Initial Ideas...

Our Track...

Me and my group decided on creating a video for arctic monkeys' "Pretty Visitors" for our Media Studies coursework.

Here's a preview of the track!:

Planning Timetable

Advert Analysis

I have outlined key Codes and Conventions on the following music adverts. I will have to remember to keep to these, as to make my own music advert look professional and real.

DVD cover Analysis

Music DVD covers seem to usually follow certain conventions. It is common for them to have a large image on the front cover that relates to the band or artist. It will also have the name of the artist and the title of the DVD in large letters. It will always have these on the spine of the cover as well.
On the back of the cover there will be a list of songs and footage that is played in the chapters of the DVD. Also there will be a barcode and logos of sponsors and the bands or artists labels.
I will have to keep these codes and conventions in mind when analysing and creating my own DVD covers.

I like how Blink 182’s DVD cover is plain yet distinctive. They have copied their album art on to the front. This automatically pulls in fans of the band as they know what songs will be on it even if they haven’t read the back as they would have the CD.
This cover has followed the codes and conventions completely. With it’s colour scheme that is consistent throughout and large image and titles it would be quite appealing to its target audience.
I like this cover because it follows these codes and conventions yet I dislike it because I find the colour scheme too boring, so in my DVD cover I will try to use more colour.

Eminem’s ‘Hitz & Disses’ DVD follows the codes and conventions but in a different way to Blink 182’s’Greatest Hits’. On the back, instead of a list of songs or footage that is shown, it gives us a synopsis of the content of the DVD. It is also in colour but there is no defined colour scheme. Also, there is a 15 age certification, this means there is some unsuitable content such as swearing, I may have to think about this factor when creating my DVD cover.
I like this cover because of the images, on the back of the cover the artists face has been edited so the colour has changed and half his face is in negative. I will also have to think about picture editing when doing my own cover.

On the other end of the scale to rap artist Eminem we have the female pop group, Girls Aloud. This means we would expect to see a different type of colour scheme and pictures as to appeal to the pop culture fan base that Girls Aloud appeal to.
On the cover we get a picture of the whole group this will appeal to both males and females. Yet the colour scheme of pink and purple may be more attractive to females.
One interesting feature of the cover is that there is an ‘Extras’ feature on the back however the rest of the DVD follows the codes and conventions I mentioned earlier.

I find Nu-mental band, Slipknot’s, ‘Welcome to the Our Neighbourhood’ music DVD very interesting. The background on the front may seem to be just black and red stripes yet it appeals to fans of this band as it is actually a motif. It references the barcode the band use on their CD cover and boiler suit costumes. The barcode motif is also used on the spine of the DVD.
Another interesting feature is that it advertises the CD that has the songs from the DVD on, this will make fans who like the DVD contents go and buy the CD.
Other than these deviations, the rest of the cover follows normal codes and conventions.

Shock Rock artist Marilyn Manson’s music DVD follows the theme of the genre by showing lots of pictures of him performing live, as live performance is a main feature in the Shock Rock genre.
I like the large front image of his face and how it has been edited. Yet I can only guess at the reason behind the changing Manson’s eye colour I still like how it works with black and white scheme of the whole cover.
I have also realised while analysing the DVD covers which artist / company is more Americanised than others. We can see that Manson’s DVD was made by an American company whereas the likes of Girls Aloud’s hasn’t. We can tell this by how the back of the DVD cover is set out. I know that because the artist I am using I will have to set out my DVD cover in the style of a ‘British DVD Cover’.

General Music Video Analysis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muP9eH2p2PI

Weezer’s Pork and Beans music video is very Concept based. It’s inspiration comes from videos of internet stars and memes such as the Dramatic chipmunk and Mark Allen Hicks (the "Afro Ninja"). The use of these sometimes misunderstood internet stars reinforces the meaning of the song, which is the idea of being yourself and of being happy with who you are. Performance from the band is seen throughout the video with them either playing their instrument in settings/backdrops of the popular clips, for example at the start of the song where they are playing in the backdrop of the well known video ’Canon Rock’ played by Guitar90 re-enacting the memes themselves.
I like this video because I have seen the videos and memes that it features and I believe that it is a great representation of this generation. I have no real dislikes of the video because it follows all the camera angles and the mise en scene’s of the original videos. The main types of shot used are close ups and med shots, this is mainly due to the fact of the original videos were filmed using webcams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy7bSowFIr8

The next video I watched was by Nu-Metal band, Slipknot. The Music Video for ‘Duality’ cost nearly $500,000 and was shot in a Fan’s house in West Des Moines, Iowa, where the band originated from. The video is performance based, with Slipknot playing to a very large crowd of gritty fans. The family who’s house where the video was shot received around $50,000 worth of compensation due to the amount of destruction that was caused while shooting. Fans were also asked to stop jumping around too much during filming due to fear of the floor caving in. The erratic camera movement really fits in with the song and the mood of the atmosphere. It could relate to the meaning of the song, which is of how you get a headache due to the choices that are made while at the crossroads in life.
The camera angles are used to emphasise certain features in the video. Such as the low angle shot of Corey, the lead singer, as he beckons to the crowd to calm, this may be because he is looked up at by many of the bands fans. The Medium shot of the crowd running through the yard is an interesting one, it is used when the lyrics ‘You cannot kill what you did not create’, as we see them being spray painted on to the garage door in the background. I also like the use of the close ups of the band members faces, this is vital, especially in a Slipknot video as the band wear masks and are well known for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKrsBVFsfIQ

British band Radiohead are well known for their music videos. I decided to look at ‘jigsaw falling into place’. I like how simple the video is yet how effective it can be. The video was shot in one take and is filmed by helmet cams worn by the band. This means that the video is completely performance based and is the bands first video since ‘Idioteque’,which was released in the 2000’s, to feature the whole band. The whole video is in black and white, I think this works well with Radiohead’s simple playing style and helps focus the viewers attention on the angles and movement of the head cams. It is a unique type of shot that is taken from the head cams, as the head remains in the same position while the background moves. It is quite disorientating, yet I think this also link to the style of Radiohead and how there is a twist in the song lyrics. The mise en scene of the video is a recording studio, this is quite boring so it focuses the viewers attention onto the band members. The angles on the camera vary but the shot remains in the same position, medium shot. The angle depends on how the wearer of the camera is faced. For example, half way through the song, when the guitarist is playing the riff his is looking down at his guitar. This gives a low angle shot so we can see the guitars neck and his face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbVWHSIgX2M

One of the only narrative based music videos I could find was ‘November Rain’ by Guns N’ Roses. It is based on the short story ‘Without You’ by Del James. We see the story of lead singer, Axl Rose, and his marriage to Stephanie Seymour and her sudden death. During this the story is cut by clips of Guns N Roses playing live at a theatre. There is a lot of debate over the video and how Stephanie died. One theory is that she was shot as in the video we see Axl walk past a gun shop however this could be a play on the bands name. It is also said that "November Rain", "Don't Cry", and "Estranged", all songs by Guns N Roses are ‘Trilogies’ of sorts, but this has never been made official by the band. The video itself was one of the most expensive ever made costing about $1.5 million with Stephanie’s wedding dressing costing $8,000. Guns N Roses guitarist Slash takes the lead role in most of the well known shots. One being when he is standing outside the church and a helicopter swoops round and takes an aerial shot of him playing his guitar. Another memorable shot is when Slash plays the second solo on top of Axl’s piano and is filmed using close ups and long shots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcvjVM0xG6s

Music videos contain the real live performer, however in Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’, it does not just contain him in living form but recreates him in claymation. Another interesting feature of the video is that it is all shot in stop motion. This means that the camera doesn’t move and stays in the same medium shot, until the end and also meaning that each frame had to be taken one at a time.
I would class this video as performance based if not concept. As we have the artist ‘performing’ the song but we have other things happening around him in stop motion.
I like how the video is shot in this style but my dislike is that is now quite dated in its affects.


Overall, I think that a good music video is both concept or narrative based but with scenes of the band performing. I think that the story or concept keeps the viewers attention while scenes of performance will show the viewers what the band look like and show the style they play in.