Target Audience

After establishing the video idea we decided on pinpointing our target audience, so when it comes to production we can try and aim the video to suit them so that it maximizes success of the video.

The target audiences we established would be both male and female, aged between 16 and 24. We feel they would be students so their income would be relativity low in comparison to the average person. we feel that they would be interested in artistic subject like photography and graphics, and looking to peruse a career in a related field. We feel their music taste would be primarily alternative music, but leaning more on the side of rock and grungy bands, like Nirvana, Foo Fighters and The Black Keys...etc

this is the basic audience profile that our group has come up with and believe will enjoy our music video and media products. We will aim our video and products to suit there tastes and general interests.

Permission For The Video

This is the e-mail we sent to The Novocains originally asking to use the song Cup Of Coffee, which they agreed but we later decided to use the song Ragdoll Blues, which they were also okay with us using.

Goodwin's Theory

Taj Mahal

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Kasabian - Vlad The Impaler Textual Analysis

As the video opens you see a continuous film burn effect as titles appear on scree. These titles are similar to that on the start of a film, and feature the bend member’s names as if they were producers or directors. The font used to show their names is basic white, and shows up well from the orange and red background, but it looks aged and like it was from the 70s.

As the beat drops you see the well-known comedy actor Noel Fielding in costume as Vlad The Impaler. This is unusual as what seems like a very low budget production wouldn’t usually feature such well-known actors, let alone in a music video.  Titles appear onscreen displaying the title of the song and the name of the main character within the video, which turn from white to red as if blood had stained the text, continuing the horror theme and marking the start of the video.

The style of the video is reminiscent of a cheesy 70s horror film. This is expressed through the choice of camera technology used to film the video, various types of shots used and the mise-en-scene.  For example the costume and props are all from the 60s/70s era and many of the camera angles used to show the various killings are seen throughout films from the previous decades.

The rest of the video consists of Vlad killing various teenagers alone in the wilderness, and a good use of cheap effects and fake blood. It’s obvious that a band like Kasabian could afford a big high budget video with special effects spilling from the sides, but they have specifically made a cheap version of a 70s horror film, and the makers of the video were definitely not going for realistic scare tactics. Instead, thanks to the use of Noel Fielding, the video I feel is a great comedy success.

The cheesy murders and stereo-typical victims give the video a sense of humour without having to make any jokes, and what heightens the comedy further is the excellent acting from Noel Fielding as a psychotic murderer, as he doesn’t scare the audience yet encourage them to laugh at the fake blood and increasing corpses.

For a band of this stature id would seem entropic to make music video as low budget as this with such well-known TV personalities. Yet Kasabian have decided to take that route and I feel that it has paid off and makes the video stand out rom the rest, and sticks in the viewers mind, which as an artist is the ultimate goal as ultimately it results in record sales.

Cee Lo Green, Lady Killer Magazine Advert

This is an advert for Cee Lo Green’s new album from a magazine. At first look it seems very simple layout that grabs the attention of the reader and almost forces them to read it. The high contrasting colour scheme of bright pink on a blue background with a black vignette draws the eye line to the most important part of the advert, which would be the name and release date. The font used to show the release date is very simple and stylish; having the date written in the largest of that font allows the reader to acknowledge it at a glance without having to concentrate, and the choice of font makes it look sophisticated as it is a formal font and very simplistic.

The redundant features of an album release advert are also present, for example a small line from a review telling the readers that the album is good and also mentioning a track that people will know. Both are trying to convince the reader to listen to the music it is advertising. It also gives a web address, where people can go and gather more information if they are interested. So even though the advert is very minimalistic all of the relevant information is on the page and it is easy to see and read.

The majority of the advert is a close up of the artist, making him look very cool important. This is achieved by the typical redundant features, like the sunglasses and the pose he is pulling for the camera. These aspects fit in with the theme of the ad in the way that the album name ‘Lady Killer’ is referring to the artist, so to match the name he has to look like the person in question as well as him having smart clothes on to match the suave and cool persona. The colours of the image have also been edited to match the scheme of the ad in total, as well as the contrast being heightened to highlight the artists face.

I like this advert as it looks very simplistic and stylish, and how all of the different aspects like the name, colours and the way the artist has been portrayed all link together to give the ad a certain look of a certain style. The cool text colours, font and layout all echo the idea of a sophisticated and stylish person mentioned in the album title, and it is all strung together successfully to create a visually appealing and successful advert, in the way that it gets its message across and still looks good.

Digipak Review: The Bealtes - Magical Mystery Tour (Re-Mastered In 2010)

This is a digipak for The Beatles album: Magical Mystery tour. This album had an accompanying film made in 1968 and the album was the soundtrack. This digipak features many aspects closely related or taken straight from the film.

The from cover of the album is the same as the film poster, and shows all four of the band members dressed up in outfits from the film with the band name and title around them. The costumes the band is wearing seem very random and strange but this matches with aspects of the songs on the album as some of them don’t make much sense either. The cover has a very psychedelic feel, and fist in with the 60s time period it was made in. The colours are very vibrant and the cover as a whole is busy with many different things to look at, but it all fits in with the house style of the film.

The inside three windows have a very different approach to the cover. The vibrant colours and masses of text are gone and other than the photographs there is no colour at all. The far right hand window is completely blank apart from the logo of the record company that the band belongs to in the centre of the page. This makes the digipak seem much more minimalistic and stylish and is almost the opposite of the cover.

The right hand window and centre window show a single image of the band climbing out of the top of the bus that is a big feature in the film. Although the photograph has many colours, the fact that it I a single image showing the whole band continues the minimalistic feel as it takes up the majority of space within the inside area and only gives the viewer two aspects to look at on the inside. Also, they have added a slot for the disc to slip into; I feel that this is so the disc does not disturb the large image on the two windows.

The Disc itself seems like a halfway point between the busy front cover and the simple, minimalistic inside. There is a vibrant spectrum of colours around the outside of the disc, but other than that it is plain black background with white text explaining the details of the record and track listing, and a logo.

Overall I like the way the designers have made the digipak. As it is a re-mastered version form 2010 they have kept the original cover from the 60s but modernised the inside to make it look more stylish and sophisticated. I think it has been done well and the mixture of old and new compliments each of the different styles.

The Black Keys - Magazine Advert

The Black Keys are an alternative rock band from america. Bands of a similar genre tend to be very entropic in terms of advertising their new products, but for The Black Keys new album they have decided to do something very different to any thing else other bands have attempted.

This was an advert in a magazine for The Black Keys new album, El Camino. This album advert is very unique and entropic to anything that anyone has been used befroe. the album is called El Camino and is named after a van that the van has bought and used in all of its publicity and on the album cover. 

Before the announcement of the album the band released an advert in a national news paper as if they were selling the car. it included all of the details about the car that are in the advert and included hints towards the band like "Contact Pat and Dan" (Members from the band) "Take the Keys and go!" (Reference to ban name) they also used the same photo for the advert as the album cover.. This advert is a similar version to that advert but tells the audience that it is an album and tells them the band name and uses the house font so they instantly recognise the advert with the band. Also when announcing the album they released a video of sales man filming a video trying to sell the car.

This way of publicising an album is very unique and different to anything used by other artists. as they have kept the theme of selling the car throughout the aspects of the album, makes the car instantly recognisable and associated with the band and album. The band even use the car at liver performances to sell CD's and t-shirts out of the back.

Introduction to Entropy and Redundancy

Entropy is when something is unexpected or unpredictable to what is normally seen.  For example when something happens that would be completely different to what you would expect. These examples are seen throughout various music videos, like people with super powers or being dressed in a certain way.

Redundancy is when something is expected or predictable to what is typically seen. for example in a rap video when you see the voyeuristic treatment of women, lots of money, loads of cars, close ups of the artists...etc


Redundancy:

 














Entropy :

Music videos use a range of both methods and they are usually typical to the genre of music, for example hip-hop videos don't usually contain much entropy, and show the typical same shots of the artist surrounded by women. But rock/ alternative music videos range from many different themes and ideas.

Example of a music video with many redundant features:

This video is a good example of a stereo typical R&B music video, due to the many redundant features, typical of a video for this genre.

The video is a narrative of what he is singing about and as the subject has a strong link to women, they feature as the main part of the video. Within the video typical to many similar music videos, the women are used voyeuristically, ad only to make the music video appeal to the audience more, which in this case is mainly men.

When the song starts the video almost immediately cuts to a beach scene where there are many women not wearing much and dancing with the artist. The video then features two main aspects: the artist, singing and dancing, and shots of all of the women he is with. The artist is dressed in all white, what looks like expensive clothes and wearing jewellery. This is again a typical feature of videos of this genre and is seen in almost all of them.

There are also many close up shots of the artist and of the women. The close up shots of the artist will have been a feature wanted by the record label so that he gets recognised by the audience in future videos. The women are seen in close up shots to look pleasing to the male eye as well as demonstrate the theme of the video.

Other redundant parts of this video are the things like the artists in a hot tub with many women and them all having water fights, and a dance routine, again, typical features of a video of this genre.

Nearly all of this video shows every different aspect of R&B videos in the past and has little or no original ideas, it is a good example of a video for this genre but has no entropic qualities at all.

Example of an entropic music video (Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly):

The storyline basic storyline of this video is that the band (And various other passengers played by the band) are on a typical short haul flight, but before take-off the cleaners of the plane (played by Jack Black and Kyle Gass from the band Tenacious D) Smuggle ‘Erotic’ sleeping powder onto the flight, and in efforts not to get caught by the flight attendants they hide it in the coffee machine.

Later in the flight the attendants proceed to make coffee for the passengers and crew without noticing the sleeping powder, resulting in all the crew and some passengers on the plane passing out and putting the plan into a nose-dive. Luckily The Foo Fighters didn’t drink any coffee and are forced to ‘Learn to Fly’ and perform an emergency landing.

The video is all story based other than the narrative aspect that the band had to ‘Learn to Fly’ when the plane was going to crash.  The video is also based on the movie  ‘Airplane!’. The basic idea of the video does copy a movie but what makes this video to entropic is the way the Foo Fighters have decided to portray it.

The band members play various different characters within the video, including obese women, pilots, attendants, a baby, and even a teenage girl, as well as themselves. Along with the crazy storyline, the characters the band plays are possibly the most entropic features of the video, due to the variety of different characters they play and the pure fact that no other artists usually do this, as they wish to be seen as cool and trend setters. It's also different to many other music videos because of the cameo from another big band of the same genre. this is not usually seen in music videos as record labels try and promote the band playing the music, and try not to attract attention to any other artists.

The general style of the video is similar to that of a movie, as it has a storyline and an end, but it also has features of a music video, as on it cuts to performances of the band and show them on the plane TV screens. So it does have some features of a typical music video but mainly is seen as a different and crazy music video.

Time Managment

This is the weekly plan for what I will do in the following weeks:

     Week 1 – Re-search existing products

·      Week 2 – Re-search into theorists

·      Week 3 – Re-search available music and ask permission

·      Week 4 – Moodboard for music theme and re-search target audience

·      Week 5 – Pitch and gather feedback

·      Week 6 – Gather Props and equipment or filming

·      Week 7 – Risk Assessment and Filming

·      Week 8 – Editing Rough cut, and gather feedback

·      Week 9 – Edit Second Cut, and gather feedback

·      Week 10 – Edit Final Cut and Gather Feedback

·      Week 11 – Re-search into advert and digipak layouts, fonts, colours and conventions.

·      Week 12 - Different digipak ideas and feedback

·      Week 13 – Final Digipak and feedback

·      Week 14 – Re-search advert conventions and sizes, and different advert ideas

·      Week 15 – Final Advert and feedback

·      Week 16 – Evaluation

Introduction To Coursework

On this blog I will be displaying my coursework for the upcoming year. The assignment is to create a promotional package for the release if a new album for a band. The main items I will create will be a digipak, music video, and advert. the blog will contain all my research and developments leading up to the finished process.