CD Cover Research

Most Pop music CD covers are very bold and colourful and very eye catching. They usually have the artist on the front cover with bold clothing that stands out, or just a close up of the artist's face. Here are some examples below:

Most of them use bold and bright colours whereas Christina Aguilera uses a close up of her face with bold red lipstick on and with half of her face as a robot to symbolise her album's name 'Bi-on-ic'.

I think our group should use the bright colour effect for our album cover and because we are called Crystal Rocks/Rox, I think there should be a crystal on the front cover with the name in bold font and different colours to fit the Pop genre.

Narrative Theory

These are some definitions of Narrative Theory that I found on this website:http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevkeyconcepts/alevelkeycon.php?pageID=narrative


In media terms, narrative is the coherence/organisation given to a series of facts. The human mind needs narrative to make sense of things. We connect events and make interpretations based on those connections. In everything we seek a beginning, a middle and an end. We understand and construct meaning using our experience of reality and of previous texts. Each text becomes part of the previous and the next through its relationship with the audience.

Narrative Conventions:
When unpacking a narrative in order to find its meaning, there are a series of codes and conventions that need to be considered. When we look at a narrative we examine the conventions of:

• Genre
  
• Character
  
• Form
  
• Time
  and use knowledge of these conventions to help us interpret the text. In particular, Time is something that we understand as a convention - narratives do not take place in real time but may telescope out (the slow motion shot which replays a winning goal) or in (an 80 year life can be condensed into a two hour biopic). Therefore we consider "the time of the thing told and the time of the telling." (Christian Metz Notes Towards A Phenomenology of Narrative).

Roland Barthes describes a text as
"a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..." (S/Z - 1974 translation).

What he is basically saying is that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an absolute plurality of potential meanings. We can start by looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle, by pulling a different thread if you like, and create an entirely different meaning. And so on. An infinite number of times. If you wanted to.

Narrative Structures:
There are many ways of breaking down narrative structure. You may hear a movie described as a "classic Hollywood narrative", meaning it has three acts. News stories have their own structure. A lot of work has been done by literary theorists to develop ways of deconstructing a narrative.

Tvzetan Todorov - suggests narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium
Vladimir Propp - characters and actions (31 functions of character types)
Claude Levi-Strauss - constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/stillness) or conceptual (love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack. Binary oppositions.

Possible Shots

These are some shots we may use in the performance part of our video. We would like to use the spiral shot on the lyric when she sings 'you' for a long note. However we would need to speed the shot up because when it was filmed it was quite slow. This could be quite difficult if it is part of the performance because it would mean that if Michaela is singing, she will have to sing quite slowly in order to be in time with the music.

Filming and Editing Practice

This is some footage that we have edited again to help us with our editing skills and timing to fit to the music. I like some of the shots that we used, like the shots of the piano playing and also the reverse shots which I think are quite effective.

Lip Syncing

This is our lip syncing practice video which we edited today. We found that having the music playing in the background whilst filming was very helpful because, when it came to editing we knew what part Michaela was singing to. Some parts were difficult to fit to the music because of some timing issues but having practiced now, I think we all feel more confident about our performance part of the music video.

Framing and Composition

Rule of Thirds

How it works is that the image can be split into 9 equally sized parts, divided by two vertical and two horizontal lines. The four lines create four intersections, which should serve as the main points of interest. This is an example below:

Framing

Try to never cut off a small part of an object, such as a person’s hand or the ear or tail of an animal. If you leave an entire arm outside the frame it usually doesn’t look odd, but if there’s something small like a hand missing the viewer will notice it in a different way and it can be very distracting at times.

Lines and Shapes

Lines and shapes are everywhere; try to use them to your advantage. They can draw the viewer into the picture or they can guide the eyes to a point that you normally wouldn’t pay so much attention to. Both symmetrical and asymmetrical lines and shapes are a great asset.

Simplicity

Less is more! Focus on the small things instead of the entire scene this obviously won’t work for every scene you’re shooting but as a quick rule it’s often good to keep your compositions clutter free and with less distractions.

From the website: http://www.tutorial9.net/photography/composition-and-framing/

Meeting- 19/11/10

Last Friday we had a meeting at my house and we came up with quite a lot of new ideas. We used the lyrics to the song to help us with ideas for camera shots and angles whilst also listening to the song. We have editing some of the shots that we filmed and have put it to a song, so this is just a practice of editing:

Fireworks

This is footage edited from when Dom and I filmed Enfield Town fireworks, we both edited our own short video. I thought this was useful practice for when it comes to filming and editing our music video. This is because it was helpful to try and fit the clips to the beat of the music. This was quite challenging and I still think it could be sharper but it was good practice.

Questionnaire

Our group have created a questionnaire in order to help us with ideas for our music video and our research. We are going to ask a variety of people of different ages. We will give them to people to answer, in person and over the Internet and hopefully film them if we receive permission to do so. We are hoping the results will give us some ideas as to what an audience wants to see from our music video. This is our questionnaire below:

Age (please circle): 15-20, 21-25, 26-30, 31-40, 41-50, and other
Gender (please circle): Male, Female

1.What do you like to see in a Pop video?
2.What is your favourite genre of music? Please circle
Pop, Alternative, Jazz, Classical, R&B, Rock, Dance, Country, Other (please specify)
3.What do you expect to see from this genre?
4.What costume would you prefer; flamboyant or casual?
5.What colour do you think represents Pop and why?
6.How do you consume videos? Please circle
MTV, YouTube, iTunes, Downloads, Other (please specify)
7.Do you like being surprised by music videos e.g. music videos with a twist?
8.Do you prefer narrative or performance videos and why?
9.If narrative, do you prefer the story to have an ending or is a cliff-hanger effective?
10.How often do you watch music videos?
11.Do you like music videos with bright lighting, or dull lighting and why?
12.Do you like music videos in black and white or do you prefer them to be in colour and why?
13What interests you about music videos? Please circle
Different camera angles, The narrative, Special effects, Other (please specify)
14.What location do you think reflects a Pop genre video well? Please circle
A house, A busy town, Countryside, Beach, The street, Funfair, Other (Please Specify)
15.From your answer to the previous question, why do you think this represents the Pop genre?
16.What is one of your favourite music videos and why?

Teenage Dream Idea 7

From watching the video 'Matters At All' by Kids in Glass Houses, we have agreed that we want to use our ideas of the girl being obsessed with the boy. This has combined all of our previous ideas of her imagining she is with him but the reality is that she is just obsessed with the boy. We think this will be a good twist and surprise our audience. The ideas we have got so far are:

• There is another girl in the video who is actually dating the boy (this could be Jess who would be in flamboyant clothing and make up)
• Kayla would imagine that she is dating the boy
• Kayla's make up will be like a child's to try and imitate the Jess who is actually dating the boy
• Jess would the girl Kayla wants to be like and we thought we could bring an element of voyeurism into the video with maybe Kayla watching herself with the boy on a TV screen. This would be her dream life.
• In order to distinguish between the dream life and reality we thought her dream life could be in colour and reality could be in black and white. This would be similar to Lily Allen's video 'LDN' which shows the audience how she sees the world but then the reality and this is a contrast of bright and dull colours.
• We also think that we will use a spiral shot to show the audience when the character has realised that she is imagining things and 'reality hits' her. We think this will go well with the part of the song when she sings a long note 'you' and then it is the chorus again. This is near the end of the song.

Below is the video 'Matters At All' by Kids in Glass Houses:

This is Lily Allen's LDN video:

Trip to Richmix- Liz Kessler and Corin Hardy

We met Corin Hardy who has made a variety of music videos, including Keane: Somewhere Only We Know, continuing with films for The Prodigy, The Rumblestrips, Jon Spencer and MVA award-winning Horrors promo for their track 'She is the new thing'. I thought his presentation and videos were really good and inspiring. His videos are very unique and interesting to watch and I thought it was great to be given a presentation by him. As a task, we had to pitch an idea for the song 'God and Satan' by Biffy Clyro which we filmed. Both Corin Hardy and Liz Kessler gave us positive feedback about our ideas and also advice about how we could improve our ideas to make it more realistic if we were to make a music video for it. We then watched the video Corin Hardy made for Biffy Clyro which was really good. After watching the making of video on Corin's blog, I cannot wait to make our music video.

This is Charlotte and Dom's pitch:

Trip to Richmix- Pete Fraser's Presentation

On Tuesday we went on a trip to Richmix in Bethnal Green. We were given lots of advice and information about music videos from Pete Fraser. I found this very useful to my media studies. We were shown a wide variety of music videos starting with Len Lye: A Colour Box. This was made by painting on film and then animating it. I thought this was strange because it was just loads of patterns and I had not really seen a music video like this before.

The next video shown was Nat King Cole: Frim Fram Sauce which involved intertextualtiy where he is watching himself on a television screen. There is a point of view shot in the video of the artist looking at a woman's legs and it is quite a slow paced shot. This kind of thing was seen as inappropriate at the time it was made whereas nowadays there are more explicit videos shown such as 50 Cent: Candy Shop which we also looked at. This video objectifies women for a male purpose but it is more acceptable these days because there are lots of music videos similar to it.

We were also shown the Beatles: Can't buy me love which was in black and white. There are a variety of different shots in this video which keeps the audience interested. For example there is a high angle shot filmed from a helicopter looking down at the band who are dancing around. There are also hand held shots. The Beatles started the trend to make a music video into a short film. This video would then be shown on Top of the Pops if the band were unavailable. This video showed record companies that you need visuals to go with a song.

We were then told that MTV was dominated by Britain when it first started, this is because British record companies were ahead of the game, they always made music videos quickly. This is because, as mentioned before, they knew that visuals were needed to go with a song. Madonna was the first USA artist to have a video on MTV. Michael Jackson made a video for Billie Jean which created a big uproar as in that time period they did not allow black artists to show their videos on TV. However there was an exception because his video was quite good. He then went on to make one of the most popular music videos- Thriller. This video cost loads to make but it was very successful with people making their own versions of the video and copying the dance. This is an example of user generated context, where people make their own videos and publish them on YouTube.

Another great video that we were shown was Jay-Z: 99 Problems. There are lots of cuts in this video and the drama is emphasised because it is in black and white. The camera is moving a lot which makes the video more interesting to watch because the audience is less likely to get bored because there is a lot happening.

Research and Planning-Audience

Andrew Goodwin writing in 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (Routledge 1992) :

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (visual style)
5. There is a frequent reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescope etc) Voyeuristic treatment of female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, TV etc)
   

Audience Theory

Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies.With a specific focus on rhetoric, some, such as Walter Ong, have suggested that the audience is a construct made up by the rhetoric and the rhetorical situation the text is addressing. Others, such as Ruth Mitchell and Mary Taylor have said writers and speakers actually can target their communication to address a real audience. Some others like Ede and Lunsford try to mingle these two approaches and create situations where audience is "fictionalized," as Ong would say, but in recognition of some real attributes of the actual audience.

Active audience theory:
Active audience theory is a theory that people receive and interpret media messages in different ways, usually according to factors such as age, ethnicity, social class, etc. The audience is neither passive nor similar.

The Hypodermic Syringe Effect

The hypodermic syringe effect also known as hypodermic needle theory implied that the media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on their audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory of communication, including: the fast rise and popularization of radio and television, the emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda and Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party.

It is also referred to as the "magic bullet" where the media would control the audience when they are targeted. This suggests that the audience is passive and easily influenced by the media to believe what is said in the media even if it is exaggerated.

Music Video Ideas

Another video that we like that we want our video to be similar to is Taylor Swift's video 'Mine'. This storyline is kind of similar to ours in the way that the female character imagines everything that happens in the video to be real. We like what Taylor Swift is wearing in this video when she is sitting on the beach with her boyfriend. Some of the shots used are similar to what we want to use, for example when they are holding hands on the beach and sitting together on the beach.

Camera Shot Ideas

Our group would like to use 17 shots for the first 17 beats of the song. These will be fast paced to fit to the music. Some of these shots include:

• Hands holding together



• Shadow of couple



• The couples feet together



• Hand in jean pocket



• Couple taking a picture of themselves (like this one)



• Boy tucking the girls hair behind her ear



• Back of the couple looking at the pier



• Sitting on the beach with his arm around her

At the beginning we were thinking of having a close up of the girls hand turning on the radio and that is how the music will start but we will have to see how this looks and experiment with it. After the 17 shots when the lyrics begin we want the girl to be in her bedroom where she may be putting her make up on. We might use an idea of the couple drawing a little face on their fingertips but we have not thoroughly thought this through yet because we need to see if it will work first.

Teenage Dreams

When we listened to the song we counted the beginning beats and found that there are 17 in total. Whilst listening to these we thought of some ideas that we should have 17 different shots for each of the beats and it will be really fast paced editing to fit to these beats. These shots will be of the couple but without showing their faces. However there could be some difficulty with this idea because of the amount of shots we are trying to fit in about 17 seconds. This could create some confusion to the audience because they may not be able to see what is in the shots because it would be so fast. So taking this problem into account we might make some adjustments. This will be instead of 17 different shots we might use one shot with a flash of another shot.



An example of how we want the 17 shots is in Rihanna's video 'Only Girl' (In The World)

Chosen Artist Name

We have finally thought of a name for our artist when we had a meeting yesterday. Our original ideas were:

1) Ohlala- this name seems modern and unique because it stands out and no other band has that name, however we did not choose this because it sounds more like a band name than an artist name

2) Iris- when we typed in unique girls names into Google this name came up and we liked the idea of it because it is unheard of so it would stand out

3) Pink Poison-we liked this idea because it sounded girly so it conformed to the Pop genre but it did sound more rocky than Pop, however we decided not to use this because it is already a known cheer leading group

Chosen Name
Crystal Rocks- we have decided on this name because it has a first name and a second name which is like and artist name like 'Katy Perry'. It can also be spelt in different ways like rocks as 'Rox' but we haven't decided how to spell it yet. The name has two different meanings as well because one interpretation is the actual object a crystallised rock. The other interpretation is that the artist 'Crystal' is good so she 'rocks'. The name Crystal sounds glamorous because a crystal is sparkly and pretty so this conforms the the Pop genre.

Storyboarding

Last lesson we had a class discussion about how to improve our storyboards this year. We discussed the mistakes that we made last year with our storyboards and then said what we had learnt from storyboarding and filming last year:

• Needs to be precise otherwise there is a lack of continuity, lighting etc.


• Must follow it


• Actually do one


• Over film-easier for editing and can change point of view for variety of angles


• Change roles so everyone gets to film


• Detailed- have 3 different ideas for one line of lyrics


• Be organised


• Laminate it (incase it rains)

The last one is particularly important to our group because last year it rained whilst we were filming and our storyboard was ruined. We did follow our storyboard but not completely and we could have been more organised. So this year we are going to take all of those points on board so that we can be as organised as possible to ensure our music video is good.

We also made a list of things the storyboard needs to include to make it really good:

• An image of the shot


• An explanation of what happens in the shot in words- include facial expressions and character's movement


• Is the shot interior location or exterior?


• Bring all the equipment and make sure the camera is charged


• Include information about extras in the shot


• Props and costume in the scene


• Camera movements


• Angle of the shot

Band Brand Name Ideas

It seems to be taking our group a long time to decide on a band brand name because we are finding it difficult to think of one. It will not be a name of a band because Katy Perry is a solo artist so we want our band name to represent a solo artist. We have some ideas of how we want the name to be like which are stage names like Lady Ga Ga, Pink and Pixie Lott. We like these ideas because these names stand out and are likely to be remembered.

Katy Perry Perfromance on Xfactor

This is Katy Perry's performance on the show Xfactor she performed a new song called 'Firework'. I thought this performance was good and it shows that she is quite a popular artist as she says at the end that her tour has already sold out. She recently judged on this show so she was nervous to perform to her fellow judges, but seeing as she gained a standing ovation she did pretty well. Katy Perry was interviewed on the Xtra Factor after her performance and she explained to the presenter that the Catherine wheel firework in the background was significance to her name as she is originally called Kathryn.

Katy Perry

When I went to Scotland I found a magazine with Katy Perry on the cover with a T-shirt saying 'Scotland....I like it'. The same magazine is sold in England and instead of saying Scotland on the cover it says 'London....I like it'. This represents Katy Perry as trying to entice a variety of audiences from different places. It also shows that she is quite a popular artist.

Make Up

I found this in Woman's magazine and it is a guide to making smoky eye make up which I thought was a good guide to follow. It also tells you where you can buy the make up from. However I don't think we will be using the flick of the eyeliner.

Treatment presentation

Our Treatment Media

Treatment document

Emily

Wordle Feedback

This is a wordle of the feedback we got from giving our treatment presentation. Most of it was positive feedback with some things we could also improve. We can now use some of this feedback as a guideline when we are creating our storyboard and filming.

Music Video Wordle

I liked both of these wordles so I decided to upload both of them. The pink and purple one I think represents the Pop genre more because it looks more girlie, however the colourful one also represents it because it is bold and vibrant.

Costume and Make up

This make up is what we will use for the natural make up look when she is in her bedroom. Natural foundation and a bit of mascara.

Below is how we want her eye make up to be when she is in Brighton it will be a different setting to her bedroom. We also want the girl to stand out and we think by her having different make up and darker make up will do this.



In her bedroom we want the girl to wear her pyjamas which will be pink to conform the the girlie Pop genre.



In contrast, we want the girl to wear a more 'rocky' outfit in Brighton because it will be her imagination of what she wants to be like and dress like, whereas in her bedroom it is the real her. So we want it to be a binary opposition when the location changes because as it changes she changes also.

Treatment Ideas

This is our brainstorm of ideas for our music video and our treatment. It includes ideas about costume, make up, location and the narrative. Setting it out like this really helped us think of lots of ideas and it also gave us a guideline to follow when we were creating our treatment presentation.

Treatment definition

A treatment is a short outline of a media production designed to give a client or production team an overview of what production might include based on a brief. Treatments are written descriptions, but can also include sketches, mock-ups, images and other draft items designed to demonstrate the intention of production. It is often used to 'sell' an idea to a client.

Other media interests

On Thursday and Saturday our media group took part in filming to be an extra in a film. We thought this was a really good experience because we were able to see what took part in producing a film. It was good seeing all the things that were going on like costumes, make up, set design and of course the filming and directing. Below is the link to the description of the film on imdb.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706470/

Above are some photos with some actors that were there.
To the left is a photo of some high wasted trousers that I had to wear because of the time period being set in the 80s. The picture next to this is one of the all the equipment and someone accidentally walking in the way.

These photos are what we had to wear on Thursday and above are where the make up and costume design areas were.

The location was in Hackney Warehouse which I thought was quite a good location for the film because it was supposed to be an underground rave. There was lots of graffiti on the walls which gave it an abandoned look.

Email to Producers of Katy Perry

Dear Capitol Records,

We are writing to ask for permission to use your song ‘Teenage Dream’ by Katy Perry; our names are: Michaela, Jessica, Dominique and Emily.
We are currently studying media studies as an A level at Enfield County School, and as part of this we are making a music video for our coursework. We would very much like to use your song for this. We assure you that we have no intent to sell our video and there will not be any copyright issues as it will be solely used for educational purposes.

Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email we look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Faithfully,
Michaela, Jessica, Dominique and Emily.

Music Video Ideas

We are thinking about filming our music video in Brighton along the beach and the pier because we think this is a good location to fit with our ideas. Our ideas involve an old couple reversing into a young couple so a reverse in time and maybe even a flashback. An example of this is Jason Derulo's video of 'What If'. However there is a limitation with this because it would then be introducing different time periods and this was what limited us in our first year of media.


Jason Derulo's video of 'What If'


We believe that the song is about the girl feeling like she is a teenager again because it is her first love and everything she wanted as a teenager hence the song title 'Teenage Dreams'. We are thinking of using a split screen of the girl looking at the boy and the boy looking at the girl. We also want this to show 'love at first sight'.

We also thought the girl could be dreaming about what is happening in the video we had ideas that we would film on the pier maybe on some rides. We also thought to show the romance that we would show him winning her a toy.

For the performance part we would like the girl to lip sync and dance around her room just singing into a brush maybe. Then we might have her looking in the mirror or jumping on her bed and maybe her brother walking in and laughing at her.

We have three possible endings to our music video:
1.Is a cliffhanger of him just walking towards her
2.Him walking towards her and he has a girlfriend walking towards him
3.Him walking towards her and looking as if he is looking at her and smiling when in fact he is looking at a girl behind her who is his girlfriend. Then the girl just looks upset because she thought he was smiling at her.

We like the sound of all these ideas and have not yet decided which one to use, so we may end up filming all the endings to see which one we would prefer to use. We may like the ideas now but then they could look different when we film them, which is why we think it will be good to film all three endings.

Teenage Dream Lyrics

You think I'm pretty
Without any make-up on
You think I'm funny
When I tell the punch line wrong
I know you get me
So I'll let my walls come down, down

Before you met me
I was a wreck
But things were kinda heavy
You brought me to life
Now every February
You'll be my valentine, valentine

Let's go all the way tonight
No regrets, just love
We can dance until we die
You and I
We'll be young forever

You make me
Feel like
I'm living a Teenage Dream
The way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's runaway
And don't ever look back
Don't ever look back

My heart stops
When you look at me
Just one touch
Now baby I believe
This is real
So take a chance
And don't ever look back
Don't ever look back

We drove to Cali
And got drunk on the beach
Got a motel and
Built a fort out of sheets
I finally found you
My missing puzzle piece
I'm complete

Let's go all the way tonight
No regrets, just love
We can dance until we die
You and I
We'll be young forever

You make me
Feel like
I'm living a Teenage Dream
The way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's runaway
And don't ever look back
Don't ever look back

My heart stops
When you look at me
Just one touch
Now baby I believe
This is real
So take a chance
And don't ever look back
Don't ever look back

I might get your heart racing
In my skin-tight jeans
Be your teenage dream tonight

Let you put your hands on me
In my skin-tight jeans
Be your teenage dream tonight

You make me
Feel like
I'm living a Teenage Dream
The way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's runaway
And don't ever look back
Don't ever look back

My heart stops
When you look at me
Just one touch
Now baby I believe
This is real
So take a chance
And don't ever look back
Don't ever look back

Where it says you think I'm funny when I tell the punch line wrong we were going to have the girl telling a joke in front of a group of friends and the boy (love interest/boyfriend) being the only one laughing. Again where it says 'my missing puzzle piece' we were going to have a puzzle maybe with a picture of the two of them and move it around and try to edit it so that it is moving on its own. Our inspiration for this was Kate Nash as she uses a similar editing technique in one of her videos.

Pop Genre

Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often aimed towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple love songs to make use of technological introduction to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre it is particularly associated with the rock and roll and later rock style.

Hatch and Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguished from popular, jazz and folk musics". The term "pop song," is first recorded as being used in 1926 in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music.

Genre Research

Genre

Genre is from the French words "kind" and "sort" and is originally from Latin, Daniel Chandler argues (2001). It is the term for any category of Literature as well as well as various other forms of art and culture, e.g. music. Genre is also a tool that helps us study texts and the audiences responses to texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are abandoned. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions.

Sub Genres
All genres have sub genres which means that they are divided into more specific categories that allow audiences to identify them by familiar and recognisable characters (Barry Keith Grant, 1995). However Steve Neale (1995) argues that "genres are not 'systems' but are processes of systematization".

Jason Mittell (2001) argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within industry, audience and cultural practices as well.
Industries use genre to sell products to an audience. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions.

An example of this is a music video which is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures.

Pop culture (from wikapedia)
Outside of the academic field, genre regularly affects societies' pop culture. The mass media uses genre to differentiate between classes of popular subjects such as music, movies, TV, books, etc. Favoritism plays an important part of distinguishing one genre from another; fans of Horror look differently upon Comedy than fans of Romance do. Genre has also been used to shape differences in cultural aspects of these popular subjects.

American comedies are distinctly different from French ones, as Country music is noticeably unlike Irish folk music. Genres sort subjects (such as movies, music, books, etc.) efficiently, especially when following trends set by society. From walking in to the nearest movie rental store to searching for music via ITunes, genres are applicable in everyday life as organized classification systems. Even in places such as grocery stores or clothing stores, genres are utilized to form an ordered flow to determine the differences between smaller classes within one particular subject, pointing out the differences between fruit and dairy, and punk to mod.

Possible Band Choices

The list of bands we were considering using and their songs are:

Example-'Fast Cars'
Lady Antebellum-'Need You Now'
30 Seconds to Mars-'Beautiful Lie'
Pink-'Runaway'
Beyonce-'Halo'
Christina Aguilera-'Oh Mother'
The Script-'For the First Time'
Florence and the Machine-'Dog Days are Over'
Katy Perry-'Teenage Dreams'

We thought all of these bands and songs had potential but we could not all agree on one to use. If two of us liked it the other two would not. However we all decided to use Katy Perry because we all agreed on it and we thought of lots of ideas when we listened to it. The band and song I wanted to do was 30 Seconds to Mars- 'Beautiful Lie' because I thought of lots of ideas to go with the song. I liked the way the song started of dramatic and slow paced and then when it was nearing the chorus it picked up pace and became faster than the verse. I thought this was good because it sounded dramatic and I thought it would give the music video a good storyline.

I also liked the idea of 'Halo' by Beyonce but I thought that we were too limited with this because it is a quite a slow paced song and there is not really that much change in tempo. We thought we would be limited in the amount of diverse camera angles we could use. We also thought that because Beyonce is a very popular artist and well known we would feel that we would be comparing our video to hers a lot and we did not want to do that.

This is the video 'Beautiful Lie' by 30 Seconds to Mars but a shorter version and this song would be hard to do because the original video is so good again we might start to compare our one to theirs.

Group Meeting

MEDIALL

Secondary Source Research

My mood board represents the genre Pop. I decided to use lots of different colours because I think it represents the lighthearted mood of the genre. I used search engines such as Google to find images to use for my mood board. I included an album cover of Katy Perry 'Teenage Dreams', as this is the song that our group has chosen to use for our music video. The colour of her hair represents the Pop genre because it is vibrant like the rest of the images in the mood board. I used images of sweets like bubblegum and lollipops because this is the iconography i feel that Pop represents. I also used images of popcorn and top of the pops again to really make my genre stand out so it is obvious that it is representing Pop.

The images I have used are quite similar to what appeared in the video 'California Gurls' by Katy Perry because this is the artist we are using. In this video she is walking quite literally on pink fluffy clouds with giant sweets. I think her audience would associate all the mise-en-scene in this video with the music genre because of the vibrant colours and random location which is why I tried to use all of the multi colours in my mood board.

Secondary Mood Board

Mood Board

Music Decision

Today we decided that we are going to use the song 'Teenage Dreams' by Katy Perry for our music video. However there were some disagreements within our group about doing this song because at first, we did not know if it would be doable. This is because we thought that it would be hard to follow such a recent popular video. It is also because we could not think of any initial ideas to use for the video or what location we would use. However, by the end of the lesson we all listened to the song and started to think of some ideas to go into our music video, so we all agreed that we wanted to use this song.

Artist Research

These magazine covers resemble the genre of music these artists are promoting. Michael Buble is dressed in a suit and the line says: "The old fashioned boy who charmed the world". His music could be seen as old fashioned because it is jazz and now there other kinds of music that is more popular.

Katy perry on the other hand is completely opposite she is wearing a skimpy outfit with big heels with a red sole to maybe represent her wild personality which is shown through her music videos. The line below is a pun representing some of her famous lyrics: "We photographed a girl and she like it". So both artists are represented differently in order to represent their genre of music. Below is Katy Perry's latest music video which is different because of the setting but again its shows how she is a unique artist because she is different and stands out.

Katy Perry Merchandise

http://www.bandstores.co.uk/shop/katyperry/products.php?cat=638

Above is the link to a website that sells merchandise by Katy Perry, promoting Katy Perry. As you can see the T-shirts have some of the famous lyrics printed on them by Katy Perry. This is promoting her as an artist as well as her music. Some of the merchandise has her lyrics on whilst others say her name. Both of these promote her which is an effective way to win over fans by using fashion as well as her music.

At the top of her website there is a picture of Katy Perry wearing blue hair to show that she is quite a quirky artist. She is also using the gaze to interest her audience because it catching their eye to buy her merchandise.

Music Video Analysis

Music Video Analysis

Performance vs Narrative Video

Performance- A performance video is where the video contains filmed performance and it often shows the artist. It could include an audience where the artist could be performing on stage or walking down a road singing or rapping. One of my favourite performance videos is What I've Done by Linkin Park. Although this is a performance video it also tells a story so it could be seen as narrative as well as Mcfly- The Heart Never Lies:
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gXh6iR5Ogo )




This is a performance video but it is in the middle of the desert which shows that not all performance videos have to be in a familiar location or on a stage.

Narrative- A narrative video is like a silent movie with music to go to it, so basically a short story. Most of the time the lyrics tell the story in the video like in the video Stan by Eminem and Dido:




I really like this video because the lyrics are being performed so it is like a short film. This I think is really effective because it will make the audience want to watch the video.

Michael Buble before his singing career

These are videos of Michael Buble before his singing career when he was acting.

Record Labels- Katy Perry

Red Hill
Pamplin Music was an independent Christian record label founded in 1995 by Robert B. Pamplin, Jr. The label was a subunit of Pamplin Entertainment and in turn Pamplin Communications, which was already established in the Christian media marketplace through book stores and video products.

Pamplin Music reported turning a profit in 1999 as well as being in the top five Christian music record labels. Despite this, Pamplin closed at the end of 2001, shuttering both its production and distribution operations.

Pamplin focused on the pop, soft rock, and R&B market segments. For other segments, they used sublabels. Red Hill Records, established in 2000 with A&R handled by Dan Michaels (according to Billboard), focused on electronic and pop music, and was generally aimed at the youth market. Organic Records was their label for alternative and modern rock artists. Cathedral Records and Crossroads served the gospel market segments. Cathedral did not close with the other sublabels, and established distribution through New Day Distribution.

Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment, and operates as an imprint of the Columbia/Epic Label Group. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in pre-recorded sound, being the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of notable singers, instrumentalists and groups. From 1961 to 1990, its recordings were released outside the U.S. and Canada on the CBS Records label before adopting the Columbia name in most of the world.

Until 1989, Columbia Records had no connection to Columbia Pictures, which used various other names for record labels they owned, including Colpix, and later Arista, rather it was connected to CBS (which stood for Columbia Broadcasting System), the former owner. That label is now a sister label to Columbia Records through Sony Music; both are connected to Columbia Pictures through Sony Corporation of America, worldwide parent of both the music and motion picture arms of Sony.

Capitol Music Group
It was formed in February 2007 as a merger of Virgin Records and Capitol Records in an effort by EMI to restructure and save an average of $217 million yearly. Both Virgin Records and Capitol Records, however, will remain imprints of the label.
Virgin Records CEO Jason Flom was named the head of the division, with Capitol Records CEO Andy Slater resigning after receiving a pension reportedly worth more than $15 million. As the head of the label, Flom will report directly to EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli.
As a result of the merger, promotion was halted and many acts were dropped from both Virgin Records and Capitol Records, including Janet Jackson and Fischerspooner.
A total of 283 artists signed to CMG. Artists like Mims, LeToya Luckett, J. Holiday, Royal Bliss, Mack 10, Faith Evans, Fat Joe and recently (since 2007) Katy Perry and Ferras are signed to the label

Katy Perry

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), better known by her stage name Katy Perry, is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Perry was born in Santa Barbara, California, and raised by Christian pastor parents; she grew up listening to only gospel music and sang in church as a child. After earning a GED during her freshman year of high school, she began to pursue a music career. She released a self-titled gospel album in 2001 as Katy Hudson which failed with the closing of its record label that year. She recorded an album with production team The Matrix and completed most of a solo album from 2004–2005, neither of which were released.

After signing on with Capitol Music Group in 2007, her fourth record label in seven years, she adopted the stage name Katy Perry and released her first Internet single, "Ur So Gay", that November, which garnered attention but did not chart. She rose to fame with her second single "I Kissed a Girl" in 2008, which topped international charts. Perry's first mainstream album One of the Boys followed later that year and was eventually announced to be the thirty-third best selling album of 2008 worldwide. It was accredited platinum Certification by the Recording Industry Association of America; "I Kissed a Girl" and her second single "Hot N Cold" both received multi-platinum certifications. She became known for wearing unconventional style of dress, often combining colors and vintage fashion. Her next album, Teenage Dream, is scheduled to be released in August 2010.

Beginning of career

At the age of 15, Perry's singing in church attracted the attention of rock veterans from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to polish her writing skills. In Nashville, Perry started recording demos and was taught by country music veterans on how to craft songs and play guitar. Perry signed to the Christian music label Red Hill, under which she recorded her first album at the age of 15. Performing as Katy Hudson, she released the self-titled Gospel-rock album in 2001. The album was unsuccessful, however, after the label ceased operations at the end of 2001. She later changed her surname to Perry, her mother's maiden name, because "Katy Hudson" was too close to film actress Kate Hudson.

At the age of 17, Perry left her home for Los Angeles where she worked with Glen Ballard on an album for record label Island. The album was due for release in 2005, but Billboard reported it also went nowhere. Perry was dropped by Island Def Jam Music Group. Some of Perry and Ballard's collaborations included "Box", "Diamonds" and "Long Shot", were posted on her official MySpace page. "Simple", one of the songs she recorded with Ballard, was released on the soundtrack to the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Perry signed to Columbia Records in 2004. However, the label was not amenable with her vision, not putting her in the "driver's seat". Instead, one of Columbia's ideas was to pair Perry with the record production team The Matrix, who was working on an album, to serve as its female vocalist. Although the album was later shelved, she caught the attention of the music press: Her burgeoning music career led to her being named "The Next Big Thing" in October 2004 by Blender magazine. With no album project ongoing, Perry began recording her own. Eighty percent completed, however, Columbia decided not to finish it and dropped her off the label. While waiting to find another label, she worked in an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.

In 2006, Perry was featured in the tail-end of the video to P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now". She made a cameo appearance in Carbon Leaf's video, "Learn to Fly", and in Gym Class Heroes' video, "Cupid's Chokehold", playing the eventual love interest of lead singer Travis McCoy. Her songs eventually captured the attention of Virgin Records CEO Jason Flom, then head of Capitol Music Group, who signed her to Capitol Music in early 2007

You Me At Six

You Me At Six (often styled youmeatsix) is a British rock band from Weybridge, Surrey, formed in 2004. The current line up consists of vocalist Josh Franceschi, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Max Helyer, lead guitarist Chris Miller, bassist Matt Barnes and drummer Dan Flint.
The band rose to fame in 2007 with the success of their debut album, Take Off Your Colours, which included popular singles such as "Save It for the Bedroom", "Finders Keepers" and "Kiss and Tell". The latter two peaked at #33 and #42 respectively in the official UK Singles Chart.They were nominated for "Best British Band" at the 2008 and 2009 Kerrang! Awards, losing both times to metal band, Bullet for My Valentine. The band released their second studio album, titled Hold Me Down on 11 January 2010, which reached #5 on the UK album chart. This album included the popular single "Underdog", which reached #49 on the UK singles chart, and "Liquid Confidence" which was released on 19 April 2010 as the third single from the album.

The video below is a typical band video where the camera is focused on the band, but it also shows them filming the video which I think is effective.



The beginning of the band
Formed in 2004, You Me At Six remained small for around two years. During an interview with Sam Darcy, bassist Matt Barnes said that You Me At Six started out travelling the UK on the Megabus to ensure they got to all of their early gigs. In their early material they incorporated elements of screaming, as expressed in early demos such as "Promise, Promise", "New Jersey", "Noises" and "This Turbulence Is Beautiful". Another early You Me At Six song was called "The Liar and The Lighter", this song was entirely acoustic and showed the bands early versatility with different genres, when taken concomitantly with the screaming on other early songs. Their first release was a four track E.P in 2006 entitled We Know What It's Like To Be Alone.

The video to "The Liar and The Lighter" is below and this was before the band was well known:



They then released a four-track EP at the start of 2007, with the songs "The Rumour", "Gossip", "Noises" and "This Turbulence Is Beautiful". They played many local and smaller venues throughout 2006, such as Backline Studios in Guildford and Facebar in Reading, building large local support, then in 2007 began playing larger venues. One of the first major breakthroughs came for the band when playing to a sold-out show at the Camden Underworld in February 2007, then later with the opening slot of Slam Dunk Festival 2007 (which they later went on to headline in 2009) Their support slot with Paramore at Colchester Arts Centre also drew the attention of major media, such as Kerrang!

Tours
You Me At Six kicked off their year playing a launch show in Kingston — originally intended to be an instore gig at Banquet Records, it was quickly upgraded to the new Hippodrome— in support of their new album Hold Me Down on 11 January. As of February they have played 3 dates, including, also, an HMV instore and an HMV event headline promoting new British music at the Relentless Garage London. They announced that they would be playing several festivals including Punkspring in Japan, the whole Vans Warped Tour; and supported Paramore on all Soundwave dates, as well as on Paramore's tour. They have completed their third sell-out headline tour in support of their second album Hold Me Down. They were joined by Sean Smith and Elissa Franceschi on selected dates. In Belfast, Matt told GiggingNI.com how it was "exciting to see how much you've grown from a year and a half age".

In August 2010 the band will be performing on the main stage at the Leeds and Reading festivals. The band also mentioned during their gigs in Manchester, Leeds, Southampton, Nottingham, Norwich, London, Glasgow and Belfast that they would be re-touring the UK in December 2010. During the Glasgow gig it was also mentioned that there was likely to be an Edinburgh tour date.

On 18 May 2010, You Me At Six visited BBC Radio One's Live Lounge for the second time, presented by Fearne Cotton. Aside from being interviewed they played a version of "Liquid Confidence" and a cover of Ellie Goulding's "Starry Eyed" at Maida Vale, in London live on air. On the 23 May 2010 they played the 'In New Music We Trust' stage at the Radio One Big Weekend in Bangor, North Wales. They were joined onstage by Sean Smith for The Consequence and Aled Phillips on Save it for the bedroom.

In December, You Me At Six will play another UK Headline tour during which they will visit Doncaster, Bournemouth, Manchester, Wolverhampton, London, Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast. Support will come from Mayday Parade.

Members
Josh Franceschi – lead vocals
Max Helyer – rhythm guitar
Chris Miller – lead guitar
Matt Barnes - bass guitar
Dan Flint - drums

Former members
Joe Phillips – drums (2004–2006)