Representation of people/groups in my video

Representation

The first group of people that we will see in the video is at the start and at the end. There will be two separate groups of teenagers. One will be entering the cinema and the second will be leaving. I'll portray them as fun-loving and carefree as they hang out with all their friends. I'll have shots of them laughing and joking around with one another. I feel like this will appeal to audiences because my target audience is teenagers. The way I portray them will hopefully be seen as relatable by other teenagers that may watch the video.

I will also show a representation of the main character Alice. First, she will be presented as naive and impulsive as she immediately falls in love with someone she barely knows. But once he leaves her, she'll be portrayed as vulnerable and maybe a little destructive. I'll show this by the use of different shots. Close ups are a must because it'll inform the audience on how she's feeling by her face expressions and emotions. Again, I think this may intrigue the audience because how the main character is being portrayed is relatable.

The last person that I will show a representation of is the other main character the Mad Hatter. I shall present him as thoughtful and kind-hearted as he helped fix her broken heart but he is also broken himself which leads him to disappearing.

Linking to theorists

One theorist that I think links to my representation is Antonio Gramsci and his theory of Hegemony. Hegemony is the political, economic, ideological or cultural power influenced by a dominant group over other groups. Hegemony in the media encourage people to consent to status quo meaning power structures so therefore the middle class have more power over working class. In my music video, the most dominant character role from the two is the male role and he controls, more or less, the female character throughout the whole video. 

Music video planning (Equipment, construction of mise-en-scene and casting)

Research into Record Labels

A record label is the brand name for a music release. Record labels are in control of the manufacture, distribution and promotion of a particular recording. The labels today are all four media conglomerates that operate a number of specific label imprints. Major labels accounts for 70% of music sales worldwide.




1) Universal Music Group

The first media conglomerate is UMG. The UMG sells more music than any other major label. They accounted for for 25.5% of the market in 2005.  Universal Music Group operates as a subsidiary of the French media conglomerate Vivendi and is said to be the largest music cooperation in the world. UMG's well known label imprints include: Geffen, Interscope, Motown and Universal.

Universal Music Group co-developed Vevo, a site designed for music videos which allows for free, ad-supported streaming of music videos and other music content.

Some of the key artists are: Kanye West, Gwen Stefani, Mariah Carey, 50 cent, The 1975 and Bon Jovi.

2) Sony BMG Music Entertainment 

Song BMG Music Entertainment is the second biggest major record label in music sales. They account for 21.5% of the market in 2005. Sony BMG Music Entertainment was a record music company, which was a 50-50 join venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann AG.

The company signed a content deal with the popular video sharing community YouTube.

On August 2005, 2008 Sony Corporation agreed to buy Bertelsmann AG's 50 percent stake in the music company for $1.2 billion to get full control. The music company will be renamed Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and will become a unit of Sony Corporation of America.

Sony Music Entertainment Japan, which was not a part of Sony BMG, distributed Japanese Music in the US through Columbia or Epic, since around March 2007 when previous distributor, Tofu Records, was closed down. 

The company's well-known label imprints include Arista, Columbia, Epic, J, Jive and RCA.

Some of the key artists are: Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Outkast, Shakira and Britney Spears.

3) EMI Group

The EMI Group is the third biggest major record label in music sales. They accounted for 13.4% of the market in 2005. EMI Group Limited, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, was a British multinational music recording and publishing company, and electronics device and systems manufacturing company.

 Before it's break up in 2012, EMI was the fourth largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and was one of the big four record companies (now big three). 

The record labels under this company include: EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records and Capitol Records. EMI Group also had a major publishing arm, EMI Music Publishing - based in London with offices globally. 

The group's well-known label imprints include: Astralwerks, Capitol, EMI, Mute and Virgin. 

Some of the key artists are: Coldplay, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Robbie Williams. 

4) Warner Music Group

The Warner Music Group is the fourth major record label in music sales. They accounted for 11.3% of the market in 2005. The company operates some of the largest and most successful recording labels in the world, including it's flagship labels Warner Bros. Records, Parlophone Records and Atlantic Records. 

WMG owns Warner/Chappell Music, one of the world's largest music-publishing companies. With a multi-billion dollar annual turnover, WMG employs in excess of 3,500 people and has operations in more than 50 countries throughout the world.

The group's well-known imprints include Asylum, Atlantic, Lava, Reprise, Rhino and Warner Bros.

Some key artists are: Green Day, Madonna, Ed Sheeran, James Blunt and Jess Glynne.

Spotify

Spotify is a music streaming that provides digital rights management restricted content from record labels and media companies. Music can be browsed or searched by artist, album, genre, playlist or record label. Spotify offers two music streaming tiers: Spotify Free and Spotify Premium. Paid "premium" subscriptions remove advertisements, improve audio quality and allows users to download music for offline listening. 

One downfall for Spotify is that the site fails to compensate artists fairly. Some examples of this are:

In 2009, Swedish musician Magnus Uggla pulled his music from the service, stating that after six months he had earned "what a mediocre busker could earn in a day". Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported in 2009 that the record label Racing Junior earned only NOK 19 ($3.00 USD) after their artists had been streamed over 55,100 times. According to an infographic by David McCandless, an artist on Spotify would need over four million streams per month to earn US$1,160. Luke Lewis wrote that "the 'free' aspect of Spotify is unsustainable" and that "if Spotify is to have a future, it needs to be a viable business".

In September 2011, US independent label Projekt Records stated, "We (the audience) believe in the value of what artists create. The artist's passion, dedication and expression is respected and rewarded. Spotify is NOT a service that does this. Projekt will not be part of this unprincipled concept." In May 2012, British Theatre vocalist and Biffy Clyro touring guitarist, Mike Vennart, stated: "I'd sooner people stole my work than stream it from [Spotify]. They pay the artists virtually nothing. Literally pennies per month. Yet they make a killing. They've forced the sales way down in certain territories, which wouldn't be so bad if the bands actually got paid."

Apple Music

Apple Music is a music streaming service by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on demand. The service includes the curated Internet radio station Beats 1, the blog platform Connect for artists to share media with fans, and Radio which incorporates some aspects of iTunes Radio. Apple Music provides music recommendations based on user taste.

Apple Music received mixed reviews at launch for its unintuitive interface,the amount of bugs and battery life problems and its offline services being contingent on using the iCloud Music Library feature. This feature takes away the ability for the user to sync music locally and has caused chaos for some users' music libraries. However, the service was praised for its smart functions.

Shortly before Apple Music was released, Taylor Swift wrote an open letter publicly criticizing Apple's decision to not reimburse artists during a user's three-month free trial period and announced that she would be holding back her album 1989 from the service. She said the policy was "unfair" as "Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months". UK independent record label Beggars Group also criticized the three-month trial period, saying it struggled "to see why rights owners and artists should bear this aspect of Apple's customer acquisition costs".

The day after Swift's letter, Eddy Cue announced on Twitter that Apple had changed its policy and that Apple Music "will pay artist for streaming, even during customer's free trial period". On Twitter, Swift wrote "After the events of this week, I've decided to put 1989 on Apple Music... And happily so". She concluded saying it was "the first time it's felt right in my gut to stream my album".

Focus group discussion

Analysing posters

Elements I will use

I believe that Taylor's poster fits with the concept I going for more as it focuses more on the single and the music video rather than a whole album. I like the idea of her being the main focus in the image and that she is wearing things that you see in her music video. I plan to do the same having my main character on the front of my poster wearing the same clothing that you are able to see in the music, as well as being in the same location. Similar to Taylor's poster, I plan to use bright and unique font on my poster to make it stand out. On Paramore's poster, they use a font that is edgy and reflects the music genre so I plan to use a font that reflects the fantasy themed music video.

Analysing digipaks

The first digipak I have chosen to analyse is Red by Taylor Swift.

 The second digipak I have chosen to analyse is Loud by Rihanna.

 The third digipak I have chosen to analyse is The Fame by Lady Gaga.

 The fourth digipak I have chosen to analyse is Teenage Dream by Katy Perry.

Elements I will use

One similar aspect that each of the digipaks has is each digipak has a close up of the artist on the front cover of the album. I didn't want this for my digipak so I have chose to challenge it by having a mid shot. From analysing Katy Perry's digipak, I discovered that she has linked her music video to her album design and I have decided I wanted to do the same. Therefore, many of the aspects I have used when designing my digipak correlating with my music video, for example, it follows the Alice In Wonderland theme and has a similar setting. Another aspect that I like with Taylor Swift's Red album is that she consistently uses the same colour throughout her digipak and so I plan to do the same with mine, using natural colours such as brown and green to fit with the natural setting but I will also use blue and white to fit with the Alice In Wonderland theme.

Research into the Music Industry

Who are the main television companies that show videos?

One of the main television companies that show videos is MTV.  Originally MTV was meant to be 'music television', playing music
videos 24 hours a day, seven days a week, guided by video jockeys (an announcer who introduces videos on commercial music television stations.) Although the original MTV channel no longer plays music videos 24/7, several of it's spin-off channels do, including MTV Hits and MTV Jams. Additionally, viewers can play music videos on-demand at MTV.com. MTV continues to support a broad selection of music videos on its international channels as well.

As MTV expanded, music videos were no longer the centrepiece of its programming. Conventional TV shows came to replace the VJ-guided music video programming. Today, MTV presents a wide variety of non-music-related television shows aimed mainly at the 12 to 18-year-old demographic.

Another main television company that shows videos is VH1. They began airing "History of Music Videos A to Z" during the July 4 weekend from 1994 to 1998 where they'd show a large percentage of their library of music videos, which would include mini-marathons of videos by artists with a large number of videos. The videos were aired without introduction by a VJ and the program was soon shortened to thirty minutes, and then scrapped all together. By 1996, VH1 was heading down the same path as its sister channel, MTV, choosing to focus more on music-related shows than on music videos. Additionally, the network began to expand its playlist of music videos to include more rock and rap music.

An additional main television company that shows videos is the CSC Media Group. CSC Media Group (formerly known as Chart Show Channels) are a UK-based satellite television channel provider. Until May 2005, their sole output was music television, with their three fully owned music channels Chart Show TV, The Vault and B4 (now Flava), plus the three music channels Bliss (previously The Amp), Scuzz and Flaunt, which were owned by BSkyB but run by CSTV. Their two children's channels Pop (previously Toons & Tunes) and Tiny Pop (previously Pop Plus) also both showed music videos along with cartoons.  Some of the music channels that CSC Media Group owns are listed below:

Where can you find music videos?

Nowadays, you can find music videos almost anywhere. The most common place to find music videos is on YouTube or Vevo. Artists usually uploaded their music videos immediately to YouTube or Vevo. There are also other sites that you can easily access music videos such as MTV. Other than on the internet, you can find music videos on music channels on the television.

What are the purpose of music videos?

Music videos were originally made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. The music video promotes a song which in turn promotes an album. The main purpose is to sell an image of an artist. The overall purpose is to help to generate money for the record company. 

Music videos can help promote a band or artist long after the single or album has been released. Some artists are remembered years later solely because of a memorable music video. 

Online music stores such as iTunes now stock music videos for people to buy in the same way as the music tracks. Artists will often sell DVDS and Special Edition CDs (for higher prices) which include music videos as bonus material.