'Everything's Remix' - Analysis [Secondary Evidence]

Copy, Transform and Combine - Evolution

Remixing in the music industry is common, especially in the hip hop genre. This is usually to do with the rhythm, lyrics and style because they have either been heavily inspired by previous artists or they are less well known and the bigger artists steal their lyrics and or the beat. This often leaves the bigger artists being sued. When people record these tracks they have to give credit to the other artists and get permission. Although most artists claim to be original they often are using sampling in their tracks to construct a beat because it is quicker than composing a track from scratch.

Within film the idea of remixing is more to do with the stories and ideas to create familiarity with audiences in films, which recycle ideas and make the films know as 'reboots'. Movies are also extremely expensive to make and originally is a huge risk with audiences because they like to know what to expect. Furthermore because all films follow genre much like music, they have to follow many conventions in order to satisfy audiences. This can act as a restriction for originality because of the expectation within the world of film.By just overlapping genres to fake originality because films are built on other films. For example StarWars was mainly built on Westerns, War films, Flash Gordon and a story structure called 'The Monomyth", which describe several scenes from within StarWars. By transforming these materials and combining them StarWars was created, this denotes that creation is impossible without influences from the surrounding world.

Copying is a form of learning for example to make music most artist will first parody their favourites to learn their craft. This helps us understand and develop ideas. However this does make the lines between original and copying. Most people will improve upon existing ideas because it allows for a great ideas to become advanced. Creative leaps are creating by the combination of ideas. An example is the now popular Mac, this is a combination of household appliance and professional tool. The idea of ideas shows that multiple people can have the same ideas at the same time, multiple discovery can cause the same films to made around the same time.

Ideas are then made into property, which can cause a problem when ideas aren't as static as the law. Instead ideas are inspired and layered to created new ideas and more often than not are inspired by other previous ideas. This create a problem when someone thinks that their ideas are property because it means nobody can use them or develop them because we live in an age where everything has to generate money and be profitable. By people copying ideas for products means that there is an unfair balance because research costs mean that if someone takes the design and sells it they can make more cuts to the price due to them not having to develop the idea. Intellectual property means that people get protective over their ideas. We can justify our own copying but get territorial over our own.

Parody - Poke fun [Humour]
Intertextuality - See other types of text within other texts
Bricolage - Various things to build something new not original
Pastiche - They have copied it to not to poke fun

Initial Ideas - Conflict Mindmap

For my music video I wanted to relate the song and the lyrics so that they work in unison to provide entertainment for my audience. This is because I found that in my survey people prefer the music video to be relating to the lyrics of the song because they it helps them connect visually with the soundtrack. Due to my song choice being a fast passed rap, I knew that I would have to make a fast paced video for it. This would mean that I would have to have fast cuts between a variety of different scenes, which makes it hard to tell a narrative. This means that I will have to create a narrative hybrid because I want to h be able to have the fast cuts of a performance music video while maintaining the story of a narrative music video. In order to achieve this I will be using the first minute or so to set up my story and interlink the performance in the narrative. 

To start my planning I wanted to look at a topic that related to the lyrics so that I definitely made a video surrounding the song, this would make sure that the video is linked with the lyrics. I proceeded then it make a mind map focussing on conflict because in feel that this can link to many ideas while still keeping the links to the song. The words that I felt were important to the development of my idea I highlighted as possible ideas to explore. My initial ideas that stemmed from this included one focussing on war and soldiers,  this would mean that I would have too place my character in war driven situations. I am not sure if I would be able to technically speaking pull this off because of my low budget but it is a topic that would be interesting to explore.

Another idea I had looked at more of a bullying approach to conflict idea, this will allow for the film to be relatable to both sides of my target audience. This is because at some point in everyones life people have experienced or seen bullying, mist commonly in school. This has lead me to think about setting my narrative in a school because it is technically possible and easily accessible for me. I want to use the words from this mind map and my audience responses to construct my first storyboard for the music video. This would then allow me to construct a shoot plan including: Test plans, Animatic, Shotlist and Edit decision list. By doing this I can make sure that I am  prepared for every shoot and do not waste time.

Conclusion - Album Covers / Adverts [Progress Tracker]

When I looked into music video album covers I wanted to find out how they are composed and constructed. I looked at the different forms of design and how the designers used typography, colour and composition.

 I learnt (can't change the colour?) that an Album covers are an essential part of promotion within the music industry, the album cover can depict the artists tone, genre and style. This is all important information that the target audience requires when making the decision whether to buy the album or not. This meant that i had to be able to meet my audiences expectations and still be original enough to attract new viewers to the album. 

The album cover has to reflect the songs within it and the artist themselves. I learnt that this is very similar to film in which we portray a character to an audience. This is exactly what we do with the artist, build a public image. I looked at various artists and albums to build my understanding of what I want to achieve on my cover. U looked at similar conventions like the bold text and fonts used on most album covers and the bold use of colours. These were all to make the album eye-catching to a new viewer but recognisable to a current fan of the artist. This is why it's important to look at previous album covers of the same artist to see what they kept the same and what changed. I found that my artist used the same logo throughout his albums covers, which I will defiantly incorporate into my work because it is s sign to do with DanBull. 

This lead me to research into signs because they are a powerful tool in design much like film. The signs often used on these album cover and adverts were to do with video games and violence, this is because 'rap' is seen as destructive and this actually attracts my younger audience because they like the fact that their parents are shut out their music. This is because their music is an escape from rules and restrictions in the everyday world. I learnt that to appeal to my target audience I have to use this as a sign in my design.

Conclusion - Music Videos [Progress Tracker]

This conclusion will begin from when I first chose the brief right up to the present day. At the beginning of my research I looked at musics videos I knew, using my film knowledge I analysed these music videos to the best of my ability not knowing what I was really looking for. However I did understand that music videos were different depending on the people making them and the genre of the music. I have learnt that music videos can carry visual jokes and meanings, which can link to the song. I first saw this in the 'Smosh' video "Dixon Cider" in which they have a lot of visual gags that link with the overall on of "Dixon". I further learnt how this same technique is used in Sia's music video "Chandelier" however this is used to create emotion instead of comedy. This is because the music video links the interpretive dance to the lyrics, which heightens the emotion to the song. Lastly I had learnt that green screens are important to the visuals of most music videos because it gives more control over the elements due to the artist being a separate component/ layer to the background. I has to then look into how to achieve this myself because I wanted to be able create a digital feel very similar to 'Rap God'.

Further on in my blog after research narrative in film and music I looked into the song I wanted, however it was clear to me that I can't just take an artists song without his/hers permission. Therefore I went away and constructed a lighthearted by professional email to send off to my chosen artist hoping that he would see my email and respond. A week passed and I was coming to terms with not being able to use his music until I went on his twitter and saw that he was on holiday. This lead to me sending him a tweet asking if he had looked at his emails; he then responded and sure enough he hadn't. This had taught me that it is important to stay patient and professional when dealing with people who are more successful than yourself because they have a lot of emails coming through everyday. He then responded to my email the next week giving me permission to make him a music video with his track. This was a great learning experience for me because it taught me a to about contacting people and copyright restrictions.

After that I then went on to research more music videos and look at how they use the camera to keep the music video interesting and relatable to the music. I wanted to see how the editing and pace slowed down depending to the rhythm of the song, there was no better video to look at than "Youtube Rewind" because they have to change their pace all the time because the song changes. I loved the way that the transitions were clever and simultaneously linked all the different artists and music together in one video. Looking back at the blog post a I may look into more of the pacing instead of the transitions because I think that that style is too hard to achieve on the budget that I am on. However I did want to look into doing this in some parts of my music video just not throughout.

To further extend my research into music videos I looked at the history of them and how their objectives have changed over time and how the technology into making them have changed over time. To do this I looked at several timelines to get a greater understanding of the history. I learnt that they have been around 94 years and that they have developed over time. I learnt that they have evolved because they became more of a promotional video for televisions and helped keep the song memorable. Furthermore the rise of MTV made it easier for these videos to be shared and that directors were now being given credit for them.

I then looked at the construction of my genre, 'nerdcore' this was because I wanted to understand what people expected in a nerdcore video and see if the idea of 'nerds' takes up the hole of the music videos. I found out that the mets en scene included old computers and servers which defiantly connoted nerds and geeks. The setting of a basement, locked away form society further enforces the stereotype that nerds don't socialise. However in my music video I intend to subvert these conventions and show nerdcore as a form of expression compared to the oppression of a 'nerd' stereotype. To show the oppression of nerds in society I looked into 'Film Noir' because this genre created vast shadows and used low keyed lighting to created mystery and show oppression. I researched the history of it and in my group we created our own music video using purley 'Film Noir' techniques. This taught me a lot about lighting and shadows.

Lastly I looked into more abstract music videos because I wanted to see how people have subverted conventions in their work to create something original. I went to several art galleries in hope of finding abstract inspiration, I then found a whole section on music videos and this is where I found the different variants of conventions within music videos. I found: Narrative, Concept and Performance. I then went away and researched these in order to develop and understanding of different types of music videos. I learnt about the different forms of narrative and which one I want to use, how concept is developed off artist and how performance and be made visually interesting through VFX.

After learning all this I created a survey to research into what other people thought of music videos and find out what they expect. Overall I think that I have learnt a great deal to do with music video conventions, genres and audience.

Survey Analysis - Audience Research [Part Two]

I had to cut out some questions because they didn't fit. I wanted to find out in this question if people watch the music video only for the first time they find the song or if they found the song because of the music video. I wanted to see if people see the music video as one with the song or they see it as a separate form of entertainment. The most popular answer was "Sometimes" which tells me that people expect the music video to be able to work in unison with the music. However some people obviously are not interested in the video, maybe because they see it as a distraction. If I was to do this again or make another one I would want to add an option to make a comment saying their option on music videos.




Another question I asked was to do with genre, this was because I wanted to find out what genre is the most popular in my target audience. I want to identify the genre that is most popular within my target audience because I can then cross over conventions from that genre in order to make my music video although from a different genre more enjoyable for those viewers. Now my results showed that there is some variation to my audiences favourite genre however it is clear to see that pop is the most popular by far. This means that I will look into conventions of pop videos and some of the other popular genres like pop in order to see if there are any conventions that appeal for me to use in my video.

The next question I asked in my survey was to do with where my target go to watch the music videos because this will help me decide which form of distribution I will choose. Furthermore it will help me understand where different ages go to view their entertainment. Youtube would be the most popular because of the huge worldwide audiences it entertains, furthermore it is where the top artists post their music videos making it the a very well known place for music videos.
The fact that the television is nearly as popular shows that I should defiantly make sure that there is a version that MTV etc would air. Or I have to be prepared to let the television company censor it.

I then asked if the user of the survey to tell me about what their expectations were of youtube videos, I have to go over all the results in order to get a good understanding of my audiences expectations. This is important to research this before production so that I don't make a production for the wrong audience and have to change it. Lastly I asked for their favourite music video to look at and analyse for research.

Survey Analysis - Audience Research [Part One]

To research my potential target audience I wanted to get around 100 people to take a quick survey. I wanted the survey to focus on who watched music videos and which ones were the viewers favourite. I created the survey expecting to only achieve half because of my limited resources, however after spending an evening on social media I managed to exceed my own expectations and the survey limits. The survey couldn't be too long because I didn't want to take to much of the users time.

It is important for me to know who is filling in my survey. If the survey targets a specific audience, it allows you to determine whether you are actually reaching your target audience and whether or not you are gathering the information you are effectively seeking. Furthermore, if I want to aim for a representative sample of a population, knowing the distribution of the demographic characteristics of my users will help me in determining how close the sample replicates the current market.



The first question I asked was the users age, the reason for this is so I can determine the range of ages within my audience and who I should be appealing to. The results were much more vast than I had anticipated, I thought that the results would only show that young teens to adults would be answering because of the fact that the survey is online. These results have shown that my survey has managed to target middle aged viewers and teenagers mainly. I am glad that this has happened because it allows me to see the clear distinction between the internet generation and the television generation. Furthermore it showed that more of an gap than I first considered when it comes to music videos.

Album Advert - Conventions

This King of Leon advert is an example I looked at of a music video advert 

that would either be poster and or a magazine advert. This is used to promote the album and number one hits. The use of intercutting several images including the band members and an eagle.  The eagle can connote that the band is strong and the music is powerful. The use colour in the image makes the advert eye catching, furthermore by using the same colour of text for the band name as the colour of the image it can show that the name of the band and the image are linked. Looking at the advert there are language I would have to use in order to to sell the product. An example is presented from the poster above: "OUT NOW" is an example of giving the vital information to both persuade and inform the audience of the poster. The choice of a red colour for this text shows the importance of these words because it gives the viewer loads of valuable information about the album, this is further supported by the central positioning of the text on the poster. The fact that the text is at the bottom links with the additional information about where to get it, "PLAY.com". The list of songs under the title of the albums acts as an additional selling point for the album because it provides information on what is included within the album. I will have to include this information for my advert to be effective in promoting the album and the artist.