Digipak Research

As an established artist for a long time, Johnny Cash's albums have a very similar cover design. Often they feature a picture of him in black and white with the word 'CASH' in large capital letters. It is the word 'CASH' which draws the attention of anyone seeing the album, and is something of a trademark of his albums. Therefore in our digipak cover we will try to incorporate this into our design.

Johnny Cash is also known as 'The Man In Black'. As we obviously cannot use Johnny Cash himself in any photos we take for the digipak, we will use his reputation as the Man In Black instead. This will allow us to shoot a photo in black and white like in his existing album designs, and give a representation of Johnny Cash without having to have a picture of him. For the pictures to go on the inside covers of the digipak we will likely use pictures of religious imagery used in the video, such as bibles and crucifixes.

Decision On Song

Having shortlisted 'Rat Race' by Skindred and 'The Man Comes Around' by Johnny Cash as our choice of songs, we have decided to settle on 'The Man Comes Around'. We feel this is the best choice because of the religious imagery allowing for more and better ideas for the music video to follow. Also there is not already a music video for this song, so we don't have anything to avoid to stop our video being too similar to an existing one.

Choice of Songs

The shortlisted songs we are choosing between for making a music video for are 'Rat Race' by Skindred, and 'The Man Comes Around' by Johnny Cash. The reason for having 'Rat Race' as an option is because of the convergence of different musical genres, being Metal and Reggae, allowing for different styles and conventions to be played with in the production. This choice would allow us a fairly wide selection of possible video themes to follow, be it connecting the images to the lyrics or to use props and costumes that conform to the style of the band. 'The Man Comes Around' is an option because it is quite a different style to most songs which get music videos, so it would allow us to be more creative with the ideas for the video. Also many of the lyrics of the song are bible quotes from the Book of Revelation which would allow for us to include a lot of religious symbolism in the video, which can help with giving us ideas for shots and events.

Analysis of a Music Video: Skindred - Pressure

Another video I'm going to analyse for forms and conventions is Pressure by Skindred, for which the video was directed by Marci Friesland.



Skindred are a 'reggae-metal' band, and so there are certain representations of themselves that they want to present through their videos, such as being laid back, fun-loving and bohemian. The video creates this feel through using an effect that makes the band look like cut out pictures in a collage. The video is a hybrid of the performance and concept forms of music videos, in that the majority of the video is the artists performing, but it is presented in a surreal way.

The video follows genre characteristics of rock/metal videos by being a performance video and showing much of the performance on a large stage playing to a crowd. The video does relate to the music, in that there are cuts, zooms and camera movements in sync with the beat of the song, however there doesn't appear to be a connection between the video and the lyrics. The record label will have been satisfied with the video as virtually the whole video contains shots of the band. Also the bands motif of Jamaican descendance and influence but British patriotism is shown through the large Jamaican flag and the Union Jack morphing together behind the stage. This gives the band a motif which can be carried through into their other videos. The Male Gaze is also present in the video, as there are female dancers throughout the video.

Analysis of a Music Video: Stone Sour - Through Glass

In order to know the forms and conventions realised through music videos, I will analyse music videos from various genres and compare and contrast them.

The first music video I will look at is "Through Glass" by Stone Sour. This video was produced by Roadrunner Records and directed by Tony Petrossian.

The main feature of the video is the way in which the special effects are used to aid the representation of both the band and the people from Hollywood that they're mocking. Throughout the video people who represent Hollywood stars who claim to be meaningful people are shown to be cardboard cut outs, showing the message of the video is that those people are shallow and fake. The representation of the band is therefore the opposite of this, showing they are trying to portray themselves as deep and unique people. This message will have been chosen because of the target audience of the band, being people who tend to stay away from the mainstream.

The editing and the camera shots are used to give the video a very smooth, flowing feel. This reinforces the idea of Hollywood being fake, as it compares the smoothness of the camera motion in this Hollywood mansion with the flawlessness desired by individuals trying to make themselves beautiful. In stark contrast to this the band stand very apart from the other people, visually.

We can see several of Goodwin's key points in this video, such as intertextual reference, as the Hollywood sign changed to say 'Hollowood' shows a distortion of an iconic symbol. The lead singer, Corey Taylor, spends much of the video looking directly into the camera, and so the notion of 'looking' is used here. However, the other aspect of 'looking', being the voyeuristic view of women, is mocked in this video by showing attractive women but presenting them as shallow. Clearly from the performance sections of the video the record label have been able to get many shots of the band in, and their contrast to the other people in the video creates a motif for them, fulfilling another of Goodwin's key points. The video also follows some genre characteristics of rock music videos, such as including a lot of performance shots and by mocking 'the man'.

Goodwin's Theory

Media theologist Andrew Goodwin identified several key features of music videos which are used in almost all contemporary videos.

1 - There can be a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, either amplifying or contradicting them.

- This can mean that the themes, mise-en-scene or events of the video match with lyrics of the song, to help put across the message of the song and video.

2 - There can be a relationship between the music and the visuals, either amplifying or contradicting them.

- This can mean that the cuts and edits of the video are in sync with the rhythm and beat of the song matching cuts or effects to specific drum beats or notes.

3 - Music videos have genre characteristics.

- This means that certain features are expected out of a video depending on the genre of the music, for example a girl band is expected to have dancers and close ups of the singers, whilst a metal band is expected to have performance shots of guitars and drums cut to a fast beat.

4 - Often due to the demands of the record label, artists videos will include many close ups of the artist and will often develop motifs that recur across multiple videos.

- This allows the record label to promote a set image for the band, which will help target audiences empathise with the band.

5 - There is often an emphasis on 'looking'

- This means that the 'male gaze' is often used to attract a male audience. The male gaze is a focus on presenting things that appeal to men. This most often means a voyeuristic view of, and an objectification, of women. The emphasis on looking also includes the artist looking directly into the camera. This helps the audience connect with the artist.

6 - Often there can be intertextual references.

- This means that music videos reference other forms of media, most commonly film, but sometimes television and classic music videos.

History of the Music Video

Music videos go back a long way, as far as the 1940's with musician Louis Jordan making short films for his songs, and some forms of videos and images to be played alongside songs going back even further, as far as the late 19th century. Music historian Donald Clarke says that Louis Jordan's videos were the ancestors of the modern music video. The idea for music videos stemmed from musicals from the 1930's - 50's, and some music videos reference this, such as Madonna's video for 'Material Girl', which resembles the scene for 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' in the 1953 musical 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'. Musicals inspired music videos in ways such as showing the band or singer performing, but also importantly by including things such as dance sequences in sync with the music. This influence is very clear in contemporary music videos.

In 1957 Tony Bennet was filmed walking through Hyde Park in London whilst his song 'Stranger in Paradise' played. The film was then aired on US and UK television stations, and then in 1959 D.J. JP Richardson coined the phrase 'Music Video'. In 1961 Manny Pittson recording music, then filmed different scenes with artists lip-synching and edited the two together, for the Canadian television show Singalong Jubilee.

In 1965 the Beatles started making promotional videos for their songs so that they could be distributed and promoted without them having to make actual appearances. Their video for 'Help!' had many features used in virtually all modern performance based videos, such as playing with focus and camera angles and cutting to the beat.

Over time these techniques have been developed and invested in to produce the music video as we know it today. They have gone from simply recordings of the artists on stage to videos such as Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson's 'Scream' which cost $7,000,000. Often music video's attract very high profile names to produce and direct them, such as Martin Scorsese directing Michael Jackson's 'Bad'. Virtually every major song release these days has a video release as well, and is primarily used as a promotional marketing tool to increase sales, however often they can be heavily influenced by arts and have become an art in their own right.

The Task

The task, in short, is to create a music video promoting the release of, or re-release of, a music single or album. We are also required to create additional paraphernalia, such as a website and digipak, geared towards marketing the product. The list of tasks to complete, therefore, is as follows:

- The music video
- A band/artist website
- A digipak including a cover for the cd's release

I will be completing this task in a group with James Ferguson.

Introduction

This blog is to critically annotate the planning and production of a music video and other ancillary tasks. Our main task is to produce a music video to promote a new release of a song and as ancillary taks we are creating an album cover and a website.