U2 have done well with their target audience, because they evolved with the times they weren't quite the same as other boy bands in the 00's but they still managed to produce alternative rock tracks whilst bands like Boyzone and Take That were pushing closer towards Pop than Rock. Everyone thought that this would leave U2 without a large target audience, because younger kids growing up tended to prefer the new Pop boy band (especially girls 8-14).
A lot of people still listening to U2 from the 90s still liked the new music they were bringing out even if it wasn't quite the same and at the same time were picking up new viewers who started listening to newer albums such as All That You Can't Leave Behind which had the track beautiful day which was a smash hit and won them 3 Grammys.
This is from the official Facebook page of U2 and shows that they have 17,500,684 page likes however you can see that it isn't growing rapidly probably because they haven't released any new music recently when I checked it. However there is still almost a quarter of a million talking about U2, so they are still immensely popular. The two videos contrast in popularity with Beautiful Day being a much older song and has been viewed many more times than Song For Someone which was only released in 2014. This shows that the target audience is going to be slightly older and maybe between the ages of early thirties to fifties.
Nigel Dick was born on the 21st March 1953 and is an English music video and film director, writer and musician. He directed the Band Aid video "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and many many others. He has worked with many different artists which includes, but it not limited to: REM, Green Day, Ricky Martin, Paul McCartney, Elton John and Guns N' Roses. Nigel has won many different awards that range from ta BRIT award and has been nominated for twenty plus MTV Music Video Awards and also for a Grammy Award.
Nick tended to use a lot of performance based music videos and began his career with Stiff records getting a feel for the music industry as a press officer. Later he moved on and co-founded his own production company for music videos and adverts called Propaganda Films. His videos are much older than Mathew's and are much more performance dominated with much less radical ideas. Some examples of his work
Mathew Cullen is a fantastic director and has worked with many artists such as Adele, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Green Day, Taylor Swift, Pink and R.E.M. Some of his work has been inducted into the museum of modern art. He was listed on Rolling Stone's annual “Hot List” for his work as a music video director. A magazine called Wired called him one of six directors who are making music videos cool again. His work has been inducted into the Museum of Modern Art on many occasions. He won a grammy for his directing on the music video for Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas. He is also won another grammy the year after with Pork and Beans. He doesn't just do music videos and is involved in film development for Dreamworks, Warner Bros and Paramount. He also directed the prologue of Pacific Rim.
Mathew uses a lot of weird and new ideas in his videos, such as in the Coldplay video below there is a pair of very old people dancing in some quite disturbingly revealing clothing. They are just dancing around whilst Coldplay are performing and lip syncing next to them in front of a live crowd. On the other hand the Adele video has a narrative with a story in which involves a car crash. Then in an even more abstract way he manages to make it look like when they are lying down presumed dead that they move together appearing to be stood up, from the camera angles and the shadows created by lights. Some of his work
U2 are signed to Island Records, it was founded by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall and Leslie Kong in Jamaica and has been based in the United Kingdom since 1962. They sold the label to Polygram in 1989 who then went on to merge with Universal Records.
The US version of the label have some huge artists signed to them and some of them are: The Vamps;Avicii;Bon Jovi,American Authors and Fall Out Boy. The UK version of the label have more succesful artists that include:U2;Mumford & Sons; Florence and The Machine; John Newman;Hozier;Catfish and the Bottlemen and Will Young
The artwork used here keeps things simple with the artist name and album name in clear colours and draws your attention towards them. The colour scheme used isn't complex and you don't want it to be dull, but you also don't want the background to take attention away from the artist and the songs. The back of the case also has all the necessary items such as the barcode and the distribution and legal information. The colours used are indie which suits the artist and the tracks that are on the album. Something that is also good about this digipak is that the same colour scheme is used on the artwork of the actual CD using the light pink fading through into white.
This Foo Fighters album was less of a pop-rock mix but however was full blown heavy rock which a lot of their old fans loved. The images used are extremely colourful which is made more prominent by the solid black background. The only colours used are green, orange, blue and pink and the faces of the band members are copied a few times and posted into one big mash-up. Something that I am thinking about taking from this particular digipak is the contrast between bright, vivid colours and the dominant black. Also the font is clear and bold which is key to an effective digipak or for the magazine ad especially when you are selecting the font for the band and song name.
The supporting artwork to a song really has to complement the song and be worthwhile. The colours used in for this image really support the idea of a "paradise" which is what the song is all about. The light blue and bright colours: pink, yellow, white, green and red are all bright colours that make you someone would associate with a paradise. Many people may think to a paradise island like Hawaii, when thinking of this song and you get the same idea from the artwork above. The font is also quite bubbly and then there is also the picture of a butterfly drawn in a similar fashion to the text. From this i would take that the font has to fit in with the rest of the digipak, similar to this one.
The song was recorded and released in 1998 and consists of only two cords which is why Robbie has said it was the most simple song he has ever written or had a hand in producing. The song topped Irish and UK charts around the time of its release and was also Robbie's first song that reached the US top 100 billboard list reaching at its peak position 77.
Relationship between lyrics and visuals
He begins singing about stars whilst the background is golden and twinkly that he is performing in at that time which links the lyrics and what can be seen on the screen with the background being very star like. He also sings about praying and falling from grace that many people associate with the Bible and in particular Jesus and angels which the background also ties in with because of the star of David
Relationship between music and visuals
During the chorus and at some other intervals in the video the camera jumps back to Robbie singing by himself with the golden background and then fro verses it goes away to him in other scene, such as outside a set, driving on a country road and in a boat in what appears a Miami style area.
What image does this create for the band?
Along with a lot of Robbie does it creates an image of a sex symbol that he has become and he always around women or nice cars. This creates a strong image of wealth and success which he definitely has in abundance.
References to notion of looking
An air stewardess comes to see if he is okay and when she turns around to walk away Robbie appears to check her out as she walks away which is seen as a typical thing for Robbie Williams to do as he has a huge background in being a womaniser. There is huge sexualisation to Robbie and the attractive women models that are used in the video, especially during the scenes where he is on a boat
Intertextual references
The song uses a lot of lyrics from John Barry's You Only Live Twice which was the track to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice in 1967. There is some huge references to this throughout the music video. The car that Robbie is driving around the countryside is an old Aston Martin that is heavily linked and has been used in many James Bond films. He also is always wearing a Tuxedo and is usually surrounded by attractive women, which we all associate with James Bond.
Conclusion
I like the idea of shooting the chorus in the same spot and cutting away and coming back to the same location. Also how each verse is in different sets so that it doesn't all become a bit of the same thing the whole way through.
R.E.M released the song in early 1991 with the guitarist Peter Buck composing a lot of the song before linking up with the rest of the band. The video was directed by Tarsem Singh who wanted the video to be quite a simple performance video, but also add in some tribal Indian aspects which can clearly be seen throughout the video.
Relationship between lyrics and visuals
There is a great shot where you can see a clear recreated of Jesus on the cross which really ties in with the whole idea of "losing my religion" with the heavy Christian ideas in the video. They also constantly cut to angels and at one point an arm appears to reach down from the sky which clearly portrays God. They also go from Michael Stipe singing about losing his religion and his time in the "spotlight" which could mean that he has changed whilst under pressure from being a famous musician and may be why he is losing his religion.
Relationship between music and visuals
Near the beginning of the music video the lights flicker on and off and decrease and increase in brightness levels in time to the musics ups and downs, this sometimes gives off an effect of a sort of flash. The music isn't funky or modern and is quite soft which creates a strong link between the music and the tribal scenes that you wouldn't think would work. The director manages to make it all work and the tribal areas don't seem too odd at all.
What image does this create for the band?
The company are trying to sell this track off its quite bizarre idea of cutting from a performance to a story whilst linking them all to the song. The cutaways to the Christian background story is something that hadn't really been used in a rock song before so probably surprised the audience and the director took a gamble and it payed off.
References to notion of looking
There isn't really in sexual displays in this video and I really don't think the director wanted to sexualise this music video.
Intertextual references
Obviously there is a massive intertextual reference to the Bible and Christianity with the use of God, Jesus, angels and wisemen.
Conclusion
This video combines a performance based video and a narrative based video. The narrative tells a few stories from the bible in the video and then there is constant movement between that aspect and the performance that is happening in the barn.
Intro
This is the song Every Breath You Take by The Police whilst they were signed to A&M Records. It was directed by Godley and Creme. The video has been watched approximately 160 Million times on YouTube and most likely has been seen many more times than that. The director said that he based it loosely on a song called jammin' the blues from 1944.
Relationship between lyrics and visuals
This is clearly a love song that has a very sad feel to it, which is highlighted through the use of the black and white effect that is used throughout the video. Sting the writer was going through a divorce whilst writing this and at the same time his cheating scandal came out and he was really getting attacked by the media, so he went missing for a while to get away from it all. "Every breath you take, every move you make, I'll be watching you." Some may say that this sounds a bit like a stalker, however I believe it to be him watching the woman he was having an affair with. This is portrayed through the slow movement of the camera and the band in the video and the fact that no-one is really moving around.
Relationship between music and visuals
The video really is in time with the music, with nothing moving particularly fast in the video and the overall tone of the music is very slow and steady. The band in the video are all stood still with small amounts of rocking their bodies but nothing massive.
What image does this create for the band?
The video was seen as quite revolutionary with the black and white and is regarded by many as a great music video and has been voted in the top 100 music videos in the rolling stone. It is clearly the most popular song by the artist by a long way and ties in with their others songs and isn't anything completely new to them.
Reference to the notion of looking
I don't believe there to be any sexual displays in this video, I don't think that it is anything like that. The camera work uses a lot of close ups of the band members in the video particularly closing in on the face. There is also a zoom from a wide shot of the band and then a jump shot takes us to a close up of a blacked out character in the background.
Conclusion
The video is a big hit and ties in really well with the music and lyrics they all fit together perfectly which is most likely why it is so famous. The video is also performance based with them just playing their instruments on a staging area.
This is magazine artwork for Muse and the fairly new album which was released in 2015 and the whole album as a collective is telling a story from song to song about a protagonist who is a "human drone". The image used to compliment the album is clear and you can tell what they are trying to do, the human like figure who looks like he is controlling all the people on his screen with a joystick. Then there is the other human who is being controlled by another huge hand and he may not even realise that he is being controlled similar to the soldiers on the screen. This is strong album art and i'm not sure if we will be able to replicate something like this into our magazine advert because that may be extremely difficult.
James Blunt's second album "All the lost souls" album is a collage of 100s of photos of himself throughout his childhood up until the release of the album which makes a mosaic effect and also contains one larger picture of himself. Although the image appears grainy it is just because it is made up of the smaller pictures that act similar to how a pixel would act and the pictures are significantly larger than a pixel.
Snow Patrols album Eyes Open had their bestselling song on it, "chasing cars". The artwork for this album is abstract and at a first glance can appear to just be a collage of random images. However on closer inspection you can clearly see two people coming together intimately. The combination of obscure images help to promote the album title and fits in well with the theme of the album you have to think about the picture or maybe even "open your eyes" to see the true meaning. The colours used are also dark and moody which again ties in well with the feel of the album.
Your task is to shoot and edit a shot by shot copy of a real music video (about 60-70 seconds). You will need to choose your track from the choice below depending on available actors in the group. All members of the group should be involved in singing, filming, directing and editing. You should upload a small version of the real video to the corner of your screen to help you edit. All work should be blogged. Planning We chose to recreate the music video from High School Musical - What time is it. This was just a prelim activity so there wasn't a lot of planning involved and we figured that shooting the video would probably take up most of our time. We wrote out what scenes we had to do and got our cast together and all the props and costumes we needed. All of them were easily acquired from various departments in our school. Also another thought in why we chose this video is that it is shot mostly in a classroom, which is what we had easy access to so it would be appear a better replication. Filming We managed to film in about 3 hours however we filmed in a 2 hour block and then finished off a few extra scenes we needed in another hour period, however we didn't have the same cast in the second period. We tried to hide our lack of characters through camera angles, but that was pretty tough to do. Also it was hard to look like that classroom was filled, because in the real video there is about 20 people in the classroom whereas there was only 6 of us. We took it in turn filming, because some of our character weren't in certain shots and we all had our own character. Editing We were running out of time and didn't want to fall behind on the rest of the coursework so we decided to half the editing between myself and my partner and we managed to get it done in 2 hours. However it also took us quite a while to organise all of our clips, because a lot of them took two or three shots so we ended up with a lot of footage to sift through.
High levels of detail and a great understanding of music which involed great analysis of the Stan
music video by Eminem. Then he also used a comparison between the editing
in Stan by Eminem and Arabella by Arctic Monkeys
I found no faults with grammar and punctuation in this section.
Good use of pictures and makes it easier to read and more refreshing as opposed to a very dull piece of work.
Weaknesses -
Maybe could have analysed more videos to get a better idea of what he should've been doing for his video.
Planning
Strengths -
Again great use of pictures and videos for the different locations that are going to be used in the video
Using pictures of costumes and props to show good preperation.
Weaknesses -
Slightly more detail could be used to help back up why each prop or costume.
Shoud try to evaluate his own work more.
Music Video
Strengths -
Extensive knowledge and variety in recording and editing.
Actors were highly professional and looked comfortable around the camera.
Weaknesses -
Some of the shots seem very generic and could easily be transfered to other music videos.
Digipak
Strengths -
Good editing and black and white pictures give it a moody feel which i really like.
Weaknesses -
Not sure how the picture of the woman relates to the narrative of the video or the song that was used.
Magazine Advert
Strengths -
Editing in black and whiteties in really well with the digipak and the overall tone of the music video.
Weaknesses -
Again i'm not perticulary sure what the digipak has to do with the music video and don't realy see a link between them.
Evaluation
Strengths -
Great variety of software with blogs and prezis used so that it wasn't dull and kept me entertained whilst reading.
Little to no mistakes in spelling, puntucation and grammar.
Weaknesses -
Slightly more analysis to really get to the higher marks in analysis.
Track: What time is it? Artist: Zac Effron Director: Kenny Ortega Release Date: 2007 Length of video: 3:39 Number of shots in entire video: 79 Average length of shot: 2.77 secs
Number of shots in 70 second segment: 39 Within the 70 second segment there are: Number of CU: 11 Number of ECU: 3 Number of LS: 10 Number of MS: 13 Number of panning shots: 2 Number of tilts: 0 Other shots: 0
From this analysis I have learnt what kind of time that we need to film for and got an idea of how many shots we need to get and how long they should be.
