Audience Questionnaire

Here is the questionnaire I designed to be handed out to each member of the audience at our music video screening last week. We decided to make a questionnaire in order to gain an accurate understanding of audience feedback and gauge the success of the video.

Research Summary

History of Music Video

• Music videos have been around in some form since the 1920s
• Began on very primitive technology, eg. Scopitone, but soon superseded by TV
• More demand for music artists to be on TV in the 50s and 60s
• 1st real music video "Bohemian Rhapsody" - Queen
• Rise of Music TV began in the 80s.
• Michael Jackson broke a lot of new ground with such works as "Thriller" and "Bad"
• Paved the way for black artists to dominate the mainstream music industry
• Female artists especially suited to music videos
• MTV now a massive brand
• Youtube very significant
• Myspace video
• Video iPods
• Guerilla filmmaking

Album Art & Design Principles

• Album cover as art form began in the 60s
• Tool for record promotion
• Complement to the music
• Reinforces concept of album
• Recognisable - iconic
• Rise of CD over Vinyl made album covers less prominent

Myspace/Website Checklist

• Make it authentic
• Multi-media
• Detailed artist profile - really create an identity
• Viral marketing campaign
• Links to other media

Making a Music Video - Useful Tips

• Many possible options
• Student videos have more limitations than pro ones
• Set yourself an early deadline to allow for last-minute changes
• Go for an artist who doesn't already have a strong image
• Storyboard as much as you can - write everything down
• Check the technical things, eg. make sure camera has film in etc.
• Bring CD player to the shoot
• Be prepared to compromise - working in a group
• Make performance strong
• Avoid complex narratives

Website & Marketing Analysis

The first thing you see when Linkin' Park's website page opens is a big banner advertising their new LP "A Thousand Suns"

There is a lot of cross-media convergence in use on this website, with the opportunity offered to pursue Linkin Park on Facebook, Twitter and iTunes. Tickets are sold directly on the main page, and if you scroll down, there is tons of merchandise being advertised, all before you even enter the site.

Once you enter the main site, the colour scheme and formatting remains the same, but the official Linkin Park logo is on the main banner and the new album is advertised at the side of the banner. There is the opportunity for the audience to hear the artist's work in a small mp3 window, and the opportunity to sign up to their mailing list.

Brand Identity & Target Audience

Linkin Park's brand identity is shown through the use of a dark, blue-based colour scheme. The target audience is men mainly, and the band's dark image is directed at fans of heavy, dark rap-rock.

Advertising

The website offers many ways for the audience to purchase Linkin Park-related items, such as music, merchandise and tickets. It allows fans to follow the band via smartphone, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. It also encourages fans to become members of the Linkin Park online community, thus allowing Linkin Park to specifically narrowcast to them in the future and make money.

Individual Proposal

LSF - Kasabian


LYRICS

I'm on it, get on it
The troops are on fire!
You know I need it, much closer
I'm treading just a little more
Step on it, electronic
The troops are on fire!
I'm much deeper, a sleeper
Waiting for the final trip

Come on it, get on it
I'm carving thru a letter bomb
I need it, like potions
These drugs are just an hour away
Come on it, electronic
A polyphonic prostitute, the motor's on fire
Messiah for the animals

Ahhh, oh come on!
We got our backs to the wall!
oh!
Get on!
And watch out!
Sayin', "You're gonna kill us all!"

I’m on it, get on it
The troops are on fire!
You know i need it, much closer
I’m treading just a little more
Step on it, electronic
The troops are on fire! I’m much deeper, a sleeper
Messiah for the animals

Ahhh, oh come on
Say, we got our backs to the wall
Get on, and watch out
Ah, Before you kill us all
Ah, oh come on
Say we got our backs to the wall
Get on, and watch out
Ah, before you kill us all
Ahhh... (fades out)

My idea for this song would revolve around a man preparing himself for battle, intercut with performance footage. His actions would include strapping on body armour, wrapping material around his hands, pulling on his boots etc. This may look good in slow motion. The battle theme would tie in with the song's lyrics which include frequent references to 'troops' 'kill' and 'fire'. The song has a military feel, and this is how I would structure my narrative and mise-en-scene. The video would culminate in the man running in slow-motion into battle, perhaps in the forest. Throughout all of this, I would include performance footage of a band in wearing indie-ish clothes in a warehouse-type rehearsal space with quite a gritty, bleak feel.

Not too sure about copyright issues on this one. It was number one a while ago, so I don't know...

Vernallis Analysis

Long Road To Ruin - Foo Fighters


4 Key Concepts:

Narrative

• Story of a 70s hospital drama - typical fight scenes, affairs, comical farce
• However the show is within the video, as towards the end of the video, the band are acting as the real-life stars of the TV show "Long Road To Ruin", with Dave Grohl signing autographs and the band performing live
• Ends up with his car going over a cliff - illustrates the title "Long Road To Ruin"

Editing

• Credits in curly 70s writing over the opening scene
• Cuts within lyrics, not straight to the beat - fast-paced
• Big jumps between shots, also between the same band member dressed as different characters, creating a crazy feel

Camera Movement/Framing

• Usually just Dave Grohl's face framed in shot
• Road framed behind him - echoes song title
• Whole band scenes filmed in master shot

Diegesis (World of the Music Video)

• World revealed piece-by-piece. First we are placed in a 70s hospital drama, then we are shown that this world is fictional even within the video when we see the stars of the show greeting their fans
• Band is aware of the music - they sing/play along throughout
• Band members play many different characters - not meant to convince the audience
• Intended for comic effect

Goodwin Analysis

Jeremy - Pearl Jam


Goodwin's 6 key features:

Genre Conventions (Grunge Rock):

• Long scraggly hair
• Corduroy jacket
• Intense vocals
• Storytelling atmosphere (singer sitting down, looking intensely ahead and singing)

Relationship Between Lyrics & Visuals:

• Shots of young boy "Jeremy" as the story progresses. Quite literal interpretation - as the story goes on, Jeremy is shown in the scenes described by the singer, eg. "drawing pictures of mountain tops" and "clearly I remember picking on the boy"
• Lyrics are in the style of a memory of an event, so Eddie Vedder sitting down and facing the camera as he sings fits the lyrical theme of recounting a story
• Random details of the day the boy shot himself flash up of the screen like newspaper cuttings, emphasising the idea of a news story being retold
• The line "Jeremy spoke in class today" takes on a twisted irony when the video shows himself shooting himself at the front of the classroom

Relationship Between Music & Visuals:

• Slowly building, atmospheric track which echoes Jeremy's increasingly mentally unstable state, culminating in his eventual suicide (the climax of the song)
• Emphasised by atmospheric camera panning around Eddie Vedder, and faster cuts as the urgency of the song increases. Finally, we get almost strobe editing as the track climaxes and many disjointed images flash up on the screen, illustrating the confusion and emotion of the song

Demands of Record Label:

• Massive emphasis and multiple close-ups of the lead singer and 'star' of the band, Eddie Vedder. Other band members don't even appear
• Eddie's signature corduroy jacket is worn throughout

Reference to the Notion of Looking:

• Direct address from lead singer, telling you the story
• Narrative fading in around him, revolving as if in his memory (we are looking into his thoughts)
• Singer looks down, skywards and straight past the camera, as if looking into the past

Intertextual References:

• Reference to newspaper articles throughout
• Reference to the Bible, both through quotations and through imagery, eg. flames

Genre Analysis

Walk This Way - Aerosmith ft. Run DMC


This music video represents a coming-together of two previously separate genres: rap and rock. Both these genres have their own very strong styles and conventions, and they are juxtaposed in the video.

Run DMC Conventions (Rap)

• Organised, uncluttered rehearsal space
• Matching outfits (gangster hats, suits, shades, white adidas trainers)
• Choreographed dance moves
• Cool and chilled behaviour
• "Attitude" - folded arms etc.
• Focus on voice and technology - mics, decks etc. rather than instruments and amps
• Very in-your-face marketing - eg. Run DMC logo everywhere
• Big black men.

Aerosmith Conventions (Rock)

• Long hair
• Messy, smoky rehearsal space
• Aggravated, emotional behaviour, eg. screaming and swinging mic stands
• Skin-tight clothes & jewellery
• Focus on guitars and Marshall amps (guitar riffs high in the mix)
• Improvisational style (visually and sonically)
• Skinny white men
• More uncaring attitude towards self-promotion - eg. no Aerosmith branding anywhere in the video

Initial Ideas 3

Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes

I've always been really interested in music videos that use unusual or complex editing techniques, and this video demonstrates perfectly the importance of editing. The whole essence of the video stems from one simple idea - pictures within pictures. It has got me thinking about distinctive, interesting editing techniques I could use in my own project.

Initial Ideas 2

Paul Simon - Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes

This song really paints a picture in my head and it would be really interesting to explore that in a music video. I would use landscape and nature as the main focus in a music video for this track. Ideally I would shoot the video in South Africa, as this style of music originates from there and has a strong African feel - however this is not possible and I fear that shots of London will look incongruous next to the music. The idea is nevertheless worth exploring.

Album Cover Conventions

I had a look at around ten randomly selected album covers from my collection and found that they all share certain features:

Common Features (front):

• Album name
• Band name
• Key image (artist or other icon)
• Theme (e.g. african art - Innervisions)
• Colour Scheme (e.g. underwater blue - Nevermind

Common Features (back):

• Track listings
• Often another picture
• Copyright stuff
• Date of release
• Record label
• Colour scheme (often consistent with front cover)
• Bar code

Common Features (inside):

• Booklet including: More details of copyright stuff, more pictures of the band, lyrics, credits.

Intertextuality

Dani California - Red Hot Chili Peppers

This video is all about intertextuality. The theme of the video is a journey through pop music history and involves the band dressing up in costumes typical of many different genres, including Rockabilly, British Invasion, Psychedelia, Funk, Glam, Punk, Goth, Hair Metal, Grunge and eventually themselves, as the sum of all those parts.

Here is the official video:

(Embedding has been disabled on request, but here is the link):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb5aq5HcS1A&ob=av3e

and here are parts 1, 2 & 3 of an interesting "making of" video which explains their concept and how they came up with it:

Initial Idea 1

Garden - Pearl Jam

This track has a really atmospheric, tense feel to it which I think could work really well in a more abstract, artistic kind of video.

The track is off Pearl Jam's debut album Ten and was never a single and rarely played live.

The theme of gardens could be interesting with this track and there is plenty of opportunity to be inventive with set design.

The epic, building feeling of the song would enable the music video to progress in feeling itself and not become too repetitive and boring, eg. soft music at the beginning - slow, artistic shots: epic hard music at end - fast cutting etc.

Dirty Frank - Pearl Jam

This track would need a completely different music video. There is a lot of humour in this song, and it tells a story of a murderer called 'Dirty Frank'. The story behind this song is that while Pearl Jam were on tour, they jokingly imagined their slightly disturbing bus driver was a serial killer, and then recorded a song about it. Therefore we could build a video around the lyrics in a very literal sense, which a kind of murder mystery plot unravelling throughout. I believe this song is very strong as its story is so clear, and there is a lot of humour to be exploited.

The song is not even an official album track - it was only released on the European edition of Ten and was never played live, so copyright should not be an issue.

Album Cover Analysis

Nevermind - Nirvana

The front cover depicts a naked baby swimming after a dollar bill, which is being dangled on a hook in front of the baby. The baby is a very strong symbol of innocence and purity, and its nakedness emphasises this. In contrast, dollar bills signify the adult world, greed and corruption. The fact that the baby is chasing after this token of the adult world shows the corruption of its innocence and gives the message that even from birth, human beings are lured into the capitalist world and the ways of greed. It may even signify that this greed is natural - an original sin. The line and hook are being dangled by the dark capitalist figure at the top, pulling all the strings - "The Man" if you will.

The album title is written in curvy letters which not only fit in with the underwater theme, but also connote the psychedelic, hippie ideals with which the album cover's message is aligned.

Apart from serving the cover's metaphor, the underwater setting of the picture creates a distinctive blue colour scheme which instantly makes the cover recognisable.

The presence of the baby's genitals in the shot also encourages controversy and fits in with the band's anti-establishment, punk rock image. It also makes the album cover not able to be consumed by a mainstream audience and immediately classifies the album as "niche".

Songs I Like

King Of The Rodeo - Kings Of Leon

• Brings back holiday memories
• Important to me as an album, not just one song
• Saw band live - song took on new meaning

Nightrain - Guns N' Roses

Diary Of Always - Biffy Clyro

• Calm atmosphere
• Lyrics appeal to me
• Current band who I like

Music video I like

Late of the Pier - Heartbeat
I love this video as it uses loads of awesome editing techniques. eg. the man falls through the walls and the floor and there is also a very cool trick where they all appear to be standing on one another's shoulders.