These three elements together create a promotional package which is there to promote the band in any way possible e.g. the promo is to show off the talents of the artist(s) in regards to their singing, dancing and acting skills in a hope that fans they have will want to see them live, download their music, watch them on the TV and listen to them on the radio, this then leads onto the magazine advert which shows what other media platforms think of them (synergy) through star rating, comments and or quotes (which are given by other magazines and some individuals). The advert may also include tour dates and an image of the band although this is not always the case (image of magazine advert along with analysis).
The digipak is there to give a
little bit more information about the band e.g. twitter user names, Facebook
pages and background information such as band history, the digipak also
includes a CD with a selected amount of tracks on as digipaks are usually
released for an occasion such as a certain amount of years performing or as a
limited addition release, a digipak can sometimes include lyrics to the tracks
and sometime posters as well. (Digipak and analysis).
The typical conventions of a music
promo fall into the categories of performance, narrative, camerawork, editing,
actors and mise-en-scene.
The conventional pop promo usually consists
of equal shots of narrative and performance, they can either relate in some
way, whether it be through location or the band member or artist featuring in
the performance itself, they can also be completely un-related or involve no performance
or narrative at all, which would be considered unconventional.
There are three main types of music
video, these being:
·
Amplification- Uses a key idea/ image from the
lyrics and develops it into a concept within the promo, a link remains between
the lyric and the promo
·
Illustration- The promo illustrates the ideas/
narrative in the song lyrics
·
Disjuncture- The promo bears no resemblance to
the lyric or its meaning; abstract; often seen as unconventional/ 'arty'
videos; creates a new range of the meaning (Prezi needs uploading from home, won’t
let me from school)
The typical setting for a pop promo
usually involves some kind of studio or staging for the performance element and
then any kind of setting for the narrative whether it be a shopping centre, a
fair ground or a green screen could be used if a more extravagant backdrop is
wanted, depending on the song depends on how well the performance/narrative
setting is lit e.g. if the song is quite slow or a very dark song then the set
will not be as well lit as if the song was a happy up beat song, again the
costume would have to fit the song and the setting e.g. if the song is set in
an everyday location then everyday clothing would do but if the song was
relating to super hero’s then super hero costumes would probably be best.
A normal conventional music video will include many
different camera shots, these tend to be: long shots close up’s and mid shots,
this is so the audience has a full view of the artist/band and the main focus
of the group is made clear, these shots also make the location of the promo
known and give the audience views from different perspectives, the use of a
close up’s can be used to show emotion and facial expressions.
There can be many different ways to film a promo, this can
be done through a normal camera on a tripod, the artist themselves holding the
camera and filming themselves or the area around them, they can also be filmed
on a camera phone e.g. I phone.
The camera is moved so the audience
get a full view of either the scene or the artist/band, these shots usually
consist of: panning shots (moving the camera on a tripod or without in one
swift motion) tilt shots (the camera either moving up or down) and tracking
shots (the camera following the main focus of the video)
The typical conventions of a pop
promo include editing that matches the pace of the song which is usually fast
pace and can include many quick cuts, the costume is usually everyday clothing
so jeans and a t-shirt or extravagant costume all depending on what the song is
about. There have been many different pop promos that have broken conventions
for example in Ed Sheeran’s song ‘You
need me, I don’t need you’, there is no use of performance from Ed himself
only narrative in the form, of a dancer which has no relation the lyrics.
To create the promo, we used many
different editing techniques, these included the speeding up and slowing down
of clips when necessary e.g. when a clip was too slow and did not fit the pace
of the video, this was a common occurrence just before and just after and stop
motion had been added into the video. The ability to speed up clips helped a
lot due to the fact that our actors were quite slow when carrying out the
action that was required of them so in order to fit the pace of the song,
needed speeding up.
We also did a lot of cutting to the
beat, this is more obvious when the beat of the song is quite fast pace, with
lots of short choppy sections, this gave me the opportunity to add some shot of
the two arguing or just facing the camera giving blank expressions, emphasising
the fact that the relationship was not an easy one and did not run smooth.
We also used a great deal of stop
motion throughout the promo, this was shown when the hands separated to reveal
a heart, again I had to make sure that the image changed when the beat did in
order for it to be in time with the song and look as smooth as it could, the
second element of stop motion I used was creating the red handprint heart on
the sheet, this was then split up into sections so we had a break from the
narrative and the performance elements. (Stills of the stop motion at key
parts).
For the location we decided we
wanted it to look like a makeshift art studio, this was because we had based
our idea around the concept of colour (as the band is called the colours).
There are also elements in the song that can relate to art well e.g. the lyrics
are ‘colours never change’. We
created this studio from old bits of fabric, table and art work from previous
class projects, this gave us the ability to turn a kitchen into an art studio
by moving furniture around and hanging up drapes and pictures, I feel this
looked believable as we only ever filmed from one angle, so you could not see
any kitchen related items in the background. 
Our costume was a very basic every
day wear it involved Hope wearing jeans, hoodie and shirt for the first part,
as the video progresses she changes into smarter clothing e.g. jeans and a
jumper, this fits with the pop genre as many pop videos are filmed in everyday
locations e.g. parks, shopping centres and the location that we decided to go
with which was a houses, it would therefore make sense for the individuals
featuring in the promo to be in believable clothing.
Joshes costume again was everyday
wear as he was in a denim jacket, shirt and trousers, slightly smarter than
hopes outfit as conventionally the main artists are wanted to be noticed more
so would want to stand out. One way of doing this is through your outfit.
The way we have edited the
performance and narrative together in our promo is by having one or two shots
of the narrative, so having a shot of Hope painting the hands on the sheet and
then washing them, then a shot of Josh performing has been included, this is to
create a bit of variety and make the video more interesting to watch with the
changing of location and the different shots used, we have tried to link the
performance and narrative together through the painted heart on the sheet,
which is behind Josh as he ‘sings’ the song.
The basic idea for our promo was
the ending of a relationship where the male is the performance element of the
video and the female is the narrative but towards the end of the video the two
come together as we combined the performance and narrative to show the couple
coming together and trying to fix things between them. The performance side of
the video involves our actress (Hope) walking into an ‘art studio’ and beginning to paint, she then receives a message
which we assume if from the male which frustrates her and she gradually becomes
more and more angry, shortly after this she begins to place red handprints on a
sheet the is in the studio, these later forms a heart which the male (Josh)
later uses to perform the narrative against to try and link to two scene
together by something simple.
This is typical of a video in this
genre (pop) as many people can find this subject relatable. If we take scouting
for girls ‘this ain’t a love song this is
goodbye’ the song is about a breakup
and how individuals deal with it in different ways, which is very similar to
the song by the colours as a previous groups had chosen this song and focused it
around the relationship ending due to cheating and around playing cards,
whereas when our group heard the song, we felt we could take it in a different
direction e.g. the art studio.
We had many other ideas before we
settled on the art perspective, we took inspiration from Bryan Adams and Mel
C’s ‘baby when you’re gone’ this was because we liked the idea of the two
individuals being in the same location but never actually seeing each other, we
could have also done split screens so you can see the two individuals together
and see their reactions without them seeing each other.
A conventional digipak involves 6
panels usually containing information such as: band name, information about the
band, CD, ways to get in contact with the band, track list/ song lyrics (on
occasion) and possible posters of the band, (analysis of the artic monkeys
digipak, favourite worst nightmare)
We have looked at many theorists,
this theory states that: 'Genre is no longer a fixed set of
elements'. This could suggest that genre is no longer set in
categories and has merged together to create many different sub genres hence
why we now have genres such as Indi pop/rock and alternative pop/rock.
Another theory proposed by Buckingham (1990's) 'Argues
that genre is a constant process of negotiation and change' this
suggests the idea that things move on, develop and change along with the time
as pop music is not that same as it used to be.
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