Years and Years: Website Analysis

Case Study: Years and Years

• Years & Years are an all-male trio who were founded originally as a five piece, British electronica band in London. The band is made up of the keyboard playing frontman and lead singer Olly Alexander, Mikey Goldsworthy who plays bass guitar and Emre Türkmen who also plays keyboard. The two past members are Noel Leeman and Olivier Subria. Their music has been thought of as being electropop, whilst being mixed with 1990s house and R&B sounds. Genres attached to the them include synthpop, indie pop and electronica. This is a result of their influences who include the dance music producers Flying Lotus, Diplo, Jai Paul and Radiohead.
• Years & Years have become more successful with each music release. After releasing three singles, the band impressed Polydor Records, a britsh record label and company operating as part of the Universal Music Group. This resulted in them signing to the label and relasing their fourth single under them, "Take Shelter." This resulted in their EP reaching number one on the iTunes UK Singles Electronic Chart.
• In January 2015, their sixth single called King was previewed on BBC Radio 1. One of the radio hosts Zane Lowe named it the Hottest Record of the day. In the same month they also won a prestigious award, the BBC Sound of 2015 award. In March of that year, their single was also a success as it reached number one on the UK singles chart. Then on the 18th their success grew with an announcement of their first album, "Communion."
• It ended up also reaching number 1 when it entered the UK Albums Chart. They have also won many awards including MTVu's Artist To Watch Award in 2014 and Gaffa's Best New International Artist Act and Attitude's Album of the Year awards in 2015. 

Case Study: Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris from amberneedham

Case Study: Rihanna

Case Study: Rihanna from amberneedham

Marketing of Music Videos

Here is the PowerPoint presentation I did regarding the marketing of music videos.

Marketing of music videos from amberneedham

Production of Music Videos

Case Study: Vevo

Most Iconic Music Videos and CD Covers

Texual Analysis: Catfish and the Bottlemen Website

Peter Fraser: 10 Steps to Success.

Copyright Request

We decided to email the management for Years and Years (see below) hoping that we are granted the rights to use the song in our music video. We are using the song for educational purposes and for non-profit purposes so we hope that they respond giving us the legal rights to use the song in this way.

Mini Character Profiles

Mini Character Profiles:

In order to effectively convey the narrative of our Music video, the characters had to be well planned out and opposing. As we opted for a narrative which conveys binary oppositions with a sad girl and a cruel boy we needed to show this through the text messages and mise en scene, as the boy only appears in the girls fantasies throughout the video.

Female:

Our main character is a female, who we have confirmed will be played by Lois Woodward, an 18 year old drama and media student. The character is portrayed as unlucky in love, and represents a stereotypical failed relationship in which she still thinks about the boy despite their end. Her emotions we plan to show through a range of techniques such as extreme close ups, acting and effects – for example we can use the ghosting effect to show confusion of her mind regarding the relationship.

Male:

The only other character within the music video is better represented through

text messages and short clips as opposed to being in the whole narrative as an actor. We think this will be more effective as the audience will empathise with the girl more, as we only see her side of the story. We don’t know why the boy doesn’t want to be with the girl, nor if the relationship was ever real, which is effective to consider both sides of the story, even though we are only showing one. If you read between the lines of our music video, we want people to be able to see the male’s perspective.

Music Video Regulation

Music video's can prove to be very controversial and cause a social media buzz. I've looked into some of the most controversial music videos to try to understand why directors create controversy. Five of the most controversial videos, In no particular order;

1. Elastic Heart - Sia

-  This video has been viewed as controversial for many reasons, such as the paedophile tone as Shia LaBeouf, a 29 year old man, dances around with Maddie Ziegler, a 13 year old girl. The video, although appearing wrong, Sia argues representative of her inner demons battling one another.  

2. Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke, Pharrell and T.



- This video arguably caused the most controversy as it featured two versions, one with women completely naked dancing around the fully clothes males, and another with the woman in minimal, nude-coloured clothing. The sexist video includes lyrics within the song such as 'I know you want it' which has been described as popularizing rape culture and many view the video as insensitive.

3. Call on Me - Eric Prydz



- Swedish DJ Eric Prydz made sure people didn't forget the video to his single 'Call On Me' by recruiting an array of gorgeous girls to enjoy an aerobics class in tight leotards. The workout routine caused controvery for the sexually suggestive routines. The popularity of the video ended up in a full dance workout DVD being released.

4. Dirrty - Christina Aguilera 

 

- This video, released in 2002, was Christina's comeback song, debueing a new image with her new, seductive song. The video is extremely provocative, showing Christina singing raunchy lyrics in minimal clothing.

5. Lily Allen - Hard Out Here



- The song 'Hard out Here' by Lily Allen, released in 2013, caused controversy for many reasons. It is clear the Lily Allen knew that the video would get people talking, however it was discussed for all the wrong reasons. It was immediately taken to task online and in the press for Lily's use of black dancers in the clip. The hip-hop 'satire' themed promo was slammed as racist, with the black dancers argued to be used as props rather than people.

Audience Theory: Male Gaze Theory

Star Theory

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".

 

Key Music Video Director: Joseph Khan

Here is a PowerPoint I created about the music video director Joseph Khan, and why he's inspired me when creating my own music video.

Key Music Video Director; Joseph Khan from amberneedham

Andrew Goodwins' Theory

Andrew Goodwins Theory:

"Music videos ignore common narrative as they are essentially advertisements. As consumers, we make up our own meaning of a song in our minds; a music video can anchor meaning and gives the record company or artist a method of anchoring meaning"

Goodwin identified various parts of his theory:

1. There is a relationship between the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.

This convention explains how Goodwin noticed a music videos visuals are similar or completely contrasting to the lyrics of a song, which is important to consider when looking at music videos.



Example: "Running down to the riptide" - Vance Joy

     2.   Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics; their own music video style and iconography.

Goodwin realised that most artists and bands have a trend of repeating actions in their videos to establish this as their signature action, making songs recognisable as it recurs often. This is a form of marketing as people will instantly associate the iconography with the artist. Genre can also be known by location, for example pop music may be filmed at a beach to convey happiness and fun, whereas an indie music video may be filmed in somewhere isolated like a warehouse to convey loneliness.


    3.  Demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist.


Goodwin discovered that in various music videos they include the voyeuristic idea with the artist by watching them throughout there video. This gives the audience more of an insight into their persona.



Example: Ellie Goulding 'Beating Heart' Video.
Shows the vulnerability and loneliness of Ellie which relates to the song she is singing about her heart, and her unique tone conveys the impression that the audience know her well as she is so individual.


     4. They frequently refer to the notion of looking and the particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.


Goodwin realised that voyeurism is commonly used to show the artist throughout the video but is particularly common with females as provocative angles are used to sexualise the artist and make the artist appear desirable to the audience.

Katy Perry - California Gurls Music Video.
Showing her body in a provocative way, despite the theme of the video being candy related the producers were still able to get voyeurism into the video clearly.


   5. Inter textual of other artists products and text
Goodwin recognized it was common to recognize visuals or lyrics of a song to be an exact reference to another media text. This is used to engage the audience and provide them gratification should they recognize it.

Madonna- Material Girl