Music Website Analysis

Here, I have used a website called Prezi to produce  a creative slideshow about the Arctic Monkeys website. I have analysed different parts of the website including all the possible links a viewer can click on when they visit the homepage.

Music Directors Research

Name: Benny Boom

Age: 43

Job description: Music Video Director

Achievements: 2009/2013 - BET Award for Video Director of the Year.

2013 - BET Hip Hop for Best Video Director of the Year. 

Artists worked with: Nicki Minaj, Diddy, 50 Cent, Meek Mill, Waka Flocka Flame, Nas, Jungle Brothers, De La Soul and Quest.

Mainstream/Indie: Mainstream
Background information: Benny Boom is a music video director and current director of Gorilla Flix, Inc. He trained at Temple University's School of Radio, Television, and Film, and also served as protege of veteran director, Director X and Hype Williams.

Name: Marc Klasfeld
Age: 49
Job description: American Music Video Director
Artists worked with: Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Michael Bublé, Nelly, Foo Fighters, Avril Lavigne and many others.
Mainstream/Indie: Mainstream and some Indie
Background information: Marc Klasfeld is an American music video director. He has directed over 200 music videos for the artists listed above and more. Klasfeld is known for his experimentation of camera angle and movement in his music videos. In particular with his rock artists, he follows the typical conventions of the genre and reflects this in his videos.
In this image Klasfeld is seen with Rap artist Lil Wayne - showing that he is involved with lots of different genres ranging from rap to pop to rock.


Name: Tim Pope
Age: 58
Job description: Also known as Timothy Michael Pope, is a film director however is mostly famous for his music videos which he directs.
Artists worked with: Tim Pope has directed over 200 videos that include artists like The Cure, David Bowie, Paul Weller, The Darkness, Fatboy Slim, Neil Young, Queen and Kaiser Chiefs amongst others.
Achievements: Tim was awarded a CADS lifetime achievement award by the music industry.
Mainstream/Indie: Indie
Background information: Tim Pope left the music industry temporarily and returned 12 years later to continue making music videos again with the artists listed above. Tim also did a lot of work in the USA during the 1980-90s; he was invited to America for the first time in 1983 by Neil Young who asked him to film the video for his song 'Wonderin'. Other music videos he shot in the USA for various bands include Hall and Oates, Iggy Pop as well as UK bands like The The and David Bowie.

Research into Music Genres

Rap
More than a century before rap came onto the scene in America, West African musicians told stories rhythmically using one instrument - usually a drum. This was a similar story on the Caribbeans Islands were people also told stories in rhyme. Indeed, these singing poets from Africa and the Caribbean lay the foundation for modern-day American rap music.

The definition of rap music nowadays is that it's generally performed in a vocal style in which the lyrics are spoken, rather than sung. This type of music often deals with the hardships of inner-city life. Musicians typically remix these sounds and rhythms, adding their own innovations and often synthesised musical elements.

Nowadays rap is typically for a youth audience from around 16+ and therefore has a demographic of E and D, this is partly because of the age of the artists, majority are very young - sometimes still in their teens. Over recent years rap has continued to grow and make it's way into the charts, however I believe it's still not as recognised as it would like to be.

Hip-Hop
Hip-Hop is a lifestyle with its own lingo and dress code.

Hip-hop music is a genre consisting of a stylised rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements which are: rapping, scratching, break dancing and graffiti writing. Other elements include beat boxing. Hip-hop first developed during the 1970s when block parties became popular in New York City.

Hip-hop nowadays is a musical melting pot. It's a combination of sounds that includes elements of soul, jazz, gospel, rock and live instrumentation. The likes of De La Soul, a Tribe called Quest and most recently, Kanye West are recognised for championing the soulful rap movement. Other artists like Azealia Banks tend to blend hip-hop with elements of dance music.

Hip-hop is a very wide spread genre because of it's origin. Therefore it has a wider target audience but also a little older than Rap with a demographic of E and D, ranging all the way up to 36 years old, stereotypically African-American males.

Rhythm and Blues (R&B)
R&B combines soulful singing and a strong backbeat, this was the most popular music created by and for African Americans. Artists like Ray Charles, Little Richard and James Brown rank among the most influential R&B performers.

Early R&B artists broke away from the big band formula by typically performing in small groups and emphasising blues-style vocals and song structures. Saxophone and piano were still prominent , but electric guitar and bass added volume and intensity - making the new sound ideal for radio and jukeboxes.

In the early 1980s, funk and soul had become more sexual with the work of Prince and others. The modern style of contemporary R&B came to be a major part of American popular music. R&B today defines a style of African-American music. It combines elements of soul music, funk, pop and eventually hip-hop - in what is now called contemporary R&B.

The target audience for R&B music today is teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 25, therefore sharing a demographic of E,D and possibly C2 of mainly females. The popularity with the female gender could be due to the actual artists mainly being male and therefore causing an attraction between the female audience and the male artists, but also could be due to the sound of the actual music - R&B music can be quite a soft, feminine noise.

Reggae
Reggae music is a very popular style of music in Jamaica and it's roots can be traced back to the 1960s. Overtime, reggae music found its way to the United States, which popularised reggae and slowly brought it to mainstream audiences. By the 1970s reggae had become an international style which was particularly popular in the UK, United States and Africa. Reggae was embraced in the USA largely through the work of Bob Marley - both directly and indirectly (as a result of Eric Clapton's popular cover of Marley's "I shot the sheriff" in 1974. Bob Marley was the artist that took reggae to the masses and made it a universal language.

In the 1980s and 90s dancehall came around and popularised very quickly. The dancehall deejays refined the practise of toasting which is rapping over an instrumental track. These deejays influenced the emerge of hip-hop music in the USA and extended the mar get for reggae into the African-American community.

The lyrics in reggae music focus on many themes and subjects including: love, injustice, poverty, faith and other broad social issues.

Today, reggae is a worldly recognised genre that has continued to grow at a fast pace over recent years. Typically, because of the origin, the main target audience would have a demographic of E as the audience used to just be the working class Jamaicans, however when the genre spread over seas - so did the target audience and therefore the people listening to reggae now include all ages and races, with people nearly in all demographics.

Dubstep
Dubstep is a new genre compared to the others I have looked into, it's a genre within electronic dance music. You can tell if a piece of music is of this genre by the reverberated sub-bass. The sub-bass is reverberated at different speeds to give a sense of movement and insistence.

Dubstep arised in the late 90's and early 2000's, the genre has recently become increasingly popular over the last year and has been seen more in mainstream music. Dubstep originated from dub remixes of 2-step garage that was taking over London at the time. Remixers attempted to introduce new sounds into the 2-step genre, which resulted in a sound that soon required it's own name. A popular artist today involved in the Dubstep genre is Skrillex.

Dubstep has a very deep sound with a lot of bass and electronic noises. Therefore the target audience for this genre would typically be teenagers from the ages 14+. This is partly because the genre is relatively knew and therefore older teenagers would have grown up when it was around in the 90's. Also, the older generation wouldn't warm to this genre as it has quite harsh beats and a lot of bass and it's something that older audiences aren't used to. Therefore the demographic for the Dubstep genre is E and possibly D.

Music Video Analysis 4

Artists: Arctic Monkeys
Song: Suck It And See

Narrative:
The video includes a narrative as there is a storyline. The storyline of the video is that the protagonist of the video is a convict that is wanted by the police as the video starts off with a poster of the protagonist with the word "missing" underneath. The character is clearly portrayed to be in an American biker gang. The video focuses on his relationship with the female character in which they have elements of an abusive relationship. This video is a part of a trilogy of music video following the same story which will really appeal to their fan base as they'll want to see the next part and how the story finishes. It also makes the artists more identifiable as they will have seen one and expect the same content in the other videos.

Cinematography:
Mise-en-scene: 
The video starts off with the female protagonist looking into the camera for 2 seconds. The model stares right into the camera with a dull yet seductive facial expression, making a connection with the audience. However, the male protagonist comes on right after and he is wearing a scarf and sunglasses making it harder to see his facial expression. The facial expression of the protagonists changes throughout this music video. The male protagonist face is mainly covered by his sunglasses in this video, but when he takes them off he displays a sincere facial expression at 1:05. The facial expression emphasises the love he has for the love interest in the video as they are both intimate at this point. It then immediately cuts to the next scene where the female protagonist is clearly displaying an enraged face which juxtaposes with the male's facial expression showing an abusive side and a loving side to the story. Throughout the video the director has decided to mainly use natural lighting, but in some scenes there is artificial lighting. The two main areas of natural lighting in the music video are daylight lighting and night lighting as well as in the last scene the only lighting is the fireside.  There are two scenes where the camera looks into the sun creating a solar flare, this emphasises the natural atmosphere in the video. The video is set on America highways, which relates to the narrative of the video.  It is also set in an isolated home by the highway which depicts the idea of the protagonist being a convict. The home could be repossessed by them and stole it from the residents that have lived there to present their power as intimidating gangsters. The video has many stereotypical props that are needed to portray a gangster theme. The props included are marijuana, motorcycles, guns, bandana, cigarettes, alcohol bottles and sun glasses. The marijuana leaves, guns and alcohol bottles emphasise the gangster narrative and also the reason why he is wanted by the cops. The main prop that underline the American biker gang narrative would be the motorcycles as otherwise the group wouldn't have been portrayed properly. The female protagonists make-up is very soft and light which contrasts with the videos narrative of the gangster lifestyle and also the abusive relationship. Throughout the music video there are many costume changes. The male protagonist wears either a sleeveless flannel, a sleeveless jean jacket, leather jacket, a hawaiian shirt with black leather trousers or black jeans. The various costumes emphasise the gangster narrative mainly with the leather jacket/black trousers, sleeveless jean jacket and the black jeans because it is a stereotypical expectation. The sleeveless jean jacket has the name of the song and also the name of the album on the back of it which is a promotion within a promotion. As well as clothing he is also wearing a lot of jewellery on his hands which asserts the criminal narrative as he could have potentially stolen the jewellery. The female protagonist also has numerous costumes which are more revealing than the male's. The revealing and lack of clothing for the female character links to Dyer's star theory and Muvey's male gaze theory where women are sexualised. The body language of the female character emphasises both Dyer's and Muvey's theory as she is constantly walking slowly and is shown to be slender. Her body language also portrays her dominance over the male character as she usually initiates the intimate moments by constantly pulling the protagonist down to her level.

Editing:
The director decided to use the continuity editing for this video to develop the videos storyline without drawing attention to how it has been done. He has also decided to censor the females areola to make the video more suitable for a younger audience.

Performance:
The director has decided to not use any dance choreography for this video to not draw attention away from the storyline, instead he has used scenes where the the protagonist becomes aggressive where he throws an empty bottle of alcohol at the wall. As well as that, there are scenes of the couple fighting and arguing, focusing on the storyline of an abusive relationship. Although the protagonist is the drummer for the band, so he is a semi-professional actor that acts to a very professional standard in the video, however, the female character is played by Breana McDow who is mainly a model but also an actress who has acted in many music videos, which makes her a professional compared to the protagonist.

Sound:
There is no lip syncing in the video as the singer for the band isn't in this video, also there is no lip syncing because the director may have not wanted the focus to be drawn away from the storyline of the video. There are no overlays on the video other than the studio version of the song. The sound is non-diagetic.

Music Video Analysis 3

Artists: Palma Violets
Song: Last of the Summer Wine

Cinematography:
Setting/lighting: 
The setting and lighting is naturalistic because of the environment as it is set in a park.  The atmosphere that the set creates connotes a calm and realistic atmosphere which goes along with the music. The fact that the weather condition juxtaposes the behaviour that the characters are displaying. The setting goes against Goodwin's theory of 'the MTV style' music video that is very staged and edited.

Camera movement: A handheld camera is used throughout the video which gives it a more personal feel for the audience as it makes it more relatable and you feel like you are a part of the video, in addition the raindrops falling on the camera lens adds to this sense. There is a variety of camera angles which is the standard of a music video to show the setting and also the artist. However, in this video the close-ups are again naturalistic and do not look staged. There is a low angle on the artist which would mean them looking up at the camera, this goes against typical music videos as they show themselves as equal to the audience rather than more powerful. The video has a soft focus which gives a dream-like quality but could also be due to the fact it is a handheld camera. There are no filters or coloured lens put on the camera which adds to the naturalistic feel.

Narrative:There is no narrative in this music video as they are not following a storyline, however the lyrics and the visuals do match in one section of the song. Overall, it is not following a structure therefore it is abstract.

Editing:The music video director has used the traditional cut on action editing technique throughout the video as it is a budget video and the artist wanted to keep it personal and for the focus to be on the music rather than having the focus on special effects. This is also a typical convention of the genre. One of few editing technique used is the kaleidoscope effect where the female actress can show. The reason they have used this effect on the girl to imply that she is a love interest in the story. Slow motion is also used on a few occasions perhaps to create a sense of quirkiness onto the video. The pace is generally quite slow which goes along with the music and the lyrics to an extent but there isn't a clear relationship. 

Performance:There is no structure or no evidence of choreography, relating back to the videos main focus being the song rather than the focus being on anything other than that. It's a low budget music video which suits the genre and the artist as a music video full of special effect props and choreography would suit a pop genre song. 

Sound:The lip syncing in the video is very amateur, which relates to the video being budget. They haven't put any overlays onto the video, they have only overlaid the studio version of the song on top of the video. This video is also non-diegetic as the artist is lip-syncing throughout the video.