Importance of Music Video - 18 July 2023

Today, Michelle and I did some research on the importance of MVs in the music industry, and how MVs of different song genres have different conventions in order to cater for their specific target audience's needs and maximise marketing.

We came up with a few points to show how MVs are vital when it comes to marketing a song:

1. MVs can act as a form of advertising method for music industries as it helps "sell music".

• In the older times, audiences listen to songs on the radio. As radios have no screens, this tells us that the audience only used their sense of hearing as they listen to the song. A few decades after (1950s) TVs were widely introduced, allowing the audience to use both their sense of hearing and sense of sight to watch and listen to a TV programme, making the experience much more engaging and interesting. Due to this, many music industries have concluded that people might be more interested in listening to a song if both the sense of sight and hearing are involved - leading to industries coming up with MVs (music videos) which shows a short scene or "film" and the song playing as its background. MVs provide a listening experience that is more engaging, which drives people to be more interested in that particular song and the artist themselves, leading to more consumption which will let the company earn more profit.

3.  MVs can create and reinforce brand identity.

• An example of how MVs can create and reinforce brand identity is the album "SOUR" by Olivia Rodrigo. Its album cover and MV mainly uses the color purple and colorful stickers, which allows the audience to identify and recognize Olivia Rodrigo's song easily from other songs due to the repetition of the use of the color purple and stickers. 

Conventions of Music Video - 21 July 2023

Today, me and my teammate did some research on the conventions of a music video. We researched on the elements inside an MV, and also the typical conventions of a Pop Music Video as our group decided to create a music video in the pop genre.

1. What are the elements inside of an MV?

• An MV typically consists of the artist lip syncing to the song, actors dancing, props (i.e. buildings, vehicles, can be small things as well). These elements help depict stories that fit a song, however, the artist must ensure that all the elements relate to the meaning of the song to ensure that the audience does not get confused/is able to interpret the meaning correctly.

Below are examples of elements that are used inside an MV:

Sometimes, the MV does not have to include the presence of the artist/actors themselves, the video can be animated instead.  

Here are a few examples of some popular animated MVs:

2. What are the conventions of a Pop Music Video?

• As Pop Music is known as "popular music", it is mainstream and general. Due to it having a wide range of audiences, it has to be easily understood by different groups of people. Therefore, the conventions of a Pop Music Video are: catchy, easy to understand, provides easy listening, and avoids controversial topics such as religion, race, etc. (topics that may be offensive). 

Here are a few Pop Music MVs that follow a Pop MV's typical conventions:

Conventions of Digipak - 22 July 2023

Today, I researched about Digipaks. Digipaks are the packaging used for an artist's physical CD, which has a design specially for the artist's album in order to distinguish different artists from each other, and also distinguish their different albums or singles. I learned that the design of the digipak includes designs that relate to the theme of the songs in the album, and it has to contain elements that complement the branding of the artist.

The artists I chose for reference are The Weeknd's "Starboy" and NCT Dream's "Hot Sauce".

As an overview, the conventions of the digipak are as follows:

• Picture of the artist/their drawings on the cover 

• Front Cover: title of the album, picture of the artist/drawings made by the artist

• Back Cover: List of songs and their titles, copyright, background photo, credits,  record label

• Spine: Contains the title of the album and a serial number

• CD: mostly has a simplistic design, contains the title of the album sometimes, sometimes can have a very detailed design as well.

• Some of them include photocards (pictures of the artists) or booklet of the artist's pictures

Short Music Video Practice - 28 July 2023

The filming process goes like this:

1. The part of the song that is chosen for the music video practice is not the chorus - it is the introduction of the song. Therefore, it took me a while to memorize these particular lyrics as I normally do not focus on the lyrics on the beginning of any song. However, as we only needed to record a short music video, memorizing these lyrics didn't take an extensive amount of time. 

2. As I mentioned that it took me a while to warm up to the camera's presence, it took me a while to come up with ideas to "lip sync" or "act out" lyrics that cannot be acted out in a literal way and also to look natural in front of the camera, so I had to brainstorm ideas with my teammates on how we could find ways to act out those lyrics without looking too awkward while doing so. 

3. We tried recording the first take. It wasn't too bad, so after a few takes, we were able to get a pretty decent practice music video.

Conventions of Social Media - 1 August 2023

Today, I researched about how artists normally publish content on their social media accounts, so that I could get an impression on how my artist's social media account can be designed later.

I chose some famous artists such as Billie Eilish, Tomorrow X Together and NCT's social media accounts for reference. 

Based on our references, these are the conventions for the social media account:

• Highlights: featuring the sequel to an artists song releases, videos recorded from tours, or dance videos of the artist.

• Follower and Following Count: 

• Social Media Bios: mentions that said account is the official account of the artist, also containing the link to the latest music video release of the artist.

• Blue verified tick next to the artist's username, this indicates that the account is authentic.

• Posts: about the artist's concerts/tours, a "coming soon" post for their next release, posts about the artists new release (showing that the new song is out now), posts about nominations, posts about the artist's merchandise, and even comedic pictures to entertain their fans.