Saturday 21 May 2011
Friday 29 April 2011
Final Overall Evaluation Video
(Please excuse the logo that keeps popping up in the middle, I had to compress the video from HD to a lower quality format in order to upload onto my blog)
Music Video evaluation
I got a lot of audience feedback for my music video once it was completed because it was important to know whether they liked it as a whole and would watch it over and again. I had to edit it over a couple of times until myself and my peers thought it looked like a professional music video. For example, the start of the music video had quite a few random shots in it just to fill up space because of the way ‘The awakening’ starts. I could have cut the introduction of that track but this would have made the video start too abruptly therefore not making it so effective.
The music video enhances the music because it has a flow to it and the cuts go with the beat of the song which ultimately keeps an audience interested. Also, audiences enjoy having a visual to aid what they hear, so the music video and the mis-en-scene aided the enjoyment of the music and music video as a whole. It also adds meaning to the song because we can see Abbie’s physical emotions through her journey and her passion for music and the audience can empathise with her. The messages my video sends about women is that you don’t need to sell your body in order to get you to places and express your talent, Abbie is clearly well clothed and not exploited in any way, it is simply her talent brought out and this is what we as an audience want to remember her for, no ‘the girl who wore a short skirt in her video who looked “sexy”’ – that would be exploiting.
I think my video is unique especially because of the locations we shot at, the most amazing location we captured was in London in the evening over the River Thames. The colours were so bold and bright and looked almost like a fantasy. The fact that it is Abbie’s personal journey and her expressing herself through music, this makes it original because everyone has different outlooks on life and what they want to achieve. You can empathise with Abbie because of the range of close up shots and medium shots which makes you feel closer to her. The closer an audience feels to an artist, the more they would want to watch the video. The feedback I received from my peers was that they would want to watch it again and again because there’s aspects of the video which they don’t catch the first time, and also they enjoy looking at the scenery because it suits the song and musical genre, making my music video – a successful video.
Thursday 28 April 2011
Saturday 16 April 2011
Website Production
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| DREAMWEAVER |
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| DREAMWEAVER |
Before starting to use Dreamweaver, I went onto youtube and searched for a few tutorials to try and teach me how to use it because it looked very complicated. Despite looking at this tutorial, I found that Dreamweaver wasn't very flexible and it was a lot more technical and harder to move things around the page etc. Making a site using Dreamweaver seemed to be a very long and daunting task so I looked at other website creators and found Wix.com.
I found Wix to be an excellent website designer, it allowed me to add images, links, Facebook 'Like' buttons, text and so much more by a few clicks. As oppose to Dreamweaver, I reckon I would have been there all day.
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| Final Website, created on Wix www.wix.com/zazax0/abbiesinger |
This is a screen shot of my final website (More below when you scroll down). After looking at numerous existing sites I got an idea of a basic layout that I could use. I felt that the use of pictures of Abbie would be important because every site has pictures of the artist somewhere, and plus, people viewing this site would want to know what Abbie looks like and what kind of artist she is. This is where the 'About' section comes in where a brief bio of her has been written. The colours used all link to my CD digipak design so this has kept consistency throughout and also the turquoise-blue colour is viewed as calm and peaceful which links to the values and beliefs of what audiences see Neo-Soul as. The slideshow at the top of my website doesn't portray Abbie in a sexual way at all as they are not revealing. Abbie wants her musical talent to be the obvious aspect of her that everyone knows her for. This is also an important part of the Neo-Soul genre because typically, it is about expressing yourself and singing about life events etc as oppose to Hip Hop and RnB which may present artists in more revealing clothing and talk about more explicit things such as sex and girls.
After presenting this website to Abbie herself, I gained her feedback and friend's feedback who all said it was very good but could be tweaked in different areas. So Abbie suggested a change in font to make it more like someone had handwritten the text instead of using standard 'Arial'. So I took this on board and changed it on my site. Another thing Abbie pointed out is the navigation at the top of the page which should have buttons like 'Home' 'Profile' 'Music' etc, however I have had problems getting these to come up. I am currently working on it.
Video Production and Post Production
Video Production - Initial Photography
After storyboarding and creating a shooting schedule, the main aim was to stick to this schedule so that our time wasn't wasted and neither was the artists. We had set locations which were in Central London (London Bridge and Picadilly Circus), Valentines Park and in a Studio.
With the initial photography, we managed to capture shots from day and night and the ones which looked excellent were the night shots on London Bridge over looking the river. These shots were good because they had relevance to my CD digipak design with the whole idea of water being the symbol of calmness and serenity.
The shots we had issues with were the ones in Picadilly Circus as there was always a lot of people walking around and getting in the way of the camera so in order to tackle this we had to re-shoot and people were made more aware that we were recording after a while. (Permission from the council was received for us to film there).
When it came to editing and looking back at all of the footage, we decided that we needed something that looked professional and would wow the audience. Also we found that in the footage we already had, some parts of the song weren't sung well enough for us to sync when editing, which is where the studio footage came in. The use of our school's drama studio which had lighting, effects and a blacked out room was excellent as it made Abbie stand out in the footage.
Post Production
Editing is one of my strong points so to start with I didn't really have any troubles when editing my footage and creating a rough-cut. When it came to making sure all the singing was in sync with the track itself, this is when the task became a bit tedious. But after reshooting in the drama studio, this filled all the gaps and made editing a lot more easier.
The main effects I used in my production was a cross-fade and fade in-fade out. These were the only effects that had relevance to the type of song I was dealing with. If I were to use box transitions and sliding effects, this wouldn't work because the song is quite slow and calm. I used effects because they are a way of keeping the audience interested instead of just seeing cuts throughout the video. Also, it makes the video look more professional and shows the skills I have learnt and used as an editor.
The actual footage shot compared to the storyboard version is quite different. In the storyboards, we had all these ideas of Abbie waking up on a piano from the previous night of writing a song but the mis-en-scene wouldn't have worked because it would be obvious that it was filmed in a school hall using the school piano. Also these ideas seemed too familiar as those of Alicia Keys and we didn't want to simply copy those ideas as it was important to keep a unique element to the production. In the actual footage shot, we came up with more ideas which some came at the spur of the moment. In the end, whether or not those shots were used, the more footage, the better off we were.
After storyboarding and creating a shooting schedule, the main aim was to stick to this schedule so that our time wasn't wasted and neither was the artists. We had set locations which were in Central London (London Bridge and Picadilly Circus), Valentines Park and in a Studio.
With the initial photography, we managed to capture shots from day and night and the ones which looked excellent were the night shots on London Bridge over looking the river. These shots were good because they had relevance to my CD digipak design with the whole idea of water being the symbol of calmness and serenity.
The shots we had issues with were the ones in Picadilly Circus as there was always a lot of people walking around and getting in the way of the camera so in order to tackle this we had to re-shoot and people were made more aware that we were recording after a while. (Permission from the council was received for us to film there).
When it came to editing and looking back at all of the footage, we decided that we needed something that looked professional and would wow the audience. Also we found that in the footage we already had, some parts of the song weren't sung well enough for us to sync when editing, which is where the studio footage came in. The use of our school's drama studio which had lighting, effects and a blacked out room was excellent as it made Abbie stand out in the footage.
Post Production
Editing is one of my strong points so to start with I didn't really have any troubles when editing my footage and creating a rough-cut. When it came to making sure all the singing was in sync with the track itself, this is when the task became a bit tedious. But after reshooting in the drama studio, this filled all the gaps and made editing a lot more easier.
The main effects I used in my production was a cross-fade and fade in-fade out. These were the only effects that had relevance to the type of song I was dealing with. If I were to use box transitions and sliding effects, this wouldn't work because the song is quite slow and calm. I used effects because they are a way of keeping the audience interested instead of just seeing cuts throughout the video. Also, it makes the video look more professional and shows the skills I have learnt and used as an editor.
The actual footage shot compared to the storyboard version is quite different. In the storyboards, we had all these ideas of Abbie waking up on a piano from the previous night of writing a song but the mis-en-scene wouldn't have worked because it would be obvious that it was filmed in a school hall using the school piano. Also these ideas seemed too familiar as those of Alicia Keys and we didn't want to simply copy those ideas as it was important to keep a unique element to the production. In the actual footage shot, we came up with more ideas which some came at the spur of the moment. In the end, whether or not those shots were used, the more footage, the better off we were.
Thursday 31 March 2011
Webpage research and drafting
- Alicia Keys - http://www.aliciakeys.com/uk/home
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| Alicia Keys Official Website |
- The background is quite abstract and not blinding or in your face which reflects the kind of music she makes
- - The scrolling background of the Alicia Keys heading shows a bird and a calm blue background which follows the typical conventions of calmness and serenity. This theme is also featured on the side panel of her site where we can see feathers and all sorts of designs and is continued throughout the whole site. The fonts used on Alicia Keys website are quite simple, sophisticated and flow quite well which suit the genre of her music: soul. Her hair is kept simple and sophisticated also.
- - Listeners would be attracted to her and her music because Alicia Keys official site provides music and lyrics for all of her albums. Also, fans have the ability to be part of a community based around just Alicia Keys, message boards which allow people to leave comments for Alicia Keys to read showing their support and many other giveaways such as VIP tickets and opportunities to meet her.
- - Alicia regularly blogs things that she believes in, which fans can comment on, on how much they have been inspired by her words, this allows the fans to feel a lot more closer to her as an artist. (Twitter and facebook)
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| DRAFT WEBPAGE DESIGN NUMBERS HIGHLIGHTED IN GREEN IS WHAT I WILL BE DISCUSSING |
2: Abbie's track will automatically play once the website is accessed and audiences have the choice of whether the want to pause/stop it.
Also, having the music video there allows the audience to choose whether they want to listen to the track or watch the video, giving more choice, as some people may find it annoying if they are forced to play the video in order to listen to the track. It may even slow down their computer which is not what people want.
3. The photo sharing gives the audience the opportunity to feel part of a special community that only some people can have access to making them feel even more like a fan of Abbie and having personal engaging by uploading pictures that they have with Abbie with the approval of Abbie herself.
4. Latest tweets and merchandise allows audiences to keep up with AbbieSinger and follow her footsteps and get the latest news on what she is doing. This may be important to people who idolize AbbieSinger. Merchandise let people feel more involved with Abbie and supporting her by purchasing her branded items. E.G: Singles/Albums/Posters Etc.
Latest videos can consist of her music videos, her singing acapella, interviews etc and anything audiences may want to see to keep up with her progress.
Wednesday 30 March 2011
Filming process portfolio
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These are some photos that I took during the filming process. This is only in one location. We filmed in several locations in order to gain as much footage as possible so that when it came to editing, we wouldn't feel like we need more footage but in fact we're spoilt for choice!
Planning for music video filming
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| 6/12 storyboards |
Taking in all the research information on music videos, it was time we planned how the music video would work, what would happen in it and the main concept. In order to make it clear what we are filming and what shots we were going to have, it was important to do these storyboards. Storyboards are a way of mapping out locations, props, type of shots and what is happening in the shots so that this reduces wastage of time when filming. Planning the music video will also help us when we do our individual edits and our videos will therefore be more successful.
Saturday 19 March 2011
We watched this video and came to the conclusion that this video was suitable due to the time period and the type of song. It was an effective video because it suited the tempo also. People may be intrigued to watch it again because of her facial expressions which allows us to have a personal engagement. If it appeals to you then this is because of personal taste. Not everyone would like it because of the age group it is targetting.
I need to take this into consideration when we plan our music video because we need to make it suitable for our target group of anyone who listens to Neo-soul and likes that sort of music in order for it to be successful and people wanting to watch the video over and over again.
This video is clearly a very intricate and unique music video. It keeps you interested the whole way through because there is something going on all the time. You would want to watch it over and over again because you can't possibly pick up every little detail of what is going on in one viewing. This is why it is a successful video. By playing the video over again, this makes us as the audience like the song, because we like the video.
The people in the video on the webcams are actually fans of the artist 'Sour', this gives them as fans to have a personal engagement in the song and appreciate his music even more.
Taking all of this into consideration, when planning my music video, my group's ideas must be as unique as possible and keep the audience interested, otherwise they won't want to watch it again, and therefore it will not be successful.
Thursday 10 March 2011
Official CD Digipak
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| Initial CD Digipak Design |
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| FINAL CD Digipak Design |
Why have I chosen to design my CD Digipak in this way?
The front cover is labelled AbbieSinger with the sea and sky background. I chose to have this particular background because when you think of sunrise/sunset on a beach, you think of peace and serenity and quite a calm atmosphere which relates to Abbie's music and genre.
The green theme was devised from the dress she is wearing, it is detailed in quite a bold green, but it isn't a very 'loud', 'in your face' kind of colour, therefore I thought this may be ideal to use as a theme to use throughout the Digipak. Green also symbolises calmness and it is quite an organic colour, the use of turquoise reflects the colour of pure sea which is similar to the theme colour.
Imagine waking up at sunrise as the background shows, 'The awakening' was purposely made to slightly blend in with the background making the effect gradual, whereas the 'AbbieSinger' is the main part that people need to recognise as the brand which is why it is clearer to see. Abbie's label needs to be THAT brand that people have heard of/seen before. "The awakening of..." turns Abbie into an official character and gives her status and star image making her unique in comparison to other Neo-Soul artists.
The bird silhouettes on the next fold represent what is common in the morning: birds, birds singing. - When we think of birds chirping we usually associate it with morning time and sunrise, so I felt this linked into the front cover.
The picture of Abbie performing with her guitar was quite significant to this cover as it is one of her favourite instruments to use within her music. It also shows how she is a proactive artist and already has experience performing and music is her passion. In relation to this, the 3 tone colour images of Abbie playing the Piano and Guitar make the cover intricate and colourful. The piano and guitar are her main two instruments which are also typical instruments used within the genre of Neo-Soul. E.G: Alicia Keys. It also shows that Abbie is a multi-instrumentalist, making her multi-talented as a singer, song-writer and instrumentalist.
The top middle fold of my Digipak was inspired by Justin Timberlake's 'Justified' album. I didn't want make it too detailed as this is where the CD will go, so the CD will be covering it half the time, So the initials of AbbieSinger I felt was appropriate for this part of the Digipak.
The top left of my Digipak is what every Digipak contains, a message from the artist, whether it be brief, or 2 pages long. I asked Abbie if there is anyone she would like to thank in spite of her musical talent and I reproduced this message to be put on the Digipak.
The front cover is labelled AbbieSinger with the sea and sky background. I chose to have this particular background because when you think of sunrise/sunset on a beach, you think of peace and serenity and quite a calm atmosphere which relates to Abbie's music and genre.
The green theme was devised from the dress she is wearing, it is detailed in quite a bold green, but it isn't a very 'loud', 'in your face' kind of colour, therefore I thought this may be ideal to use as a theme to use throughout the Digipak. Green also symbolises calmness and it is quite an organic colour, the use of turquoise reflects the colour of pure sea which is similar to the theme colour.
Imagine waking up at sunrise as the background shows, 'The awakening' was purposely made to slightly blend in with the background making the effect gradual, whereas the 'AbbieSinger' is the main part that people need to recognise as the brand which is why it is clearer to see. Abbie's label needs to be THAT brand that people have heard of/seen before. "The awakening of..." turns Abbie into an official character and gives her status and star image making her unique in comparison to other Neo-Soul artists.
The bird silhouettes on the next fold represent what is common in the morning: birds, birds singing. - When we think of birds chirping we usually associate it with morning time and sunrise, so I felt this linked into the front cover.
The picture of Abbie performing with her guitar was quite significant to this cover as it is one of her favourite instruments to use within her music. It also shows how she is a proactive artist and already has experience performing and music is her passion. In relation to this, the 3 tone colour images of Abbie playing the Piano and Guitar make the cover intricate and colourful. The piano and guitar are her main two instruments which are also typical instruments used within the genre of Neo-Soul. E.G: Alicia Keys. It also shows that Abbie is a multi-instrumentalist, making her multi-talented as a singer, song-writer and instrumentalist.
The top middle fold of my Digipak was inspired by Justin Timberlake's 'Justified' album. I didn't want make it too detailed as this is where the CD will go, so the CD will be covering it half the time, So the initials of AbbieSinger I felt was appropriate for this part of the Digipak.
The top left of my Digipak is what every Digipak contains, a message from the artist, whether it be brief, or 2 pages long. I asked Abbie if there is anyone she would like to thank in spite of her musical talent and I reproduced this message to be put on the Digipak.
Progress while creating my CD Digipak
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| 4 pictures showing some stages within my making of this digipak |
Sunday 6 March 2011
Training myself on Photoshop :)
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Experimenting with different colour changes |
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Different effects |
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'Threshold' - Another effect |
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Use of the 'Magnetic Lasso Tool' |
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Adding text to a picture with further enhancements on the text |
Photoshop is a widely used photo editing program used in big industries including the music industry.
Before moving onto making my CD cover and 6side digipak for my unsigned artist, I needed to familiarise myself with Photoshop and its features. Spending a few hours exploring Photoshop, I realised anything is possible! Manipulating a photo is so easy and so effective when trying to appeal to audiences to make it catchy to the eye. The 'Filters' and 'Adjustments' menu offered many ways to make the chosen photo look more colourful, interesting, enhanced and so much more. The Magnetic Lasso Tool was one of my favourites. It allows you to cut out particular parts of an image more accurately instead of freely where you may pick up parts of the picture you don't want.
After spending a while testing out the features of Photoshop, I wanted to start creating my CD cover and digipak!
CD Digipak Planning
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| Rough CD Digipak design (Front cover draft posted below) |
I sketched out a rough CD design in order to make it clear what should go on each of my sides for the Digipak, what information should be on each side, whether it be pictures or producer and production information etc. I showed Abbie (My artitst) this draft and she said she liked the idea of having one colour as a theme to be put on each side of the Digipak and the use of photo's too make it more eye caching. As this was only a brief outline, My idea might still change on what I actually produce on Photoshop.
Friday 4 March 2011
Music Marketing Strategies and Innovative ways of advertising
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| Nine Inch Nails - 'Punk' group |
Viral ads on the internet are a very effective method of advertising because the advertisers done have to buy space in order to show their product/music/film etc. It is a free method for the advertiser to gain the most out of to promote themself. This links to 'Word-of-mouth' where the target market would find the advert and not vice versa as it is recommended by friends and friends of friends etc. Word of mouth is effective because we are more likely to trust our friends opinion on a product or a first person opinion because we know that they would have tried the product already. Therefore if the product is successful, this will make more people want to buy it, or listen to it (if its music).
Another innovative form of advertising is by the artist arranging free gigs to perform, so that audiences can come along and listen without paying, because if someone has never heard of an artist, they would be less inclined to go to a gig if they had to pay. Buzz marketing is used to promote/advertise a product also. This is started off by a 'buzz' being created by the advertiser who may use fake actors who claim the new product is exciting and works in order to get a wide reception. Again this works by word of mouth because you are believing your social networks as they are your friends or real people infront of you who are recommending the product.
Interactivity has been proven to advertise new products well as this allows the audience to gain a more personalised experience with the new product. For example the band Arcade Fire who released a single which the audience could make based in their hometown via the internet. This made the experience more enjoyable for the audiences who would be likely to recommend it to their friend to try it which in the end, promotes the artist to a wider audience.
| 'Word Of Mouth' advertising |
This case study links to Media and collective identity because the whole campaign reinforced the fans loyalty to the band showing they are a true fan by staying dedicated all the way through to the end, and they belong to the small fan group of Nine Inch Nails.
Andrew Goodwin: Theory of Music videos
I carried out research on Andrew Goodwin who is a Music video theorist who states that we as the audience look out for 5 main things while watching and analysing videos. Follow the slides for more information.
Sunday 27 February 2011
Alicia Keys - Like You'll Never See Me Again
I decided to look at some videos by other Neo-Soul artists and gain inspiration from their videos, to help me when I shoot my video with AbbieSinger. This video is not the official video by Alicia Keys as the official video's embedding code was removed upon request.
Saturday 19 February 2011
Planning of chosen unsigned artist
My unsigned artist is Abbie Hameed, known as "AbbieSinger" who has a keen interest in making music about her life, past events and things that are important to her. She considers herself to go under the musical genre of 'Neo-Soul'. Abbie attends the same 6th Form as me and has always taken part in talent shows by performing. Her music is widely appreciated by people in my sixth form and around Newham and Redbridge. Abbie chooses to make music as a hobbie and something she wants to further pursue later in life as a career. I chose to market Abbie because she is a very versatile and co-operative artist and is easy to work with as i see her often. Another unsigned artist that my group mentioned was a male Grime artist. I thought it would be interesting to market him because he does a lot of free-styling which is quite relative to real life. However his pre-set attitude and style was typical of a mainstream Grime artist and it may have been hard to market him differently to everyone else, as he has similar values to existing Grime artists already. Taking all of this into account, our group decided to market AbbieSinger because she was easier to access and work with, and had more of an idea of where she wants to be which is important when working with unsigned artists.
Follow this link for more information on Getting started in the music industry:
http://zaramedia11.blogspot.com/2011/01/getting-started-in-music-industry-and.html
Roles in the Music industry
There are many roles within the music industry who are all involved with marketing the artist.
- Manager – Responsible for planning tours, leasing with record company, promotional activities, photo sessions. Confidence is needed and important to think about the bigger picture and think creative. Everything you think of has to be relevant in the future, not something that will only last a year or 2.
- A&R (Artists and Repertoire) - Finding bands and seeing a lot of gigs. Pair them with producers to make big records and singles and campaigns. Ideas about videos and how the artist wants to be perceived is important
- Producer – Works with an act to get their songs onto record. They will help an act choose the right tracks and capture the right sounds for a record.
- Engineer – Sound engineer – Helps build sound picture, make your ideas come to reality. Often have a good idea of how to get the best sound for you but if an artist knows what sound they want to produce they need to describe it very carefully so the engineer can produce that for them properly.
- Promoter – Pays for everything – venue, security, band, catering, posters, leaflets. Projecting/advertising the event, pays for venue, security, advertising, paying bands, catering, researching new artists. Marketing team who market everything that happens and deliver shows.
- Booking Agent - Finds, sources and books shows. Looks after and progresses with an artist, negotiates deals with acts and venues. UK artists should start in the UK, but it is important to try working yourself up into different countries to gain more publicity. Booking agents deal with the length of shows, positioning, when to perform, issue contracts, work permits are sorted for over-seas artists who want to start making music in another country e.g: UK to Japan
- Tour Manager - Makes sure the artist gets to the right venue at the right time to perform a gig, a tour manager will handle all the personnel issues during a tour. These can include everything from handling the press during the tour, checking if they band are healthy enough to perform and making sure budgets are in check.
- Plugger – Increases your chances of getting played, the producers and DJs personally know these people and take their opinions on. Keeps producers and DJ’s in the know of the plot for what a bands activities are outside the record. – what they’re touring, capabilities they have, festivals, what press they may have in order to create a buzz on an act.
- Publisher – Allows work to be created, selected and delivered at high quality for the public. -
Creatives: find talent and exploit that talent, work with other artists to pitch songs. ALSO:
Sync team: pitch to tv, media and try to get music placed there.
Administration – protects artists rights and that they get paid for performances, record sales, synchronizations. Very important inter-related functions of a publisher
- Agent – Everything is sorted for the artist - Fee, travel, and hotel. Gigs are very time consuming so you need an agent to be sorting out everything for you when you get onto a certain level. If you get an agent too early, you can risk scaring promoters off because they feel like the artist has someone there to help them already. You need people to be talking about you already and building up word of mouth in order to be successful in finding an agent. Sending out MySpace link and being pro-active and being enthusiastic will encourage an agent to want to work with you.
Looking at all these roles has helped to realise how much work is put into marketing an artist and making sure they are successful. The only way an artist to be successful and make it far is by having all these people playing these roles and on-hand for you to make you the most appealing artist to the audience as you can be.
- Manager – Responsible for planning tours, leasing with record company, promotional activities, photo sessions. Confidence is needed and important to think about the bigger picture and think creative. Everything you think of has to be relevant in the future, not something that will only last a year or 2.
- A&R (Artists and Repertoire) - Finding bands and seeing a lot of gigs. Pair them with producers to make big records and singles and campaigns. Ideas about videos and how the artist wants to be perceived is important
- Producer – Works with an act to get their songs onto record. They will help an act choose the right tracks and capture the right sounds for a record.
- Engineer – Sound engineer – Helps build sound picture, make your ideas come to reality. Often have a good idea of how to get the best sound for you but if an artist knows what sound they want to produce they need to describe it very carefully so the engineer can produce that for them properly.
- Promoter – Pays for everything – venue, security, band, catering, posters, leaflets. Projecting/advertising the event, pays for venue, security, advertising, paying bands, catering, researching new artists. Marketing team who market everything that happens and deliver shows.
- Booking Agent - Finds, sources and books shows. Looks after and progresses with an artist, negotiates deals with acts and venues. UK artists should start in the UK, but it is important to try working yourself up into different countries to gain more publicity. Booking agents deal with the length of shows, positioning, when to perform, issue contracts, work permits are sorted for over-seas artists who want to start making music in another country e.g: UK to Japan
- Tour Manager - Makes sure the artist gets to the right venue at the right time to perform a gig, a tour manager will handle all the personnel issues during a tour. These can include everything from handling the press during the tour, checking if they band are healthy enough to perform and making sure budgets are in check.
- Plugger – Increases your chances of getting played, the producers and DJs personally know these people and take their opinions on. Keeps producers and DJ’s in the know of the plot for what a bands activities are outside the record. – what they’re touring, capabilities they have, festivals, what press they may have in order to create a buzz on an act.
- Publisher – Allows work to be created, selected and delivered at high quality for the public. -
Creatives: find talent and exploit that talent, work with other artists to pitch songs. ALSO:
Sync team: pitch to tv, media and try to get music placed there.
Administration – protects artists rights and that they get paid for performances, record sales, synchronizations. Very important inter-related functions of a publisher
- Agent – Everything is sorted for the artist - Fee, travel, and hotel. Gigs are very time consuming so you need an agent to be sorting out everything for you when you get onto a certain level. If you get an agent too early, you can risk scaring promoters off because they feel like the artist has someone there to help them already. You need people to be talking about you already and building up word of mouth in order to be successful in finding an agent. Sending out MySpace link and being pro-active and being enthusiastic will encourage an agent to want to work with you.
Looking at all these roles has helped to realise how much work is put into marketing an artist and making sure they are successful. The only way an artist to be successful and make it far is by having all these people playing these roles and on-hand for you to make you the most appealing artist to the audience as you can be.
CCCS Theories about Youth culture
CCCS - Centre for Contemporary Cultural Srudies aka The Birmingham School
This Centre focused on particular areas of research into popular cultures such as urban subcultures and ethnic and sexual identity. CCCS aimed to study cultural institutions and their interaction with society and social change. Investigation into gender roles, ethnicity, criminal and other subcultures and how they all link into society was vital.
David Reisman defined 'Mainstream' as audiences who passively accept the styles and beliefs provided by commercials. By conforming to something mainstream, you will come across similar to everyone else.
A 'Sub-Culture' is a minority group formed from a wider, more general 'parent' culture. E.G: Soul -> Neo-Soul. Subcultures upset the mainstream beacause they confront it with difference which may be an opposite set of values to the traditional ones that everyone else would follow. There are two types of going against the mainstream. Through Crime and Through Style. The difference is that people who feel alienated result to crime in order to resist against the mainsream, they think they are causing trouble and making things worse for institutions but infact, they are making more money for the people they're rebelling against. When rebelling through style, people do it by upsetting the social norm but not intend to trouble it by causing crime and destroying society. Punks for example, created their own identy in order to stay diffferent from the invading Asian race and Caribbeans.
Sub-Cultures arent that different from their 'parent' culture because most subcultures react against or continue some of the values or styles of the parent culture.
Dick Hebdige was the first to look at how subcultures are assimilated into the mainstream. He stated that subcultures only emerge because they replace a culture that has been absorbed into the mainstream already because being different from everyone else is what matters.
So subcultures exists becase it is a way for young people from a lower to middle class background, who feel they have no access to the mainstream society, to react to the mainstream in whatever way they feel necessary. The white working class youth created the subculture of 'Punks' because they felt at the time they looked similar to others of a working class community which and felt this came through the rise of the unemployment. As stated above, some reject the values of the mainstream through crime, and some audiences use dress to either reinforce their class origins or exaggerate the fact that they aren't bound by a lower class root regardless of their past. This is the rebellion of the mainstream through style. Subcultures however need the mainstream to react to in order to rebel. But Counter-Cultures aim to make a revolution by completely opposing social mainstream and not adopting any of the traditional values or beliefs, these are all rejected.
This Centre focused on particular areas of research into popular cultures such as urban subcultures and ethnic and sexual identity. CCCS aimed to study cultural institutions and their interaction with society and social change. Investigation into gender roles, ethnicity, criminal and other subcultures and how they all link into society was vital.
A 'Sub-Culture' is a minority group formed from a wider, more general 'parent' culture. E.G: Soul -> Neo-Soul. Subcultures upset the mainstream beacause they confront it with difference which may be an opposite set of values to the traditional ones that everyone else would follow. There are two types of going against the mainstream. Through Crime and Through Style. The difference is that people who feel alienated result to crime in order to resist against the mainsream, they think they are causing trouble and making things worse for institutions but infact, they are making more money for the people they're rebelling against. When rebelling through style, people do it by upsetting the social norm but not intend to trouble it by causing crime and destroying society. Punks for example, created their own identy in order to stay diffferent from the invading Asian race and Caribbeans.
Sub-Cultures arent that different from their 'parent' culture because most subcultures react against or continue some of the values or styles of the parent culture.
| The Meaning Of STYLE |
| PUNK subculture |
Chosen Unsigned Artist Preparation
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| Lyrics - AbbieSinger - Abbie Sing |
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| Video Ideas and To-Do list in regard to my unsigned artist - AbbieSinger |
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| First draft of CD COVER |
I listened to some of Abbie's tracks with my group and we decided on the song that we would make a music video for. Part of the lyrics are located on the right.
I also drafted a quick CD cover with ideas for Abbie's album. After looking into Abbie as an artist, she is based around the genre of 'Neo-Soul' which is a fusion of contemporary R&B and Soul with incorporated elements of Jazz, Funk, Pop, African music etc and came around in the late 1990's. I wanted to portray quite a relaxed and peaceful environment hence the sun, sea and sand which colours I could emphasise by making them bolder and brighter and more saturated in order to make it stand out from other album covers.
The white rectangle is where I will place an image of Abbie, my unsigned artist.
The Guitar is a main instrument Abbie uses within her music so I felt this should have significance in the cover. I chose to make it cover the sunset because not all of Abbie's songs are positive and calm, some of them are quite informative and attack people's stereotypical perceptions of a particular type of person. Rene Magritte is a surrealist artist who became well known for his witty and thought-provoking imahges. He has inspired the idea of guitar floating in the air (infront of the sun) creating quite a surreal atmosphere and still making the guitar have significant value by having the audience questioning what it must mean. The draft cover gives the audience a window into Abbie's life as this is what she enjoys singing about, and aims her music at people who enjoy and appreciate the not so obvious meaning behind her songs.
Audience Feedback
I carried out audience research on what people think of my CD cover, how it can be improved, anything they don'tunerstand about it and essentially whether or not they would buy it.
I found that audiences usually go for albums that stand out, something which isn't dull otherwise they assume that the music will be dull also. Audiences enjoy covers with bright colours that go together and seeing the artists face clearly is important and more preferred than seeing the whole body of the artist.
Some of the people who took part in my audience research said that if they genuinly listen to the music and like it, then the cover is not so important, but obviously in most cases, it is the front cover of an album which is what draws someone into buying the album itself. The audience seemed to like albums such as 'Rihanna - Loud' because of the colour scheme which is quite toned down and calm apart from the red which is loud itself and stands out. Also, the font and title of an album cover is important too and shouldnt be so small as this is one of the main features of the album.
All this feedback has been very helpful because I know specifically what the audience expect and like a CD cover to look like so that it would appeal to them and there would be a bigger likelihood of them buying the CD.
The aspects stated about the colour scheme of an album and the importance of seeing the artists face clearly has influenced me on maybe changing the colour scheme of my album cover and toning it down. Also making sure the Abbie is the main subject of the cover and she is what you look at first instead of other aspects of the album cover. The name of the album "AbbieSinger" needs to be very visual and eye catching to the audience too.
After gathering feedback from Abbie herself, she said my ideas for her album cover were very creative and she liked how everything linked into eachother somehow symbolising aspects of her life. The only improvement Abbie advised was to make the title of her album to be more obvious so that the title and the image of herself is the first thing the audience look at when they see the album cover.
Subculture Research
We all did presentations on different subcultures to gain an insight into their typical visual image and their values and beliefs. From this I could adopt particular styles and beliefs from existing subcultures and adapt them to my unsigned artist for my project depending on how the styles relate to my artist.
- Ravers
- Rudeboyz
- Bling Hip-Hoppers
- Goths
- Mods
| Bling Hip-Hoppers |
| Mods |
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