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Purposes of Music VideosIntroduction Back in 895, the "first" ever music video was filmed at Thomas Edison's video. It was not the music video as we know it now, but that was how it started (Find out more https://goo.gl/vDp9GK). The heyday of music videos was whne MTV aired "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles back in 1981. And ever since, music videos have changed a million of things. Purposes of Music Video Music videos are created for various purposes. It may start off as an idea to help the people in the industry make more money but we can't ignore the fact that these visuals are a form of entertainement, espsecially in this era where videos are accessable through vast platforms and not just television. To Promote Releasing a music video is a way for artists to promote their music. Most often than not, music videos are created for songs that are 'singles' from an album. Some music videos are released before the album itself is made available to the public and this helps the artist to promote the album that they are releasing. Rather than just putting a song out there, a music video tells the viewers more about the song, the album the song is in and also the artist themselves. As an example, back in 2014 Taylor Swift announced the upcoming release of her album titles '1989' by releasing a new music video for her lead single 'Shake It Off'.
Not only do music videos help promote the artist, they also play a part in promoting movies or television shows that the song is featured in. Doing this is a win-win situation for both ends as it creates a synergy between the two; the singer helps promote the movie or show and vice versa. A great example of this is the song 'See You Again' by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth which help promotes the movie 'Furios 7'. Being the seventh in the Fast and Furious frachise, the movie itself has already gotten a "brand" to it, but the release of the song brings the movie to people who are not a fan of the franchise as it relates so much to how the movie was dedicated to the late Paul Walker. The song was famouse long before the movie was released and it creates a sense of anticipation amongst consumers. And as the fans of the song shares it out, it creates, in a way, free advertising for the movie. Singles are released even after the album is out for quite some time. Nowadays, music videos accompanies the release of these singles. This helps the artists "remind" the audience, just like saying "Hey remember me? I'm still around, here's a song!" The fans would most probably know the songs from the album of their favourite singers but those who do not follow the artist wouldn't. So by releasing a music video along with the song, it gives both the fans and non-fans new things to see from the artist. To Extend Income There are a lot of ways music videos helps an artist make more money. One if the ways is from YouTube views. In case you did not know (really though?), content creators on YouTube makes money from their views, among other ways. Even people like Mike Thompkins or Alex Goot who covers songs on YouTube, makes money from their videos. Angie Johnson is estimated to have made $36,000 from her cover of Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep'. Dhe even laded herself an audition on "The Voice". And thus, the content quality of the music video and of course the song itself is very important. Although there are many other ways a music video can gain views, to name a few, by having someone famous star in it like how Rupert Grint was is Ed Sheeran's "Lego House"; controversial videos like Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" or Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" or just interesting enough to have the internet make memes about it like "Hotline Bling" by Drake. Also with the help of YouTube, say someone uses a copyrighted song on their video, the owner of the song gets to get part of the royalty. Which brings us to the next point, ads. Videos on YouTube in general are loaded with advertisments and links, for music videos in particular, some brings you to sites like Amazon or iTunes where the music and even the music video can be bought from. Product placements. I don't know about you but bad product placements grind my gears. You know how this goes: sponsors, money, products etc. There are more ways as to how YouTube helps music videos earn money (https://goo.gl/EG4hMd). But the old school ways of television channels paying artist to get the permission to air their music videos still applies. To Provide Access to Songs Once again YouTube is responsible for this. Allowing users to acces various music from around the world for free, it has changed the way people listen to music. If before this people have to buy CDs and cassetes, or hoping the radio channel picks up your call so that you can request for your favourite song to be played, YouTube gives you the freedom to play any song you want (that is available on their site of course, but then again everything is on it) anytime you want. Also the convinience of being able to create playlists and download those playlists for users to play the videos offline, what did we do to deserve such a miracle. Even Spotify and Apple Music ask for your greens. Strategies in Making Music Videos Like everthing else in this world, there are a lot of thinking that needs to be done when creating a music video. Of curse the artists themselves have their own opinion on things but things like audiences and budget have to be taken into consideration. And just like what was discussed above, music videos are more than what we think they are. Different music video producers and record labels have different strategies when creating music videos. Major Labels Major labels are music industry companies that basically controls the market. The Big Four, as they call it, are Universal Music Group, Sont Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI group. However, since EMI defunct back in 2012, we are now left with The Big Three. A record label usually coordinates the production, manifacture, distribution, promotion and enforcement of copyright protection of sound recording and music videos. Their main objective is to make money by selling their product, that is the artist and their music. This mutualism relationship between record labels and artists can be difficult. Sometimes, things like albums, songs, videos or titles are altered, edited or censored in on way or another by the label, beliving that it will benefit the sales. What is unfair is that most of the times, decisions made by record labels are for commercial benefits, and it typically frustrates the artists. Who wouldn't be mad if their artwork is being altered, which at times can cause misinterpretation. Artists signed on record labels normally have their songs in the charts a lot and sell lots of records, which results to touring and merchandise. These producers normally have large budgets as well to use for promoting the artist with music videos and tours. Most of these producers work with Pop and R&B style artists, mainly because they are more popular then other styles. Although in general, they do not focus on a particualr genre of music or style when it comes to mosic videos as their main objective is to sell their product, they just produce what will profit them the most by making sure they produce what the audiences love and also trying their best to not make things controversial as it will brings up unnecessary problems. Example of major record label artists Independent Producers Independent record labels tend to specialise in a particular genre of music and/or style of video. Indoe producers often see their work as an art-form and not just an advertistments or bussines. This allows the artists to be creative and make a name for themselves within the music industry. These types of producers often become well sort after by mainstream artists once they have used the major labels to create their image and promote them internationally like Chris Cunningham. Although there are also a lot of succesful artists who had been with an indie label from the start like Taylor Swift and Adele. There is a core audience for indie records and they aim to plese this existing audience whereas a major label will always aim to widen their audience using promotional techniques. As mentioned before, they focus more on the art aspect rather than profit. There are differences in music videos created by major labels and indies. Although some are not that significant, mostly with indie labelled artists who have grown to be known internationally. It all comes down to budget. Major labels will have more budget to create their music videos while independents producers will have less. Not to say more budget equals to better music videos, because there are a lot of great music videos that are created with minimum budget, again content is key. However, more bidget means the producers can do a whole lot more things because they have the money to do so. Let's take Coldplay's (Universal Music Group) "Up and Up" music video and compare it to Tim McGraw's (Big Machine Records) "Humble and Kind" both released in 2016. 'Up and Up' is packed with crazy visual effects which is very different from'Humble and Kind'. Although both are from different genres, these videos are very contrast.
Another great example is mainstream K-Pop and indie korean music videos. Take Girls Generation and Jang Kiha & the Faces, comparing 'Some Kind of Relationship in Between' and 'I Got A Boy' both released in 2012. Jang Kiha's music video is very artistic, some might even be confused as to what the music video is about. While Girl's Generation's 'I Got A Boy' is what you expect from a K-Pop music video, what the audience wants to see.
Artist/Self Produced Self-producers are people who are the artists and produce their own music. Some artists might decide to make their own videos because they have their own unique style for a video and want it done exactly the way they want. Because most of them are unsigned, they use a video as a promotional tool to gain fans and exposure and hopefully lead to signing with a label. They normally do this because their budget isn't very big and they don't have the funds to hire a huge crew. The self producers normally like having an artistic control over the visual content which sometimes presents their creativity to future record labels. YouTube plays a huge role in giving these self produced artist a platform to share their art, and also get noticed bty record labels.Although nowadays, a lot of them have vast knowledge on video production, their self produced music videos are more "amature" due to the lack of budget and expertise. Here are some self produced artists (or used to be).
Conventions of Music Video Audio and visuals complemetns each other. That is why music of different genres have videos that are completely different; not in terms of production, but the content itself. There are a lot of music genres out there, not to mention subgenres and mixtures, but nevertheless there are aspects that makes their music videos look completely different from one another, not to mention the different eras. Country music for example, the artist will appear to be very, well, country. Significant things in a country music videos are trucks and how men will wear cowboy hats and/or boots. Country music if fond too guitars, banjos and fiddles (violins) so these instruments are sometimes shown in the music videos.
A lot of rock musics are created by bands. Their music videos usually have a storyline involving a girl (male lead band), also includes lot of shots that shows their band playing the instruments mostly electric guitars and drums.
Styles of Music Videos Aside from genres of the music, the styles of music videos also makes them look different, even if they're of the same genre. Here are a list of a few: In Concert and 'As Live' Footage Popular in Electronic Dance Music Videos Animation and Surreal Animation Can be used in a range of genres but often seen in pop and rock. Surreal As if from a dream/abstract and weird. Narrative These type of videos have a story or plot Impressionist A sequence of brief seemingly unrelated and often ambiguous shots. The lyrics of the song will often tend to link these otherwise unrelated shots. In many ways they can be similar or can overlap with surrealist videos in terms of content. The content relates to the song but doesn’t necessarily mirror exactly the meaning of the lyrics. Interpretive An interpretive video offers an interpretation of the lyrics and and is often a more literal interpretation as below - ie it is very closely linked to the lyrics. Pastiche Respectful mimicry of a particular artist, style, director. It will aim to pay homage to the style, director, artist. Something that copies without being designed to mock. Parody A video that exaggerates and mimics the characteristics of a work or person to create comic effect.
Techniques in Music Videos Cutting to the Beat Cutting to the beat is a way of editing a video so that each clip changes at the same time as the beat of the track. Most clips use a 'cut' transition, so you generally 'cut to the beat' of the music. Special Effects Visual effects are a way of adding more of a narrative and can normally create more excitement into a music video. Sometimes an audience will be so interested in the technology behind the effects but sometimes they just like the idea of adding more of a story and colour to the video. It keeps them entertained. Lip Syncing and Miming Miming and lip-syncing is a way of linking the video with the song so it gives the allusion that the artist is singing. This technique is used on the majority of music videos.
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For today's tutorial class, Mr Kannan told us that we have received our brief from Motiofixo. We will only get the full brief next Tuesday when we go and visit the headquarter so for now this is what we have. The music video we will be working on is a song called "Aku Pelat" from the Malaysian band Salammusik. Here is their existing music video: For now my team have yet to have any discussion because we are still not so sure about what we are supposed to do. I guess we'll have to wait until next Tuesday.
For the first class Mr Michael gave us a quick idea on what the module is about. However, we have not received the brief from the company we are collaborating with which is Motiofixo. The general task for this project is to enhance a music video, where the raw footage will be given by the company. What we have to do is add in motions graphics and/or visual effects to make the music video more interesting.
We will be working in groups of four for this project and so we decided to draw lots, and in my group there are:
For now we'll have to research on music videos, the different types of them, how different genres of music effects the music videos etc. This research will also help us gather some ideas for our project. |
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