Hey, I wanted to start a little research into target audience! I decided that in order for me to establish the specific target audience for Santogold and other female artists like her that I should read some articles written about them.
Firstly I found an interesting piece written by the New York Times, titled 'Hip-Hop’s Newest Faces: Indie, Fierce and Female' which I thought was helpful and very relevant to our Target Audience research as we've been focusing on Indie, Fierce and Female artists, with a bit of sass too!! It was within this article that I found an excellent quote surrounding why these female artists and their new styles are so popular “And it’s because they have such strong voices and strong points of view. There’s nothing remotely manufactured about them.” This I feel is incredibly important as it allows Santogold to appeal to a large amount of people without the restrictions of being labelled 'manufactured'. This is supported by Martin Heath who said that “She appeals very broadly" and he is the founder of Lizard King Records who is jointly releasing Santogold’s debut album with Downtown. His opinion is therefore valued highly.
Santogold is a young female artist and therefore we assume her target audience would be people aged 14-30. More specifically female as a lot of her lyrics are tailored towards female issues such as when 'she' sings about reletionship troubles.
It's snowing outside and I thought I'd come on here and do a little research as we are moving now onto our Web Page anciliary task! I have decided to look at the first artist I did some textual analysis for and that is Katy Perry. Here I looked at her Web Page (http://www.katyperry.com/) for some ideas. Below is a print screen of the whole opening page:
In the first stages of Web Page production we looked at using iWeb on the apple macs at 6th form. This seemed like a great idea and would allow us to learn how to use a new program. However I was baffled as to the small size of the standard page on iWeb, but after looking at this Katy Perry page it seems that the small size is not irregular and it just means for other pages to lead off of the main site. I especially like the use of a performance based photo in the centre with black outlining. I think it draws attention towards Katy and also makes the reverse out writing for each addition e.g ENTER WEBSITE or MTV.COM stand out more clearly in pink/white over black. I furthermore like the idea of promoting our arist 'Santigold' using merchandise. Here the KP website has an advert for this and her 'official store' at the bottom. I especially like the sunglasses :)
This is just one artists page I have looked at and will find more soon :)
Hey, it's been a while since we've posted on here as we've been busy busy busy editing our Music Video and testing anciliary tasks!! I'm now going to show you my textual analysis of Florence and the Machine - You've got the love. I love this song and it's one of my favourites at the moment. Florence won a Brit Award earlier this year and is one of the countries fastest growing new artists. She is also particularly individual and therefore I felt she was an excellent example to look at for our Music Video research.
Camera work: Lots of the shots show panning from left to right which allow for the performance based angle in the music video. The video also starts with an extreme close up of Florence, which pans out slowly to a mid shot, as she sings the most recogniseable part of the song. This establishes her the main vocalist on the track. Mise-en-scene: Lighting within the video particularly at the beginning is very effective. Here we see FLorence in front of a black background with light dispersing around her.
Most importantly it is originating from a high angle and therefore is making the audience aware of who the lead singer is.
Furthermore the lights also fade to black which reflects perfectly with the harsh ending to that line in the song. An on going theme in the Music Video is glitter, especially at the beginning Florence uses lots of glitter and wears sequin clothes this adds glamour and individuality to the video even throwing glitter at one point which creates an effect as if cameras were flashing taking photos, this makes Florence even more important within the video.
Editing: The most common edit seen in the video is a straight cut, however during the middle there is a sequence of shots which fade into each other, one after the other, in sequence.
There is also a small graphic match where by Florence is looking down in one mid shot then it changes to a wide shot where by her head is in the same postion but the location has changed. This is an effective way in which a location change seems effortless.
I'm going to be analysing one of my favourite songs at the moment which I'm a bit obsessed with after seeing them play in Norwich just the other week :D - The Captain by Biffy Clyro.
The video, directed by Andy Morahan who has also shot videos for artists such as Wham and the Pet Shop Boys, is based around a pirate theme. There is a loose storyline whereby Simon Neil (the lead singer of Biffy Clyro) plays a pirate being captured and tortured by naval officers, he then gets rescued by his fellow bandmates and pirates. The video is both performance and storyline based which I felt worked really well, especially as performance is more conventional of videos for rock bands.
Camera :
Alot of blurred/soft focus is used in the video, partly to keep the audiences attention and partly to portray the fact that Simon Neil's character is clearly in pain. This may be to show the audience the world through his eyes, acting almost as a point of view shot. An example of a focus pull is shown below. >>>>>
I particularly loved the shot composition of shots including Simon Neil. As the main character in this storyline, he is always placed in the corner of the frame, which i feel is meant to represent his isolation as a prisoner.
Another area of the camera work I love is the use of handheld (from 2.25 secs to 2.29) in the part where the lead character is locked in a wooden cage, in particular a low angle shot of him. It really keeps the viewer involved and gives the feel of perhaps a rocky pirate ship. It also keeps the focus on the lyrics and the meanings behind them as we get a full view of Simon Neil's facial expressions as he lipsynchs.
Shots of random objects such as skulls and cannons were included in the video, I found this worked as the props went with the theme of piracy yet were also randomly placed. The use of random props is something we ourselves have included in our music video as we have liked the involvement of these in many videos we've analysed.
Editing:
As in most videos, the editing is paced to fit with the song, thus getting faster as the chorus gets faster. I really like how this works in the video and I also really enjoyed how the editing was nearly always cut on the beat. In particular a part in the song where the lyrics go "woo!" (at 24 secs) and it cuts to the band singing and playing their instruments, then cuts back immediately to Simon Neil as he starts to sing. This is very conventional of music videos for bands but I liked how throughout the editing seemed to always stay on the beat, even as it got faster.
Sound:
I thought the start of the video was very effective in terms of sound. It was completely silent and then slowly faded in with the sound of stamping feet combined with shots of feet stamping. This shows use of music being linked with visuals (one of Goodwin's six). In nearly all of the video's we have seen and liked, shots of feet have been included for example Katy Perry and Florence and the Machine and this is something we have incorporated into our video as well.
Mise en Scene:
I loved how the props and costumes were all so authentic and linked perfectly with the theme of pirates, which in itself links to the title and lyrics of the song. For example "angels fall to the floor, like they would if I was captain". I think the combination of the old pirate ship, props and costumes and the modern song and incorporation of drums and guitars is very postmodern. I think this shot displays this, with the mixture of typically piratey objects and the modern guitar.
There is a good mixture of locations in the video, although they're all set in the same place (the pirate ship), there are several smaller locations within this idea such as below deck in the prisoners cage, on the top deck where the band play, and by the wheel etc. This is also something we tried to use in our music video and we had many different locations such as in town, against a brick wall, on the beach, by seaside houses and on the shell sculpture at Aldeburgh.
I particularly love the lighting in this video. There is a contrast between natural light below deck which creates the feel that Simon Neil is trapped and can only see natural light through cracks, which cast shadows on his face and the strobe effect lighting used for the performance based shots. These strobe effect lights create the impression of a thunderstorm at sea.
Examples of both lighting techniques are below.
Well well well, Friday was a complete success and we all had a throughly enjoyable and tiring day!! It feels so good to know that we have captured some excellent footage not just for the music video but some evaluation pieces and lots and lots of photos :) Which I am sure will be on here in no time at all!
Overall the day worked excellently, Nev and Susan at the cinema were expecting us and were so so lovely :) they took our details like what school we were from etcc, so that they could talk about us when they report the cinemas educational involvement! So it was nice to know that we were helping them out a bit too! We are going to send them a thank you note next week and then a copy of the Music Video when it's done :)
The timing worked well - and we had time for fish and chips :) each location was great and we found a few hidden dimes that we hadn't planned and managed to get shots of! We eventually ended the day at the big shell sculpture and here the lighting was low as it was around 4pm but this seemed to work beautifully with the landscape :)
All in all we are tres tres happy! And can't wait to get editing and using our photos for the ancillary tasks!!!
Jess :)
Thursday, 26 November 2009
heeyyy, so shooting went really well yesterday, we managed to find some great locations and despite some funny looks in town it all ran really smoothly! so tomorrow is the big day at aldeburgh, the cinema hasn't been able to give us written confirmation yet but they gave me a call today to confirm it :) so its a bright and early start as we're leaving at 8 to get to aldeburgh on time and we start shooting at 10 in the cinema. so so so excited!! xxx
Time has finally come to start filming! We are off to town tomorrow to get those shots done using the look below, so excited!! Jess is picking us up at 9am which means i have to be up and about really early in order to do my hair and make-up, but i can't wait!
I've just made the mask (the one of myself, not the animal ones!) ready to be used tomorrow here's a sneeky peak >>>
Not sure yet as to what colour to use. I think the black and white would visually be more interesting otherwise the colour one may just look exactly the same as me! But we'll take both and i'll discuss it with the girls!
Today we finalized the shot list for tomorrows day of filming. We have two locations, the big brick wall near Jess's house for the brick wall only shots, and then the second shot list is for the shots in town by the alleyways and billboard.
These shot lists also include the costume ideas and props list so we do not forget anything! The HD camera is charging as i speak, wish us luck!! :D Lorna.
Mise-en-scene: Lighting within the video particularly at the beginning is very effective. Here we see FLorence in front of a black background with light dispersing around her.
Most importantly it is originating from a high angle and therefore is making the audience aware of who the lead singer is.
There is also a small graphic match where by Florence is looking down in one mid shot then it changes to a wide shot where by her head is in the same postion but the location has changed. This is an effective way in which a location change seems effortless.
