has information about David Guetta and pictures of his experiences whilst making the digipak.

Prelim

Job Roles

Created with Padlet

Magazine and Digipak facts

THE FACTS

Band name: Missing Andy

Title of the single: Kings for the Weekend

Magazine conventions
Include details of release format
Include release dates
Name of songs
Details on the record label
Reviews
Links to the album
Website address
Links to social networking

Digipak conventions
Name of songs
Pictures of the band
Lyrics of popular songs
Details on the record label
Reviews
Website details

Focus Group Feedback

Genre

The song that I am going to be making a promo for is going to indie rock.

Indie rock originated in the United Kingdom in the 1980's. It's quite a diverse genre with many sub-genres such as indie pop and jangle pop. The genre of indie rock was first used by record labels to be more specific in what sort of music they were actually listening to. From then on, the genre had gone out.

Typical indie rock bands such as The Killers and Fun usually make a specific meaning in the lyrics of their songs. When analyzing the lyrics from typical indie rock bands, you find that they always make some kind of reference to life experiences.

The term indie rock comes from the small and less popular bands and artists who usually are quite low budget who normally take the 'do it yourself' kind of attitude to making their music. Although the artists use major corporation companies to distribute their music, they are normally set out to do their own thing when making their music.

Representation of Indie Rock

The Killers

Fun

Taking these two visuals, we find that when taking photos of the two bands, the majority of the members aren't looking at the camera, and the photos are mainly took with a screen behind them. Each of the bands seem to have their own fashion sense. Also, we see that we don't see any sort of 'trait' from any of the bands to show that they aren't too bothered about making any sort of specific representation of them.

What's Important?

Indie rock bands usually have the goal of doing what they do best which is sing and make their kind of music and stick to the genre which is what their target audience likes. Whilst bands like Blur and Oasis were becoming more mainstream whilst abandoning the indie rock genre by becoming more on a larger scale, bands sticking to the indie rock genre seem to be a lot more laid back.

The main target audience for this sort of genre are males and females at a teenage kind of age. Although it can appeal to a more older audience too. This sort of genre can become attractive to people who can relate to the lyrics as the lyrics in the songs they make are very meaningful.

An Example of a Promo

A great example for an indie rock promo is Coming Home by the Kaiser Chiefs. This promo has been done in one shot.

As soon as the video starts, in the first second, we see the main singers face as quite depressed and tired. Which gives us first impressions of the song showing it's going to be quite a depressing song. If we look at the mise-en-scene, we see the weather being quite grey to show a dullness of the song and having a random door in the middle of no where with no home, it makes the audience wonder what's going to happen next, making them to keep watching.

Thirty seconds into the promo we see what we are going to be watching for the next five minutes. We get the impression that it's about something that has happened previously judging from the hints we get from the actors on the promo.

This shot shows the space between each little thing we get to see giving more away on what the song is about. This gives us more of a chance to look at the main singer at moments. We also notice that throughout the whole of the song, it is mainly at long mid shot.

Finally, we see a shot of the band looking out into the distance from all the stuff that they have just walked past. This may suggest a sort of revolution that has been found. Something which isn't usually expected in an indie rock genre is a long shot that's used to establish the setting right at the end of a song.

Digipak

What is a digipak?
- Card packaging
- Gatefold effect
- 4-8 panels
- More information than traditional case
- Special edition/limited edition - marketing tool
- Often additional material - extra disk/poster/lyrics/booklet

Focus Group PowerPoint

Focus Group Presentation

Conventions of a pop video

Camera shots - mainly close ups, extreme close ups and mid shots.
There are a lot of pans, tracking, zooms - dynamic/movement.

Editing - fast paced, cut to the beat, mainly straight cuts, a couple of fades. There is a lot of animation  used.

Mise-en-scene - Setting: lavish and over the top. Fantasy city, very bazar. Costume: elaborate, designer, artwork. Strong colours/contrasts. Actors: Perfection, youth, choreography. Lighting: Really high key.

Performance - 3 different locations, choreography, lip sync.

Narrative - Not any kind of specific narrative.

Genre

 

“genre is no longer a fixed set of elements”

Buckingham (1990) argues that genre is a “constant process of negotiation and change”

What are these media theorists arguing?

Genre keeps changing over time. It’s not something that’s static.

 

Post an investigation on genre (the history and how it’s changed)

 

“Genre may offer various emotional pleasures, such as empathy and escapism. We enjoy identifying with characters and imagining ourselves living out their experiences.”

What does this theory mean?

It means that genre can always relate to a particular emotion. It can relate to the connection with the problems of life.

How does this theory relate to the genre you have chosen?

It relates because with the song I have chosen, the audience can really feel that their life really could be worse. But with that indie-rock tone to it, it’s an upbeat way of portraying it.

 

“To make sense of any text audiences require ‘cultural capital’ i.e. they bring their knowledge and experience of a text in order to understand it”

What does this theory mean?

It means that people learn what the genre means by experiencing it themselves.

How does this theory relate to the genre you have chosen?

I could use my past experiences and put it into my music promo so I know that it is realistic.

 

‘Genre is not simply “given” by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change.’

What does this theory mean?

It means that genre is never staying the same. It’s always changing.

How does this theory relate to the genre you have chosen?

Bourdieu: 'Culture Distinction: Where privileged social groups (higher classes) define their genres as superior to those of the lower classes and take pleasure in degrading the inferior media forms (trash) consuming by the masses.'

What does this mean?

Higher class people think that they can listen to different music to 'commoners'.

How does this theory relate to the genre you have chosen?

The song I have picked wouldn't appeal to higher class.

Fiske: 'The assignment of a text to a genre influences how the text is read and understood. If audiences believe a text to be in a particular genre, they will interpret the text in accordance with their expectations of that game.'

What does this theory mean?

The genre is portrayed how you watch it.

How does this theory relate to the genre you have chosen?

People may think different of the song I have chosen.

Richard Dyer: argued that game forms are pleasurable as they allow an audience an escape from reality.

What this theory mean?

The genre may be something the audience member can relate to.

How does this theory relate to the genre you have chosen?

The listener may be able to think the same of the narrative.

Andrew Goodwin - Thinks that videos follow the following conventions: (1) Conventions depend on the genre of the music. (2) Star persona is important and companies use close ups to sell them to the audience (3) Voyeuristic images are used to attract an audience (4) They often contain intertextual references to other media (5) There is a link between the lyrics and the visuals (6) There is a link between the visuals and the music/pace etc.