Genre presentation task

20.10.14 - RELFLECTION OF GENRE PRESENTATION AND THEORIES


Personally I feel doing the research about Layer Cake and deconstructing the entire film and film cover/case has enabled me to more easily identify genres quickly and notice the codes and conventions that are iconic of the genre and has therefore enabled me to notice what I need to include within my music video to make it clear to my audience what genre it is and how it conforms (or subverts) to the codes and convention of the genre and of the key concepts of music videos.

Andrew Goodwin and his importance to Media studies and the music industry

20.10.2014: REFLECTION OF GOODWIN AND "DANCING IN THE DISTRACTION FACTORY"

Looking back at Andrew Goodwin and his theories after studying more about how important he is and how his theories intertwine with the ideas and initial thoughts of my own coursework I can see how I am going to use his theories in my own work.

Andrew Goodwin's 5 key aspects of music videos are as followed:

-thought beats - seeing the sound

-narrative and performance

-the star image

-relation of visuals to the song

-technical aspects of music video

Within my music video I really want to use though beats as they incorporate another level of sneaky-ness to the video. By that I mean that it makes the music video for the song more powerful and makes the video itself more of a story and enables it to keep up with the beat of the song and enables a sensible progression through the song and the video at the same time.

No song is ever fully explained by the artist either within the song itself or in an interview, the artist always keeps one aspect of the song secret, therefore the audience themselves have to decide what the entirety of the song actually means, however Goodwin says that music videos should ignore common narrative as their main role is advertisement for the artist. The narrative and performance work together to make it easier for the audience to watch without loosing interest. Goodwin also says if the artist acts as the narrator (performs the song) as well as participates within the video (acts in the narrative ) then it enables an increased authenticity of the actual 'singing' is real and not just miming to the audience, as this is a crucial part of how to judge if a music video is believable or not. 
Personally I think you can have a lot of fun with narrative and performance within the production of your own music video as personally viewing music videos I don't like being told how to feel about it and what it should mean as one word can have a thousand different meanings to a thousand different people, therefore within my own music video I would like to keep the acting very realistic yet play on the emotions on the song to enable a different interpretation to everyone who views the video.


Star image is a visual role of the artist themselves, this enables the development of their career to be documented over time and has been said to have an important part to play within the music video production process. For my own music video I want to use my main protagonist to play the part of the lead singer so it will link between the narrative of the story and the scenes of the band playing.


The relation of visuals to the song is also a part of Goodwin's theory I would like to use, however I would like to play around with this convention of music videos as I would like to illustrate the emotion and not the lyrics of the song within my video as I personally feel this will work more powerfully with the genre of music I have chosen to use.

First original mood board of initial ideas and influences

 

I chose to use these images from bands of a similar genre to the one I want to make a music video for, I have tried to throw in a few popular codes and conventions of these music videos to show that I am thinking of the few features to make and create a successful music video

Genre theory: research

A2 practical coursework - choice of briefs

1) A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• A (working) website homepage for the band;

(Bring Me The Horizon: www.bringmethehorizon.co.uk)

(Asking Alexandria: www.askingalexandria.com)

As you can see from the two above screen shot of band website homepages it has many features on it including a navigation bar, internal and external hyperlinks, social media links, roll over galleries, interactive input such as subscription options, media players and much more.

• A digipak for the album's release

Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI-Shorewood, and Atlas Holdings LLC company.      -[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipak]
Digipaks can have between 2-4 panels and are an alternative casing for a dvd or cd to the traditional Jewel Plastic CD case which were prone to breaking when put under pressure.

• A magazine advertisement for the digipak

Above is an example of two magazine advertisements for digipaks. As you can see an advert for a digipak consists of a poster image related to the newest release, and minimal information. And information or text on the poster should be, the band and album name, the release date, the record label and any slogan associated with the band.

2) A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action, animated or a combination of both together with two of the following three options:

• A poster for the film;

A film poster consists of an image or a collection of images either from the film or with the actors used in the film. The image needs to be relevant, and include the actors names on it, the title of the film and the release date and possibly the strip line for the film too.

• A radio trailer for the film;

A radio trailer for a film should include all the vital information needed to entice the audience, a radio trailer for a film is more like a blurb just read out loud with a few quotes or lines from the film to show the genre and who is in the film.

• A film magazine review page featuring the film

Film magazine review page(s) consist of a breakdown of the films in a brief synopsis, a rating on how well the actors played the part and how well the plot of the film really worked and how well it was portrayed to the audience. Whether or not the film met its expectations and if it fitted its intentional boundaries (or in some cases intentionally broke them) is also highly criticised. 

Pre - A2 course

I expect that the A2 course will be just as exciting and interesting (if not more) as the AS course. I will be entering the course will a handful of video/film editing skills already in my pocket, however I would really like to perfect these over the next year to be able to produce a really slick short film or music video (i haven't decided which yet). The A2 course sounds like a lot more work than the AS course, however I feel as if I will be able to approach it with the same attitude and be able to work through it all; yet no doubt there will be fisty-cuffs with the incompetent apple macs as there were during the AS course.

AS Course reflection

My AS Media blog

http://sophielavismedia.blogspot.co.uk/