Website Analysis - Run the Jewels

Discussions - Friday 21 October

Today we discussed what we wanted to create further. After presenting our treatment yesterday, we realised that our ideas and concepts we still unclear and disorganised, so we tried to make a clearer vision today.

We mostly talked about editing as we found a video that falls under the 'EDM' bracket, Modestep's trailer to their 2015 album London Road.

We focused mostly on the transitions at 2:38 of the video. The shots are all slow motion, but just before the shot cuts to another, the shot suddenly speeds up. While the shots are probably separate and do not come from the same footage, this kind of editing creates a sense of continuity.

We decided that for the most part, especially in the beginning of our music video, we wanted most of the shots to be slow motion in order to create a sense of slowness. 

Music Video planning #1

Ideas for influence:

 

Desiigner - Panda (settings)

 

Missy Elliot - Where They From (style, lighting, theme)

 

Vic Mensa, Skrillex - No Chill (CONVENTIONS)

 

Skrillex & Rick Ross - Purple Lamborghini

Song ideas:

 

Zhu, Dj Snake, Dj Mustard - Faded 2.0

What So Not - High Are You (Branchez remix) 

 

Vindata - Own Life

Yellowclaw & Flux Pavilion feat. MAAZ - Cacth Me (WY Flip)

Ideas from:
-Tove Lo - Habits (Sabotage remix)
-A$AP Rocky - LSD (LovexSexDreams)
-Josh Pan & X&G - Platinum
-Skrillex - Dirty Vibe with Diplo, CL, and G-Dragon
-Ice Cube - Drop Girl (UZ remix)

Major Lazor - Night Riders

Conventions:
Neon Lighting & Dim/dramatic lighting (Night time)
-This is a reoccurring convention in terms of lighting throughout EDM and genres like trap. Colour schemes usually include neon light blue and red. Examples can be seen in music videos such as Justin Bieber's 'What Do You Mean', all the way to Vic Mensa and Skrillex's 'No chill

What Do You Mean by Justin Bieber

No Chill by Vic Mensa and Skrillex

The lighting in Snakehips' track 'Forever (Pt. II)' contains lighting very similar to what we are after. Snakehip focuses on more downtempo/triphop/future genres that can be danced to, so technically he falls under the EDM bracket, but he does not follow the mainstream trends and conventions that EDM usually follows.

Choreography

-This is quite common in Trap music videos. The style of dancing falls under the hip hop/urban bracket. Sometimes the artist will be involved in the choreography, such as Where They From by Missy Elliot and Pharrell Williams:

Other times there will be dedicated dancers who will do the choreography without the artist. Sometimes the artist might be in the shot somewhere. Examples include:

Genre Codes and Conventions

Music Video Practice: Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk ft. Bruno Mars

In this assignment, we were to recreate Mark Ronson's song 'Uptown Funk' for up to a minute. This meant all the camera angles, editing cuts and anything else had to be as similar as possible.

Day 1:

We spent this day on reviewing, planning and screenshotting from the original all the different camera shots and angles. This was so that we could remind ourselves what we needed.

Day 2:

We spent another day preparing, getting hold of the probs we needed and working out where exactly we were going to be working.

Day 3:

Filming

Day 4: Filming

Day 5:

During the day we gathered all the footage we collected. We started editing after school

Timelapse of the editing:

The most important thing we probably did was the first stage of editing - creating markers at every cut of the original. We ripped a low quality version of the original, and downloaded the audio separately. We wanted to achieve cuts that were identical in time as the original.
What the marker allows us to do is to just simply cut out footage up that was similar to the original, and drag them in without musch thought other that the timing on the lips. The markers would allow us to 'snap' the footage to its location with ease.

Day 6:

We were halfway done with the editing, however we realised that we were actually missing some footage. After digging through the possible place where we could have forgotten to drag the footage over, we concluded that we simply forgot to record certain shots on the day.  We had to make do with what we had, the shots that were not similar to the original were bloopers before the actually recording, and some shots we had to increase the scale to create the closeup shot effect.
This was the main issue we found with the whole process.
We also found that when rendering, the resolution was messed up, so we will have to go back and render the project out again.

Final outcome:

Album Digipak practice

This session was a chance to try conveying an artist's profile, style and music through an album cover. We were all assigned a random image for the cover, a random artist name and a random album name, found on random articles on Wikipedia and a random quote website.

The aim was that at the end of the lesson we would review each others album covers, and had to work out what genre/style of music it was.
I was assigned to the name Golden Trevally, the album 'a stranger than fiction', and this image:

Version 1

 

Version 2

 

I was aiming for an experimental, possibly EDM or electronic album and style. It seemed relatively successful in conveying this, mainly thanks to the peculiar, almost conceptual photography.

Looking at websites as examples

NOISIA

Noisia is a drum and bass band that embrace concept and futuristic ideas. While not being the most recognised act of EDM, due to their choice of genres, they are considered by almost all other artists as the band with the highest level of production.
I expected their website to contain elements of minimalism, due to their futuristic theme and widespread of genres.

 

It contains all the things you expect

News, Bio, Discog, shows, and downloads

It isn't the most detailed website, but it is easy to navigates and find enough to make it an effective website

The social medias like Instagram and twitter are all presented in a easy to find section of the page. This makes it easy to find this band's other social platforms

Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar is a rapper who faces the mainstream, and yet is capable of embracing different styles of rapping and beats. He holds the art of oldschool rap with a modern edge. 

I expect to see a simple websites, as compared to other rappers he is modest about himself in his music and lyrics.

 At a glance the website is presented in a minimal black and white form. This makes sense, as in many of Kendrick Lamar's music videos are presented as black and white.

  

The viewer is first presented with a sliding banner that features Kendrick Lamar's different projects, from past to present

  

Scrolling down, the page then moves onto different news involving the artist.

 Videos that features Kendrick's works

 The social media section is placed at the bottom. This is unusual, as it makes it not obvious and can cause a set back in artist advertisement, however this is probably not a problem as Kendrick already has fame in the mainstream.

Dillion Francis

Dillion Francis is recognised in the industry as a pioneer of the subgenre Moombahton. However he is also well known for his mad, wacky humour.

 Flaming background in reference to his 'lit' music.
The contacts and social media addresses are kept on the top banner

 You can see the artist trying to bait people into subscribing by making an inside joke (reference to an old song)

 Tour dates

 Side panel to look up for Francis' songs - allows easy access to know of his latest works.

Dillion Francis has got a very unpredictable sense of humour that is filled with his view and portrayal of stereotypes in the industry. The the portrayal of his website was unexpected, but then again I was not sure what to expect in the first place. The website looks like something he would have directed the design.

 

Genre Codes and Conventions - Boy Bands

Andrew Goodwin's theory on a successful 'average' music video

1. Visuals and lyrics must either relate/amplify/contradict/illustrate each other
2. Visuals and music must either relate/amplify/contradict/illustrate each other
3. Style of the visuals must somehow relate to the genre of the music 
4. Record companies demand closeups of the artist/band members
5. Voyeurism* present in the music video 
6. Intertextual (references to other texts, art, works)

*Voyeurism - the pleasure of witnessing others

Example - Iggy Azalea - Fancy (Explicit) ft. Charli XCX

1. 0:43 Cheerleader gets pushed up, the word 'fancy' on her shirt - visuals illustrate the lyrics
2. The cuts and edits are usually in sync with the tempo and rhythm of the song
3. the music is aimed at teens. The visuals represent this with the setting of a high school
4. 2:22 Closeup of Iggy
5. Voyeurism from 1:32 onward - the scene changes to entering a party. This is voyeurism as this lifestyle and kind of event is usually aspired among teenagers
6. The music video is a direct reference to the movie Clueless (1995)

Biebers reinvetion

via GIPHY

Style/ Music
Bieber decided that he wanted his music to be taken more seriously - moving on from his teen star days, it was time for his music to mature, such is the nature of a maturing generation of fans and the star himself.
Bieber achieved this partly through collaboration. Wanting to aim his music to a more mature and adult audience, he worked with the 'EDM' duo Jack Ü (Sonny Moore & Thomas Wesley Pentz) as a feature artist, gaining exposure and access to a new audience.
Alongside with his new collaboration, Bieber upped his production and songwriting, working with different people. Although his music is still accessible to the younger generation, the older generation will have access to his new lyric writing being aimed towards them.

Social
2015 marked the beginning of Justin's reinvention, starting with an apology posted on Facebook. He went onto the Ellen Show to apologise, and was featured in a Comedy Central Roast show.
This all was to change the public's perception of Justin Bieber, and to see how different and mature he developed.


via GIPHY
Promotion
Justin Bieber's reinvention was also conducted through promotion. He started modelling for men's health magazines and Calvin Klein advertisements. He started getting tattoos as well which were a visual representation of him becoming more mature.

Track consumption

What are they listening to?

Where do you find about the music?

How do you listen to it?

Music Timeline

Example:
-1978 Smurf TV
-1990 First gig, The Stone Pose, older sister
-1991 Ride, CD

2016 Spotify, iTunes, Radio 6, YouTube

My timeline

Born March 1999
-Exposed to traditional music from parents
Sister left for upper school around 2005
-Found Linkin Park's album Meteora CD in 2007 from sister's bedroom
-2009 bought Hybrid Theory Special Edition CD
-2010 bought Minutes to Midnight CD. Soon after bought A Thousand Suns - started my interest in more cinematic music
-2011 Linkin Park concert Bangkok
-2012 Bought MacBook, started streaming from youtube
-2013 Purely stream from youtube, Soundcloud, bought songs from Itunes
-2014-2015 Bought Jungle Classics - Ministry of Sound
-2014 started buying from Beatport
-2015 bought drum and bass compilation CDs - Drum and Bass Arena, Shogun Audio (Best Of)

Digipak

The importance of digipacks - appearance of the package does not affect the perception of quality of content for people who are already aware of the content eg old fans - part of the fanbase of the artist. However, it can dictate potential new fans - looks attractive, more willing to try something new.

Packaging of digital content (CD/DVD/Blu Ray:
1) Attract consumers
2) To 'not' put off consumers
3) Genre specific - appeal to target audience
4) Star persona - brand development
5) Be attractive as a physical product

Taylor Swift

Watching the growth of a young teen girl

Taylor swift (2006)
-Natural look - country style
-Girl next door look
-Signiture - very personal, about her
-Innocent






 

 Fearless (2008)
-Signature - again personal
-Fearless - hair

spread, a bit more adventurous
-Same hair

Speak Now (2010)
-Signature
-Dress - looks more mature (finally goin to prom lol)
-Disney princessy

 

 Red (2012)
-More mature
-No signature - less personal, no need to introduce herself anymore







 

 1989
-Birth date
-Polaroid
-Initials - everyone knows here
-Very personal
-Hipster vibes, arty
-Half face shown - lips only

 

Calvin Harris

I Created Disco (2007)
-Intertextual reference - retro look
-Indenpendent
-Home made theme







 

Ready for the Weekend (2009)
-Close up
-Sunglasses same theme
-Less colour

 





 

 18 Months (2012)
-Turnover from the album before
-More mature - mainstream

 

Motion (2014)
-Artwork reflects the term motion
-New style

 

 

 

 Nicki Minaj

 

Pink Friday (2010)
- Barbie/doll style
-Pink - feminine
-Takes something safe, and yet parental advisory

 





 

Roman Reloaded (2012)
-Reflective of her 'inner demon'
-Doll theme again
-once again pink colour scheme

Pink Print (2014)
-