Selecting our Brief:
Conventions
Of the four briefs we were given, my partner Ben and I chose to do the Music Video Option. We chose this because we didn’t particularly like the ideas of the other options. We considered choosing a documentary however we decided that we enjoyed the filming and creation of our music video preliminary task so hence we would choose that as our brief for the coursework. To start, we watched a varying amount of music videos with elements we thought we could incorporate into our own: Thriller – Michael Jackson, Sophie – Goodshirt, The Hardest Button to Button – The White Stripes, Ghost Town – Kanye West Partynextdoor Kid Cudi (Which we ended up using as our audio for our video), and Young Blood – The Naked and Famous. We researched these videos and analysed them for their conventions, and other techniques that we liked/ would change in our video.
Using the knowledge from our pre-lim task research and in class research of music videos, we incorporated our knowledge of conventions to add to our brain storms and moodboard. We also used that to help select good videos to properly research in depth, by looking for usual and opposed conventions and stereotypes. – Image is filler.
Music Video Research
Minor Task Research
How Music is marketed via Social Media:
I watched various videos and read some different articles and the main takeaway is to focus on marketing the video before, during and after the release. Collectively they spoke about how with modern marketing, exposure early before the release helps to gain opinions and create hype and discussion regarding the video. This is to help create a consistent popularity among your account, boosting engagement among already existing followers and possible new ones. The websites also said to carefully track what forms of media are and aren’t doing well as the marketing purely relies on engagement – so if something is working well then continue it however if it is not then it is best to switch it up. This goes across all platforms and all forms of media, whether it be Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch. Other things the websites talked about were the importance of the rollout of many different variants of marketing purely via visuals. This included cover art, close up photos, CD’s, Vinyls and more all so that audiences can associate visuals with names, brands, and songs. One of the most prominent conventions of a social media page used for marketing music is to turn the music and the musician into a brand. This involves creating coherent colour schemes, particular symbols said artist may be commonly associated with (e.g. a skull cap being a key worldwide fashion trend among young adults and teenagers alike, by British rapper Central Cee). This image/brand that a musician may create helps to engage the audience further and can spark internet discussions further pushing said artists content via algorithms.
Music Album Rollout Research: Drake – Iceman, Billie Eilish – Hit me Hard and Soft
Instagram Page Analysis and Recreation
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In my learnings of social media use as a means for marketing a music album, I have investigated Drake’s Iceman via YouTube, Billie Eilish Hit me Hard and Soft, and I also analysed Cigarette’s after Sex’ Instagram Page. My key takeaways include: the importance of turning the artist and album into a brand rather than just a release, consistent posting, different methods of posting, and an element of mystery/enigma to keep the various audiences engaged leading to online discussion. Using all these elements, I am going to make a mock-up of a Kanye West Instagram to “market” our Music Video to his song Ghost Town. I will use Canva, and combine various photos taken during out filming, as well as other conventions such as links, constant colour theme, and advertising in highlights and the bio to create the Instagram page.
Digipak Research
Digipaks are a form of advertising put with CDS, commonly made with cardboard as an alternative to traditional plastic cases. The Digipak itself contains photos of the artist and BTS (behind the scenes) shots, various information about the album/ song, including a setlist, features, timestamps, and more. Generally the packs contain between 4 and 6 different pages but in some cases more or less, with all pages relating to the ‘aesthetic’ of the artist/album.
DigiPak Analysis: Kanye West: Graduation, Central Cee: Can’t Rush Greatness
Before I make my own Digipak based on our music video of Kanye West: Ghost Town, I analysed two Digipaks of artists from the same genre, and with interest to me. I found screenshots using eBay listings and Youtube unboxing videos and created the analysis boards using Canva.
