Andrew Goodwin's theory of music videos

Goodwin's Theory of Music Videos on Prezi

What are the connotations, ideologies and target audience of LatitudeFestival?

Latitude festival currently targets a younger audience with the age ranging from approximately 15-25 year olds. However, their wide variety of both music and advertisement features/techniques means that the audience age range is dramatically widened, allowing families full of all generations to attend this particular festival and thoroughly enjoy it.

Below you can see a print screen of the latitude website home page. I annotated this in class to highlight how the image has been designed specifically to attract the festivals target audience.

Casting confirmations/consent

I had a specific idea in mind for each character in my music video. I searched through my contacts in order to find the perfect person for each role and I then emailed them to see if they would be interested in participating.

Lyrical meanings

I felt it useful to breakdown the lyrics of my chosen song in order to greater my understanding of the song and why it was written.

I also found that it aided me in developing my ideas of different shots. I did this by looking back on my notes on 'Goodwin's theory of music videos' because a key idea of his was that lyrics and visuals worked directly together and it was important to ensure that both of these aspects corresponded with one another.

Below is a copy of the lyrics of the song I am using and you can see that I have annotated each verse and chorus with what I believe is the reason for those specific lyrics.

Blogger app

I recently downloaded the 'Blogger' iPhone/iPod app onto my mobile phone. This has come in very handy as it has allowed me access to mine and other pupils blog should i ever need them, anytime I want.

It is also useful because there are often times when there is something I see when 'out and about' which I feel would make a good post on my blog, however it is impossible to post there and then... Until now that is!

As well as this, I have found it more time fficient as I no longer have to wrry about finding the nearest computer to transfer photos, I can now do it right at my finger tips by uploading photos directly from my phone!

It has also created a wider range of media technologies to use in order to input work onto my blog.

I find it very easy to use and would reccomend it to anybody who has access to this technology. Having my blog in my pocket has certainly aided me throughout this process.

Below are some previews, giving you an idea of what to expect with the app.

Indie aka mainstream

When determining the target audience for my track, I found it surprisingly difficult to differentiate between genres and therefore properly establish the genre that best fitted my track. After eventually labelling the band I am basing my project on as a somewhat 'indie' group, I began to research into this particular group in society and see exactly what it really meant and if it indeed still existed. I felt this would give me a greater understanding of what this audience would find entertaining, thus hopefully resulting in a more successful project.

Definitions:
Indie - One, such as a studio or producer, that is unaffiliated with a larger or more commercial organization.
Mainstream - Commercialized music that is extremely popular among people.

So it seems that indie and mainstream appear as two very opposite definitions, however in current times we see the majority of people attempting to follow the trend of 'indie' which includes listening to this genre of music. Does this then make 'indie', 'mainstream'?

I researched into a band 'Modest Mouse' who emphasise this debate. They formed in 1993 and were a stereotypical 'indie' band. They were unsigned and there music was somehwat 'folky'. This fitted the bill perfectly! However, they have since been signed by a major record label. This surely sparks controversy because a key aspect of the indie genre is something that this previously indie band no longer possess. The argument here is not this however, it is that a band's genre should not be determined on anything other than their style of music.

Even after researching thoroughly in to this subject, I have found it hard to solve this ongoing debate and I believe that until the indie genre is defined with more literal characteristics, it will be extremely difficult to strike a difference between this and 'mainstream'. Nonetheless, my research has allowed me to see more clearly, how the 'indie' genre is established and I am still confident that this is the genre in which my band best fits into. And they are still unsigned... Perfect!

For further research into this topic, check out this blog that i found very helpful:
http://indiegoingmainstream.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/definition-of-indie-you-ask-here.html

Costume

I would name the target audience of 'The 99's' as the younger generation. The genre could be labelled as indie electro/pop/rock. It is important for me to match this style to the costume for my video so that the target audience are both intrigued and can also relate to what they are consuming. After a brief research into my target audience and the characteristics of that particular social group, I came up with some ideas for costumes from websites such as www.topman.com which I feel these days, are consumed by both men and women of my chosen target audience. The store mentioned is accessed worldwide and has proven very popular in the UK during recent times. This makes the costume of my video quite mainstream and can be related not only to the general public, but also shows a similarity to bands such as 'Two Door Cinema Club', 'Foster the People' and 'Noah and the Whale' who I believe perform a comparable style to 'The 99's'.

Cameron (boy)

Coat - Fred Perry

Shirt - River Island

Jumper - Topman

Jeans - Levi's

Shoes - New Balance

I felt it necessary to ensure that the boy character, Cameron, in my video was wearing lots of layers. This will show that he is using his clothes as a metaphorical form of portection. He perhaps feels that wearing an exaggerated number of layers of clothing than is necessary, helps to keep him feeling secure. He has recently seperated from his love and so is feeling vulnerable and the various layers including a thick, wooly jumper act as security for him.

The jacket Cameron will be wearing is a Fred Perry harrington jacket. This particular item has lots of history behind it. First worn by pilots, post world war 2, this style of jacket has since become very popular, with its highest popularity being during the 70's and 80's. Shane Meadows series of films, 'This is England', highlights this with the majority of the characters wearing something like this at least once during the films which are set mostly during this time period. Nowadays, the jacket is often worn by many youth subcultures rather than one particular group due to the fragmentation of subcultures in modern society. Seeing as I feel my video should reach out to a wide, younger generation, audience, I felt the use of this jacket in costume would help to attract my target audience due to the realtability factor.

The levi's jeans Cameron will be wearing are another key aspect of costume. Although made popular in the US rather than the UK, the jeans have been hugely popular in Britain, again mainly in the 70's and 80's eras by culture groups very similar to those in Shane Meadows franchise of films. Modern day society also see's the success of Levi's jeans across a wide variety of youth subcultures, again, meaning a wide audience is attracted which is exactly what I am aiming for with my video because the exact genre and audience is hard to determine with the style of music I have chosen.

The shoes I will be wearing are of the brand, New Balance. These shoes were originally intended for the sport of running and they designed the world's first running shoe with the model 'trackster' in 1960. Up until very recently, new balance have been made solely for running - however in 2011, mainstream stores such as Jack Wills and schuh have sold these shoes for fashion purposes and because of the severe popularity of these certain stores, new balance have become a shoe worn for fashion as well as sport, although the latter purpose remains dominant. I chose to have Cameron wear these shoes for two reasons. The first being a fairly obvious explanation in that the shoe is popular amongst the youth of today and so this aspect of costume will appeal to my target audience because they are able to relate. The second, more symbolic purpose is that the shoes are traditionally running shoes; in my video I have interpreted Cameron to be running from his troubles of the seperation from Ellie and so this is both symbolic and ironic. It is also worth noting that the specific shoes I will be wearing are from the 'retro' range of new balance shoes. I took this into consideration when purchasing the shoes for the video as I feel they will fit well with the other aspects of costume, e.g. Fred Perry harrington.

Another thing I considered with the costume choice for Cameron was the colour. His shirt and jumper are relatively colourful compared to the costumes of Ellie because I felt this portrayed him in a positive light. Brighter colours can be seen to symbolise happiness whereas darker and duller colours perhaps represent sadness. This fits well with the lyrical storyline because, although at first unhappy, Cameron eventually 'get's over' the break up from Ellie and the table's turn with her being the unhappier of the two. So perhaps the colouring of his outfit is foreshadowing the storyline.

Ellie (Main girl)

Coat - Topshop

T-shirt - Vans

Shorts - Zara

Tights - Topshop

Shoes - Vans

Lauren (Girl)

Cardigan -

T-shirt - Urban Outfitters

Jeans - Topshop

Shoes - Converse

I didn't see it as necessary to think too deeply into the less significant characters and what they would be wearing as it is the main boy and girl who tell the story. Therefore I directed my focus towards Cameron and Ellie more. However, I still took into consideration the costumes for the secondary characters as I believe that this particular aspect of mis-en-scene can say a lot about the music video as a whole; as does Andrew Goodwin in his theory of music videos. He said that both 'genre and characteristics' and 'label influence' have a major say in to what a music video consists of. Here I am displaying both: Genre and characteristics would be the costume of the characters; Production influence would be my choices, as the director, producer and editor of the video because there is no label present.

I decided to keep the colours of the costume for the less important characters neutral (blacks, greys, navys etc) because I wanted the girls to blend in with one another so that the bright colours of Cameron's clothing stand out and thus highlight his eventual happiness in the video. I almost chose to do things in reverse with the two girl-friends wearing bright colours along with Cameron which would ultimately emphasise the eventual sadness of Ellie. My decision was swayed because when reviewing the song I felt that it gave off more of a 'feel good' vibe than anything else and therefore I felt it was important to correspond with this in the mood of the song - in this case using costume.