Album Art (Part One)

Here are 5 different album artworks they are all of different genres. I am going to analyse them in detail and then look more in detail at one from our chosen genre and the one that is my personal favourite.

Album art is an important part of the sale process of music especially when it is in stores such as HMV. But our main interest in the artwork is for a digi-pack which is seen on iTunes when purchasing a single or album.  A digi - pack is shown next to the single which can be used to attract the audience to buy another single from the album or buy the album.

So whilst looking at album art I will be taking into account how it looks online and how well it targets the audience. I will also be thinking about the importance of album art and how many people actually view the digi - pack as a pose to when people purchase the physical album.

Lip Sync Task

For this task we had to look at how difficult it is to lip sync the footage to the song lyrics, this task was more to test our practical skills than our creative skills. The practicality of this task meant that we didn't think about location or mise en scene.

What we learnt from it?
- Lip syncing was more difficult that we originally thought, it showed us we needed a lot more footage that we actually had.
- This will be helpful in our music video as we plan to not only to get a lot of footage but also to give ourself more time for reshoots if needs be.
- A range of locations looks better than staying in one location.
- The most important thing that we learnt is that 30 seconds is a lot longer than we thought and you do need a lot of footage.

Marketing Research Project

Intertextuality Part 2

More recent example of intertextuality in music video - 

• Last Friday Night by Katy Perry (2011)

The music video is said to be inspired by 1980s coming of age films in particular Sixteen Candles. It was also based around teen film of that decade the video is stylised like a short film by the use of a title sequence and end credits. The music video uses typical 80's fashion such as neon colours, big hair styles and pointy heels. As well as the main point of intertextual reference being the 80s and coming of age films, it can also be related to coming of age films in general. It has the typical idea of making the "geeky" girl into something beautiful.

This music video also has sneaky intertextual references:

• Rebecca Black - The girl who is best known for the song "Friday". The two songs have similar themes in the lyrics about Friday being the day to party. 
• 80s/90s Star Debbie Gibson and Kenny G

• Alice By Avril Lavinge (2010)

This was made in collaboration with the film Alice In Wonderland, therefore it holds a lot of intertextual references such as:

- The White Rabbit
- The strange looking Caterpillar
- Larger than Life Mushrooms
- The Mad Hatter

It also includes a scene from the film using the character of the mad hatter and recreating the iconic tea party.

• Love Story By Taylor Swift (2009)

This video can be seen as a reference to the play - Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare it references not only the theme of love but also the era in which it was written it it seen in the clothing that is seen to be worn by the two in the flashbacks. 

Intertextuality Part 1

Intertextuality 

• The shaping of a text's meaning by other text. 
• The relationship between two texts

Intertextuality is used in media a lot, it is when one form of media text references another.For the aspect we are focusing on which is music videos. It can be used in a number of different ways, music videos can reference to films, fashion, magazines but more recently they can reference to social media such as youtube videos and websites such as facebook and twitter.

The best way in which to understand intextuality is to look at some examples:

1.  The most famous music video for intertexuality is Madonna's Material Girl - This is referencing the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

The top three images show Madonna's music video - Material girl and the Bottom shows the film Gentlemen prefer Blonde's starring Marilyn Monroe. 

In this video Madonna is not only referencing the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe in the film Gentlemen prefer Blonde's. But also she is referencing the song Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend and how that is somewhat "materialistic" therefore making Madonna's version slightly like a parody of the original. The underlining intextuality is actually the reference to the way society perceives blonde's. The image of a sexy blonde star and the way she can play men to get what she wants as many young girls who watched this music video back when it was first released wouldn't have been able to see the relationship between the two texts. As the film Gentlemen prefer Blonde's was released in 1953 where as Material Girl was released in 1985. 

2. Another well known music video for intertextuality is Man! I Feel Like A Woman - Shania Twain. It is referencing another music video Addicted To Love by Robert Palmer.

This video is already a form of intertextuality because the idea for the "mannequin" like models came from the fashion prints by Patrick Nagel -  These prints are known for their pale models with heavy black make up and dark hair as well as their provocative nature.

 But Shania Twain is also famous for referencing the music video "Addicted to Love". The music video for Addicted to Love has been parodied a lot due to the mannequin style band it uses. But in Man! I feel like a woman, it has been used as an intertextual reference to the video by making the models in the background male she has copied the format of the original to make it more suited to the song and audience.

Mood Board - I Love It Ideas

The general link I have realised within this mood board is that we want the video to stand out and be bright to match the song's pace and lyrics. The original video includes some of these elements but I believe that with the use of paint dust we are going make our key focus the colour. The makeup and costume used for our key singer should be bright but also reflect the personality she is trying to convey from the song/lyrics. The toy cars, woodland and clothing being thrown out of the window are all separate elements we are keen to include in our video. The toy cars and clothes are connected to lyrics which we want to develop and the woodland is the setting we are thinking about using as the bright paint would contrast the natural colours of the trees.

Location Ideas - Painshill Park

We would like to set at least half of our video in an outside space but know this could be difficult to find somewhere that would not only let us film there but also use paint dust. We also have to think about the time of year we are filming in and what problems could be potentially brought on by weather.

Currently we are thinking about using Painshill Park in Cobham:

http://www.painshill.co.uk/

This location is the visually pleasing setting we want and it would also allow us a range of locations in one park to film it in. It is not to difficult to get to and we would potentially be able to get the amount of people we need to be in the filming to this location. The amount of different outdoor buildings would also be interesting to use even if we couldn't use it for the paint dust. Our biggest issue I believe will be shooting at this time of year, but we have spoken about making the video slightly ironic as the song talks about it being summer but we will be shooting our footage in winter. This will be made clear to the audience by not only our subtle hints to make it ironic but also the colours of the trees and foliage.

We are in the process of trying to get permission to use this location. If we cannot there are similar parks/gardens we could look into.