Harrys Work - MEDIA

Harry's work

Music Video - Planning
Music Video - Budget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7tTEIWpozg

The Purposes of Music Videos

Throughout this essay I will be raising awareness on the purpose of music videos. Music videos are usually used to cover something controversial and bring awareness to a certain topic present in the news or are used to provide visceral pleasure to the audience therefore starting new trends or giving people something to talk about, an example of this is Beyoncé ‘s 2009 music video for her song ‘Single Ladies.’ This gave people something to talk about as the video has choreography running through it. 

When it comes to consuming music videos today, there are quite a few different streaming sites that come to mind, this has altered a lot over the past few years as the most popular streaming site of today, YouTube, was created in February 2005 so before that and even now, new music videos were shown on TV channels such as Kerrang! Tv, Kiss, The Box, Channel AKA. As technology has improved drastically, these same videos can easily be accessed online and artists such as Billie Eilish and Nicki Minaj are even making vertical music videos for their songs on Spotify.

An example of an artist who is not signed and therefore would have quite a big income is Chance the Rapper, since he refuses to sign with a label he is free to do what he wants when he plays his shows or what he chooses to do in his music videos, Chance has never sold a physical album as he instead he prefers to distribute his music through streaming services such as Soundcloud and Spotify. His album ‘Acid Raps’ had gotten a lot of attention and had done so well that even though he did not officially release it for sale, it had charted on the Billboards Top 100. 

The alternative hip-hop group ‘Brockhampton’ that consists of 14 members had created and dropped three albums on their very own label ‘Question Everything’ throughout 2017 called ‘The Saturation Trilogy’ as they were numbered 1-3. When these albums were created and put out the group were not signed and after seeing the success of all three Saturation Albums they were signed in 2018 to a record label called ‘RCA’ however, the label have agreed they don’t have permission to change tour plans or any merchandise as creative, content and

management members of the group Henock Sileshi, Drew Hunt and Jon Nunes cover that. 

7/14 BROCKHAMPTON FROM MEMBERS LEFT TO RIGHT (Dom McLennon, Merlyn Wood, Kevin Abstract, Romil Hemnani, Russell Boring AKA Joba, Matt Champion, Ciaran Ruaridh aka Bearface)

Music videos can be used to promote particular songs by having something controversial or relevant in the news at the time featured as it is a good way to get people talking about it. An example of this could be Childish Gambino’s Feels Like Summer where in which he includes other celebrities in an animated form, he covers some of the celebrity drama in a very subtle form. This is something Gambino does a lot and fans are able to know this after his song ‘This Is America’ dropped he covered several relevant news topics in that once music videos. He knows it is something to talk about and people will begin to dissect his videos in search of answers therefore giving the video more plays and putting the video on the trending section on YouTube so it can be seen by more people and become a topic of conversatione.g. This screenshot from a scene in the music video featuring Nicki Minaj with building blocks building a tower and rapper Travis Scott knocking it down, this has been analysed and the audience see it as a metaphor for the amount of time and effort Nicki had put into her new album and Travis knocking it down was a metaphor for how his album ‘ASTROWORLD’ had knocked Nicki’s album ‘QUEEN’ off the number one spot.

A good example of a music video promoting an album would be the music video for ‘Sorry’ from Beyoncé from her sixth solo album titled ‘Lemonade.’  The album had dropped along with a visual album that included monologues from her that then led into each and every song, chapters for each song exist where in which a monologue is recited then leading into each song e.g. The chapter ‘Apathy’ featured the song and music video for ‘Sorry.’ The short film can give the audience visceral pleasure as there are choreographed dances and different types of fashion rolling through it. As each music video starts off with a monologue, it is clear there is a link to the last song and music video, therefore leading the audience to listen and even watch the short film. As the music video for ‘Sorry’ was published on YouTube on the 22^ndof June 2016, it was the first video from the ‘Lemonade’ album to have been put onto YouTube for everyone to access freely as the entire album and short film were put onto ‘TIDAL,’ the subscription based streaming service created by rapper and spouse of Beyoncé, Jay-Z.  The sixth solo album ‘LEMONADE’ was strictly published onto ‘TIDAL’ in 2016 and had 

never hit the free streaming service ‘Spotify’ therefore fans were led to purchasing a subscription on Spotify in order to listen to the full album as the songs and music videos were slowly uploaded to YouTube throughout the end of 2016.

The 2018 Marvel movie ‘Black Panther’ is a great example of synergy with another media sector. The soundtrack for the movie was released as ‘Black Panther: The Album’ by Interscope records on the 9^th of February 2018 whilst the movie had officially been released in the UK on the 12^th of February 2018. The album includes original songs produced by hip-hop rapper Kendrick Lamar. The album features many successful members such as Kendrick Lamar, Sza, Jorja Smith, Anderson. Paak, Future, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Khalid and more.

The album was a huge part of promoting the album as it featured several musicians that the target audience of the film may have been interested in, this was a massive boost for the careers and was not only able to get the audience excited for the movie but was beneficial for both the artists and Marvel as they were also able to use the music from the soundtrack in the actual movie.

When it comes to an artist who has made a statement with a controversial message, I think of Kendrick Lamar and his music video for DNA, where in which he covers police brutality and how he would be a victim of it because of the colour of his skin and his ‘DNA’ throughout the whole song he lists what is in his ‘DNA.’ The original meaning for DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, was completely switched by the hip hop rapper as he had given it a whole different meaning. American rapper Kendrick Lamar is signed to a total of 5 record labels including Interscope which he has created big projects with e.g. ‘Black Panther: The Album’ therefore giving him a big voice for topics such as discrimination towards the black women, man and child.

Kendrick has become rather famous for his rapping ability as he is known for telling a story or getting his point across which is something he has been doing since his first album ‘The Kendrick Lamar’ ep. 

Things I have learnt so far

Whilst studying media this year I was able to refresh my mind and go over things I had already known and even go into depth with them and also learn some new things.

We had started off by listing some of the media sectors, I had taken media last year and I was only able to list 5 but during our lessons I was able to find out that there are indeed 10. We then went onto genre and the different types of genres you may see in films and music and how they could often crossover, this is called synergy. during these lessons we learnt some key words that come up almost daily in our lessons as they are essential for when we create our music videos such as 'iconography' and 'intertextuality' and 'sub-genres'. The term intertextuality refers to the process of creating references to any kind of media text. Iconography would be what the audience expects in a certain genre, an example of this could be when you are watching a horror movie, you are likely to expect death, violence and blood.

As we moved onto learning about the purpose of music videos, we looked at the technical aspects of some videos, this led to us watching videos and class and giving feedback on things such as the editing, sound, special effects in the video the different camera angles and shots and even the audience gratification the video may give. 

TYPES OF MUSIC VIDEOS

LIVE IN CONCERT - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJnU3bJ-QWQ 

What I Like About You - 5 Seconds Of Summer 2014MUSIC VIDEO PLANNING