Audience Theory: Male Gaze Theory

Star Theory

Music Video Practice

During my trip to New York I captured a lot of footage which I feel could potentially be used in the music video, the footage was captured on my phone and I edited together some of it using Premier Pro, downloading a Royalty Free song off Youtube to use. In order to upload the file to blogger I had to upload it to Youtube. I may use some of the clips within the music video, depending on whether they fit with the ideas I have.

Amy Winehouse; Case Study

Amy Winehouse; a defining artist of the 21st century. With her unique voice and interesting persona, making her unalike anyone during that time. I have chosen to study Amy Winehouse and her life, after watching the documentary 'Amy' in a cinema, with my media class.

 

As we are looking at music videos, and music stars, Amy is a crucial singer to look at, as she passed away so young but left such an untold story behind, with the drug abuse, the Grammys, the character and her past relationships it all entices me to look more into her story. 

 

I really enjoyed watching the documentary, although it was very sad, as I learned about the tumultuous life of Amy, and how being a pop star in the public eye, inevitably led to her excessive drug abuse and eventual downfall and death. Seeing Amy's muse, Blake Fielder, and their love story - although revolving a lot around drug and alcohol - made her lyrics clearer and the songs now have a deeper meaning to me, knowing the story behind her writing them. My favourite sequence was showing her relationship, the flashing lights and the speech in the background such as "we would've died for each other" emphasizing the amount of love she felt for Blake, and could've blinded her senses and he could've potentially pushed her to try all the class A drugs she did.

There was a big impact of using archive footage, of her life before she was famous, contrasting with footage from her life when she was famous. It showed her in a way he public didn't know her, giving us more of an insight.

 

I read an interview with Justin Bieber for NME in which he compares himself to Amy Winehouse and her mistreatment. He has been ridiculed and mocked by the press, facing a lot of backlash for his actions, which led to him spiralling out of control. He now has gotten back on track. But says of that time "I watched the Amy Winehouse documentary on the plane and had tears in my eyes because I could see what the media was doing to her, how they were treating her...People thought it was funny to poke her when she was at rock bottom, to keep pushing her down until she had no more of herself. And that's what they were trying to do to me". I found this intriguing as it shows how the media can respond to celebrities, and how they can lead to their downfall in some respects. Its interesting how the media can manipulate the public image of celebrities, which is unfair and cruel and it is still happening in the society we live in today.

Overall, I feel her life had the potential to be amazing, and from the music aspect it was amazing - winning Grammys, achieving a wide recognition for her work. However her personal life, despite being madly in love, began to spiral out of control with her drug abuse. Unfortunately, the consequences led to death. With her passing so young, it is heart-breaking as it could have been stopped with more help from those around her. What confuses me is the fact that her dad didn't insist that she needed to go to rehab, when everyone else did. The only persons opinion she listened to was her father, and that's where the inspiration for the song 'Rehab' came from, with lyrics such as "My daddy thinks I'm fine, but they try to make me go to Rehab and I wont go,go,go". Which is interesting, she was a character definitely, her behaviour and attitude as unalike any pop performer at the time which is intriguing.

Mitch Winehouse, Amy's fathers comments on the documentary interested me for many reasons. He spoke to the guardian about his views and said "it was horrible..I told them (the film-makers) they were a disgrace. I said: 'You should be ashamed of yourselves. You had the opportunity to make a wonderful film and you've made this". The comments got me thinking about the documentary, and why her own father would think this way; encouraging me to read on the article. Mitch says that the depiction of how she went to rehab was completely inaccurate saying "She wasn't drinking every day. She was like a lot of kids, going out binge-drinking. And I said 'she doesn't need to go to rehab" In the film it is shown the he says "she didn't need to go to rehab at that time".

 

Audience Mindmap

Here is a mind map of how I will target my video towards a specific audience. I have included many different aspects of an audience within this.

Lip Synching Task

Here is a video that I made with my sister and my stepsister, practicing lip synching techniques and filming them lip synching. I decided to become creative and combine the lip synching task with the preliminary task - to create a short music video, as I thought I wanted to make the lip synching in a creative way.

New York; The Concrete Jungle and Meeting Ne-Yo

I visited New York over the week off in October, with my family, and whilst I was there I also captured some time lapses and video clips of the busy vibrant city to inspire me and also to possibly use within my music video.

I did a lot of things in New York, and as the city never sleeps, I was able to see a stark contrast from that location to where I live, Chesterfield. By exploring New York, I was able to see why so many music videos and films have been created there, and what it is that draws artists to the area.

I visited, Central Park, Times Square, SoHo, Ground Zero, The Empire State, The Rockefeller Centre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Central Station and many other places. They all inspired me, and made me realise how important a setting is for a music video, and how it can intrigue viewers and also capture the essence of a song. The city inspired me and I would love to live there some day, not permanently, as I feel you could really discover yourself in a city so big and full of opportunities.


One of the amazing things that happened to me whilst in New York was meeting Ne-Yo, an R&B singer with numerous hits. For example his song Time of Our Lives with Pitbull, released in 2014, was an instant hit all around the world. He has also had hit songs such as Closer, Let me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself), Beautiful Monster and So Sick. By briefly meeting a popular music star, and seeing him surrounded by adoring fans it made me realise how music is all about the performers persona and how they interact with fans. For example, Ne-Yo stopped to have photos with everyone waiting for him to come out of the Good Morning America studios. This shows his kind hearted nature, and is one of the reasons I admire him. I also saw Ne-Yo up close at the Radio One Teen Awards (in 2013), and he smiled with fans and interacted with them on the Red Carpet, which some artists at the awards did not.

Bands Using Promotion: Reverend and the Makers

Reverend and the Makers are a band I came across at Y Not Festival, in Pikehall, Matlock over the summer. At the festival, I would say these were one of my highlights simply because of the electric and slightly chaotic atmosphere that ensued once they arrived on the stage. Reverend and the Makers are a band from Sheffield, so a lot of my friends were aware of them prior to the festival. Once they took the stage their catchy rock hit "Heavyweight Champion of the World" was a massive success and I immediately became a fan.

One of my friends at the festival, was scrolling through Twitter with me one afternoon when we came across a Tweet from Reverend and the Makers official twitter account "Anyone want this at theres?" with a clip from a performance that the lead singer, Jon Mclure, did at someone's house.

Immediately my friend was desperate to get in touch with the band, and after a few messages back and forth he was told what he needed to do in order for it to happen. All that Jon Mclure wanted was 40 pre-orders of his their new album "Mirrors" and it to be proved by screenshot and messaged to the band on twitter. The way we were able to tell this was legitimate was the fact it was the bands official twitter page, and it was verified. As well as this, they are not as big as bands such as One Direction, and are fairly local to us so it seemed more achievable to get them to perform for us.

A venue was arranged in Pilsley, at the Star Pub, and when Jon Mclure arrived, he brought lead singer from Sheffield band 'The Sherlock's' with him, who performed their hit song "Escapade" to an electric crowd.
Jon performed hits such as "Heavyweight Champion", "Open Your Window", and a few others. The reception was amazing and he had many photographs with people after his performance, sticking around for a few drinks.



I feel that the fact Jon promoted Reverend and the Makers new album Mirrors in this way, made more people feel close to him, and them as a band. Therefore they will feel more passionate about the album, feeling it is from a 'friend' and word of mouth will spread about how good their set was etc. I think this form of promotion is amazing, as it reflects how artists can give back to their loyal fans in a way that is fun for both.

Here is a video from the night of Jon singing "Heavyweight Champion", taken on my phone. Speaking as a fan, and from my experience, being that close to a singer of a band you admire and being within that atmosphere, shows how vital artists being close to their fans is if they want to sell records, and also get a reputation as being a "nice guy" in Jon's case. As word quickly spread of everyone's night in Pilsley, sparking a lot of interest for potentially new fans - which is brilliant for Reverend and The Makers publicity.