LIGHTING UP THE KEYS

Indietronica typically contains heavy use of keyboards and synthesisers, which is why my group and I decided to further this concept by lighting up the keys on the synthesiser (the one used in the video by singer) in different colours. 

 



We took this influence from the Michael Jackson's video for Billy Jean: When Michael Jackson walks through the streets, the slabs on the pavement light up. We have cut these images to the beat to tie in with the codes and conventions and to tie in with the art-house/neo-psychedelia theme.






We used green, red, blue and yellow as our primary colours:

NME ARTICLE

Are Major Labels About To Abandon The CD? Er, No

PLANNING THE BIKE SHOOT

We decided to feature a scene of the band cycling to the recording studio. This fits youth culture and added a narrative line. The Smiths cycled through Manchester in their video for 'Stop Me...', they are the icons of Indie so it was a good idea to reference their video as an influence for ours.



Another video we are using as an influence is Arcade Fire's video for 'The Suburbs', whose bike shoots are more angled towards youth culture as they have teenagers cycling not young adults, therefore their behaviour in the video is more playful than in The Smiths.




LOCATION
We haven chosen to shoot this at an alleyway in Hampton Court because it iscentral to where everyone is coming from and we can also keep the area we want to film in quite private.

PROPS
We need 4 bikes at Hampton Court somehow! As not all of the cast members own a bike, it will be neccessary to borrow these and get them to the location in advance of the shoot date. Fortunately, one of the cast members lives locally and is able to store the bikes. We will need a tripod for the camera.

COSTUME
As it is cold outside in December, all the band members will be wearing coats and not the same clothes as the performance shoot as this is a different period of the video.

SCHEDULING
As this shoot is to be done outside, the ideal is to have good weather and on a nice day so we are reliant on the weather being good to also achieve the ideal lighting quality. As it is winter, we can't do this after school so have set aside several dates to keep free so we can decide on the day when we see the weather.

POP PALATE

The talk by Trudy Bellinger called 'Pop Palate' gave very good insight into directing pop videos. She has worked with Girls Aloud, Pixie Lott, Sophie Ellis Bextor. She explained about how the videos are designed to suit the artist and song.

The British Music Experience interactive gallery was very interesting, a whole musuem of music through the ages and touch-pad guides of the history with lots of donated memorabilia from artists and other instruments.

ALBUM COVERS THROUGH THE DECADES

I have done another PREZI to show how album artwork has changed over the decades.

A2 MEDIA STUDIES CALL SHEET FOR HELENA BEAT(VINYL SHOOT)

• Track - Helena Beat - Foster The People
• Length - 3:45
• Shoot date - 16th November 2011
• Location - Alex Atkinson's house, Palace Road, Hampton Court

• Crew: Alex Atkinson, 07523208980, aatkinson@yahoo.co.uk
• Crew: Will Jones, 07708633380, willjones567@hotmail.co.uk
• Camera equipment (Canon EOS 550d)
• Lighting equipment (Table Lamps and some natural lighting)
• Props - One vinyl player and one vinyl
• As with the scrabble shoot, there are no people starring so there are no costumes needed

MARKETING POPULAR MUSIC

Roy Shuker defined popular music as "commercially mass produced music for a mass market" (Understanding Popular Music 2001). There is a lot more to popular music than this: it has become instrumental in reflecting and expressing popular culture and cannot just be defined in musical terms as it now encompasses a great number of styles. Popular music shapes the way people (teenagers especially) dress, talk and sometimes behave, it has always been used as a cultural thermometer (protest of the 70s, peace and love in the 60s, today's hip hop).


Music is a complex media animal, dependent on so many other forms of media and technology to succeed. Many music fans restrict themselves to a certain style of music and are therefore not interested in anything outside of the genre; music stores like HMV tend to categorise their music by genre, and music streaming services like Spotify rely on your past choices in order to play new music that might be of interest to the listener. Artists have to work hard to obtain a wider audience to that of their genre, and increasingly marketing is dependent on alternative rather than traditional methods.


Web 2.0 applications work particularly well for the music industry and technology is moving very quickly.

TWITTER - Used by bands for sharing news with their followers, for example; forthcoming releases, radio promotion/gigs etc. It is also used for fan to fan communication, JLS fans in south-west London flocked to a church in Hampton Hill at 10pm one Tuesday night, when someone tweeted that they were there! Twitter is a huge marketing tool; that is often used to feed small amounts of information the fans, making them go and buy the product.

FACEBOOK - Social networking site used widely to interact with fans (more interaction than twitter), it gives people the feeling of interaction with the band themselves and also promotes chat. It can be used to show video clips of live performance (in October, Coldplay's live performance of their new album was streamed online), bands can also put on snippets of new releases, promote tours etc.


SPOTIFY - It is used to stream music from major and independent labels very cheaply (it used to be free), however, some people have criticised the rates that they charge, saying that the artist does not get enough benefit from the track. Users used to have a free account that was supported by visual and radio style advertising, but now it is by paid subscription and premium subscriptions come without advertising. Because Spotify is integrated with Facebook and other social media, it encourages music sharing which is a great form of promotion. Other music streaming sites include WiMP, Grooveshark, Pandora and MOG, they are increasingly popular and most have a smart phone application.