Research: Existing Music Videos

The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement

­The video begins with images of a stereotypical ice skater, who is sat preparing to take to the ice in silence, almost as if she is sat in preparation for the start of the song.

When the music begins, we see the ice skater in action, with slowed down shots to emphasize the elegance and grace in her movements, and the movements in turn could also emphasize the elegance of the orchestral sound we hear.

The video then shifts to a shot of a snowy Russian landscape, with tanks and two figures dressed all in black, in complete juxtaposition to the ice skater dressed all in white. The contrast between light and dark becomes immediately clear, making the lyrics sound all the more sinister in comparison with the flowing orchestral music.

The video moves on to “our heroes” (as they are described by Domino Records) in a town in Russia, filled with blue lights, giving a chilling feeling of coldness.

The camera shots are slow initially however as the song goes on, and the tempo picks up to create a sense of urgency, the shots become quicker and quicker. This is mirrored in the movements of the singers, who at the start are stood or are walking at a slow pace, but being to march with prominent power as well as riding on top of the tanks.

The faces become more and more aggressive, with the lyrics being sung with a certain degree of anger in the tone. When the video contains the singers, it is always lip synced to create the illusion that the singers were singing the words at the time of filming.

Contextuality is clear throughout the video, as the tanks and war outfits worn by actors are frequently seen in war films and games for example “Saving Private Ryan” or the “Call of Duty” series. The big hats worn by the actors wanting to look Russian are also commonly associated with Russian culture.

Blur – Song 2

The video starts with drummer, Dave Rowntree, playing drums in what appears to be an empty room, as the drum-only introduction is synced with the drummer playing in the video.

As the guitar comes in, we have a long shot of the guitarist, Graham Coxon, again playing in what seems to be an empty room just like the previous shot.

Just before the vocals come In, we switch to a shot of singer Damon Albarn right up close. And as the lyrics begin, the camera suddenly shows the entire band in the room who in turn just start to rock out as if on stage.

The room itself is decorated in a 1930’s fashion, with the carpet and wallpaper both carrying an old, authentic look to it, in complete juxtaposition to the genre of music it is hosting.

During the verses, when the tempo of the music is slower, there are longer camera shots which focus more on the band’s music playing abilities and match the slower pace of the music.

The chorus’ throughout the song progress in power. The second finds the band being blown around, crashing into walls, by the power of their own music however the final again increases in power. Dust and dirt also occupies the room, as the band are hurled around the room, as the power of their music gets stronger and stronger.

The darkness in the room prevents the audience from fully seeing the band clearly despite close ups, and this adds to the mysteriousness of the band and their music.

Above all, the band show they are enjoying their music, and this enjoyment is passed from the band to the audience.

The end of the song suddenly cuts off, as does the video, which just goes black without any kind of out-ro.

The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done

The Killers kick off this black and white video not performing as they have in previous videos; however they have become part of the story, with the 4 band members taking up the roles as the 4 leading men to counter the 4 leading women in perfect equilibrium.

The video, set in what appears to be a Nevada desert town, could show the Killers going back to their roots, as they grew up around Vegas. The title “All These Things That I’ve Done” suggests regret in the tone, and the fact it is set close to home could show regret in earlier years.

The black and white of the video also suggests it is set in the past, as an old fashioned car again reiterates this as it crawls around the old fashioned Nevada street corner in a fashion that could resemble “Grease” when the men would sit in the back of a convertible, relaxed and with their feet on the back of the seat in front.

The band are all dressed in black with large black hats on, another contextual reference, this time to Zorro from the “Zorro” films.

The men are all covered up, as if concealing something behind their long cloaks, and we never find out why the women are attacking the men. Where as the women obviously have nothing to hide, as they don mini skirts and revealing shirts. They wear denim and chequered shirts which would have been around in the time the video is set rather than modern day materials.

Brandon Flowers is seen in the showers, seemingly cleansing his regrets, or trying to as cutaways break up the video again showing scenes from the past. Flowers’ struggles and slips in the shower, his attempts of cleansing have failed.

Flowers walks around the old style town, with a plank of wood and numerous light bulbs attached to it. He tries to smash the bulbs with the heel of his Cuban heeled winkle pickers, but fails to smash them all.

He is seen with the other 3 members of the band, approaching the camera as if approaching war. Flowers mounts a donkey, a sign of humbleness in the bible, again trying to show he’s not the big man he thought he was.

The enemies of the men come into view. They line up directly facing opposite each other, both singing the same lyrics. “I got soul but I’m not a soldier” as the men take a step back for each one the women advance.

Again breaking the conventions, the men turn and run from the women, who appear quite angry at the men maybe for the reason, the men seem to regret something. The men claiming not to be soldiers would normally be seen as the more powerful sex and the women shouldn’t even dare look at the men in the wrong way, let alone commence in an all out onslaught.

The men, after running seem to escape with minor wounds from the attacks of the women; however, one by one are picked off. The last to go, ironically as he’s the front man is Flowers, the most integral part of the video. He falls with his face flat in a pool of water like what is seen at the start of the video, completing the circle of the video.

The plank of wood, after being nailed up right into the ground explodes leaving the remaining lights lit up, spelling out the word “Killers”, the band marking the video as theirs, adding to how personal the regrets are to them.

Research: Music Video - History of the Music Video beginning with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody

BBC’s “Top of the Pops” started to show music videos in the late 70’s, even with the strict limits on outsourced videos they were allowed to show imposed upon them by the BBC.

In 1975, rock band “Queen” employed Bruce Gowers to make a promotional video for their upcoming single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a video these days considered ground breaking, as it paved the way for the modern music video to take centre stage. The song written by Freddie Mercury surprisingly remained at the top of the charts for 9 weeks, despite its unusual format, and this is believed to be down to the promotional video.

Bohemian Rhapsody took about 4 hours to record, and cost about £45,000 which the band no doubt recouped from the sales of the record. By putting the video onto Top of the Pops, Queen were able to broadcast their song to a wide audience and because of the video, people would continue to tune in hoping to see it.

In 1981, U.S music channel MTV (Music Television) launched; the start of 24-hour music broadcasting. By the mid 80’s, music videos were essential in the marketing of band’s singles. Popular acts such as Madonna owed much of their fame and popularity to their creative and seductive videos.

However, when MTV started, it had less than 1 million viewers. Word soon spread between its target audience of 12 – 14 year olds, and 2 years on, the expansion of cable TV took MTV to more than 10 million homes.

The first VJ (video jockey) was New Romantic, Adam Ant, of Adam and appeared on the channel before a video was about to be played, introducing the video which was about to be played. The high profile gusts like Adam Ant showed the channels affect and influence on the sales of records.

On the second of December, 1983, Michael Jackson released the best selling single of all time, Thriller, accompanied with a nearly 14minute long music video. Jackson spent $500,000 of his own money on this video, which is listed in the Guinness book of records as being the most successful video of all time, sifting over 9 million units.

“Thriller” was not a conventional music video however, mainly because of the duration of it; it was seen as more of a short film, a homage to horror films with the inclusion of science fiction favourites, zombies, choreographed to dance alongside a werewolf Jackson in the iconic dance sequence that is till admired for its striking moves and complexity in modern times.

“Music fans began to expect songs to have images – glossy ones too – otherwise they would not succeed” said Simon Warner, pop music lecturer at Leeds University. “So record companies had to start adding at least £50,000 to an artist’s marketing budget to make that essential video” he added.

In the 80’s, a wave of new romantics hit Britain, who benefitted most from MTV. Bands such as Adam and the Ants and Duran Duran made creative and catchy videos, a legacy of their art college backgrounds. However American acts soon caught up, Madonna, for example, can to this day be known as one of MTV’s biggest success stories. And in latter years, Eminem, Britney Spears and the Spice Girls have all become global superstars through the constant airing of their videos.

MTV also held an annual awards ceremony for the videos and music they broadcast, as well as broadcasting all of Live Aid, which was held to raise money for famine in Ethiopia.

MTV has a number of Spin of channels like MTV2 and MTV Dance, in order to show videos of specific genres to an ever growing community of diversity.

Music Videos now days can present a public image that the band want to promote. Nirvana’s dingy videos could be seen to represent the darkness in their personalities. The Spice Girls each had a band name e.g. Sporty Spice, Posh Spic, leaving young girls all over the UK aspiring to be who their favourite was.

The internet has challenged the traditional music channel, as well as creating a number of “internet sensations” like Lilly Allen and the Arctic Monkeys. YouTube is the most popular place for young artists to upload their videos, in the hope someone will see their talent, as well as spreading the word on social networking sites.

Videos can now be downloaded from iTunes and also illegally via sites like Limewire and the Pirate Bay. This is more convenient than sitting by your TV all day waiting in hope of your favourite video coming on. This has led to the closure of a number of channels and shows, most notably Top of the Pops who was unable to compete with the 24-hour service provided by channels like MTV.

Sources

• wikipedia.org
• bbc.co.uk
• NYPress.com (New York Press)
• MTV.com

Research: Digi Pack

What is a Digi-Pack?

A Digi-book is a little attachment that comes within the album covers. There are no specified measurements or layouts for a Digi-book, allowing artists to experiment and show their personality more through how they choose to present their ideas.


Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

On opening “Favourite Worst Nightmare,” I found it opened out with an image on either side of the CD, both showing back windows of a house at night, with the rooms of the house illuminated and decorated with bright, vivid colours, matching the inside of the house on the front cover. By putting the picture on the other side of the card, it makes the house seem 3D with the front on one side of the case and the back of the house on the other.
The Arctic Monkeys chose to give buyers a 12 page booklet in their second album. The booklet is simply 11 pages of photography using vivid colours like green, orange and pink. This relates back to the album cover which is a picture of a dark, grim street, showing three windows looking into rooms with bright decor, like something from the 60’s.
The pictures themselves match the dark nature of the music and the album cover by being extreme close-ups of general everyday things for example a fork, whilst being dimly lit.
On the final page of the booklet, the band use a green font on a black background which relates back to the green logo on the black background on the front of the album and to the find used on the back page.
They include a carbon copy of the track listing found on the back of the album and then in smaller print in the second half of the page, they include all of their acknowledgements to each song (i.e. who wrote it e.g. “track 5: Words by Turner/Bennett, Music by the Arctic Monkeys”)
Throughout the entire album the band use the same font and the same colour scheme, which is dark and green.

Favourite Worst Nightmare Front Cover

Example of Favourite Worst Nightmare Artwork

The Killers - Sawdust

The Killers have chosen to use an autumnal scene with the main colours being used browns, oranges and greens. The name of the band is written in white to make it stand out from the background, along with its position in the middle of the cover.
However the book included inside the covers shows the Killer’s thinking outside the box. All appears to be a normal booklet on first glance however when you open up the first page, the booklet takes up a more “wardrobe style effect,” with pictures of brass handles on wood making it seem like a door to Narnia.
When you open up the two doors, there is a wall style effect there, with a wooden style background and lots of pictures of the band with frames on them as if they are hung up on the wall.
The fact this album is dedicated to the fans makes the pictures all the more meaningful, because the fans who have purchased the album can look at pictures of the band and not have to put the pictures up on their own wall.
The pictures show the band in a variety of different places at a number of different stages in their careers, which not only reminds fans why they fell in love with the band in the first place, and also reminds fans of where the band are now.
The fact the pictures show the band in places such as under the Eifel Tower and jet-skiing makes them look like holiday pictures which makes the wall look more authentic.
On the back of the booklet is a bright green background with the words “this album dedicated to our fans” wrote in the same font as the album name on the front cover.
The CD itself also matches the colour scheme throughout the album, with the CD design made completely of brown and dark yellow.

Sawdust Front Cover

Sawdust Digi-pack half and fully opened

Hellogoodbye - Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!

It seems America’s most successful export of geeks have simply chosen to use a conventional CD case with a front cover which consists of a drawn monster who is painted in as if a child drew and coloured the picture in with wax crayons.
When you open up the case, you find the same style of art on the CD itself, but when you take out the front cover and unfold it, it becomes a poster with two sides.
The first side is a picture, mostly black and white which builds on the front cover, perhaps the buyer can finish off the colouring for him or herself? Or maybe the band just want to promote the artwork of the artist “Le Deux” who designed all the artwork for the band around the time of their first album’s release.
On the second side of the poster, we see familiar drawings but this time there are boxes built into the artwork containing the lyrics to all the songs on the album. This has become a lot more common in recent times, with bands releasing albums with lyrics in booklets found in the album case, but rarely are the lyrics presented in poster style as is found here.
Hellogoodbye’s bare and blank style really draws attention to the small bits of bright colour that are found, and in a strange way, less seems to be more with the absence of colour catching the eye and diverting attention to the artwork itself rather than the colours.

Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! Fron Cover

Research: Advertising Poster

Lost Prophets – The Betrayed

The Lost Prophets use a half page spread which is all black to match their album cover. The writing is white to stand out and with their band name plastered across the top of the advert so everyone knows who the advert is about. To stick to the theme, the bands pictures are also in black and white, with their skin made whiter and their hair made darker to blend in to the background adding an air of mysteriousness. The album name is also made big and wrote in block capitals as is the rest of the advert; however this is in bigger font and put right in the middle of the advert to make it stand out more.
The date of the release of the album is wrote below the name of the album in a grey colour which is less shiny and stands out less, whilst still standing out, to let people know when they can get their hands on this piece of music.
The band also put their website address at the bottom for viewers wishing to find out more about the band in general, and the upcoming release.
The colours and theme used in the advert can relate to the type of music band is going to play in the album, a sort of angry fight back from their previous album, and can relate to their target audience who will listen to other bands with this sort of theme and colour scheme, a sort of Goth stereotype who wear dark colours and like dark make up.

Vampire Weekend – Contra

Vampire Weekend adopt a very light colour scheme for their advert. A simple white background contains one picture on this double page spread which is the album cover without the band and album name on it. The picture itself has been edited on the computer to make it look pinker, and this matches the colour scheme used on the rest of the advert.

A reason for there not being a picture of the band themselves could be the fact the band want to be known for their music and not for their looks, because of the genre they're aiming for, the band would just look the same as every other band at the minute, it also adds to the mysteriousness of the band, making people want to find out more.
As well as including no pictures of the band, the same font is kept the entire way through, and they only use two colours, a purple and baby blue. The band name which is at the top of the advert is written in purple which is the more vivid colour and immediately stands out from the white background. The band have kept the same font from the first album so fans can still relate and this could also act as a statement that unlike some bands, this band haven't changed, its more of the same stuff people fell in love with them for.
The album name which is wrote in the less stand out baby blue colour is wrote in the same size as the band name but doesn't stand out as much because of its colour.
Then the words "the new album" as are said many other adverts are written with the release date in numerical form which finishes off all the given information.
In very small print underneath you find a very small logo of their record label separating the bands website and the labels website address' again for people who want to find out more about the band and the label they're signed to.
The simplicity of this advert makes it look all the more modern and up to date, where adverts aren't really about cramming all the information on to the page, but rather pointing the reader in the direction of more information whilst still wanting to persuade them to go and find information.

DELPHIC

Delphic make their advert almost as weird as their name. As you can see the main focus of the advert is the enhanced picture of the three band members behind the band name.
The members themselves can't be seen clearly because they have been made darker and stand out more against the off-white background.
The name of the band, in big, white, bold lettering is right in the middle of the advert, across the three band members to make the white stand out more. It's helpful for a new band, such as Delphic to get their name big and clear for people to see because a lot of people reading the advert will never have heard of them before.
The final third of the advert is the name of the album; again an eye catching word simply because of how un-common it is and this has the release date and record label underneath it in near-enough small print.

I think by the look of this advert, the main priority for the band is not to advertise when the album is coming out, but to promote their name so people want to have a look about the band more, listen to their first few songs and then find out when the album is coming out, as would be the case with my band. Bands such as Lostprophets and Vampire Weekend who are already established on the scene and who have a following of fans will want to advertise the new material as well as the name.