RESEARCH: Music Industry Today

In the last 10 - 20 years, music has significantly changed in every form. The way music in produced, distributed and exchanged between users has dramatically changed in recent years due to many factors.
Production of music:

An example of a music keyboard on a music
creation software. Music can be digitally
created eliminating the need for a physical
instrument.

The production of music compared to just 10 years ago has significantly changed. The methods involved in producing music in this modern day is completely different to how they would of created music a decade ago. The reason for this is due to the advancement of technology. Technology has played a big part in the way artists now produce music. The introduction of powerful computers in recent years has switched the way in which artists create music. A decade ago, the majority if not all the music back then had been produced using real physical instruments recorded on a microphone and edited together. Today, computers have become so advanced that the majority of music is created on a computer. Music creation softwares are so widely available that music has now switched more towards computer generated sounds such as SFX. Professional computer programs have many thousands of pre-recorded sounds which the user can drag onto the timeline and create any type of music themselves. Music has switched more from a recording studio to an office desk where a few hundred pounds worth of equipment is all that is needed to produce a brilliant piece of music instead of thousands of pounds worth of equipment. Music programs also have digital keyboards implemented in the software. This allows the artist to pick what instrument he/she wants and using the on-screen keyboard, can produce any type of music or sounds they want. This eliminates the needs for physical instruments in a recording studio anymore as of it can be done literally through a click of a few buttons.


Distribution:
Over the last few decades, many things have changed in the music industry in terms of the way music is now distributed. In recent years, the record industry has been seeing a major decline due to many forms of piracy thanks to digital music. The music industry is currently dominated by the big four distribution companies. These are Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner Music. These four companies are all involved in international trading, as they do not only focus on music; they focus on all types of multimedia varying from producing films to selling technology. "The Record Industry’s Decline" is an article which thoroughly examines the causes of the decline in the record industries. According to the article, (posted in June 2007) there has been significant changes which has altered the way record industries operate contributing to their overall decline. An example of this is overall CD sales which plummeted 16% from January 2007 to June 2007. That change has come after 7 years of near-constant erosion. Change has been noticed in the activity of the music industry where Linkin Park’s new album sold 623000 copies in its first week in May 2007, but wasn’t enough to help fund Warner Music label (Linkin Park’s record company) who announced that they are to release 400 workers in the same month.

The music industry has been struggling to reinvent their business models and although they have large assests, they are not capable of making money from them. This is due to the technology over the years which has turned fully digital meaning the physical attributes of playing music (such as a cassette) now obsolete. Although CD’s are still widely available and are the only physical means of playing music (with cassettes and mini discs currently outdated) the majority of mainstream music has moved digital. This allows easy access for users to edit, create and distribute music thanks to the connectivity of the internet. As music is mainly digital, anyone with a PC is able to buy one copy of a CD or song from the internet and distribute it thousands of times for free. The majority of people like to gain access to music for free and with the introduction of Youtube in 2005, the music industry is forever failing to deal with the illegal copyrighted material being uploaded on the website everyday. Rewind the clock back to a decade ago, and they only way you were able to listen to music was through the radio, TV, cassettes and the then newly introduced CDs. Step forward 10 years and the way we listen to music is different. The introduction of the way we communicate online has led to a new way we listen to music through the likes of Youtube, Facebook, Spotify, RSS feeds etc.... These sources of music are all most free, with full unlimited access to basically anyone who has an internet connection.

An example of this is GrooveShark.com. This website allows users to upload songs they had purchased themselves for everyone else to listen to it for free.

GrooveShark.com allows anyone to go onto the website and listen to most music for free. It is literally an online playlist of any possible song you wish to listen to. Websites like these are an example of the way we can easily access music. All you need is a fast enough internet connection to stream the music and you've got unlimited access.

Exchanging music:

Thanks to the internet and the ability to easy make copies of digital forms of music, exchanging music is as easy as it has ever been. The ability to regularly download music free of charge from websites offering the content you wish to acquire has led to widespread piracy. The major website which first kicked this off was  Napster which was an online music peer-to-peer file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning. The service operated between June 1999 and July 2001. The technological advancements present then thanks to Napster allowed people to easily share their MP3 files with other participants. This meant they bypass the established market for purchasing such songs and thus leading to massive copyright violations of music. Although the original service was shut down by court order, it paved the way for decentralized peer-to-peer file distribution programs, which have been much harder to control. 

Napster paved the way for copyrighted content on the internet

The music industry has had many changes from the way music is distributed to the way music has is being pirated. The recent change in technology over the last 20 years has significantly transformed the music industry; from the times where the first portable music player was released, to the present where portable music is the only form of music. In the rise of the 1970’s the introduction of the cassette brought portable music to the world; this boosted sales of music in the music industry as people had the freedom to take their tunes wherever they want with them. However this caused problems as people were able to use cassettes to their own advantage and record music they did not own. The most common was people recording music from public radio stations. This was the birth of piracy as people were able to record specific tunes they wanted and either kept it themselves (meaning they did not spend money buying the music officially) or they sold it on for a profit, losing sales for record companies.

The way record companies and artists are getting around this problem is through the use of heavy advertisement and long concert tours. Currently, artists and record companies are making no profit what so ever from making a song and distributing it.

Advertisements on music videos online is a way of making money as artists and record labels are losing money on just songs alone.

Miley Cyrus "Growing up."

Personally, I am not a fan of Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus. However, I do believe that she has too many 'haters' for her age and people who judge her for her wardrobe change are too quick to realise that she is growing up, and so is her music. Though i do understand the confusion people may have due to them literally watching her on their television, growing up from a 11 year old, to a 17 year old trying to claw her way out to the eye of disney and into the world of woman hood. The way she has dramatically changed all of a sudden was what I believe gave her such negative reactions. As she came from this:

(56 million views- Age 14.)

To then this:

(67 Million views Age 15)

(250 million views Age 16)

and then all of a sudden she changes her outfits from quirky and rocky, to short and emphasising and showing off her womanly figure. 

(81 million views Age 17)

as well as 

(24 million views Age 17.)

All of this in a matter of years, but people forget that in these years she has turned from a girl to maturing into a woman. I admit, she has done it too quickly for her age and I believe that she has the image of a disney girl in most of her fans eyes, but they also must get with the grip of the 21st century which is the male fantasy image SELLS. 

Mood board

After settling on our song - Florence and the Machine's 'Howl' - we created this moodboard to give a feel for the artist we will be portraying in our promotional package.  (Click to expand to full size) 

Official choice for music video song.

We chose this song to be our official choice due to its beautiful lyrics which we all agreed could be then put into depth through the music video. The songs beat , if edited correctly with the right shots and imaginative ideas could be very beautiful and give us a high grade. :) Luckily, Florence and the Machine does not have a music video for this song. And so the comparison fear will not happen with us as our music video will not be compared to the 'original' because there isn't one. :D 

Student analysis music video.

Beggin' you from 283goswell on Vimeo.

What I loved about this specific music video was their attempt to portray a typical music video with the women dancing around the singers. It has a promising performance from both the male and females in this video, I really enjoy watching it and the story that the video portrays is clear and an imaginative idea. (With the rewinding of the play station control. I thought it was a cheeky and witty shot in the music video.) I also thought the editing that matched the beats was very good. Its clear that they had many different base tracks which gave them a great chance to jump cut from place to place, making the video flow and entertaining.
One of my favourite shots would be the Post box hole shot, I was very impressed with their creativity.

RESEARCH: Skills Audit

Having already completing a project in the AS year, I am well aware of the importance of research. My research since has improved compared to the beginning of the AS year.

Before we had done any research, my group in AS had already had everything planned out and we knew what we wanted to do. However, not much research had gone into how we're going to get it done. We first had an initial idea, but through research by looking at the opening 2 minutes of various thriller films, we realised some of our ideas need to be changed slightly. This research gave us something to compare to, and once we analysed our idea, we changed it a bit.

Location wise, we were completely stuck; we had no idea where to start and what locations to record in as we had done no research. After watching more videos, we concluded that the setting is the most important thing after the concept of a video. This is because the setting can "make or break" a video in terms of realism and mise en scene. In the beginning, we didn't even know how to start researching into a location if we don't know about its existence. Then we decided to go around college and see if there was any place which we could record in. After watching past student videos, we managed to get ideas and realised that research can provide us with ideas. This was when we thought about a place one member in our group had been to before and decided to research if it was open the public, safe, met what we was looking for etc... All of this research was done online and talking to the owners of the location over the phone.

Having not done any research, my group would not have come up with this amazing location in which we filmed our AS Thriller in. The inside of the building met the exact mise en scene we were looking for; dark, gloomy, dirty, trapdoors and with a lot of real props e.g. saws, chains, old furniture etc...

Since then, I have taken a lot into consideration when it comes to research, what to research and what we're looking for when we research. This is because I thought we would get our idea and go out and start recording. But without full knowledge of what we were actually doing or going to do, we realised that research plays a major part in planning. This is the same with the music video we are going to create. Now, it is direct instinct to do some research before getting straight into it, so we can learn a few things and plan propery. This is especially important in what we're doing as we need to get the mise en scene right, representation right, a relevant location and the correct image we are trying to imply to the audience. The music video we are doing needs to match the genre of the song we are making a video for. Viewing and researching many music videos of songs in the same genre we are doing allows us to get ideas of what is expected and how we can do it. This level of research needs to be conducted before we can begin recording, and this is something I did not consider at the beginning of AS. This shows how far my researching skills have developed over the course of last year.

Laura Muvley

Laura Muvley is seen as a feminist due to her opinion on the current representation of women in the music industry and how females are representated as a male fantasy in the media. 

"In a world of stereotypical sexism and female respresentaion is divided between dominance of males and sexualisation of females. Male fantasies are projected onto women who match these fantasies."

The imbalance of respect to gender in the media and in music videos are now 'expected' in the modern society! It has now become the expectations of music videos to have women exploiting themselves in different genre type videos. 

Male music artists 

who have R'n'B, Hip-Hop, Pop and even Rap genre's are most likely to have a woman half naked in their video. 

Female artists, 

mostly Pop, are self advertising as sex objects. Wearing bikinis and dancing in a sexual way, representing themselves to the male fantasies. 

This sexual representation of women is done in music videos by their image through costumes and makeup, attitude from the lyrics in the sons well as their dancing and body language whilst engaging to the camera.

However, there are a few artists who are not stereotyped or advertising their self as being part of the males fantasy. Artists such as Adele, Duffy and Ellie Goulding are not represented as part of a male fantasy. Instead, they rely on their actual talent and song writing skills to win over the listeners. 

An example of the male fantasy would be S&M by Rhianna:

The song lyrics in this video are what point out to me to be the male fantasy. I quote: "I may be bad but I am perfectly good at it, sex in the air and I love the smell of it. Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me. "

If that isn't exploiting the female stereotype of the sexual male fantasies, then I don't know what is. 

Also a male music video with the male fantasy would be Snoop dog, Sweat. 

Out of many music videos that I looked at, This, was by far the most revealing as well as the ideal match to the fantasy for men. Having shots of a young girl (in her 20's) in nothing but a skimpy bikini doing sexual stretches, showing off her flexibility in a manner that would suggest to be sexual.

And then an example of a music video with a woman not representing herself as a sex object. 

REFLECTING ON AS: Technical Skills Developed

Throughout the AS year, there was a number of technical skills I had developed over the course. I already had most of the basic skills to do a technical task, but I developed more knowledge throughout the year.

As I had done Media Studies throughout years 10 and 11, I was already familiar with video editing software and knew the basic tools to a program such as Final Cut Pro. I already had vast experience with video editing software as I used to create little videos and edit them myself. However, Final Cut Pro has been the most advanced video editing software I have used, and offered many features. This is what we used to create and edit our thriller video. There was little restrictions to this program compared to other video editing programs I have used. We could cut clips down to the millisecond which other programs I had used before could not let me do. This allowed me develop my skills and make me more precise when cutting clips and joining them.

I had learnt how to use the program LiveType. Before hand, I did not know at all how to use this program or where to even start. As the year went on, I developed my skills and after a while, was seamlessly creating titles to put into my groups thriller video.


I had also learnt how to use Handbrake. This program allowed us to format a file and convert it into a different format to make it compatible with other mediums (such as Blogger).

With recording, I learnt many technical skills as we were using a professional camera. On normal home cameras, they are very limited to what you want it to do. With the ones the college provided us with, we were briefed with all its functions and how they differ from normal cameras. These cameras had features where we could manually focus onto an object, change the lighting, change the recording settings, change the sound recording settings etc... In the year, as I used the camera, I became more technically comfortable with its features and how I can get the most of out it. An example was when we recorded our thriller opening, we changed the camera recording setting to 24fps (frames per second) at 1080p instead of 30fps. This was because I researched that 24fps is the format films are recorded at as it looks more realistic and natural to the eye. 30fps is too fast for moving objects on screen and adds that unrealism to the look of the finished recording. I also learnt how to use a tri-pod and the different angles it can be used at.

Carol Vernalis

Carol Vernalisi's Theory contained the following:
The music video should contain editing that is 'broken', using jump cuts as such to maintain interest to the viewers and listeners of the music video. Most of the time, there are jump cuts throughout the music video to excite the song and create movement by changing the scenery and angles all through the 'short', entertaining the viewer and publicising the Music Artist in a positive aspect. 
Unless the video is aiming for a more narrative slant, to which it wouldn't have as many jump cuts, so it could narrate the story in the video.
Music video's are very different to films as the camera is usually hand held, visual effects are more likely to be used and more often as well as the video itself is surrounding its attention to the song, editing its cuts in tune with the song and beats. Eye contact with the camera is another difference between a film and a music video, as the artist is engaging with the audience by looking straight into the camera, engaging the viewers and making them feel 'closer' to the artist.


Here is an example of this in a music video. 
Elbow- Ground for divorce. 

As you can see, in this music video the editing is in tune to the beats such as the pool table shot etc. 

Here is another music video with the singer engaging with the viewers as in this specific video (Elbow) They don't particularly engage to the camera, where as the editing focussing on the beats connecting well with the song. 

Analysis of a music video.

EXAMPLE- Kickstarts

When it comes to editing and planning, this is definitely one of my favourite music videos, which is why I have chosen to use it for my analysis. Its quick and smooth cuts make the motions of the music video flowing and exciting. The jump cuts from one person to the next doing the same motions make it a unique styled video.

There are HUNDREDS of jump cuts throughout this music video. Such as these screen shots from the video showing different shoes doing the same motion but cut evenly to make it look as though the shots are  just one whole, un- cut shot.

As you can see from the images above the jump cuts are staged in the same position, just using different feet and shoes, representing different couples going through the same relationship issues that are mentioned in the lyrics as well as suggested throughout the music video. 

 

                                                                

Another reason why this would be seen as a good music video is because it advertises the face of the artist/band. Having many different shots of the singer in close up shots throughout the music video. (Below)

This music video has spilt screens in some shots as well, using jump cuts with it, making a figure cut into three different shots, matching them up into one line evenly and so they look like one whole figure. They also did this with faces, cutting them into two, have them both lip syncing the lyrics and so the face looks connected yet they are cut in half. 

More split screens got through the entire music video, shooing different shots of people doing the same motions, yet again. 

Overall, this music video has many different qualities which provide it with  positive feedback in my opinion due to its clearly well planned shots and BRILLIANT editing in every shot. Ticking all the boxes for the perfect music video. 

REFLECTING ON AS: New Skills Learnt

When we were first told we had to do a lip sync video back in June, I had always wondered how in music videos, they actually made the lips match the artist in the video. This is because I knew they firstly recorded the song in a studio, but I was unaware how they matched the lips with the lyrics in a video. We were given a quick brief on how this was done using Final Cut Pro. Firstly we were shown how to import the just the music track onto Final Cut Pro. With practice shots already on there, we were then told how lip syncing is actually done. This involved placing markers at every certain point (e.g the beginning of every line in the lyrics) on the music track. We then had to place the same markers on each base track video we were given to the same words we marked out on the song. This allowed us to match up the words with the video allowing the lips to sync together.

Before we had been told this, I did not know the process or methods to lip sync music to an individually recorded video. I learnt the processes involved, what has to be done and the amount of effort required to get the finished piece looking professional.

We then went out and recorded our own music videos. But before we were told to do so, we were told how it is done. We learnt that when recording a music video, the piece recorded has to be the full length of the song and the person on screen has to actually sing. This is known as a base track. We learnt this is done because when editing, we can pick out any piece we want from the base track and mix it with other shots. Also, we learnt that the person has to actually sing the song due to the fact that miming the words does not look like you are saying anything, therefore it looks effortless and poor. Actually saying the words makes it look like the person is really singing when it comes to editing and matching the music with the lips.

When it came to editing, I thought I would save time and use my own technique which involved individually cutting sections of each base track, marking the points then placing the clips next to each other on the time line. However, I learnt that doing this caused me many problems. If I slightly edited a clip, all the clips after that would have moved out of position and the music would be out of sync with the lips. After realising that this would be a continued problem, we reverted back to the technique we were shown and understood why putting markers on every base track then cutting the clips was the method used. This is because if the clip before was edited in some way, it would not affect the whole synchronisation of the music and lips.

We marked each base track to the same markings we put on the music track. We placed all the base tracked on each individual video timeline. We then muted the sound on all the videos as we didn't need it. Next, all we had to do was line them up and then we could choose which base track to show and when by cutting with the razor tool. We cut each base track when we wanted the shot to change; this allowed the over lapping video to play which was the other base track. This allowed us to show various camera angles in the videos with all perfectly synchronised signing matching the lips of the video. We learnt that precision had to be used in order to get the lips matching the lyrics on point; the more precision used, the better it would look in the finished product and we took this into great consideration when marking each base track and the song. We had under-estimated how long it would take to place markers on each individual section of the song and the base track, but we realised once this had all been done, the rest was easy (e.g. choosing the shots we want to show on screen).

Note: Currently my group's lip-syncing work from AS has been mis-placed due to the changes of the MAC systems over the holidays. I will upload the video when I retrieve it from the old hard-drives.

What is the function of a music video?

In our first class we discussed on what we believed to be the function of a music video.
What we discovered was the the function of a music video is to promote the music artist as well as advertise their songs. Giving the audience more options to how listen to the music.
Having a music video advertises the artists, giving them more publicity on television as well as youtube, rather than just radio.
What I notice in music videos is that it can also show a deeper meaning in the song that the listeners wouldn't recognise from just listening to it on the radio, giving some song writers an opportunity to express the depth of their song through the video.

RESEARCH: Laura Mulvey's Ideas on Representation

LAURA MULVEY

This is her view on gender representation:

"In a world of sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly"

Laura Mulvey believes that currently, females are represented as a male fantasy in the media. Here is my interpretation of what she is saying: 

"In a world of sterotypical sexism, male and female representation is divided between dominance of males and sexulisation of females. Male fantasies are projected onto woman who fit these fantasies."

This sexual imbalance of gender in the media and in music videos can be expected in our modern society. Although Laura Mulvey's quote was said in 1992, it stills refers and implies to today's modern media of gender representation. It has become all to natural to expect sexual representations of women in music videos based on a specific type of genre. This sexual representation of women is done in music videos by their image (revealing clothing), attitude (lyrics in the song) and body language (outward impression). This is only done in music videos through specific genres of music such as R'n'B, Hip-Hop, Pop and even Rap. Artists in these genres feel the need to glorify their own gender whether it being glorifying your masculinity or glorifying your sex appeal. A wide range of artist all do this, splitting the divide of male and female representation.

However, there are a few artists who are not stereotyped as being part of a males fantasy. Artists such as Adele are not represented as part of a male fantasy. They instead use natural talent and natural presented personalities to gain world wide fame instead of using their image to gain fame and recognition (such as Lady Gaga and Niki Minaj).

Adele uses natural beauty and raw talent to gain success whereas Niki Minaj uses the male fantasy through revealing clothing to gain fame.

Adele focuses on her signing to please the audience whereas someone such as Niki Minaj uses her image to get the same result. This means most women in music videos will tend to use outward appearance and image to gain fame and publicity rather than being natural. They use the their bodies as an object of desire in the male gaze too frequently to the point where it has become to norm for a female artist in music videos in most cases. 

Laura Mulvey states that the female body is being used as a tool in the media to represent a males fantasy of women in general. The fact that females are being dismembered with more focus on specific body parts rather than looking at the person as a whole, is having an impact on what we in society feel women should be, have or do. This has become the norm in society and is forcing normal women to become what the media thinks is normal. This is where some female stereotypes come into play. Some music videos focus on a woman's physical attributes such as her legs, breast or bum in mainly male music videos to project that fantasy onto the public. This creates an obsession that every male should have a partner with similar attributes and that every female should look like this.

This form of gender representation can be seen in many videos:

Dizzee Rascal portrays women in this video more as an object instead of a human being. This is a typical example or what Laura Mulvey's statement was about, that women in the media are only shown as male fantasies, when in feel life, things differ. Camera shots focus more on a woman's attributes rather than talent or personality.


Niki Minaj uses the male gaze and fantasy in her music videos causing a stereotype among women to dress more revealing to get attention. She uses her sex appeal to her advantage.

RESEARCH: Vernallis's Theory

Carol Vernallis studied editing and camera work closely in music videos. She realised that edits in music videos are much more frequent than in film. She noticed that many stand out as disjuncture and that the editing in music videos seem to have a rhythmic basis closely connected to the song.

Her findings are as follows:

• What she had realised was that continuity was not an issue in music videos; the rules of continuity were not applied in music videos as broken shots of editing is used to draw attention to what is on screen. 

• Edits such as wipes and special effects were used in an obvious manner. This is because it draws attention to the music video itself as such obvious editing is not seen in film.

• Jump cuts are often used and continually used. This is turn rules out the possibility of continuity as jump cuts jump from one scene to another often. This can relate to disjuncture as one shot can vary from another in jump cuts making no sense or relation to the song. 

• A master shot (also known as a base track) is frequently used in order to give the video some structure. A base track allows the editor to cut away back to this shot many times in order to make the video have some structure. This does not necessarily mean that the video will have a structured story or narrative to it.

• The camera may move in time with the music. This can add a sense of connection to the audience as well as rhythm. While the camera moves to eat beat, the audience can relate to this as they too can move to the music along with the beat. This can also give the music video some structure as the audience can interpret where/how the camera is going to move in relation to the music.

A good example of Carol Vernallis's findings is the song Price Tags by Jessie J. The music video features a few jump cuts as well cuts and camera movements based on the beat of the song. There are a lot of base tracks used in which it keeps jumping back to once showing another shot, giving the video some structure. Also, there are a lot of jump cuts (some bits have more than 4 jump cuts in 1 second) which proves Carol Vernallis's theory. 

Another example is Boom Boom Pow by The Black Eyed Peas. They use very obvious special effects in their music video along with jump cuts on the beat.

RESEARCH: Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin believes that pop videos do not match and work with a traditional narrative structure like the one you would find in a TV drama. He feels that pop videos are built around the songs and so does not pose the traditional narrative structure of normality, problem and in the end a resolution. He also feels that the pop video uses the singer both as a narrator and as a character, thus approaching the narrative from a different angle compared to films or novels.  In pop videos, it is also common that the singer in the video often looks directly at the camera; this is seen as an extension of the performance as it is trying to involve the viewer at home with the performance. The singer does this when he/she is narrating the song and usually does not give eye contact with the camera when they are playing as a character.

Andrew Goodwin feels that pop videos rely on repetition where often the video repeats images in the way the song repeats choruses or certain lines from the song. This has put the expectation on pop music videos that we as the audience expect to see; the repetition of certain choruses or base tracks in the video make the genre familiar to what we know we would find in a pop video. He also mentions that pop songs have a form of closure and ending. He notes that the song the music video is based on builds to a climax or constant repetition before having an ending in which it usually "fades away".

Here are the 3 main points Goodwin outlines as the three main types of videos you are very likely to identify: 

• ILLUSTRATION - This is where the video tells the story of the lyrics through images on screen. An example of this is Giggs, Look Over Your Shoulder. The music video itself tells the story to the audience through the use of narration and visual examples. You wouldn't even need to hear the song to get a glimpse or understanding of what the video is trying to imply. The music video tells the story to the lyrics as it is.

• AMPLIFICATION - This occurs when the videos introduce/create new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics, but instead add layers of meaning to the lyrics, thus ‘amplifying’ them. A great example of this is Kate Mcgill, Replaced. Here a man wakes up from a coma in hospital. The lyrics do not exactly match what the video is showing, but still amplifies the meaning. An example is when the song says, "its just too much". Here the actor on screen is finding it difficult to walk when he gets out of bed. The whole songs does this throughout giving a different meaning to what she is saying compared to what we are seeing on screen.

• DISJUNCTURE - This is where there is little or no connection between the lyrics or video or when the video contradicts the lyrics. A good example here is Lily Allen, Not Fair. Here the video has nothing to do with the lyrics. Instead, the video only shows the artist herself performing to an audience. She just narrates the story rather than showing it or showing any meaning behind the lyrics. Hasn't got anything really to do with the song.

Research - Skills Development

My research skills for this project have definitely developed in comparison to that which I conducted for last year's AS course. For one, I have focused my research much more – in the AS unit, I researched thrillers as a whole, which is a wide genre. However, for the promotional music package that we will be creating, we have a specific song and artist. Because of this, it is much easier to research with relevancy e.g. targeting music videos with a similar style to the song we've chosen in order to establish the codes and conventions of that genre. Unsurprisingly, YouTube has been a major source of research because of the ability to search and view virtually any music video, on demand. A major difference this year is also the fact that we have been studying different theories and looking in-depth at the industry that relates to our project, whereas last year, we only briefly touched on the film industry. Additionally, I have been looking at different articles to expand my knowledge of the music industry, which I previously did not need to.

Planning - Moodboard

After settling on our song - Florence and the Machine's 'Howl' - we created this moodboard to give a feel for the artist we will be portraying in our promotional package.  (Click to expand to full size) 

Research - The Music Industry Today

The music industry has changed drastically in the last ten years. In last Friday's lesson, we looked at the way in which music was made, distributed and exchanged, and how this differs today. We discussed this in our group and we established several key differences, which you can see in the presentation below...

The Music Industry on Prezi

Furthermore, we talked about the importance of music videos in 2011, in relation to the music industry and the fans (I briefly touched on this topic in my first blog post).  First of all, over the years the music market has become dominated by 'The Big Four' – Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner Music, due to corporate takeovers. All four of these labels are part of international companies called conglomerates, which do not concentrate solely on music, but many aspects of multimedia including film, technology, etc. However, in 2010, music sales plummeted by nearly 10% in the US and 7% in the UK. Pre-Christmas sales also dropped by 14% and 10% for Warner Music and Sony respectively. Roughly three quarters of all music that is downloaded in the UK is done so illegally, with an estimated 1.2 billion illegal downloads last year.

Because of all this, it is no surprise that music videos do not have the same impact on record sales compared to previous years. An example is the majorly successful single Someone Like You by Adele, which, until today, did not have a music video. Yet her live performance of the song at the 2011 Brit Awards propelled her into worldwide critical acclaim, with the video of it garnering nearly 50 million views on one YouTube video alone. This is interesting as it proves that music videos aren't always vital for a single to be successful, although, in this case, the video of her live performance acted as an alternative to the traditional music video.

Example of video sharing via Facebook

Audiences are being targeted by music videos more and more through digital media, such as social networking and streaming sites. With this technology becoming prominent in the way consumers are exposed to music, major labels are trying to adapt to it. For example, two of the major labels, Universal and Sony, launched the Vevo service, which is now integrated with YouTube, and makes money through advertising.

Chief executive of Vevo, Rio Caraeff, expresses the plans he has beyond the online service of the venture from this article from The Guardian:

"We want to expand distribution into TV partnerships, radio partnerships and live events ... The idea is to put the highest quality video experience in front of people... we want Vevo everywhere the customer is."

With the dire state of the record industry, partnerships between different companies like these are becoming more common. For example, social networking giant Facebook only just recently launched an integration with legal music streaming service Spotify, allowing users to instantly share the music they are listening to in a bid to expand their revenue. Streaming services similar to Spotify have cropped up in the past (e.g. Nokia's Comes With Music, Sky's Songs, etc.) but none were successful.

In our group, we looked at how and where we watch music videos, as we are all major consumers. We identified the fact that YouTube is the main medium we use to access videos, which differs to when music TV channels were the only source for music videos. We also identified specific videos we've all seen recently, e.g. Single Ladies by Beyoncé and Friday by Rebecca Black, which both went 'viral' (for completely different reasons, mind you). What this means is that the videos became popular through a lot of people sharing them online. We concluded that Lady Gaga is also a major player in this field, with her videos being some of the most successful of the past few years. In one lesson, we viewed her video for Telephone featuring Beyoncé. What made this video so big is a clever combination of extended narrative and controversial imagery

Record companies and musicians benefit from our watching their videos by their earning ad revenue and providing us with a form of entertainment in order to get us to view the video again and again, ultimately leading us to buy the music (or so they hope). Another interesting way in which they make money that seems to have blown up over the past few years is the use of product placement in music videos (the Telephone video uses this a lot). Companies pay to have their products shown in videos, in hopes of enticing the viewers into wanting said product after seeing the musician using it or such.

Because people generally do not purchase music videos (the iTunes Store does have this option, mostly for iPod users to be able to watch videos on the go), the labels/musicians end up making a loss when creating music videos. The methods outlined above are some of the ways in which they try to recuperate revenue, although the main purpose will always be to sell the song and artist.