OCR Media Studies, Centre Number: 16607, Candidate Number: 7236 : March 2021

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Planning: Possible songs for Music Video

Different songs and ideas for music video from Sharon Pasquini

Industrial Context: Contemporary Context

How companies finance, distribute and exchange their products:

-Musicians make money from royalties, advances, playing live, selling merchandise, and licensing fees for their music

-Distribution companies sign deals with record labels, this gives them the right to sell that label's products. Following from that, the distributor takes a cut of income from each unit sold and then pays the label the remaining balance

How do audiences access them? (consider recent developments in technology:

-Media Players:

Due to the advancement of technology, audiences can now stream and/or download music and/or music videos on their preferred electronic devices through media players such as iTunes, Spotify or Pandora. They can either stream for free or pay a reasonable price every month for extra features or an ad-free service This new found way of accessing music is becoming more and more popular as it allows the audience to access music/music videos on demand whenever and wherever they are making a life-changing commodity.

However, it also useful to point out that many hardcore fans or older generations still consume their music through CDs, Vinyl or something similar

-TV stations:

Music videos, since they've made their first appearance, have always been broadcasted on television. Tv channels such as MTV and 4Music play both old and current music which primarily targets young adults but also teenagers. MTV has evolved and now has separate channels for different genres of music, this was done in order to make it easier for audiences watching to access more "niche" type of music/music videos.

-Internet:

The internet has now become one of the most used ways for audiences to access music videos. Most artists nowadays upload their music videos on sites such as YouTube and Vimeo whose content can be easily shared through links and other apps. That way audiences are constantly engaged. The internet has also allowed audiences to explore music/music videos from artists from different countries which would have been unthinkable many years ago as the videos would have most likely have only played on national TV.

Industrial Context: The Music Industry

The Music Industry from Sharon Pasquini

Generic Research: Mirror Effect

For my music video I wanted to have a first person mirror view scene somewhere at the beginning, where the person is looking into the mirror as if the camera is their eyes instead of having a camera to the side so I've been looking at different tutorials on YouTube that explain how to achieve that effect:

He uses Adobe which is a paid programme but I believe I can achieve the same effect on another program as long as I have the mask tool which is a key component in order for this to work

I looked at this shorter video to see what the effect would look like once it's finished and to see if it's actually what I want.

It's not going to look exactly like this but the main idea is there and I'll play around with it to fit what I want to achieve.

I also did a little drawing to try and visualize my idea:

It's very basic but it helps me envision what I have in mind and it prevents me from forgetting various ideas I have.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Industrial Context: Brief History of Music Videos

Industrial Context: Brief History of Music Videos

July 24^th, 1963- First Appearance of Music Videos: One of the earliest videos was Jan & Dean’s “Surf City” – this music video hit the Top 40

June 28^th, 1964- The Beatles first music video: The Beatles starred in their first feature film A Hard Day’s Night, directed by Richard Lester, which was shot in black and white

June 28^th, 1966- Bob Dylan’s first music video: Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” was filmed by D.A. Pennebaker. It was featured in Pennebaker’s Dylan film documentary Don’t Look Back

June 28^th, 1974- Sparks’ music video: In 1974 the band Sparks filmed a promo video for their single “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” from the album Kimono My House

June 28^th, 1975- TOTP: The long-running British TV show Top of The Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s. Therefore a good video would increase a song’s sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week

August 16^th, 1975- Queen on TOTP: The band Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make a promo video for their new single “Bohemian Rhapsody” to show it in Top of The Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape

1980- Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie): The most expensive music video until then, and also one of the most iconic. This music video was a stepping stone to deeper layers of meaning in music videos

June 28^th, 1981- MTV: The U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing “Video Killed the Radio Star” and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television

June 28^th, 1983- Michael Jackson’s influential music video: The most successful, influential and iconic music video of all time was released – the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller”. The video set new standards for production, having cost US$500,000 to film

July 30^th, 1985- Mainstream music videos: Music videos grew to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to their skilful construction and seductive appeal of their videos

December 11^th, 1992- Directors credited in music videos: MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur’s medium. Directors i.e. Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Hype Williams all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed

June 28^th, 1995- Most expensive music videos: Two of the videos directed by Romanek are notable for being two of the three most expensive music videos of all time; Michael and Janet Jackson’s “Scream” which cost $7million to produce and Madonna’s “Bedtime Story” which cost $5million

March 16^th, 2005- Fall of MTV music videos: MTV and many of its sister channels had largely abandoned showing music videos in favour of reality television shows, which were more popular with its audiences

September 2^nd, 2005- Rise of the Internet: The launch of the website YouTube made the viewing of online video much faster and easier, just like Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook, etc. which uses similar technology. Some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online, i.e. the band OK Go