Lesson From A Speaker From Polydor Records

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of being taught a lesson by two women who work at Polydor Records which is a subsidiary of of Universal. Their job title was video commissioner and they basically decided on the concepts of music videos from choosing from a wide range of ideas. They pick the concept by looking at various treatments and picking the ones which best suit the artist and the song. A fun fact we found out was that when it is a new artist and a new single, they prefer to have a performance element in the video just so that the audience can tell who the artist is. This is a useful tip as for our coursework we have to produce a video for a 'new artist' and it would be helpful if the audience knew what they looked like as a marketing campaign.

Firstly, we looked at the video for Goodness Gracious by Ellie Goulding. This video was shot over just one day and we were given the treatment and the end product i.e. the video looked very similar. This told us that we needed to be very precise about what we put in our a treatment and make sure it correlates between what we see in the video and what we see on paper. For example, here is some pictures from the treatment of Ellie's video:

And here is a final video that came from the treatment:

The video is very similar to the treatment and this made the job of the cinematographer and director a lot easier and enabled them to do a more concise job.

We also looked at another artist, La Roux, and her song Kiss And Don't Tell. The concept for this video involved the use of an adult chat line and hundreds of old fashioned phones. The treatment for this video used images a bit like this:

  









And here is the final video:

A cool thing that companies use nowadays is using interactive elements in their videos. In this video, the number that keeps getting shown on screen is a real number that you can call and there is a message recorded by La Roux. This is a good marketing technique because it makes the audience feel as if they are included in to the action of the video. This is especially good for new artists as it adds another dimension to the marketing campaign and allows the audience to see another side to the artist. 

Overall, talking to the people from Polydor was really helpful because it taught me what a treatment entailed and had to include. It also helped me establish some good ideas in how to portray a new artist in the best possible light. I'm looking forward to developing my idea for a music video with the rest of my group now that I have this knowledge.

Prezi Of Our Concept

Research Into Generic Conventions: Pop/Indie Artists

As we have picked a song by Tom Odell for our music video, we decided to do some research into the generic conventions of an indie/pop/rock artist such as Tom. A common generic convention of indie artists is wearing clothes on stage that look similar to normal clothes. If we look at a picture of Tom:

We can see that even in a picture which is obviously staged, he is shown as an organic artist wearing a t shirt and shirt over the top. We can also see that he is shown with a piano which also adheres to the stereotype of an indie artist. If we look at someone similar like Ed Sheeran:

We can see that the theory is proven about indie artists because he is pictured very casually wearing a t shirt in an organic way. He also has a guitar which is his instrument of choice, making this a generic convention of the indie/pop male genre. 

If we take a look at what types of videos these two artists produce, for example, Tom Odell Another Love:

He is seen playing the piano and wearing normal clothes. This is also a very basic video using only one camera angle and surprisingly he is not playing the piano although it is the main endearing feature. He is presented as very simple and sweet to match his voice and indie style. It is a very good video because it doesn't get boring although the shots are all very similar. A generic convention of indie/pop videos is the role of a young female. Most songs in this genre are about love or loss of love and usually this includes the role of a female as artists such as Tom want to be seen as masculine despite their sexual orientation. An opposition to this stereotype is Sam Smith who is an indie/pop artist who is openly gay and in the video to his song Leave Your Lover, the love interest is presented as a man instead of a woman:

This video is an opposition to the generic convention of the indie/pop genre but still works and proves that equality is on the rise in the music industry. However, all of these videos from indie/pop artists include slow moving camera shots. This links to the generic condition that all indie/pop songs are slow and simple. A song that adheres to this stereotype is by the indie/pop band Kodaline with Talk:

Update On Music Video Ideas

After doing a lot of thinking about the song aforementioned in a previous blog post, I have come up with a strong narrative with two directional paths and an advancement on the powder paint idea. 

Narrative One - this aspect of the video would include 'flashbacks' of a couple who are really happy, maybe painting or drawing each other and being very together and couply riding their skateboards together. However, this is to be made clear that this is in the past which will be made obvious by the other narrative and the powder paint shots. The shots would look a bit like this:

Narrative Two - this aspect would be shot completely in black and white and as the song gives of a never ending/endless and constant beat and swing to it I thought we could have shots of the boy on his skateboard, in a hoodie at nightime with no one else around. This would portray the nonchalant and bored feeling that displays his feelings on loneliness. This shot could also be replicated with the girl. Basically, this idea is just showing how sad their lives are without each other. I like the idea of constant movement with the use of the skateboard which hints that life goes on but it isn't necessarily a fulfilling life after love. The shots would look a bit like this:

 Powder Paint Concept - as we have now introduced two characters, we thought that this would vary the powder paint scenes into three categories: the girl being throw powder paint at, the guy being thrown powder paint at and the both of them together. We would still use the slow-motion technique in order to get a desired effect of the powder paint representing their emotions and hearts being hit by artificial things and being stained/damaged.
 

Developing Ideas For Our Music Video

One hurdle that we are trying to get over within our group is choosing the song for our concept. We have a very strong idea for the concept which includes powder paint being thrown at someone whilst they are lip synching to the music but we are having difficulty in developing an idea for the narrative or performance element of the video as well as the song choice. The top choice for song at the moment is Long Way Down by Tom Odell and sounds like this:

The only problem with this song is that it is very sad and would need a very good narrative idea in order to convey the message of heartbreak and 'falling' into nothingness. We have been told that this song sounds very much like the person is 'falling' away or out of love but we are struggling to think of ideas that correlate with this theme. Our initial idea would be that all other narrative scenes would be shot in black and white and then when the powder paint comes in it is the only bit in colour. It should look a bit like this:

Another idea we had to include in this video included using the powder paint to make art like in the Lady Dior Moscow advert that used sand in order to make a picture as seen here:

However, this idea requires a lot of skill and a professional artist is unfortunately not in our budget. We will try and take elements from this inspiration and include something similar in our video.


We have been told that this is a really strong idea and I'm looking forward to working out a way of developing it properly.

Research Into Similar Artists: Sia

After choosing a song written by Lykke Li, I decided to choose a similar artist in the form of Sia who also produces pop/indie/rock songs. They both produce music that they write themselves and that have a very niche market as they are not always immediately relatable or catchy. Here is a picture of Sia:

 Although Sia is quite a bit older than Lykke Li, they produce a very similar music style. Here is the song Breathe Me by Sia which was a massive hit because of its raw and unedited sound:

However, unlike Lykke Li, Sia changed her music style in order to fit her target audience and to appeal to a wider audience. She now produces quite upbeat and pop-y songs such as Chandelier which was one of the top songs of this summer:

Also, unlike Lykke Li, Sia has become very popular and produces fairly high concept and high budget videos. The video for Chandelier is still a fairly 'indie' style of video due to the crazy and weird girl dancing but this however does not match the vibe and feel of the song. Some would say that Sia has 'sold herself out' to the big production companies and music producers in order to get famous but she actually never performs to the audience as she has Graves Disease which makes her extremely anxious. This I feel is something that is similar to Lykke Li as they both produce pretty subdued and thoughtful songs that you can tell come from experience and true feelings.

I would say that the 'old' Sia would have been signed to an independent company that would be linked to Sony or Universal or a big production company such as. However, I would say the 'new' Sia would be signed directly to Universal or Sony as she has worked her way up the rungs of the ladder of the music business and can produce whatever she wants as she already has a massive fan base.

Research Into Similar Artists: Kodaline

After doing a lot of talking with my group, we decided that we should do a song involving my powder paint idea that is sung by a boyband so to do some research I decided to pick Kodaline who are a fairly indie/pop/rock boyband. They play all of their own instruments which is rare with boybands nowadays but I think they have a really unique sound whilst still being similar to the artist we're looking at which is currently Jukebox The Ghost. Here is a picture of the band:

Also, here is a song they wrote and performed which is currently very popular:

 

As most bands do nowadays, they have their own website which you can find here: http://www.kodaline.com/home/

I saw them and heard of them first when they performed at V Festival in the summer which shows that performing at such festivals when you are less well known is a really good marketing technique. They share the same target audience as many of the artists performing so advertising Kodaline at V Festival was a good initiative by their music producer and record label. 

Kodaline are a very up and coming band and they also gained a lot of followers from writing a song for the new and very successful film The Fault in Our Stars which had a huge fanbase anyway due to the book about it already. The song included in the soundtrack sounds like this:

 

The fact they wrote a song for a film suggests that this was a promotional campaign in order to get their music heard by a wide amount of people, most of which are in their target audience. 

I have a feeling that Kodaline would be signed to an independent British music production company because of their unique sound and the fact that they still haven't made it far in the music industry yet.