Previous Students Work

In order to be realistic about the type of music video we are able to recreate we have looked at previous students work and analysed them.

The Killers-Mr Brightside


This music video is particularly successful in captivating an audience throughout the whole of the text. The concept of the video has been clearly thought out to ensure there is a link between the lyrics and the actions on screen. Although it did take a while to conclude that she was in a wedding dress, I feel this is because there weren't that many long shots that we were able to see the whole concept of a wedding day. Also the talent did not look old enough to be getting married, but we recognise that this is something that is difficult to do because of the age of the students. Therefore to make the music video better we would suggest that the concept was changed from a wedding to a 'prom' as then the talent look the correct age and it would be maybe easier to recognise. Regardless of this the concept was good and it all made sense when the female arrived at the church.
The beginning of the task is very interesting and fits well with the music and the style of the song, the editing techniques seem to match the edgy and 'rock' style of the band.
The black and white effect on the video makes it feel more emotional as you focus on the people and the action as oppose to the mise en scene. The unusual locations make the video much more interesting and very conventional to the style of music for the video.
Overall I think that this is an extremely well planned and constructed music video, it successfully links with the songs lyrics and the genre of music. When creating our music video I believe that we should maintain the level of consistency that they have throughout theirs.

History of Indie Music

Indie music is a type of alternative rock that originates from the UK and US in the 1980's. Indie music has a lot of different sub genres including indie pop/rock that is the genre of our chosen artist. Indie artists are self made music artists that have done everything on their own or without the support of a record company or label. Later in their career they may sign to a company to increase sales and gain popularity. 
In the 1970's more people began experimenting with music and music became much more diverse. The growth of the genre came in the 1980's with more and more artists becoming diverse and creating their own music.
In the 1990's the genre broke into the mainstream and was known by being an underground style of music. By the end of the 1990's it had developed into known sub-genres and similar styles. 
In present times more indie music artists are signing to bigger music labels and others are creating their own labels depending on the success of their music. 

Our Audience, Genre, Narrative, Representations and Messages our music videos will include

Audience

• Teenage/young adults
• Indie music fans
• (University) students with little money
• Mixed gender

Genre

• Indie pop/rock
• New-ish genre therefore it is growing in popularity
• The growth of radio play results in more popularity but this also then means more radio play with bands like 'Mumford and Sons' and 'Ben Howard'.
• Quite a happy genre, not too depressing

Narrative

• Boy and girl
• "In love"
• The progression of ther relationship 
• Fun and happy feel
• Follows the lyrics and the idea of the sof.

Representations

• The girl will be funny, genuine and quite feminine.
• The boy will be quite sensitive and not too masculine
• The relationship will be perfect (something aspirational)

Messages

• No matter how little they have, they will always have each other.

Branding of the Artist/Text

The music artist we have chosen to create a music video for is an indie, pop/rock artist. He is fairly unheard of  and quite local and his branding is not dissimilar to a pop artist that is very famous.
Billy Lockett is a name that not many have heard of unlike 'One Direction' therefore he has quite a limited range of brandings due to their cost.
He has a facebook page for his fans to like and share their views on, he also interacts on this page by posting pictures and statuses that are of interest to his fans. He also has a twitter feed that he uses for a very similar reasons to his facebook page. His official website is his facebook page as it is free and easily accessible to many of the population. He keeps his fans up to date with gigs or events that they may wich to attend on both of these pages.
He has access to a YouTube channel that also helps him increase interest because people are likely to type his name in the search bar and they can hear other songs that he has written and sung.
He plays a number of gigs around the UK in small venues to build a fanbase and he can sometimes be heard having interviews at local radiostations.
He is part of BBC Introducing and has had his music played on radio one. This allows him to be backed by a name that many people are aware of and they offer events from him to play at, raising his profile.
All of these things are cheap and help him to raise his profile in the music industry.

Varied types of music videos

Performance (the artists performing the song) 
This video has the members of the band performing the song to the camera. This is very common with pop songs and the artists always look directly to the camera.

Cartoon/Animation videos 
In this music video there are a mix of animation and actual shots. It is generally used by alternative/indie music and artists.



Narrative
This music video is like a short story that is relevant to the song, however does not include any lip syncing. The artists of the song are part of the video though as they are the characters in the short narrative.

One take video
This video is a one take which means that the video keeps rolling. Although they would have rehearsed it several times there is no editing together clips needed as it is all filmed continuously.

Artist absent
In this music video the artist of the song is not in any way the main part and they only feature once and in this appearance it is not clear they are the artist of the song. This particular type of music video is usually a narrative also.


Intertextuality
This video makes reference to a film as the song is featured in the film.




Lyric Videos
These are videos that are usually released before the official video is released. It helps promote the song on the internet while they have the time to film a proper music video.



Out of all of these examples I am most likely to make a music video with narrative and performance elements. This is I prefer these style videos and think the combination could work well and have seen many recent examples of this being successful. To me the narrative style alone could become quite boring and it would be difficult to continue a 'story' that has different scenes throughout the whole songs. This is why I would combine to two styles together to create an engaging and interesting piece of work.

Short Film or Music Video

For my final coursework I have chosen to create a music video as opposed to a short film. This is because I feel I have more knowledge and interest in the music video as opposed to a short film . The short film project has taught me a lot about the filming process and editing and these skills I have learnt are transferable to any type of filming.
As I am doing a music video I will be focusing mainly on music videos and analysing these instead of short films as I personally feel this will be a better use of my time.