Research

Music Video

For my music video that my partner (Matthew Cheetham) and I will make, we will have to do appropriate research in order to understand how to make a music video look correct and professional without being overwhelming and inappropriate. To do this I will have to identify the different types of music videos and understand the types of points and items the video uses to gain views and money.
Of course the official music videos are going to be of much better quality than of what I could make but I plan to make sure I learn a lot about the music videos specific features whilst researching them in this research page.

What Makes a Band? 

To learn about music we must understand how a band is made. What are the main aspects in the basic construction of a band. Isaac and I have made presentations to learn about the important features in making a band.
I produced a presentation on band names and how they are created.
Isaac produced a presentation on band logos and how they are constructed.

Brief History of Music Videos

Written by Isaac Bond

1894 – First example of an “illustrated song” - Still images are projected onto a screen simultaneous to a live performance of "Little Lost Child."

1926 – Arrival of “talkies” – Many musical short films produced featuring many bands, vocalists and dancers

1930 – Musical films and screen songs

1956 – Rise of television – the rise of popular music was tied with the rise of television as the format exposed new stars

1964 – The Beatles – set the stage for the modern music video with the motion picture “A Hard Days Night”

1965 – The Beatles use promotional films to promote album releases

1981 – MTV launched

1983 – Thriller by Michael Jackson – the most successful and influential video of all time

1985 – VH1 launched

1992 – Rise of music video directors

1995 – Scream by Michael Jackson - most expensive music video ever, costing $7 million

2005 – YouTube allows people to watch music videos online and new artists to gain popularity

2005 – iTunes allows music videos to be bought online. One million downloads after twenty days

2010 – Number of music videos viewed online reaches 34 billion with 183 million viewers 

The Music Videos

The most important agenda I have to complete in the research of music videos is to actually watch and analyse music videos that have worked well displaying the music whilst attracting the target audience's attention.
Here are some of the music videos I have been looking at and analysing. I have looked at different genres and techniques used to assist me with my research.
These are the videos I've been looking at, the genre of music it is in and the record label it was made with.

Paramore - Now - Indie, Alternative  - Fueled By Ramen
Tenacious D - Tribute - Rock, Comedy, Acoustic - Sony BMG Music Entertainment
Take That- Want You Back- Pop, Boy Band - Ploydor Records



Take That's Back for Good was released in March 1995 as a single, it was supposedly written by Gary Barlow in 15 minutes. The song had such a demand that it was released six weeks earlier and has at least 89 different recorded versions. The song made it to number one in a number of countries including the UK and USA, receiving numerous gold and platinum awards.

The song's video is very simple as it is filmed in black and white and only shows the band singing, walking and dancing in the rain, it has now become iconic and newer bands like The Wanted have paid homage to it by having a similar style video. It was the last music video to feature Robbie Williams in until he rejoined the band in 2010.

The song on Paramore's self-titled album 'Paramore' received critical success when released January 2013, it proved to be much different to Paramore's earlier work as it appears more 'folk' than the punk-rock atmosphere from previous hit songs from the band. The music video of 'Now' was released on YouTube and features a War-like setting that connotes the song well.

Tenacious D released the music video to their hit song Tribute in 2002 is the first single of the Tenacious D self-titled album. It was released July 16, 2002. The song was the most requested video on Kerrang! TV in 2002 and has been recognizable from it's story telling style. 



The Posters

Made by Isaac Bond

The Album Covers

Research Statistics

Firstly we made a small questionnaire featuring suitable questions that will be relevant when planning to make the music video. Here are the pie charts and review of what I have discovered from the survey.



I asked twenty people five simple questions and above are the results I received, If the results are relevant to the music video directly I have made sure the pie chart is bigger than the others, for instance finding the preferred genre of music is a lot more important than finding out if they actually watch the videos. This makes it easier for me to find out what I should be focusing my time on, improving my research.

A majority of the people that took the questionnaire were female, the female audience could mean that bands would be the preferred area of expertise as it is mostly proven that all male bands like Take That and My Chemical Romance attract the female audience more so than any others.
An additional factor to bear in mind is that the more emotional the video and lyrics the more it will appear to appeal to the female audience, this should be a key point to remember in the planning stages of the video.

Most people when asked said that they do watch music videos, this should mean that I also need to appeal to those who answered no. The most important way of appealing to this audience would be to make the first few frames as interesting as possible by using a strong first scene before breaking into the actual song, this could be used to set the scene for the music video. Often in music videos, especially more recent ones, the first 30 seconds of the is primarily the set up to display what the video is about before the music actually starts.
An interesting question I asked was 'what colour scheme appeals to you?' this means that I will have a guide to improve on in the planning stages of the project, I already had a female audience so the colour schemes are already seemingly following a band style with 'few colours' being the common choice. The least popular was using warm colours, like red or brown, showing that the colder, more emotional and simple videos attract the key audience's attention better.

I asked the question 'which age range is best suited for a music video?' this displays the target age I should aim for when directing and editing the music video, this helps provide some insight into what the genre would be even further. With a tie between 14 - 16 and 17 - 19 ages with a 50% total figure over the other sections it is clear that I need to aim my video for the under 18's by using musicians who are in their late teen's this can provide a young role model that would be wanted on the bedroom walls of many young adults. I was surprised to find that only 10% of the questionnaires came back recommending that I appeal to the 9 - 13 year old market as at that age many 'tweens' are heavily influenced by the media development.
The most important question I asked was 'which genre of music do you listen to?' meaning I can work out which music style will do better in comparison to others. It was clear which two key genres came up on top; Rock 35% and Metal with 30%. My research from this question alone shows that I should make a rock music video that many people can relate to.

Overall it appears that I should be making rock music video for ages 14 -19, it should have a target audience of females (but not completely exclude any 'manly' elements within the film) and will be in just a few colours to demonstrate a depressing and sad video. To attract anyone who does not watch music videos I should try and make sure that there is an easy to follow story line that will be recognized easily and help increase the audience that will watch it.  

Research Conclusion

I have reached the end of my research section and have learnt a lot regarding the planning and understanding of making a music video for the general audience.
I have found out the target audience that not only best suits me but is ideal for the current market, this will help me work with the videos I have analysed and ensure my video does as well as possible with the information I have gathered.
With this knowledge I will be able to make a video, poster, digipak and a website to a high standard that will be well made. It should entice the target audience and understand the needs of the viewers and provide a certain escapism for some.