Call List

Music Magazine Advert Analysis

This album advert is advertising The Killers, the focal point is the band's name written boldly and in bright white that contrasts with the dark background to draw even more attention to the focal point as an album advert would obviously want audiences to know who is being advertised. Below the band's name is the album's name so audiences now know what is being advertised to the, which is the album. This advert lacks some traditional features of album advertisement such as an action line, body copy, review and pack shot which could make it difficult for audiences to obtain the album with this limited information. 

Above the album's name is the moon illuminating the rest of the advert and bears close imagery to a disco ball which could represent the band's pop-ish music is only more reinforced by the design of the advert using collage to make it unique. Also the typography used for the band's name is written like its being shown in theatre or stage lights to show that their music is something people want to hear. This gives a hint as to what kind of music this band produces and people who enjoy that genre of music may be more tempted to listen to this band as a result of that. The use of collage also gives an suggestion that the band is also quite indie as its that unique yet soft and subtle at the same time.

The imagery also used for the advert is a bonfire lit and behind it is mountains and trees to give an indie feel to the album and those who are also interested in indie music may also want to listen to this music because it appeals to them and therefor listen to the band.

The audience that this advert may be trying to attract is listeners from 17-25 and those who enjoy spending nights and days alone or with other friends under the stars. The kind of message that this gives to the audience is that this music is meant for calm listening with friends at a night out under the stars which may appeal to people's nostalgic and adventurist wants in life.

There also isn't too much information given, making audiences more likely to read it because they have less to read and the advert is short and simple, making it easy to read in a busy, quick environment.

The artists name is clearly and largely capitalised on both sides of the artists face making it quick and clear for audiences to identify the artist, especially when the focal point is not a normal picture of the artist and is unique. This also  gives light to the fact that he is a solo artist and is known for his name which fits with the focal point of just one face instead of several. The artist's face is also in strong contrast to the yellow background so that it instantly draws attention before anything else is read. Also the strong yellow is eye catching to the audience is more likely to draw their attention than a bland advert with morose colours. In addition the yellow can connotes happiness which creates a cheerful vibe which can make the audience feel good which may be enough the make the audience consider if they should buy the album.

The typography used is like an alarm clock which can be used to say "wake up" to the audience and listen to Calvin Harris and the fact that he creates EDM which is played at late night parties and wakes up surrounding neighbours.

On the right hand side is a promotional aspect which encourages the audience to buy the music from this distributor. The distributor will also likely promote the artist and uses synergy to benefit both the artist and distributor in becoming better advertised.

The text on the bottom says "I created disco" to seem like the god of music because he is the "creator" and is probably the name of the album and shows when the album comes out ensuring that the audience can buy the album at that certain date. It also says "including singles" this denotes what single tracks are used in the album so that if the audience recognises one and likes it they may be enticed to also buy the rest of the album.

This magazine advert is very in the audience's face. The black and white background for this advert would ironically draw in audience because it would contrast with the environment around the magazine reader. The black and white style has connotations of action and danger which would entertain audience and make them want to know more about the artist in question. The person in the middle is designed to be the focal point of the magazine advert and this is why intertextuality is used as the person in the middle is a 90's supermodel whom certain audiences may recognise  and feel personal satisfaction for recognising. The costume used also connotes danger and action because it is a black latex suit that is often seen in action-spy movies and the audience can notice certain mis-en-scene such as the two katana swords.

Again action is connoted through the typography of the magazine advert as it is bold, red, slanted and has slash marks through several parts of it. This would attract audiences as action is a widely received genre in all mediums of media. The red has denotations of blood which again inspire action which is nearly over-emphasised.

Production Log 3

We have learnt about the meaning of artists' choice of lyrics and began to analyse them and their meanings and we have found that meanings can differ from different artist to different artist and this is what makes each artist unique and draw in a certain type of audiences over other certain audiences and is part of the defining features which decides an artists' style or genre. We have also discovered that the lyrics do not have to follow the tempo of the music or follow the music video at all, and these music videos are usually considered to be conceptual music videos.

V-Dogg Lyrics Analysis

Genre

Grime

Grime is a popular genre in London, targeted solely at youth and those who come from working class backgrounds. Grime features quick rapping over an instrumental that is either on youtube or original to the artist. It is a common sight to see quick pace editing and an overemphasis on close ups of the star with a thick south London accent and this is what makes Grime unique. Grime having a small audience, compared to mainstream genres such as rap and pop, often includes embodiments of cultures which can lead to fallout between different Grime artists. These fallouts are turned into whats known as 'diss-tracks' which are intended to harm another artist and offend them, retaliations are to be expected as well. These 'diss-tracks' are perhaps the largest feature of Grime as audiences enjoy other artists disagreements with each other. The costume that is prevalent in Grime is also very important as every single grime artists tends to wear a tracksuit and trainers and they make references to it in their lyrics as appearance is very important as they want to embody the culture of South London.

Pop

Pop is mainstream genre which is widely received by many people in many locations throughout the world, and perhaps the largest genre out there. Pop tends to focus on having a target audience of young teenagers and young adults. Pop genre music videos tend to also have quick editing at certain points and eye-level close ups of the artist in order to brand them as a 'star' as Dyer states. Pop music videos can have all types of meanings and interpretations as it is a very open genre and most pop songs tend to be about love. However, as pop is a mainstream genre artists are quick to find their own identity and are enthusiastic to show it through their music videos. This lets each artist have their own unique styles which audiences may be more attuned towards. This is better explained through the repetition and difference theory by Stuart Hall. For example Katy Perry's music and Taylor Swift's music both feature the artist being the focal point of the videos have several close ups to brand them as as star and having bright colours which are prevalent in pop genre music videos. These are the 'repetitions' of this genre, but something called 'difference' separates their music videos. Katy Perry's 'Roar' is constructed to empower women by denoting them as strong, powerful and independent whereas Taylor Swifts' music video 'Love Story' is a more traditional romantic boy meets girl music video. Depending on the audience, they may choose to listen to either one because of these difference which separate so many artists.

Rap

Rap is another mainstream genre and tends to be more celebrated by older and male audiences, whereas Pop isn't. Rap tends to pain the artist as a dangerous person who is also very successful and will use this success in their lyrics. the lyrics of rap songs are often very self-empowering as they call for violence and their superiority in the genre of rap. Rap music videos also have very quick editing with lots of closeup but tend to have a different type of camera language. the camera is often at a low angle which looks up at the artist to make them appear more superior and dominant than the audience, adding to the image of danger and success. This is also done to make the audience aspire to be like these artists and want to be as successful and as rich which can be denoted from their expensive clothing, gold jewellery and lyrics about expensive cars. Rap has the quickest tempo of all the music genres, even the point where it becomes a competition and main selling point in artists such as Busta Rhymes.

Production Log Week 2

In this week we completed our parody video of Macklemore's Thrift Shop and just completed editing the video to match the lyrics of the song. There were many problems during the pre-production of the music video such as disorganisation within the group such as who wanted to act and who wanted to film and who wanted to edit. but eventually they were sorted out. We put our knowledge of music video conventions and theories to the test in the production of this video to create a video that audiences would enjoy.

We understand that this is just another task to make us accustomed to making music videos and editing them using baby steps. Thanks to this opportunity we have learned to cut to the beat of the song and using specific parts of the song to suit our visuals in the music video we have created. Because the task was just to create a music video we also had a lot of creativity and flexibility for creating it and adding our own personal touches. We experimented with different types of camera shots and angles but because the task is a mash-up we had to intentionally leave out an establishing shot.

Thrift Shop Mash Up Evaluation

Thrift Shop Mash Up Evaluation

Our group chose to use a parody style of music video to inspire some humour into our finished product for the audience to enjoy and make them like the music video more. Parody is also easier to do because you do not have to strictly follow the original music video and you can add your own material to make the music video more original. I thought that doing interpretative would be too difficult and time consuming considering the lyrics of Thrift Shop being very random and sporadic making it too difficult to produce.

We added music video conventions such as editing the hue of the music video snippet to make the visuals look livelier and more suiting to the tone of the music video. Also some of the shots we had were too dark because of poor lighting affected by the weather so we decided it would be better to have a bright video than a darker one. Some of the shots also correspond to the music video in order for it to tell some kind of story in the midst of all it's chaos so that the audience can understand the music video better.

It's too early to decide for our music video genre for out final production but there we can definitely tell that we're going to use certain music video conventions over others. One convention we will use is a relationship between the lyrics and video of the music so that the audience doesn't become confused or think we're making a surreal or conceptual music video. One convention we won't be using is exhibitionism because we think that it won't suit the video we'll try and make or the message we'll be trying to send through the video.

We had a few problems from pre to post-production of the music video such as a lack of communication within the group which led to confusions at some points and general disagreement about which ways we wanted to move forward with the music video. We recognised that we were wasting time by disagreeing with each other and make compromises to suit everyone's wants in the group. This could have been avoided if we discussed more in the planning phase of the music video

We thought that we had a lot of successful elements in the production of our music video such as the lip syncing of the lyrics which was usually smooth. Also our editing matched the beat of the music to make a smooth music video and keep our audience from getting disorientated from watching an off-beat music video and make it clear that the genre of the song is hip-hop. Also after the we sorted out our differences in the production of our music video everything else ran smoothly afterward, we quickly completed the work whilst having fun and working in our new group.