Watch this, its informative! With little experience it is easy to do all these things. Try your best to take control of the image and make your vision what you see at the end of the edit.
And now, here's a bunch of techniques and how to do them, ones that will give you a little inspiration and food for thought.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Monday, 3 October 2011
Brilliant Short Films
Here's some superbly constructed short films.
Stay with this one. It's slow to begin with. It gets good and then something is missing towards the end. Well, it was for me. More art than story.
Wonderful stylistic deeply rooted images. Don't search for a story, its buried too deep under the gorgeous visuals.
Lovely use of stop motion with just objects a little bit of people. The colour is beautiful, every shot is treated with care and attention. Good song too.
So, how is this done, this minaturisation?
Lovely.
Stay with this one. It's slow to begin with. It gets good and then something is missing towards the end. Well, it was for me. More art than story.
Wonderful stylistic deeply rooted images. Don't search for a story, its buried too deep under the gorgeous visuals.
Lovely use of stop motion with just objects a little bit of people. The colour is beautiful, every shot is treated with care and attention. Good song too.
So, how is this done, this minaturisation?
Lovely.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Genres of Music Video
So, the music video has grown into a giant form in its own right. When planning to make a music video, like a short film, its good to know the codes and conventions of the different GENRES of music video.
Be careful of the word GENRE, in film studies, strictly speaking, it means something different. But we could easily use the word TYPES and that'd be cool too.
This video, if you can bare with the highly enthusiastic delivery of some of the guys is a decent way to introduce the different TYPES of music videos. I think they miss out on a few and I don't agree that 'special effects' is a type of music video. Nor is 'animation'. Animation could tell a story, which makes is a NARRATIVE. Or it could simply be lovely visuals with a theme: IMPRESSIONISTIC.
That all said, it is worth checking it out.
To get into the different types you'll need to understand a little about the codes and conventions and maybe history of the word used. (For example, what is Surrealism?) Before looking at actual videos and deciding if they fit that type or not. Or maybe are a mix of types.
Easiest place to start though is PARODY.
PARODY
A light hearted way of imitating another artist, a film, a style or a genre.
Weird Al Yankovic has made a career out of parody. He not only makes a music video which is a parody but the song itself is a parody of the artist.
Another good Parody is the Eminem video for 'We Made You' were he sends up a lot of other famous artists. In some ways he is also pardoying music videos themselves, all music videos, making a mockery of the very form, which is something you'd expect from such a subversive artist.
NARRATIVE
When your choosing which style you want to make your video in, you'll certainly consider narrative: the telling of a story in a music video. Often, I found, students jump to this style because they are keen to make short films and this is a good chance to exercise that desire. Problem with that though. Narrative stories in music videos tend to be different from shorts. They are less subtle, because the producers don't want you to forget the music and the band may not like if you make a short film that really takes away from their song and the meaning of their song.
Certainly they were more popular in the 90s than they are today. Here's a few.
Here's a student attempt at doing at narrative music video with the song 30 seconds to Mars. I'm not making any comment on whether or not I think it's any good. You should decide for yourself if they've managed to tell a story, and if they haven't, what did they do wrong?
For a bit of freak, check out the brilliantly wrong video for Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy. It classes as narrative, although within that it is edging towards horror/extremism.
Here's another for those old romantics amongst you.
IMPRESSIONISTIC
From my own point of view, this is my favourite type of music video. One that you can watch again and again without finding any definate meaning: simply a beautiful mixture of image and sound that compliment one another and suggest at hidden meanings but never tramp all over your emotions to create them. In essence impressionistic music videos are like memories that we know we've experienced but just can't exactly remember how or when. They have a universiality to them and a sense of the otherness of being human.
Drawbacks, and why they aren't as popular as other forms, is that they don't reward quickly and not everyone is into the experience I've charted above. Probably for the same reason great, artistic films usually don't find massive audiences because for some, their subtle approach is exactly what makes them unappealing. Some audiences like being told what is happening and like knowing that everything fits nicely together. Which I can understand. Others, however, don't mind tripping on more unstable ground as it is this ground that offers them some kind of solidity and possibly a sense of truth.
Check out the fabulous Sigur Ros (Untitled. Now fixed.
Slight tangent, and you'll find this a hard watch at first, but stick with it, this is not strictly speaking a music video, but it is a good example of an impressionistic piece of moving image which COULD easily be a music video. It's a very famous silent movie from the late 1920s called Berlin: Symphony of a City. It's worth studying simply because of the quality of the editing; the pictures sing.
And while we're at it, here's a film made by Man Ray, a famous French artist and part of the SURREALIST movement in the same period. You can see aspects of what would become later techniques used a lot in music videos (spinning visuals, without any reference). It's not strictly impressionistic, it is more surrealist.
SURREALISM IN MUSIC VIDEOS
This will melt your head a little. And surrealism is much wrongly understood. Here's a comedian explaining exactly what surrealism is, and isn't.
FEW RESOURCES
Good definition of impressionism and its roots: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-impressionism.htm
Useful resource which covers some of the basic theorectical underpinnings to narrative in music videos and narrative in general. Worth a look: http://www.slideshare.net/ksomel/music-video-narrative
Be careful of the word GENRE, in film studies, strictly speaking, it means something different. But we could easily use the word TYPES and that'd be cool too.
This video, if you can bare with the highly enthusiastic delivery of some of the guys is a decent way to introduce the different TYPES of music videos. I think they miss out on a few and I don't agree that 'special effects' is a type of music video. Nor is 'animation'. Animation could tell a story, which makes is a NARRATIVE. Or it could simply be lovely visuals with a theme: IMPRESSIONISTIC.
That all said, it is worth checking it out.
To get into the different types you'll need to understand a little about the codes and conventions and maybe history of the word used. (For example, what is Surrealism?) Before looking at actual videos and deciding if they fit that type or not. Or maybe are a mix of types.
Easiest place to start though is PARODY.
PARODY
A light hearted way of imitating another artist, a film, a style or a genre.
Weird Al Yankovic has made a career out of parody. He not only makes a music video which is a parody but the song itself is a parody of the artist.
Another good Parody is the Eminem video for 'We Made You' were he sends up a lot of other famous artists. In some ways he is also pardoying music videos themselves, all music videos, making a mockery of the very form, which is something you'd expect from such a subversive artist.
NARRATIVE
When your choosing which style you want to make your video in, you'll certainly consider narrative: the telling of a story in a music video. Often, I found, students jump to this style because they are keen to make short films and this is a good chance to exercise that desire. Problem with that though. Narrative stories in music videos tend to be different from shorts. They are less subtle, because the producers don't want you to forget the music and the band may not like if you make a short film that really takes away from their song and the meaning of their song.
Certainly they were more popular in the 90s than they are today. Here's a few.
Here's a student attempt at doing at narrative music video with the song 30 seconds to Mars. I'm not making any comment on whether or not I think it's any good. You should decide for yourself if they've managed to tell a story, and if they haven't, what did they do wrong?
For a bit of freak, check out the brilliantly wrong video for Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy. It classes as narrative, although within that it is edging towards horror/extremism.
Here's another for those old romantics amongst you.
IMPRESSIONISTIC
From my own point of view, this is my favourite type of music video. One that you can watch again and again without finding any definate meaning: simply a beautiful mixture of image and sound that compliment one another and suggest at hidden meanings but never tramp all over your emotions to create them. In essence impressionistic music videos are like memories that we know we've experienced but just can't exactly remember how or when. They have a universiality to them and a sense of the otherness of being human.
Drawbacks, and why they aren't as popular as other forms, is that they don't reward quickly and not everyone is into the experience I've charted above. Probably for the same reason great, artistic films usually don't find massive audiences because for some, their subtle approach is exactly what makes them unappealing. Some audiences like being told what is happening and like knowing that everything fits nicely together. Which I can understand. Others, however, don't mind tripping on more unstable ground as it is this ground that offers them some kind of solidity and possibly a sense of truth.
Check out the fabulous Sigur Ros (Untitled. Now fixed.
Slight tangent, and you'll find this a hard watch at first, but stick with it, this is not strictly speaking a music video, but it is a good example of an impressionistic piece of moving image which COULD easily be a music video. It's a very famous silent movie from the late 1920s called Berlin: Symphony of a City. It's worth studying simply because of the quality of the editing; the pictures sing.
And while we're at it, here's a film made by Man Ray, a famous French artist and part of the SURREALIST movement in the same period. You can see aspects of what would become later techniques used a lot in music videos (spinning visuals, without any reference). It's not strictly impressionistic, it is more surrealist.
SURREALISM IN MUSIC VIDEOS
This will melt your head a little. And surrealism is much wrongly understood. Here's a comedian explaining exactly what surrealism is, and isn't.
FEW RESOURCES
Good definition of impressionism and its roots: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-impressionism.htm
Useful resource which covers some of the basic theorectical underpinnings to narrative in music videos and narrative in general. Worth a look: http://www.slideshare.net/ksomel/music-video-narrative
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Different approaches to marketing artists
We've covered some of this ground before in the structure of the music industry. How to get your records out there to the public.
Basically you have the traditional route of working through RECORD COMPANIES/LABELS, who'll do most of the work for you if you're lucky enough. The other routes are SELF-PUBLISHING or working with an INDEPENDENT LABEL. Remember the diagram of the breakdown in money you get from sales from the different approaches? Remember the breakdown of who owns what in the music industry?
It's worth remembering if you do self-publish, the revenue streams are much smaller.
Basically you have the traditional route of working through RECORD COMPANIES/LABELS, who'll do most of the work for you if you're lucky enough. The other routes are SELF-PUBLISHING or working with an INDEPENDENT LABEL. Remember the diagram of the breakdown in money you get from sales from the different approaches? Remember the breakdown of who owns what in the music industry?
It's worth remembering if you do self-publish, the revenue streams are much smaller.
SELF-PUBLISHING
There's lots of stuff up there about this. Go hunt!
THE VALUE OF FREE
We can't ignore that most new bands find it hard to find a fanbase and maybe turn a passion into a give up the dayjob full time career.
Four seasoned producers here talk about their experiences of the changing music industry, how the structure of the industry itself has changed and how, importantly, the value of free, getting something for apparently nothing, is the new economy music has to work in.
http://mixonline.com/studios/business/getting-music-noticed/
THE VALUE OF FREE
We can't ignore that most new bands find it hard to find a fanbase and maybe turn a passion into a give up the dayjob full time career.
Four seasoned producers here talk about their experiences of the changing music industry, how the structure of the industry itself has changed and how, importantly, the value of free, getting something for apparently nothing, is the new economy music has to work in.
http://mixonline.com/studios/business/getting-music-noticed/
Different approaches to Branding a Musician
Traditional way of marketing a band is to promote the band to the public using music videos and maybe publicity in the form of interviews in the hope that this will, in turn, generate sales.
If the band is big enough they probably don't even need to do that much publicity, they almost self-generate it would appear. This isn't the case. There is nearly always a publicist or clever manager somewhere thinking up new ways to reach his/her band's audience.
JAY-Z AND HIS BOOK
It seems now, because we have the internet, that marketing and selling music is getting harder and harder. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe those selling music just have to come up with better ideas? Its hard to say.
I found this article about Jay-Z's new book, Decoded. It's essentially his autobiography, but the whole thing has been marketed on the web as a Donnie Darko style web mystery that you have to put together.
The plus for us: a bit of late night digging around in Jay-Z's history.
The plus for Jay-Z: helps the sales of his records by propping up his public image and keeping him in the public's mind. Beyonce with a bump doesn't hurt either, but that is a tad cynical.
http://www.jay-z.com/index.php
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE IMAGE
This chap does very well with contemporary country acts. It might not be your cup of tea, but what he has to say about what he wants from a music video is very interesting.
He isn't as much interested in telling the story of the song. He is interesting (as are his artists, because according to him, they come up with the ideas themselves) in selling the artist themselves.
Its also very interesting for another reason. Music videos are moving image, right? So, really, anything that is a moving image that deals with the band or artist, is potentially another method of selling the work of the band?
For example. The Osbournes. It's a reality show, but didn't it do wonders for the publicity and profile of all the Osbournes and their various careers?
This chap, Marc, says something similar. Nowadays, and he's very straight up about, bands need to be looking out for other moving image opportunities. Not just music videos.
http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/producing+music+videos
BEING IN A FILM
There is a natural cross over between music and film. They are after all both artistic disciplines and work well together. However, one can't deny how working in film, for a musician, doesn't hurt their public profile and ultimately their album sales. Beyonce was in Goldmember, and wrote a song about it:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2q6fv_beyonce-hey-goldmember_music
That's old school. The Beatles were doing it way back in the sixties with a HARD DAY'S NIGHT. A full length feature film made at the height of their fame. It happened to be very good, very funny and was recieved both critically and commercially.
Here's a clip from it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCVmUD3WfNM
There's tonnes of other examples.
Here's a good one (its from Wiki!): The genre-defining surf films of Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon and others are also notable for their innovative combinations of image and music featuring sequences of specially-filmed surfing footage, carefully edited against long music tracks, with no accompanying dialogue. Greenough's landmark 1972 film Crystal Voyager concluded with an extended sequence (filmed and edited by Greenough) that was constructed around the 23-minute Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The band was impressed with Greenough's effort and agreed to allow Greenough to use their music in his film in exchange for the right to use his fiThe genre-defining surf films of Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon and others are also notable for their innovative combinations of image and music featuring sequences of specially-filmed surfing footage, carefully edited against long music tracks, with no accompanying dialogue. Greenough's landmark 1972 film Crystal Voyager concluded with an extended sequence (filmed and edited by Greenough) that was constructed around the 23-minute Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The band was impressed with Greenough's effort and agreed to allow Greenough to use their music in his film in exchange for the right to use his film footage when performing "Echoes" at their concerts.lm footage when performing "Echoes" at their concerts.
SUSAN BOYLE
Na. You're joking. This is nuts.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/11/lou_reed_apologizes_to_susan_b.html
People seem to take music videos very seriously. Or maybe there is a lack of real news in the media thesedays.
What's interesting about the Susan Boyle music video, the one Lou Reed directed, is the sheer amount of publicity it generated on other websites. There were stories about the locations. Stories about the scenary. Stories about how it was made, what camera was used, even the blinking stunt woman managed to get a story into the Scottish daily the Daily Record.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/11/09/i-was-perfect-choice-to-be-susan-boyle-s-music-video-stand-in-says-stunt-double-86908-22703252/
This is, of course, all good news for the Producer, the artist and anybody involved in selling the music. Because it creates a buzz, which is slightly different from branding in that it just puts the artist in people's minds. Not necessarily with a branding attached other that - wow, this person is worthy of our attention.
I wonder, if you tried to moneterise the publicity (work out how much it would cost to get a PR company to get you all that publicity) would it amount to more than what the music video cost to make in the first place?
In other words, does the music video pay for itself by other means and is this another financial strategy for hard pressed music producers?
If the band is big enough they probably don't even need to do that much publicity, they almost self-generate it would appear. This isn't the case. There is nearly always a publicist or clever manager somewhere thinking up new ways to reach his/her band's audience.
JAY-Z AND HIS BOOK
It seems now, because we have the internet, that marketing and selling music is getting harder and harder. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe those selling music just have to come up with better ideas? Its hard to say.
I found this article about Jay-Z's new book, Decoded. It's essentially his autobiography, but the whole thing has been marketed on the web as a Donnie Darko style web mystery that you have to put together.
The plus for us: a bit of late night digging around in Jay-Z's history.
The plus for Jay-Z: helps the sales of his records by propping up his public image and keeping him in the public's mind. Beyonce with a bump doesn't hurt either, but that is a tad cynical.
http://www.jay-z.com/index.php
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE IMAGE
This chap does very well with contemporary country acts. It might not be your cup of tea, but what he has to say about what he wants from a music video is very interesting.
He isn't as much interested in telling the story of the song. He is interesting (as are his artists, because according to him, they come up with the ideas themselves) in selling the artist themselves.
Its also very interesting for another reason. Music videos are moving image, right? So, really, anything that is a moving image that deals with the band or artist, is potentially another method of selling the work of the band?
For example. The Osbournes. It's a reality show, but didn't it do wonders for the publicity and profile of all the Osbournes and their various careers?
This chap, Marc, says something similar. Nowadays, and he's very straight up about, bands need to be looking out for other moving image opportunities. Not just music videos.
http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/producing+music+videos
BEING IN A FILM
There is a natural cross over between music and film. They are after all both artistic disciplines and work well together. However, one can't deny how working in film, for a musician, doesn't hurt their public profile and ultimately their album sales. Beyonce was in Goldmember, and wrote a song about it:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2q6fv_beyonce-hey-goldmember_music
That's old school. The Beatles were doing it way back in the sixties with a HARD DAY'S NIGHT. A full length feature film made at the height of their fame. It happened to be very good, very funny and was recieved both critically and commercially.
Here's a clip from it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCVmUD3WfNM
There's tonnes of other examples.
Here's a good one (its from Wiki!): The genre-defining surf films of Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon and others are also notable for their innovative combinations of image and music featuring sequences of specially-filmed surfing footage, carefully edited against long music tracks, with no accompanying dialogue. Greenough's landmark 1972 film Crystal Voyager concluded with an extended sequence (filmed and edited by Greenough) that was constructed around the 23-minute Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The band was impressed with Greenough's effort and agreed to allow Greenough to use their music in his film in exchange for the right to use his fiThe genre-defining surf films of Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon and others are also notable for their innovative combinations of image and music featuring sequences of specially-filmed surfing footage, carefully edited against long music tracks, with no accompanying dialogue. Greenough's landmark 1972 film Crystal Voyager concluded with an extended sequence (filmed and edited by Greenough) that was constructed around the 23-minute Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The band was impressed with Greenough's effort and agreed to allow Greenough to use their music in his film in exchange for the right to use his film footage when performing "Echoes" at their concerts.lm footage when performing "Echoes" at their concerts.
SUSAN BOYLE
Na. You're joking. This is nuts.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/11/lou_reed_apologizes_to_susan_b.html
People seem to take music videos very seriously. Or maybe there is a lack of real news in the media thesedays.
What's interesting about the Susan Boyle music video, the one Lou Reed directed, is the sheer amount of publicity it generated on other websites. There were stories about the locations. Stories about the scenary. Stories about how it was made, what camera was used, even the blinking stunt woman managed to get a story into the Scottish daily the Daily Record.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/11/09/i-was-perfect-choice-to-be-susan-boyle-s-music-video-stand-in-says-stunt-double-86908-22703252/
This is, of course, all good news for the Producer, the artist and anybody involved in selling the music. Because it creates a buzz, which is slightly different from branding in that it just puts the artist in people's minds. Not necessarily with a branding attached other that - wow, this person is worthy of our attention.
I wonder, if you tried to moneterise the publicity (work out how much it would cost to get a PR company to get you all that publicity) would it amount to more than what the music video cost to make in the first place?
In other words, does the music video pay for itself by other means and is this another financial strategy for hard pressed music producers?
Different Approaches to Distributing a Musician
Here's a great article I found in Wired about more creative almost homespun ways bands are distributing their music. (mostly in an effort to help sales, be different and avoid the internet in some way)
These types of distribution can't really be divorced from the band's marketing, since the very act of releasing an album on tape (gasp) is a way of saying something about the band in the first place.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/the-10-weirdest-ways-to-distribute-music/
These types of distribution can't really be divorced from the band's marketing, since the very act of releasing an album on tape (gasp) is a way of saying something about the band in the first place.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/the-10-weirdest-ways-to-distribute-music/
How the Music Video Might Help Things Along
It's hard to pin a bottom line monetary figure on what a music video does for a band. If there are statistics I haven't found them yet, and the music industry is notorious for not chucking out balance sheets on what is sold. So, that aside, what we can do is look at the EFFECT certain music videos had for artists, especially at PIVOTAL moments in their careers.
We can also look at how the music video CONTENT also helped to sell the band to the public. Whether that be because it contained a lot of the artists themselves (a nice introduction and a form of person branding in itself) or by the creativity and flair in the video, which is then reflected back on the artist and once again, helps to build her BRAND. (good example of this would be Lady Gaga's videos, which are very much, well, Lady Gaga-ish)
We can also try and find what Music Producers and Management have said about the importance of the music video and that to, is an equally valid way to work out their importance.
BRANDING
But first, a little on what Branding is. I don't like the word, and most artists deplore it, because it is a word used a lot in advertising and advertising, for a lot of artists, is akin to fishing around in toilets bowels and selling what you find.
However, this is the modern world, sigh, so we can't avoid it.
Put in short terms, branding is the strategic development of a relationship between a product and its public.
YOU are the PUBLIC. The PRODUCT is the music.
The REASON? If you have an idea of the BRAND in your mind, and that idea is favourable or just known, then chances are you'll buy something related to that brand.
So, here is it explained, in lovely graphics. Just don't get sucked in...
So, with what you've learnt there, you can see how important BRANDING is to music. U2 is a brand, in some ways. So is COLDPLAY. So are the SEX PISTOLS. And the type of brand and the message they want to put across is reflected in everything they do - especially their MUSIC VIDEOS, which are, like it or not, a visual way of building the brand.
Look at this video. It's a little bit hard on the eyes, but this company want to BRAND twenty people (experts on something) and they set out to do so by attacking the media with their publicity and going on tour. Sound familar?
I might sound cynical. It's good to keep a critical distance from this stuff. You can get carried away. However, branding is not a bad thing. It's just a way for people, on a mass scale, to get to know you. Churches, Governments, Dictators, Bands, everyone is at it because they are in the business of working with masses of people and the best way to do that is visually.
MUSIC VIDEOS THAT HELPED MOVE THE GAME ON
So, branding tour completed, back to the meatiness of the unit: music vids.
THRILLER
Since the unit wants you to look at a music video and what it did for the different people invovled, you could worse than start at one of the most popular music videos of all time. Thriller.
Thriller changed lots of things, not only for Michael Jackson's popularity and position.
Up until Thriller, no one had ever spent that much money on a music video. And as you'll see the money didn't come from the usual sources, i.e. the record label.
It also made a tonne of money for everyone as well. Even those people who were against it at the start!
What it did for Jackson's Brand is establish him (or re-establish him) as a superb dancer, a great live act, a creative force and a little bit dangerous, maybe even sexy? That was then. It's no doubt they chose this kind of music video because Jackson, A. Could dance like a demon, B. He made just as much money from his live shows and this was a good showcase for them and finally C. His ambition was to be the biggest act in the world, the biggest music brand in the world - to do that you need to make the biggest music video in the world, and they did.
Here's one link. I thought this was a well written background to the story, gives a lot of interesting facts and is based on the Director's book.
http://awesomewithasideofsweet.blogspot.com/2009/08/story-behind-thriller.html
RADIO HEAD
Radiohead took a massive departure musically for their next album, Kid A, in October 2000.
What's interesting I think for us, is how they branded themselves and marketed the album. They didn't make any music videos for a start. Radiohead, in particular, Thom Yorke, had grown depressed at the potential of Radiohead becoming conventional and ultimately boring. Instead of letting their label dictate terms they stripped everything back and did a series of live gigs to build up word of mouth.
Of course, recordings from the gigs went up on the Internet and this allowed fans to get a hold of the music before it came into the record stores.
Then, instead of traditional music videos they released BLIPS. Which, if you remember your music video history, are not a new idea, but something that was being done fifty years before, except they were called PROMOTIONAL CLIPS. However, the BLIPS themselves are very much in keeping with the Radiohead brand. They are ABSTRACT, non narrative, IMPRESSIONISTIC pieces of film. Perfect for Radiohead fans, allowing them to make up their own minds.
The Wiki article on it is quite good and worth a look.
The record was a massive success, it went platinum in a week.
The band were able to change their style and the marketing of the record reinforced that. This contributed to the continuing belief of radiohead as an iconic band; a band whose records were worth buying by a loyal and devoted fan base.
Interestingly. The band would go on to control their own fortunes by essentially taking control of their sales and marketing and not being beholden to a label.
For the original Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_A
OK GO
It's hard to talk about contemporary music videos and not talk about the band OK GO. These innovative music videos have got everyone talking about the band; upbeat, fun, a little edgy, they communicate all these branding emotions and reflect them back onto the brand and ultimately help push sales and gig tickets along.
This is their new one.
FATBOY SLIM
Fatboy Slim's Praise You video won lots of awards. And lots of awards means lots of BRANDING and potentially lot of sales too.
Would the song have done as well without the video? Is a song's worth now intrinsically linked to its video? Hard to know. Maybe a little. But the video idea, originally intended as a prank gift by creative wunderkind Spike Jonze, was so original it got people talking and eventually listening to the song.
See if you can find out more about how the music video affected the sales of the song. This was 1998.
The Wiki article on PRAISE YOU is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise_You
A much more informative article on Spike Jonze, the director of films such as Being John Malcovich and Adaptation is here:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/features/1267/
The video itself is here.
OVERALL
There are tonnes more examples but what you'll notice overall is how the music video reflects the BRAND IDENTITY of the band/artist themselves and this helps to keep in people's minds exactly what that band is and what they mean to you, the buying public.
Do some digging on this yourself, see what you can find. Talk to local bands and see what they think about it.
We can also look at how the music video CONTENT also helped to sell the band to the public. Whether that be because it contained a lot of the artists themselves (a nice introduction and a form of person branding in itself) or by the creativity and flair in the video, which is then reflected back on the artist and once again, helps to build her BRAND. (good example of this would be Lady Gaga's videos, which are very much, well, Lady Gaga-ish)
We can also try and find what Music Producers and Management have said about the importance of the music video and that to, is an equally valid way to work out their importance.
BRANDING
But first, a little on what Branding is. I don't like the word, and most artists deplore it, because it is a word used a lot in advertising and advertising, for a lot of artists, is akin to fishing around in toilets bowels and selling what you find.
However, this is the modern world, sigh, so we can't avoid it.
Put in short terms, branding is the strategic development of a relationship between a product and its public.
YOU are the PUBLIC. The PRODUCT is the music.
The REASON? If you have an idea of the BRAND in your mind, and that idea is favourable or just known, then chances are you'll buy something related to that brand.
So, here is it explained, in lovely graphics. Just don't get sucked in...
So, with what you've learnt there, you can see how important BRANDING is to music. U2 is a brand, in some ways. So is COLDPLAY. So are the SEX PISTOLS. And the type of brand and the message they want to put across is reflected in everything they do - especially their MUSIC VIDEOS, which are, like it or not, a visual way of building the brand.
Look at this video. It's a little bit hard on the eyes, but this company want to BRAND twenty people (experts on something) and they set out to do so by attacking the media with their publicity and going on tour. Sound familar?
I might sound cynical. It's good to keep a critical distance from this stuff. You can get carried away. However, branding is not a bad thing. It's just a way for people, on a mass scale, to get to know you. Churches, Governments, Dictators, Bands, everyone is at it because they are in the business of working with masses of people and the best way to do that is visually.
MUSIC VIDEOS THAT HELPED MOVE THE GAME ON
So, branding tour completed, back to the meatiness of the unit: music vids.
THRILLER
Since the unit wants you to look at a music video and what it did for the different people invovled, you could worse than start at one of the most popular music videos of all time. Thriller.
Thriller changed lots of things, not only for Michael Jackson's popularity and position.
Up until Thriller, no one had ever spent that much money on a music video. And as you'll see the money didn't come from the usual sources, i.e. the record label.
It also made a tonne of money for everyone as well. Even those people who were against it at the start!
What it did for Jackson's Brand is establish him (or re-establish him) as a superb dancer, a great live act, a creative force and a little bit dangerous, maybe even sexy? That was then. It's no doubt they chose this kind of music video because Jackson, A. Could dance like a demon, B. He made just as much money from his live shows and this was a good showcase for them and finally C. His ambition was to be the biggest act in the world, the biggest music brand in the world - to do that you need to make the biggest music video in the world, and they did.
Here's one link. I thought this was a well written background to the story, gives a lot of interesting facts and is based on the Director's book.
http://awesomewithasideofsweet.blogspot.com/2009/08/story-behind-thriller.html
RADIO HEAD
Radiohead took a massive departure musically for their next album, Kid A, in October 2000.
What's interesting I think for us, is how they branded themselves and marketed the album. They didn't make any music videos for a start. Radiohead, in particular, Thom Yorke, had grown depressed at the potential of Radiohead becoming conventional and ultimately boring. Instead of letting their label dictate terms they stripped everything back and did a series of live gigs to build up word of mouth.
Of course, recordings from the gigs went up on the Internet and this allowed fans to get a hold of the music before it came into the record stores.
Then, instead of traditional music videos they released BLIPS. Which, if you remember your music video history, are not a new idea, but something that was being done fifty years before, except they were called PROMOTIONAL CLIPS. However, the BLIPS themselves are very much in keeping with the Radiohead brand. They are ABSTRACT, non narrative, IMPRESSIONISTIC pieces of film. Perfect for Radiohead fans, allowing them to make up their own minds.
The Wiki article on it is quite good and worth a look.
The record was a massive success, it went platinum in a week.
The band were able to change their style and the marketing of the record reinforced that. This contributed to the continuing belief of radiohead as an iconic band; a band whose records were worth buying by a loyal and devoted fan base.
Interestingly. The band would go on to control their own fortunes by essentially taking control of their sales and marketing and not being beholden to a label.
For the original Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_A
OK GO
It's hard to talk about contemporary music videos and not talk about the band OK GO. These innovative music videos have got everyone talking about the band; upbeat, fun, a little edgy, they communicate all these branding emotions and reflect them back onto the brand and ultimately help push sales and gig tickets along.
This is their new one.
FATBOY SLIM
Fatboy Slim's Praise You video won lots of awards. And lots of awards means lots of BRANDING and potentially lot of sales too.
Would the song have done as well without the video? Is a song's worth now intrinsically linked to its video? Hard to know. Maybe a little. But the video idea, originally intended as a prank gift by creative wunderkind Spike Jonze, was so original it got people talking and eventually listening to the song.
See if you can find out more about how the music video affected the sales of the song. This was 1998.
The Wiki article on PRAISE YOU is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise_You
A much more informative article on Spike Jonze, the director of films such as Being John Malcovich and Adaptation is here:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/features/1267/
The video itself is here.
OVERALL
There are tonnes more examples but what you'll notice overall is how the music video reflects the BRAND IDENTITY of the band/artist themselves and this helps to keep in people's minds exactly what that band is and what they mean to you, the buying public.
Do some digging on this yourself, see what you can find. Talk to local bands and see what they think about it.
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