Research and planning

Today the team have currently researched music videos to gather an idea of what music we are going to use for our a2 project. We have decided that we are going to use a song from a pop genre, so that we can assess different parts of it and contribute to certain aspects that are involved in a pop video, e.g types of clothing, hairstyles ect. We looked at both girl bands, boys bands, and single artists such as Katy perry, one direction and little mix. We have basically decided the different aspects to the music video that we are going to include and want to do quite a summery song as we would like to have quite a bit of fun making it and we feel we can express ourselves and our personalities more! Below is a photo of Katy perry music video which we have analyzed and will post about it later 😊

Music Research - Genre

Genre

We decided today to study genre to get an idea of how different genres are the different types of music videos included in different genres. We looked at the 'mediaknowall' website which showed pop music to be the most popular type of music. On Media Know All, genre is defined as, "Genre, as you should well know by now, is the classification of a text according to its style and content, and possibly its form and manner of production."

There are a variety of different genres including, Pop (including global categories like Europop, Arabic pop, Cantopop, J-Pop and K-Pop), Dance, R&B, Hip-Hop/Rap, Rock, Punk, Country & Western, Folk, Jazz, Blues, Latin, Gospel, Reggae, New Age. Each of these categories contains a myriad of sub-genres, and there are plenty of hybrids and mash-ups. However, each of these genres has unique musical characteristics (rhythm, instruments used for melody, lyric and vocal style), and can be associated with other factors, such as clothing, hair and lifestyle. Many people have different opinions on different types of music which can cause a lot of controversy within specific groups such as friendship groups at school and also families. Recently, this has changed a lot compared to the past where people wouldn't even speak to one another if they were into a different music type to them. However, today it is a lot more varied due to the amount of genres there are.

Genre and artist image

Media Know All states, "For an artist or band to truly fit a genre category, they must be represented as doing so visually, on record sleeves, publicity photos and in music videos." This basically means that the artist usually has a certain look, that people/their audience can relate to their music. For example, Lady Gaga has a specific which people most probably think about before they think about her music. This therefore shows that the way an artist looks, advertises them and then therefore promotes their music as they are being shown in the media, and becoming more popular for the way they look (this is usually portrayed more in the pop genre, as they have help from music directors and industries). This will then put them into a specific genre in the music industry. In genres such as rock, they are mainly focused on their music and their 'look/image' is not usually shown. This is shown through CD covers and music videos which they are not usually shown on/in. Below shows the difference between, a 'rock' genre cd cover and a 'pop' genre cd cover...



As you can see, the album cover for 'slipknot' the band is not actually shown on the cover, due to the fact that this genre of 'rock' focuses mainly on their music and not promoting the actual members of the band. However, the One Direction cover clearly shows each member of the band which shows that music industries that work with and along side this band try their best to promote the singers and get them in the media as much as possible to promote not just their music but the band as people. This will then help them to develop their popularity and is how say One Direction for example, develop 'fan girls' and major fan bases for them and their music. As you can see from the One Direction album also, they are all dressed in similar clothing and similar clothing colours which relates to the pop genre and it shows their personality but also shows what the music industry force them to look like and wear as a band. This relates to Star Theory, which explains how music industries in a way force their music artists to look a certain way so that they are shown in the media a lot more often, such as Lady Gaga when she wore a 'meat' costume to the 2010 MTV music awards. This will have been her own idea but music industries may have persuaded her to wear this sort of thing more often so that she stands out from other artists. Below is a photo of Lady Gaga wearing this dress.

 

History of Music Videos

This is a presentation on the history of music videos, it is just a short piece of research that I have done to help towards my decision on what song we are going to do for the music video and also it helped me to learn about different parts of the music industry such as specific music TV channels. 

Its a new year!!

We are back from the summer holidays and so excited to make our real music videos. We haven't quite just decided what song we are going to be using for our music video but we are definitely going to be using the genre of pop, as we feel a larger audience will be attracted to the pop industry compared to say an 'indie' genre. We also have in mind some of the actors we will be using for our music video which we have specifically chosen to be able to link well with the genre of pop by using such things as dress sense, hair styles etc. 

Planning and research will be going up very soon, and myself, Alice and Amy are going to get as much in as possible so that we are completely clear on what we are going to be doing and also to ensure that we have gone through all the possibilities that we can. This isn't a very interesting post however, it is just simply and introductory post to allow everybody to see what we are thinking about doing etc. :-)


Below is a link to the other two girls' blogs that are in my group: 

Alice Martin's Blog :-)
Amy Hopkinson's Blog :-)