The next magazine advert I am going to look at is by Dizzee Rascal. Dizzee Rascal has been producing electro/house music for a long time and has recently owned the charts with singles like holiday and bonkers. His album Tongue n' Cheek was certified platinum after it reached over 300,000 sales.
I chose this advert because it clearly addresses the funky style of electropop music. The magazine cover uses bubbly writing to address the funky style of pop music. The way it is all squashed together using different colours shows that pop music is a really informal type of music.
Today me and my two actors James and Karima started filming in Ashton Court. James would play the troubled man who is having dreams of his ex and Karima would play the ex girlfriend. We started with filming the break up scene which would act as an intro to the video before the music starts. One problem I had here was finding the right location since it was a very windy day which was creating a lot of noise in the camera's audio. This was particularly a problem here because this was one of the few scenes where audio was needed to understand what the music video is about. However, we managed to find a spot near a couple trees where there was less wind.
The next scene I started shooting on Ashton Court was where James thought Karima was following him back home but had not yet realised that he was in a dream. I tried to portray this by filming a scene where it was him walking down a hill then adding another clip with James and Karima walking down the hill with her following him from behind. I then put these clips together to make it look like she suddenly appeared out of nowhere. This was moderatly sucessful but I did experience some glitches in between scenes and lighting was a problem. Thankfully though due to James's photography skills which is he now studying at university we were able to reduce the light by turning the brightness down on the camera and by pointing the camera slightly downwards in order to block out some of the background light.
In order to get a better idea of how to display an advert for my artist I have decided to analyse some popular magazine adverts and look at what they do in order to get public attention. The first magazine advert I am going to analyse is by David Guetta. The advert features Guetta smack in the middle showing a thumbs up to the readers. The magazine company could have possibly chosen to do this to get public awareness of the artist since a lot of the time Guetta is not featured in the music videos produced by him and his record company.
Looking at the what he is wearing it is the kind of funky style clothing that a lot of people are wearing in his videos epically when they are in the clubs. This shows readers that his music is electropop which you would expect to be played in the clubs. On the right in the big letters it has "David Guetta takes over" and under it in smaller letters it says "How a French music star changed the sound of the top 40". This is particularly important because it expresses what a big sensation he is. In some genres a statement like this may be considered a bit bold or over confident but I think pop music is an expection because lots of people look for what's hot and new rather than classics or what they personally like. For instance rock artists like Led Zepplin and Queen are still worshipped even though they have long since disbanded. However pop artists like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake have declined in reputation even though their music is less than a decade old.
After lots of primary and secondary research I have finally put together a storyboard which I will refer to when shooting and evaluating my music video. The main synopsis of the music video will focus on a guy who has just broke up from his girlfriend. He goes home after a very bad day and doesn't realise that his thernistad is turned up high (hint the song heat). He then goes to sleep where he starts having weird dreams of his ex-girlfriend who seems to be everywhere he goes. This all basically ends with him waking up and rushing down stairs to turn the thermistad down. In the storyboard I decided to stick with the idea of a boy/girl love narrative because the feedback from my questionaire told me that the audience prefered this in Electropop music videos. I also decided to have someone miming the lyrics during the chorus like in the Nero song because I feel the lyrics are important and need to be understood to fully understand the music video.
With regard to speical effects I have decided to use fade outs when switching from the artist singing the lyrics to the scene where the man is dreaming because I feel it shows a clear cutting point so the audience know what is happening. I am also going to try and incorperate a split screen when the man is being stalked by his ex at certain points so on one side we will see him walking with no one behind him and on the other side we will.
The third album I'm going to anyalse is Basshunter 'Now Your're Gone'. Basshunter or his real name Jonas Erik Altberg is a Sweedish Singer-Songwriter, record music producer and DJ. His single Now Your're Gone was the UK number 1 for 5 weeks in 2007. Basshunter also takes full advantage of the internet to market himself by running his own website which features unreleased songs and the latest Basshunter news.
Like in the previous album cover the singer is the main focus on the cover. However, on this album cover there is more of a direct focus on him rarther than the background which in the last 2 albums covers I analysed explained what the album was about. This could possibly be to attract women since Basshunter has a infamous reputation for using pornstars in his music videos or it could be to make the For the third time white writing is used for the artists name and album cover. The green ray background could possibly simbalise the genre of the song because a lot of lighting effects are used in clubs and electropop music is played in clubs more than anywhere else. Looking on to what he's wearing it looks like a kind of leather techno jacket.
The next CD cover I am going to analyse is 'In for the kill' by La Roux released on the 16th of March 2009.
La Roux are an English electropop duo made up of Eleanor Kate Jackson, and co-writer and co-producer Ben Langmaid. Eleanor Jackson says the song is about telling somebody how you feel about them regardless of what you get back. This could explain why Eleanor who is featured on the Cd cover is dressed like an assasin who are typically not afraid to do anything. The CD cover also links into the 1980s TV program Pole Position which the song is partially based on. Elements of this included in the CD cover include being dressed in a spy outfit and featuring a Toyota MR2 the main car used in the TV show. Like the David Guetta album the name of the artist is clearly displayed in white to make it stand out and the title of the album cover is displayed is smaller font which like said before in the David Guetta album could signal it of being less important than the artists name. The dark background with the city lights could be used to try and link into the name of the title which uses the word kill this background expresses the feeling tthat someone is going to get hurt which combindes to the fact most bad things happen in the night.
Today I decided to take a deeper look into the music industries behind successful artists and to find out what they contributed to make the artist a successful product.
The main company behind music is the record label which manages over the marketing, manufacturing, recording, legal rights and distribution of the music. Contrary to most peoples beliefs the record company isn't just responsible for getting the music heard by other people.
Nowadays record labels are nearly all owned by another company and can use their skills/expertise to promote a product or to borrow money for the initial big start-up cost of promoting an artist. There are 4 big record labels currently in the world Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner who are all sub-divisions of conglomerates and together make up around 70-80% of the world's music market. These sub-divisions are then split down into departments such as sales, artwork, publicity and management.
Applying this knowledge to my own work, I decided to look at how the record labels used media to promote their artist. On youtube I watched various videos by Jimmy Iovine the head of Interscope records. What I learnt was that sites like youtube and Facebook are becoming more popular ways of promoting music. Now even on printed work like magazine adverts and on album covers it is common to see Facebook links tempting you to like or share the artist's page with your friends. This has given me the idea that when I am producing my own print work I will include something similar so that people can connect with my artist and share their findings with their friends.
I would like to share some links with you to show you how powerful the internet has become in the music industry. The first is a link to an article about Justin Bieber who not matter what you think of him you cannot deny that as an artist he has been a big success. He was founded on youtube.
