Interviews

These are the interviews that we conducted for our audience research. Everyone we asked said that they watch music videos because they add an 'extra something' to the song and tells the audience more about the artist's personality and creativity. While one of our interviewees said they preferred videos with a storyline, the other two said they liked abstract videos, where the footage has almost no relevance to the song. However, most people on our survey said they preferred music videos with comical/humorous aspects, so because of this, in our music video, I think we will try to incorporate both abstract and comical factors. Also, everyone we asked in our interviews said that what they would look for in a printed advert for an album consisted of; the album cover, the album title and a short description of the album. This information will be useful when creating the advert to promote my digipak.

Survey Results

Requesting The Rights

To enable us to use the song we have chosen, we had to search for the company that owns the rights to the song (Wixen Music) and ask for their permission.

Here is a copy of the e-mail thread between Naomi Asher (Wixen Music) and I following the first e-mail I sent on behalf of the group (order from the bottom upwards): 

From: nasher@wixenmusic.co.uk
To: roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk

Thank you!

From: Roxannah Linklater [mailto:roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 25 October 2012 10:54
To: Naomi Asher
Subject: RE:

The collages address will be fine I think It is:

York College, Sim Balk Lane  Bishopthorpe, York, YO23 2BB

Thank you

 

---

From: nasher@wixenmusic.co.uk
To: roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2012 04:39:07 -0700
Subject: RE: RE:

What is the address I should put on the licence?

From: Roxannah Linklater [mailto:roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 24 October 2012 12:33
To: Naomi Asher
Subject: RE:

Yes, I am confirming the use of the song.

Thanks,
Roxannah
 

---

From: nasher@wixenmusic.co.uk
To: roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk
CC: abrown@wixenmusic.co.uk
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 03:59:23 -0700
Subject: RE: RE:

Hi there,

That’s fine. Are you confirming use?

Thank you,

Naomi

From: Roxannah Linklater [mailto:roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 23 October 2012 11:41
To: Naomi Asher
Subject: RE:

We are happy to send you a copy of the music video once it's completed. This may take a number of weeks, sorry if this is an inconvenience. We are all very grateful for your approval.
Thank you,
Roxannah
 

---

From: nasher@wixenmusic.co.uk
To: roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk
CC: abrown@wixenmusic.co.uk
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:41:57 -0700
Subject: RE: RE:

Yes, that’s what we mean. If you can confirm use we’ll issue a licence.

Thank you,

Naomi

From: Roxannah Linklater [mailto:roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 22 October 2012 21:03
To: Naomi Asher
Subject: RE:

Hi Naomi,

Thanks very much for the approval, do you mean send a copy of the finished video? We would be happy to do this if that is what you mean. 

Roxannah

---

From: nasher@wixenmusic.co.uk
To: roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 01:47:35 -0700
Subject: RE: RE:

Hi Roxannah,

This request is approved. Can you please send an electronic file  or an NTSC Region 1 DVD for this?

Please let me know to confirm use.

Subject to contract,

Naomi

Naomi Wallace Asher

Corporate Director/Secretary

From: Roxannah Linklater [mailto:roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 19 October 2012 11:08
To: Naomi Asher
Subject: RE:

Hi Naomi,

Thanks so much for your reply. In brief, our aim is to film a music video for an existing song. We thought that this song was highly appropriate as we've been inspired by many other videos of the band, and would like to create a video with a light hearted tone. This project is worth 40% of our final A Level grade, and we will not be using this song for any other purpose other than to aid our project.


Thank you,

Roxannah Linklater
 

From: nasher@wixenmusic.co.uk
To: roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk
CC: beth@wixenmusic.co.uk; abrown@wixenmusic.co.uk
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 09:25:05 -0700
Subject: RE:

Hi Roxannah,

Beth is out on Maternity Leave at the moment, but I'm happy to help you with your request. Can you please tell me a little more about the use?
Thank you,
Naomi

Naomi Wallace Asher
Corporate Director/Secretary
__________________________________

 From: Roxannah Linklater [roxi.linklater@hotmail.co.uk]
 Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 11:36 AM
 To: Beth Wijayarathna
 Subject:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am e-mailing you seeking permission to use the song 'Undone - The Sweater Song' by Weezer in my A Level media studies coursework. My group and I are creating a music video, and, as massive fans of Weezer, it would be excellent if we were able to use this song. We are not intending to use this song for any other purpose other than that already stated, and is for no commercial or financial gain. It is purely for the use of our coursework and any posting of the video will be for evaluation purposes only. We will clearly state that this is an amateur production and identify yourselves as the license holders for the song.
We appreciate that you get many requests of this kind and are very grateful for your help and support.

 Yours,
 Roxannah Linklater

Audience Research: Survey

For our project, my group and I decided to create physical surveys and hand them out rather than using survey monkey. This decision was based upon the fact that when reviewing results from survey monkey in my project last year, I was unable to  identify correlations between age, gender and other answeres on the survey. By doing it this way, we are able to see links between age, gender, preffered genre of music and prefered kind of music video. This will enable us to conjure a clearer image of our target audience and help us to make our music video suitable for that audience. Below is an example of the questionnaire that we created and distrubuted.

Market Research: DigiPak Analysis

Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams

Pinkerton (Deluxe edition) - Weezer

This digipak has a simple layout, consisting of just two flaps instead of the trifold of many other digipaks. The font's used are mostly simple, for the solid purpose of clarity. The design doesn't want to look too cluttered. The theme of the tree is carried throughout the digipak, making an appearance on every side of the pack, holding the whole product together, as well as conveying the artists' character and concept for the album. As well as the tree, the colour yellow is also carried through the digipak, portraying the happy/easy listening style of Johnson's music. 

The deluxe edition for pinkerton opens up into four panels, containing two CD's, a booklet of lyrics and information about the album. The style of the artwork is consistent with the front cover, continuing with the Japanese theme referenced both visually and lyrically. The inside packaging contains the quote "Everywhere in the world, the roving Yankee takes his pleasure and profit, indifferent to all risks. He drops an anchor at random.." from the opera Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini.This opera is referenced on multiple occasions throughout the album, the title of the album even coming from the main character of the opera, BF Pinkerton. Lyrically, the album is very dark so the black and 'sepia tone' colour scheme works really well. 

Market Research: Music Video Analysis

Pavement - Gold Soundz
This music video, much like the band's video for 'Stereo' has a laid-back, extremely informal tone to it which reflects image of the band as a whole. This style of music video is conventional for this pop-punky genre of music and is very similar to that of Weezer (my group and I will be creating a video for Weerzer's song - Undone). Even though the video largely consists of the band members running around, all dressed as Santa Claus, there is some narrative to the video. The band seem to be on some kind of scavenger hunt; finding a chicken which contains a key which opens a car to take them to a hill, etc. This seems to have no real relation to the lyrics of the song, as the song mostly is describing a relationship between a boy and a girl. However, what the video might be trying to portray is the importance of friendship, and having a 'good time'. The lyrics 'Go back to those gold sounds' and 'I won't need you when I'm gone' could be referring to friendship and the 'good times' and that the character in the song won't need a girlfriend forever but will need his friends. The video has a home-video feel which exaggerates the informal tone of the video and laid-back personality of the band.

Flying Lotus - Until the Quiet Comes

This short film by Kahlil Joseph contains music from three tracks of Flying Lotus' album 'Until the Quiet Comes', its purpose to promote the whole album as opposed to just a single song. This goes against conventions in the sense that music videos are usually produced just for one song. The video is a depiction of urban life, and tackles issues such as race, poverty and violence in just four minutes. During the video, a child is shot at the beginning and an older male shot nearer the end, however the second death is reversed in the form of a dance, almost in a dance for his life. Even though for our video, we are wanting a light-hearted informal tone, I like the idea that the story is being told within the film with no dialogue whatsoever, the music the only sound, yet the narrative is still completely understandable. The surreality of the film also reflects the dream-like music of the album and experimental artist.

Blink 182 - I  Miss You

This video largely follows the conventions of the 'alternative' music genre. The band are featured playing in an old fashioned house, wearing suits which is almost typical of the 'rock-emo' genre. Similar features are present in videos for 30 Seconds to Mars and My Chemical Romance. The way that the video cross cuts between shots allows a separate narrative to take place, showing almost vampire-like women and a multitude of animals associated with witchery; cats, spiders etc. I like the way that the video has incorporated both narrative and performance aspects and hope to take this idea and in turn, incorporate it within my groups video. In addition, the way that Mark Hoppus is playing a double bass was inspired by The Cure's use of one in there video for the single 'The Lovecats', and the costumes are referencing the 1920's which gives a slightly ghostly feel. The way that intertextuality plays a part in this video makes it interesting, and almost establishes a relationship between the audience and the band in the sense that if the audience understand the reference they can feel closer to the band and buy into their 'brand'.

Market Research: Album Cover Analysis

Radiohead - In Rainbows

The In Rainbows album cover takes inspiration from NASA'S space photgraphs and in doing so, also conveys the style and feel of the music of the band as well as the title of the album. The text style on the front of the album is taken directly from the text on NASA's photographs, but instead reading 'Radiohead, In Rainbows'. I think this is an extremely clever idea and as well as this, the colours nod toward the colours of the rainbow, again highlighting the title of the album. I like the way that, like some of the other album covers I've posted, this cover doesn't feature an image of the band. Instead, it conveys artwork that fits in and represents the concept of the album. Many albums of many different genres do this with their album covers, and I think gives the album a more interesting look rather than just having an image of the band on the front which could appear almost lazy.

Smashing Pumpkins - Oceania

Much like In Rainbows, Oceania doesn't feature an image of the band but instead, shows a photograph of the North Shore Tower in Illinois. This building, in conjuction with the leafless trees surrounding it, creates a fairly ominous image. This could be reflecting the alternative/rebellious feel of the band's music. In addition, the way that the photograph has a blue/green hue in turn reflects the album title - Oceania, reflecting the colour of the sea and the land in the continent.



The band R.E.M.'s album 'green' shows some similar characteristics to some Weezer albums. The albums name is 'green' and therefore they have decided to make the artwork green. This is typical for this genre as the majority of the albums all have artwork which is the title for the album. Weezer can be seen doing this for a few of their albums:

          The blue album                                                              The green album           

                                                                      The red album

   

Market Research: Album Advert Analysis

 This poster fits most of the general conventions for an album advert - featuring the album cover as the main image of the poster and the artist and album title as the main heading. The same font is used throughout (excluding the title) I believe for the purpose of clarity. As well as the extra information underneath the date of release, an interactive mobile QR-code and information about a mobile app that will 'bring the image to life' are included on the very bottom of the poster. I think this is clever as, because the album is a re-release, people may want more information about it rather than just what is on the poster, which isn't very much. It also modernises the poster, and makes it more persuasive. If people are able to interact with the advert they are more likely to buy the product. In addition, the way that the band's logo is used helps to sell the overall 'brand' of the band and their music. This is also helped by the fact that the name of the band is usually written in the same font, and if someone is a fan of the band, they will instantly recognise what the poster is promoting and be interested. I think it is also important that the poster is not too cluttered, there is not too much writing included, just enough to give a sufficient amount information to the consumer.

This poster for Pavement's album, 'Terror Twilight' strays slightly from general conventions by featuring an altered version of the album cover. On the original cover, an image of a man is used, seen from the neck down. The way that the poster for the album has a different image, could be something to do with the overall concept of the album or alternatively could mean nothing at all, but gives an impression that the two characters may be related to one another in some way. Despite the characters featured being different, both feature the same background of coloured stars which could be conveying the up-beat, punky feel of the band to the audience. Much like the Nirvana poster, most of the space is taken up by the main image, with just enough text included to spark intrigue within the audience but not too much to give everything away. Also like the poster for Nirvana, the artist and band name are enlarged to make it obvious to the consumer what the poster is promoting. The font used for these are the same as those on the album cover to establish a clear link between the two items and the remainging text is all written in the same font to avoid looking clumsy and cluttered.