Post Modernism

 In our theory lessons we have began looking at post modernism contextuality in both music video’s and films.  Postmodernism is a movement away from the viewpoint of modernism. It involves the belief that most apparent realities are only social constructs and are subject to change depending on the time and location.

The postmodernist musical attitude is supported by Jonathan Kramer created 16 characteristics of postmodern music which create a postmodern experience when listening to a song. Postmodern music id not simple a repudiation of modernism but had aspects if both and break in the industry and an extension. The music video productions have changed and are more dominantly well known today for the postmodernism approach combining imagery and sounds, buy doing this they incorporate many aspects of current cultures together inevitably creating postmodernism. Postmodern music is in many ways ironic and does not respect existing boundaries between past and current cultures.  It also tend to take technology for granted not only using it to preserve music but deeply implicate the production and sound of the music to fit it into society.  Postmodern music often has a large relevance or reference to political and social contexts, it presents multiple meanings whilst embracing contradictions.

My Marketing Strategy

I have decided to create a facebook page for Canute, simply because it is an effective way of reaching out to fans yet simple to create. With the ability to update fans on album info, tour dates and personal messages I think a facebook page is a successful way to market our band. It was a simple procedure, all I had to do was create a page in aid of our band. Fans can then write on the wall and 'like' the page in order to show their support.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Canute/121866687891261

Below is a screen shot of the facebook page I created.

Website...analysis

As part of the course we are require to produce a website to market our band and connect them to their audience. Before doing this I am going to analyse an existing website that has been created as a way of marketing an already famous artist. Katy Perry is my chosen artist.

http://www.katyperry.com/home/

This is the home page of Katy Perry's official website, it has  many conventions of  a marketing website. Just under the tabs there is links to follow katy perry on twitter, facebook, bebo, youtube and itunes. This immediately draws the observers attention and encourages them to follow Katy perry, the social sites that she has chosen will increase her fan base because they are considered to be more personal than a normal website. We are then encouraged to join Katy-Perry.com, this is probably a way of making her fans feel 'more in touch' with her. By joining as an official member it gives Katy Perry her fans trust and loyalty which will probably improve her motivation and enthusiasm.
Directly below this is a photograph of Katy Perry, this puts a face to the name, a simple way of making her noticed by her audience. To the right of this we are given the opportunity to download her music. This is important for an artist or band, because it encourages the audience to purchase the music rather than illegally download. Having music to download on a website is a convention of music websites.
Websites usually consist of biography's, tour dates, photo's, video's, merchandise and forums for fans to connect with each other.

Further down the page there is a list of tour dates and the chance to buy tickets. Again this is another marketing strategy that encourages the audience to buy tickets. A video has been posted by the editor in relation to her recent tour, showing behind the scenes rehearsals featuring Katy Perry and her cast. This video will surely psych her audience who are attending her concert and again brings a sense of personality to the website which enables the fans to build a relationship with the artist.

This screen shot shows how Katy personally connects with her audience, she regularly updates her fans with tweets.  Which is a social networking site that enables her fans to speak to her personally.


I like the colour's on Katy's website, I think they make a statement about her personality. Katy is usually recognised for her 'candy like' costumes and themes. However i think this colour scheme is completely opposite. The black background could be a code for her bold personality, but with the added pink (sweetness) so she is a bold person in the industry but is still girly and sweet. This is effective in promoting herself as a strong person with added personality. 

Canute Album Cover

This is my final Album cover, when designing my cover I ensured I had the typical conventions of a music video; Title, Song name, Image of the band. 

This is the back cover of my album, I chose to keep it simple purely because time was  running out. I have analysed an album cover that was simple but effective. My back page consists of typical conventions of an album back; title, song names producers and length, barcode, producing info and website. 

Progression on Final Album Cover

This is the original picture I have taken my final Idea from for my album cover. I liked this because it shows all 3 of the artist' and supports the narrative of them being unaware of each other.

In order to make the album more professional I experimented around with the contrast and brightness,  I was happy with the final version of the edited photograph.

Once I had chosen my font from a website i added it to the photo i had edited. However when i looked back at it i  didn't like the contrast. I found the artist name didn't stand out much which could effect the ability to sell. So i changed the contrast and brightness of the photograph...

                                      I just made the background picture slightly lighter in order to make the title bolder.

A typical convention of a music video is the song title appearing somewhere, I thought it would be good to put the title directly underneath the artist name to make an instant connection.

Album Artwork Basics...

Controversy - S&M music video

My main aim for this coursework title it to create a music video, artists album cover and artist website. However I think it will be a good idea to discuss an issue that is pretty big in the music industry right now. There has been a lot of accusation regarding the outcome of Rihanna's S&M music video claiming that she has plagiarised the work of David LaChapelle. Having already analysed this video with my own perceptions of the messages I think it is important to understand and accept the issue that it has caused. 
David LaChapelle is a fashion photographer suing Rihanna for using images in her video that are"directly derived" from his own works. LaChepelle claims that the star has copied eight of his images. the photographer asserts that the video copies the "composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colours, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting" of his work.

S&M music video analysis...

Much controversy has occurred over Rhianna's new music video S&M promoting sadism and masochism which implies sexual gratification gained through pain or the degradation of others. The video Rhianna has produced is a post modern parody of other music videos consisting of many typical conventions. The video takes editing to the the extreme almost mocking the extent of previous video's by making the edits so insanely quick it is almost vertiginous. The director has also adapted the typical convention of camera shots using different angles and de-focusing effects which makes the audience aware that they are watching a music video. The vibrant colours used within the mise en scene is emphasized to reduce the realism of the location in doing this it also increases the hyper realism. 
The first shot of Rhianna singing is a close up using the effect of a fish bowl, it is a close up shot which is a convention of many music videos. Throughout the video many effects are used, a very successful shot is the pulsing of the camera and the tilting in sync with the beat of the music. 
Within the music industry the costumes used  signify a huge part of the video. In this video the director has taken costumes to extremes making them hyper real almost as if she is mocking other extremely creative artists such as Lady Gaga. 
Although Rhianna has subjectively mocked the music industry and videos, along with Lady Gaga she has taken expectations to a new height creating a new boundary for other artists to enter.  

Costume and star image plays an extremely important role in an artists success. The way they dress, perform, act and market themselves creates their success. The genre we was interested in was indie/alternative, because of this I decided to raid my wardrobe and the internet to gain inspiration. It wasn't to hard for me however to find outfits, I generally dress different from the social trends and tend to deviate myself from society in order to make a statement. I thought it would be a good idea to  think about my costumes, and the way and reason I like dressing how I do.

In this particular video the situation is 3 girls dating the same boy, it would be silly for us all to dress similar. So I thought if I was to dress slightly edgy and experiment it would help create my character, I will be deviating from the trends the other girls are following which will make me stand out. However this can be said about all of us....

Here are my costume choices...

Album Thumbnails

I was at home ant thought it would be useful to gather a few ideas together on album art work. I will be able to refer back to these sketches when creating my album covers for ideas.

Problems we found.

Although our filming went to plan and we have all the footage we need we still came across some problems along the way.

As a group we struggled with making arrangements, we tended to let time slip past although we was soon put on track when we got filming. I think this may be simply because as first the tasked seemed impossible with the only free time being after school when it would be dark and therefore not light enough to film. This was overcome when we began getting move active and saw that the road wasn't too long and gained both motivation and enthusiasm.

The main problem was finding a date we could all film, although this date was never found until last minute we still managed extremely well as a group in communicating to ensure we was all aware of what was happening.

I think the fact that we are friends has helped us a lot because we understand each other and didn't have to get to know each other before hand which gave us an advantage. It also meant we had already mastered communication between each of us, and despite someone not being at the shoot they had a constant update via facebook, text or school on what was happening with the filming and how things were going.

Filming, Take 3

So it's now March and with time running out and so much to do we set out to film again. This time the focus was to ensure that we had enough footage from a range of distances (long, middle, close up, extreme close up), and also a range of angles (point of view, over the shoulder, etc) This day was just as successful as previous days however due to one member of the group being missing it was difficult for us to get all the shots needed. This however was not a problem and was something that we worked around.
Again we travelled a little further to get  a wider range of locations, we wont be using all of these locations because we have to remember the narrative and if we start using a lot of locations it may cause difficulty for the audience to connect and follow the narrative.
Again the weather was great and the day went just as planned, if not better.

Filming, Take 2

Having reviewed the footage we already have we decided to take another day out to film more after realising that there was so much more potential for this video than we had thought. So we set out to London, Myself and 2 other group members. We was extremely lucky with the weather on this day, it was definitely shining to our advantage. We created the usual set up; bags done, tripod our, DSLR ready for when needed, camcorder ready to go & i-pod playing. We thought it would be a good idea to have an i-pod playing the song in order to make it easier when putting the lip sync and song together, it mad our singing more accurate and in time with the music.

This time however, instead of just staying in the current location we deviated from here and found ourselves filming in a park which added to the Bohemian style of the song.

It was another successful day shooting.

What I aim to achieve from filming

From tomorrow's filming I am to....

. capture footage from a range of shots (long, mid, close up)
. take advantage of the lighting
. successfully reflect the genre we chose to focus our video on
. to capture the footage that will make up the quick edits of our video

Filming, Take 1

Yesterday we began filming for our music video, we wasn't quite sure what to expect. As we approached Bond Street we immediately knew this was where we was going to film. It was an interesting day and we managed to successfully film a majority of the video, we experimented with camera angles, distances and motions to ensure that our video had a wide range.
We went up to london with a strong idea of what it was we wanted to create, but when we was up there we was hit with so many more ideas, which is a good thing.
Throughout the day we was lucky enough to use HD video camera's and DSLR still cameras. The fact that we was able to have access to a still camera as-well was very beneficial, it enabled us to capture photographs throughout the day of each of us using the equipment which will aid us when explaining the processes.
Following our video we will upload the footage we have captured onto apple mac's and begin editing.

This is a collage I have created, I have tried to include photograph's of each of us to show our equality in the filming process.

Camera work

The camera work was shared out equally between group members, we ensured that everyone was capable of using the equipment that was required to continue with our filming. Jack was particularly keen with the camera and was happily able to aid the rest of the group if they found themselves having difficulties.

When we first began filming, although we recognised what conventions were needed to make a successful video we struggled in actually capturing these conventions. This wasn't because we was unaware, simply because we was so caught up in the moment and was enjoying the task that we just forget. Having filmed and watched our footage back however we did recognise this, and we was lucky enough to have noticed this so early on because we were then able to go back and film more footage to replace some of the old footage.

I am not angry nor annoyed that we made these simple mistakes, because we did as a group realise and it did then give up both the experience and ability to go back and correct the mistakes that we had made.

Location location location;

Having noticed VV Browns connection and love for London via other videos and photoshoot so we have decided the do the majority of our filming up London, however we would like to do some filming in rural area's also (taking inspiration from Ellie Goulding's video). An area we used for a large majority of our filming was Gilbert street, a road just left of Bond Street Station, from here we travelled the short distance to do more filming in Mayfair. 

Band Name

After several discussions we made this decision to call our band Canute, we have take the name from 'King Canute the Great' who was a viking warrior who became and English king. Stories say that he was in control of the tides and seas, he could command the waves to go no further out and come no further in. However he explained to men and proved that kings power might appear greater than all else but no one can stand in the way of God's powers. Because the song we chose had relevance to the ocean we decided to go with this as the name, as most bands/artists had meaning behind their name we thought this was a reasonable reason that could also have influenced the song choice. 

Story line :)

Story Line...

We have decided to create a narrative for the lyrics because this makes the video more accepted and interesting to watch, we aim to create this narrative with the aid of camera, lighting & location.

Having listened to our chosen song numerous times we have gathered our idea's on what the storyline to our video will be. We have gained inspiration from the original video, other music videos, personal feelings & fashion. This is how we have interpretated the lyrics and this is what we want to create. 
The story line will be similar to VV Browns in a way that it will follow the relationship of a couple, however this time the main focus will be the boy (jack) who is cheating on each girl, therefore making it a love square. We will use a variety of conventional camera shots that appear in many music videos and hope to portray codes throughout the video that show and add deeper meaning to the song.

Target Audience

As a group of young student's myself and my group have decided to gain idea's for the target audience through the current artists. We would like to liken ourselves to the likes of VV Brown, Ellie Goulding, Lissie, Adele etc therefore putting our main focus towards the indie/pop/soul genre.

There will be no specific age limit but the audience would probably range from 17/18+.
 We will aim to reach to all social classes and genders