(P) Initial Ideas #2

The general, very basic idea of my music video so far is for my friend, Becky, to be just walking, dancing, thinking, etc. around different locations of Clumber Park (a country park near where I live). She will be wearing a red dress as the lyrics say, and will also be carrying some high heels, looking fed-up, lonely, desolate, etc. as though she's lost and giving up. The editing will be fast-paced and, like the original video, will use filters which give off an 'Instagram' feel. Also in the video I will have simple scenery shots - the trees, sky, clouds, water, etc. which I could cut to and/or overlay over Becky's character. The video will be about the end of summer and also the end of a relationship so the shots which are 'during summer' will be shot as though it's Becky's boyfriend filming her so she'll be happy and carefree and then the bits where it's the end of summer the camera will be steady and Becky will be more desolate, etc.

I also quite like the below effect, with the projector casting shadows on Del Rey's face, so this is something that I'll probably look into reenacting in my music video.

(R) Summertime Sadness

Summertime Sadness is a song from Lana Del Rey's second studio album, Born To Die. It was released on the 22nd of June 2012, by Interscope Records. House remixes of this song helped break Lana Del Rey into the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart. In August 2013, the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart gave the singer her first US number one single by charting Summertime Sadness as number one. 

In the summer of 2013, a remixed version of the song by Cedric Gervais was released to an American contemporary hit radio, debuting the track at 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reaching number 4 on the UK Singles Chart and also becoming the highest charting single of her career in the UK. The single peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100, also making it her highest peak in the USA.

The music video features two lovers, one played by Jaime King and the other by Lana Del Rey herself. As the storyline progresses both lovers eventually commit suicide by jumping from perilous heights. The cinematography was handled single handedly by King's husband, Kyle Newman. The music video gained success on YouTube and circulated on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Critics compared this music video to Instagram.

Jaime King was quoted as saying about the video that, "It's about not being able to live without the one you love, friend or lover it doesn't matter, that's whatever you want it to be".

Reworded from Wikipedia.

(R) Lana Del Rey

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, a.k.a Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter of 27 years. Del Rey began writing at the age of 18, securing her first recording contract at the age of 22 with 5 Points Records amd releasing her first digital album - Lana Del Ray a.k.a Lizzy Grant - in January 2010. 

After releasing her debut single 'Video Games' in June 2011, a music video created by herself was released on YouTube in August 2011 and quickly became viral with over 20 million views. After, her second studio album 'Born To Die' was released in January 2012, which sold over 3.6 million copies worldwide in 2012, making it the fifth best-selling album of that year. This album involved various top ten hits including 'Blue Jeans', 'National Anthem', 'Born To Die' and 'Summertime Sadness'.

Lana Del Rey's music has been recognised for its references to various aspects of pop culture, particularly including that of the 1950s and 60s Americana, with the singer describing herself as a "self-styled gangster Nancy Sinatra".

(P) My Song Choice

For my music video I have chosen Cedric Gervais' remix of Lana Del Ray's song Summertime Sadness.

I've chosen a remixed version of the original because the original song is quite slow, thus meaning that the video could potentially be a bit boring to watch, whereas the remix keeps a part of the original slow-paced song but also includes a more fast-paced dance-like bit. Therefore, I can create more of an interesting, perhaps 'looser' storyline compared to if I chose the original, slow-paced song or just a pure fast-paced, dance genre song, as stereotypically, dance songs don't tend to have much of, if any, storyline to them.

(R) Existing Magazine Advertisements

Below are existing magazine adverts that I can use as inspiration for my magazine advert that I'm going to create as part of my ancillary task. 

Indie, rock

Pop rock, indie pop, new wave

Pop, R&B, dance

Pop, alternative rock

Pop, indie rock

Indie rock, electronic rock

(R) Marketing and Advertising

Without innovative and well thought out marketing and advertising ideas and campaigns, it would be hard for any musician or band to gain popularity - marketing and advertising could be seen as the most vital part of the whole process. 

There are many different ways that artists and bands can advertise their music, many are listed below:

YouTube

On popular music videos, YouTube feature an advert for another song or album before the user can view the video they initially wanted to watch. In order to draw the audience in, the advertisements aren't able to be skipped - although some can be skipped after five seconds. The thought behind this? That the five seconds that the user has seen of the advert will draw them in enough to carry on watching and then potentially go on to listen to the song advertised or even purchase it. Sometimes, there are even banners underneath the video that users can click on in order to take them to another video or webpage.

Television

Usually when an artist/band has a new album, they will frequently advertise it on television. This form of advertisement is very expensive, however, and is therefore why more popular stars use it compared to less-known artists. The advertisements are usually shown on relevant channels and at relevant times in order to attract the right audience.

iTunes
There are adverts for new albums, upcoming albums and also upcoming tours all over the iTunes homepage, where hundreds of people will see them as in order to download music for their iPhone, iPod or iPad they have to access the iTunes store.

Magazines
Another method of advertising is through magazines. There are many different genres of music magazines just in the UK, so there is plenty of variety and the opportunity to target the right sort of person. Many music magazines feature tour dates, new and upcoming albums, interviews with the artist/band and sometimes offer free items revolving around the artist. Below is an example of an advertisement inside a magazine, advertising Green Day's new single and their album.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways for artists and bands to advertise their music as it's the most cost-effective - it's generally free of charge! Viral marketing is a technique that encourages consumers to pass on a 'marketing message' to other websites or users, which gives the potential of a huge increase in the message's visibility and effect. An example of viral marketing is using social networks (such as Facebook) to post a music video and then people 'like', 'comment' on and 'share' the video so that millions of users soon see the video in a short space of time.

(R) 360 Video Advertising

An example of Professor Green's 360 advertising

Artists are always trying to think of new, unique ideas in order to keep their target audience interested. 

One new, unique idea was 360' videos. Professor Green entered into an advertising partnership with Doritos. In this partnership, Doritos agreed to release special edition packs with a code on the back which could be inputted into a smartphone would display a special, interactive 360' music video from Professor Green. This would have benefits for both Professor Green and his target audience. These were the first ever 360' interactive music videos created, with the aim of the audience being able to control what part of the music video they saw. Each time they would watch the music video they could watch a different aspect of it, which would thus attract them to revisit the music video and frequently rewatch it, which means the audience would be consuming more of the artist, therefore boosting their consumer loyalty to his 'brand' and maybe turning them into bigger fans. Even people who maybe aren't a fan of Professor Green could potentially want to see the video as it is innovative and different, thus attracting a new audience to the artist.

Since Professor Green launched this new idea, other stars such as Rihanna have made similar deals with Doritos. Artists will often try different ways to keep their audience interested or attract new ones, such as free downloads of a song for a set amount of time. This is also common with new artists in order to get themselves noticed.

Furthermore, consumers are often able to download a song for free from an artist's MySpace or website as this often attracts new audiences as they are able to 'try before they buy' before they actually commit to buying an artist's song. 

More than just music is needed to be successful in the music industry today. Artists need to continuously reinvent themselves or do innovative advertising stunts or release merchandise such as perfume and clothing.

(R) The History of Music Advertising

(R) Mixed Genres, Collaborations & Mash Ups

Mixed Genres

Many of the music of today cannot fit into just one, traditional genre. Most songs are either a mix of genres or influenced by other genres. This allows the artist(s) to appeal to a wider audience and become more successful.

A band known for mixing music genres is The Roots. Predominantly, they are a band specialising in the rap genre, however, they mix this with light rock. This unique spin on their music allows them to stand out against other rap artists as they're appealing to fans of more than one genre.

Plan B, who orginially was a rap and grime artist, didn't have very much success with his orginial music, therefore he changed his style in order to appeal to a wider audience and become more successful and now he is one of the most successful male artists of today. Nowadays, he still stays true to his rap and grime roots, but he mixes them with a blues sound which works because of his ability to sing. Plan B has stated that he wishes to explore each genre of music possible, and then release an album for each genre explored so that he can reach out to as many people as possible.

Collaborations
A music collaboration is when different, sepeate musicians work on the same album or song.

Nelly and Tim McGraw - Over and Over (song)
Hip hop/rap star Nelly collaborated with country superstar Tim McGraw in 2004 in an attempt to blend hip hop with country music, which happen to be two completely different music genres. Nelly was quoted by Entertainment Weekly saying: "(Both musical genres) come out of poverty-stricken communities, so putting those together, it's gonna work - it just has to be done right". However, this song has since been listed as one of the worst music collaborations ever.

Jay Z and Linkin' Park - Collision Course (album)
In 2004, Jay Z (rap) and Linkin' Park (rock) came together at first to just perform one track together on MTV. However, they decided that they wanted to re-record parts of the songs to make them fit better and the band even re-recorded instrumental and vocal tracks. In the end, both Jay Z and Linkin' Park decided they wanted to release the studio tracks and the album was put together within 4 days. The album became a massive success in both the USA and the UK, attracting Linkin' Park's audience to Jay Z and vice versa. Both parties are now generating more money than they were originally and the album allowed the to reinvent themselves in order to stay current in the industry.

Florence and the Machine and Dizzee Rascal - You Got the Dirtee Love (song)
Florence and the Machine (indie pop) and Dizzee Rascal (former grime artist, but more recently mainstream rap) came together to remake and release the song You Got the Love. Originally, Florence and the Machine covered the classic song, but gave it a fresh twist and thus made it one of the biggest selling singles of 2009. During the Brits, Florence and Dizzee came together to perform the song, causing a massive storm within the music industry. With the popularity of the song buzzing, both artists decided to record and release the song as a single. In the end, it manage to sell more records than the original cover by Florence herself.

David Guetta
David Guetta is well known for this collaborations with some of the biggest artists in the music industry, such as Nicki Minaj, Flo Rida and Rihanna. He first began by remixing songs by other artists, but then he moved onto working on collaborations with other artists and then releasing the singles.

Mash Ups
Mixing two songs together is very popular too - this is known as a mash up. Mash ups are popular in bars and nightclubs, and any style of song is usually mixed with another to form a new 'dance' track. It's common to have an adapted version of one song, with an increased tempo, or adapted into a dance track in some other way, or just a mix of two completely different songs to have the same effect. Mash ups can help improve the sales of singles, as consumers will hear the remix/mash up in a nightclub, a bar or even on the radio and it will attract people to either download the original song, or even sometimes the mash up itself. In both cases, it's advertising and popularity for the original artist. Mash ups could also attract a diverse audience because fans of dance music will be introduced to different artists they don't usually listen to.

Illegal Mash Ups
As ever, there are ways for audiences to access illegal mash ups and download them for free. This can be done via www.soundcloud.com which is a website that allows the user to search for a particular song. The search results will then display all of the remixes/mash ups of that song and allows the user to even upload a version they've created. This can arise lots of copyright issues though.

There are many issues/problems like this on the internet that are causing problems for the music industry. One popular example is illegal downloading, via websites like Limewire. Illegal downloading causes a loss of revenue for the artist in question and also the music industry. Although YouTube convertors are controversial, technically they are not illegal as the user is simply converting a video file into an MP3 file, however because access to 'free' music is so easy and simple it means that less people are actually buying music.

(R) Music Video Conventions

Camera Angles and Shot Types

The majority of time the genre of music can influence the type of camera angle or shot type used. For example, long shots are often used to show a band playing their instruments, cutting to close ups of each individual band member for time to time. However, if the genre was pop or blues, there might be a lot of close ups in order to focus on the main star's face and emotions in order to further emphasise the storyline and make it clear to the audience what emotion they should be feeling, i.e. if the main star was crying or looking distressed then the audience would know to feel this way too.

Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene is everything included in a scene - the setting itself, props, costume and make-up. The mise-en-scene for each genre of music is different and is always intricately thought about and planned out. For example, if the music video was of the pop genre it will usually be more upbeat, bright and colourful and would be set in a conventionally cheesy place. However, if the genre was rock the music video might be very dark and include a lot of black and red, heavy eye make-up, piercings and tattoos. Furthermore, if the genre was rap or hip hop conventional props such as guns, expensive jewellery and scantily clad females would be included.

Sound

Sound is obviously a crucial part of a music video because it is what makes up half of it - without sound it would only be a video! Although the actual song would be non-diegetic sound, some music videos also include diegetic sound as a part of the storyline, some videos even include a minute long script before the music actually begins, and some even have a break in the middle of the song to cut to a piece of diegetic sound.

Editing

Editing is another crucial aspect of the production of a music video - this is where the scene for the music video are picked out and fine-tuned. One of the most vital parts of editing is lip syncing: if the artist doesn't appear as though they're actually singing the song the overall music video can appear unprofessional and messy. CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) effects can sometimes be used as well, for example to create the effect of a person flying or doing something else which is deemed impossible in reality. Jump cutting (jumping from one scene to another) is another technique which is used a lot in music videos.