Website Analysis

Update - http://petrovaborie.wix.com/band

In today's first lesson we practiced making a website for our band on www.wix.com

I made the layout for what the band website should roughly look like after we have decided on a name and have done the band posters etc. The official link for this website is -http://petrovaborie.wix.com/band
In this website template that i made and might use for the real website in the future there are certain elements that other official bands have used so it is relate able. 

Band/Artist Websites

On almost every band page we can see that the main page is mostly black and white so the information about the artist pops up and stands out from everything else.

The home page usually starts with their new singles, for example when you go on The Weeknd's home page his new video comes up straight away before anything else. This is a method of marketing 

As shown above the Arctic Monkeys official website also has a plain black background with white writing. This clearly shows the content of the page and what the fans are interested in seeing and finding on the band's page easily. There are things like links to their songs, tours, social media, info page, new albums, pictures etc.

In comparison to these pages, Linkin Park's official page is a bit more complicated and not as simplistically made. It is very fancy and could be somewhat confusing for fans to find relevant information they're looking for,but their home page is still their new album photo, which is used to promote the album. This shows the website is kept up to date and relevant. There is also a section to find and listen to all their albums, which could be useful for fans as well as that upcoming tours are clearly displayed.

Carol Vernallis

Carol Vernallis is known to be a music video theorist focused on the editing of the videos. She has a theory of the four concepts of music videos:

- Narrative

- Editing 

- Camera movement & framing 

- Diegesis 

An example of a Narrative and Performance video is Not Afraid by Eminem.

This video is a clear example of a narrative based video as it has a lot of shots related to the lyrics that Eminem sings/raps. Each movement is related to the lyrics

For example Eminem says " You can try and read my lyrics off of this paper" as he shows the paper, showing the relativity of the lyrics to the video. This suggests that in this video the artists is trying to tell us a story and the editing cuts to each story he is telling to the lyric.

Another way of creating music videos is by their editing.In music videos most rules of editing tend to be broken, as there is no need for continuity editing if there isn't a narrative to follow. An example of this would be 

An example of a music video using Diegesis is Feel Good Inc by Gorillaz. The made up band has created not only its own fake members, but also a whole different world of their music videos and they remain in that made up world for the entire video.

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The music video is still related to the lyrics of the song, but as the lyrics are very metaphorical and might not mean exactly what the band is singing, about they have quite an interesting approach in dispraying what is being said. The images we see in the video are very literal and not quite what the actual meaning of the song lyrics might be.

The last element of a good music video is the Camera Movement. A good example of this is 212 by Azealia Banks. All the shots are very extreme and weird, cutting in sync with the music.

Star Image

Star image has a lot to do with the singer or band's style, appearance and how they present themselves in front of their fans. As well as this it really depends how the band characterise their image within other bands. For example a song can be presented in a completely different way by different singers or bands that would be controversial to one another for example: 

The song Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics which was released in 1983 is presented in quite a retro and positive way. It has a nice tune which the audience could dance to and its not a heavy song. The band's genre is considered "synth pop" or "pop rock" and has a quite mellow and happy feel to it. The band image is also very 80s and retro as this time is known as the "new wave" of music and the sound of the music is very chilled. In comparison to this style image has a lot to do with the drastic change in this happy song's style and genre. When the song is sang by Marilyn Manson, by using his star image he changes the feel of the song completely by making it dark and creepy. It adds a sense of irony to it as it is called "sweet dreams" and is turned into something not so sweet or positive as it used to be. 

This song came out in 1998 and as we can see from the video it has a spine-chilling style to it to match Marilyn Manson's Star Image.

It is also interesting how the same song, but presented by two completely controversial artists have a very different fan base. This relates to Richard Dyer's Theory on star image. Marilyn Manson fans use imitation:

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's Theory has some key ideas to the perfect music video and how each video is classified. As the genre of our song is alternative/rock, I have decided to analyse a video by Evanescence as they have a very similar style in terms of the way they present themselves in music videos, on stage while they perform.

Some genre characteristics of this video is the colour and lighting to it including the mise en scene and props used. The lighting and colour is very important for a genre to be identified. The stereotypes for an alternative rock song would be a darker atmosphere and in a way very surreal but still linking to the lyrics making it either with dark colours or very contrasting colours like black and white or in the grayscale. Evanescense has a certain star image as well as that so the tones of light and mise en scene are very important for the setting of the music video. It is filmed in various locations such as a forest and even the performance scenes are filmed in an outdoor space with provided darker light and colour to match the style of the artist and support and encourage their star image. As well as this consumers and fans have certain expectations of the band's image, so the genre characteristics help that image evolve. In the video it is snowing therefore it has a cold atmosphere both metaphorically and literally.

There is a clear link between the lyrics of the song and the actual music video visuals, it is less literal and more metaphorical, so as Steve Archer's theory states the video does match the song, but does not match it lyric by lyric, therefore it is known to be amplification. It takes the idea of the song and creates a piece to show the band's image clearer.

There is also a strong relationship between the music and the visuals that are seen in the music video. The visuals are quite dark in terms of concepts, and it is also very fairytale like. The main band member, which is the female lead singer is wearing a ballroom gown which makes the atmosphere feel like it is set in a dark fairytale world like Snow White etc. The atmosphere and visuals are cold and so are the strong lyrics, evidently linking the two.

There are usually a lot of close ups of the face and body of the lead singer linking this to voyeurism as the body parts usually shown in the video are exposed in a sexual way, but the concept of the videos is usually not that prone to voyeurism, but some sexual body language is incorporated in the band's visual style.

Evanescence, like any alternative/rock band has a certain style and star image, The audience and Evanescence fans have certain expectations of a band, Evanescence has a certain fairytale like dark style which resembles metal bands, but it is softer, dream like and surreal. This clearly shows that the music video matches a performer's star image. Certain elements and shots in the video are underwater, which is very symbolical and could show that the lead singer is suffocating and dying inside. It is made very metaphorically and is very artistic in the way the concepts are displayed.

Star image is also very important to their fans. Fan's get inspired by the band's star image and sometimes replicate their style in the way they dress or act. They get influenced by the band's style. As Richard Dyer's theory states their fans usually have emotional affinity to the band as they usually dont quite mimic or copy the band's image but are strongly influenced by the meaning beneath the lyrics, which is usually very personal and helps them get through personal problems, they might be having in their lives.

Second Song Choice

Another song choice for our music video was Narcissistic Cannibal. The original song is by Korn and Skrillex and is somewhat aggressive and wild in comparison to the version we decided to use.

The song and video are actually very violent or "badass" in a way that compliments the band's style and genre and matches it as the audience knows it. The audience has certain expectations when they see a song by a certain band or a music video and this video is acknowledged to represent these band's authentic style.

We thought that this song is way more aggressive than we wanted it to be so we found the cover by Earlyrise much more in the genre we were looking for, 

The song starts smoothly and serene and gets more powerful and strong towards the end. The lyrics give us a generous amount of narrative to use within our music video and the song is composed in a controversial way that we could do a lot with the setting eg film in a forest or inside a dark place with limited lighting, so it can have a symbolical meaning to the video we create.For now this song is our final choice. We are going to print out the lyrics and annotate the ways we could create the video using the lyrics and combine the whole groups thoughts and choose the best idea as the outcome.
In our video we could combine all three elements of narrative, performance and artistic as the genre allows us to incorporate these elements.

First Song Choice

As we decided that we want to create a darker more twisted music video in an alternative rock kind of style and set it out in a forest or a darker place, we wanted our song to match the atmosphere. example the drama room and add interesting lightning props and Mise-en-scene for it to look more appealing to our audience .. At first we looked at some songs that we all thought could be good for a music video,but some of them already had a well known style and appearance which could not be outdone, such as Evanescence. We also looked at some other interesting bands such as All Time Low, Cage The Elephant, Imagine Dragons etc, but they seemed to have male lead singers and as our group wanted the lead singer to be there at all times when needed we decided to use someone from our actual group as a lead singer, therefore it has to be female. One of our song choices was Demons by Imagine Dragons. As the lead singer in imagine dragons is male we found a cover by Jasmine Thompson:

I thought the cover for this music video is very soft and gentle and it would have a nice narrative to it as the song's lyrics are very powerful and full of emotion, as well as the way Jasmine Thompson sings each line. It is very simple and there would be quite a lot to work with in terms of narrative.

Some disadvantages for this song are that as the song progresses the pace or volume doesn't change and it is not as dark and twisted as we want it to be. The voice stays soft and gentle and the video might not be very appealing to our audience as it would not be controversial enough. 

Lighting Workshop

Today we did a lighting workshop in a drama room. We used the green screen and various different lighting effects, such as light reflectors and blue screens in front of the light to capture a creepy atmosphere. We also played with lighting angles and what they could symbolise for example we only put the light on one side of the actor's face which was blue. That symbolises how cold the story she is telling is and makes the audience uncomfortable and under pressure when they see it, which is why this type of lighting was perfect for When she told a scary story. Here is are some images of how these shots looked:

Industry Research

Genre Research

Constructing Music Videos

First Music Video Ideas

In this lesson my group discussed some themes and locations we could use for our music video. We thought about filming parts of the video in a forest and making the concept of the video dark and surreal like a fairy-tale e.g Red Riding Hood, Snow white. A more sinister version of the fairy-tales would be an artistically inspired approach, but might also have some elements of performance or narrative depending on the song we choose. So far we have not decided which song we will make a music video for, but it was inspired by Evanescence. We are considering using a band that is not well known to the public, so it does not have a certain image or the viewers would have expectations of the band before they watch our video, and it could also be a downgrade from what it already is.

Another idea my group discussed is if we make the entire video one shot, just like Sia's "Chandelier" or This is Gospel by Panic! At the Disco.

Influential Music Video Directors

History of Music Videos