Research on Institutions by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder- Blueprint Film

Blueprint Film 

We looked at  Blueprint Film  because it's a new and independent institution that might represent indie music videos for a new fresh artist. A newer, more modern company would be an ideal way to appeal to our target audience of the late teens and adults (18/19-30), who are the biggest consumers for new, fashionable products because they can afford them and a large amount of them do which is shown by statistics. It is also a local company so would be easy to work with.

Blueprint Film has already produced music videos in a range of different genres and sub genres, including Post Rock, Metal, Indie Rock and Rock

We had the chance to speak with Darren from Blueprint media in a workshop. He inspired us because he was enthusiastic and helped us to see the importance of planning in pre-production.

Institutional research by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder- Kode

Kode

We also looked at Kode becuase it is also a small company and the directors know how to make use out of low end equipment. If we were really producing this video, we would need to go to a company like this because as the artist is just starting out we would only be able to produce our music video with a minimum budget. This is the institution that created Sinners by Lauren Aquilina, a singer whose fan base consists mainly of teenagers, and who, like the singer we have chosen for our own music video, is of the Singer/Songwriter genre.

Kode have also been responsible for a number of other music videos, including Peace by Kids In Glass Houses, Radiate by Enter Shikari and You Wanna Know by Don Broco.

They aim their music videos at a similar target audience to us and are based in London, so this would be appropriate for us because we are aiming at an English audience because our song relates best to this culture we are in.

Today most artists will have at least one promotional webpage, and many will also use a range of social media sites, the most popular being Facebook and Twitter, although Tumblr and Youtube are also widely used. Singer/songwriter Lauren Aquilina, for example, has pages on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.  This is especially important to us, as young adults - our target audience - are the main users on all of these sites, and the majority of music accessed by young adults is through the internet and social media sites. It allows the fans to feel as though they are building a more personal connection with the artist and helps us to see the real person.

 

 

Having promotional material on the internet is vital for today's artist - it allows them to reach a global audience, reaching people all ver the world, when otherwise this would not be possible. These sites also provide a wide range of information; fans who follow the pages will receive tips on concerts, merchandise, etc. all of which can be purchased online. 

Magazines are also a vital promotional tool for artists, in the magazines that I personally read I often come across magazines with interviews with the artist and then a promotion is tagged on at the end such as 'You can buy .........'s new debut album now, for sale in .......' and then an image. The interview questions are also aimed at the new video/release in order to promote it, for example below is an interview carried out on Ed Sheeran:

"ILANA KAPLAN: You're blowing up everywhere. Can you tell me a little bit about your inspiration for your debut album?

ED SHEERAN: Musical inspirations or life inspirations? Well, I listen to a lot of Eminem and a lot of Damien Rice... those would be my influences from that side. As far as songwriting, my inspirations came from love, life and death, and viewing other people's situations.

KAPLAN: For instance, your song "Small Bump," a song about losing a child—you sing it from your perspective, but it's actually about a friend?

SHEERAN: Yeah... it was quite a difficult subject to tackle. I wrote it from their perspective. It was my perspective looking on them to begin with. It's quite a touchy subject, so I wrote it from the perspective of actually being the parent."

History of Indie/ singer songwriter music by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

The History of Indie Music

Indie music originated in the mid to late 70’s from the genres punk rock and then new wave. In the 80’s kids started making bands who weren’t amazing musicians but still felt they could make good music. All these new musicians inspired new independent labels to appear such as K records in the US and Factory in the UK. At this point in time the Americans referred to what we would call Indie music as College rock or alternative.

Sub genres of Indie such as Indie-pop and Indie-Rock exist, this came around the mid 80’s and many Indie-pop songs made it into the charts. A great example of this is the Indie-Rock band the Kaiserchiefs (http://www.kaiserchiefs.com/). Formed in 1996, they were successful in pulling a large number of fans of both Rock and Indie.

I am reminded of Todorov and Buckingham when I do my research on the history of Indie music, Todorov said that ‘a new genre is always the transformation of one or several old genres’ and my research has proven this. Buckingham said ‘it is in constant process of negotiation and change’ this is also true because the Indie genre is developing because different people have different views on what they would class as Indie music, so when they create it, it can be completely different.  

Indie music is getting more popular especially indie-pop which has made it's way into the charts a lot recently I think that this will carry on and in the future and other sub indie groups will also be more popular in the charts because people no longer listen to one kind of music, they cherry pick their way through the genres. 

The History of the Singer-Songwriter Genre

The concept of a singer-songwriter can be traced back to when people used to learn songs through the oral tradition (were they passed on there songs through singing them to one another), this was used all over the world, much in the way that stories were told and passed on across generations. 

In modern times, many new and upcoming artists use the Singer-Songwriter genre in order to make a name for themselves, writing their own songs and preforming them, uploading videos to websites such as Youtube in order to gain recognition. 

An example of this is artist Lauren Aquillina. The singer began by posting covers of popular songs on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMPQe0pXMU). She then went on to write and perform her own songs on the website, and quickly gained a large fan base (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knzu1g-S0fI).

Many popular Singer-Songwriter artists cross over a variety of genres, including Pop, Indie and Rock. Popular Singer-Songwriter Ed Sheeran (http://edsheeran.com/) is well known for his songs, which are a mixture of both Indie and Pop.

Singer songwriter is very popular at the moment and has been in the past for example Elton John and Adele. often singer songwriter artists will be able to accompany there voice with an instrument that they can play such as the piano or guitar. I think it will carry on to be popular because quite often they are relatable to a wide audience because the writer will write songs about things that are currently affecting them and they quite often will not be alone. That means our song should relate to some people because materialism is a big problem.

Research into Tatiana by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

Tatiana Kochkreva 

I googled Tatiana's name to see what kind of reputation she already had, and I found out more about her and that she was more recognised than I thought.

''Tatiana Kochkareva left her home in Moscow, Russia, at the young age of 16 and moved to sunny Miami, Florida. Kochkareva's vocal prowess, which she honed while studying under Irina Vladimirovna (trained by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich), earned her a full scholarship to study jazz at the University of Miami.

Influenced by cultural change and transitioning to life in the U.S., Tatiana soon began writing her first rock album, Moments. Alexander Kuzmichev, bass player of the award-winning Russian rock band Voskreseniye recorded the album. The collaboration proved fruitful. The resulting product included hits "Memories," a vindictive rock ballad and Chances," a high energy rock song about fearlessly pursuing one's goals. Indie-music.com's Beeb Aschroft lauded, "This album vaguely reminds me of Evanescence without the Goth overtones...captivating from beginning to end."

Capturing the attention of EMI that same year, Kochkareva was invited to participate in the christmas-themed compilation Universidad Navidena (2006) and was featured as a solo artist with her jazzy take on "Jingle Bells."

In 2007 Fabrika Zvezd, a musical competition similar to America Idol, which airs weekly on National Russian TV, selected Kochkareva as a guest performer where she performed songs off her first album.

In the summer of 2009, Tatiana completed work on her second album Dreamers, this time inspired by her move from Miami to New York City. It is unmistakably rock but introduces something of a pop vibe, particularly on the title track. The album has earned buzz and recognition for its deep, rich vocals and intelligent lyrics, including the scintillating "Social Standing," a song about society life on the Upper East Side. "Dear Friend" and "Mistakes" round out the record, as Kochkareva's philosophical side is unveiled. Reflecting on her experiences in "Mistakes" she affirms, "In life there's lots to learn." The Times Ledger reported "Kochkareva sings all six songs with an intensity that is enhanced by her distinctive voice, which has a haunting, rich, textured depth reminiscent of Nina Simone." The Miami New Times declares, "It's an ebullient, engaging offering that suggests whimsy and reality can make a tidy meld when imbued with passion and purpose."

Tatiana is currently in the studio working on a full length album due to be released in 2012.''

Skye Lab music group helped promote Tatiana and they claim to help artists "get produced and marketed by music industry pro's"

Annotation of Song Lyrics by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

Common Ground

Social standing is very important

That’s why we work hard, and spend hard, we want to

Seems like we have more, earn more, we want more,

we want to spend on

Beautiful dresses, the girls looking stress less

Men wearing wax suits looking spotless

Those little doggies

Look like terriers

Wear only nice clothes,

They look quite, snobby ,

Why would they need it

 they only care for a bone

Oh I feel pressured,

Judged and misleaded,

Ooh I don’t want to follow your leaders,

You got me restless, 

Got me misguided,

Just let me be.

Analysis of lyrics

1) Social commentary on shallow values.

2) Comments on materialistic/consumerist driven society.

3) The artists uses the image of dogs wearing clothes to point out how shallow/pointless 

     and unnecessary  the focus on appearance is.

4) Expresses his feelings of isolation/alienation in a culture he doesn’t fit in with.

5) Shows his views – he is against this materialistic way of thinking, doesn’t wish to 

     conform or be a part of it.

Lyrics of 'Common Ground'

Social standing is very important

That’s why we work hard, and spend hard, and want to

Seems like we have more, earn more, we want more,

we want to spend on

Beautiful dresses, the girls looking stress less

Men wearing white suits looking spotless

Those little doggies

Look like terriers

Wear only nice clothes,

They look quite, snobby ,

Why would they need it

they only care for a bone

Oh I feel pressured,

Judged and misleaded,

Ooh I don’t want to follow your leaders,

You got me restless,

Got me misguided,

Just let me be.

Initial Response to the Brief by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

Music Video Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a promo video together with 2 ancillary tasks: a digipack for the albums release and a magazine advertisement for a digipack. 

We chose this brief because we know more about music videos and watch them regularly and find the idea of directing one really exciting.

Initial Ideas: 

The song we have chosen is called ‘Common Ground’ and it is a singer/song writer / indie  genre and the lyrics concentrates on the issue of materialism and increased importance of social standings. This song is copyright free because when have produced the music video we're going to publish it on youtube.com for audience feedback, we will also use it in pre-production when surveying our target audience so the results are more affective. We chose this song because we both like the genre of music and the message behind the lyrics, we hope that using signs and signifiers we can make the message clear through the music video. We found it very difficult to find a copy right free song that we liked but we would rather not break the law.

A concept based music video with bits of performative clips. Initially we wanted to aim it at teenagers between 16-18, a niche audience because they need to be able to look at the music video and understand the message, but then because of the concept we thought it would also stand out to adults who also release the issue of materialism. The purpose of making the music video is to get across the message that consumerism and materialism are becoming an issue but also to entertain. 

The video will also contain narrative and performative elements, as this is a widely used convention for the singer/songwriter and Indie genres, although we also aim to challenge stereotypes through our use of imagery - our music video will feature a non-typical teenage girl who is less focused on appearance and materialism, providing a deeper, more meaningful role model. We aim to challenge the modern music video conventions, which often display females in a voyeuristic and sometimes exploitative manner.


A few ideas we have include having the artist walk her dog, and walking past 2 made up people dressed up and walking stuffed dogs which fits with the verse:

Those little doggies
Look like terriers
Wear only nice clothes,
They look quite snobby,
Why would they need it,
They only care for a bone

This shows how fake materialism is and makes you look, pointing it out and making a point that it's odd. 

The song has elements of both indie and of singer/songwriter. Therefore we will research music videos that fit this genre. We think it will fit in with Abercrombie's theory that 'The boundaries between genres are shifting'.  It's very hard to say exactly what genre this music fits into because it fits into so many. We believe that people, and especially our target audience of teenagers, listen to music regardless of its genre. We will carry out audience research, including interviews/questionnaires, to prove and test this.