Our chosen genre

Chosen artist: Andrea Storm Kaden

Song: Ink Settles In

Genre: Indie/acoustic Pop

Indie Pop is a genre that doesn't seem to have a stereotypical style of music video, most likely because the sound of the music is not stereotypical; it is such a vast genre. Some of the videos of the genre are similar to a regular pop video (mix of narrative and performance, perhaps a lot of elaborate costumes and set), while other are of a disjunctive or impressionist style that are very strange and perhaps irrelevant to the lyrics.

Features of this genre:

Performance of the band/artist- Sometimes they are seen in a mock live concert or gig. If this is the case, lots of shots of audience members will be seen showing them having fun. They are often looking up to the artist on stage to give an idea of them being god-like. The artist is not actually performing live; they will be miming the lyrics to the song. Other typical shots for this part of the video will close-ups on the face of the singer, or extreme close-ups on their mouth. There will be close ups on instruments being played as well. Sometimes they are not performing at a concert; they are just seen in different locations miming the words to the song. They will normally film the performer(s) miming the whole song in a variety of places then edit them so it jumps from one to another. Mumford and Sons' 'I Will Wait' is a good example of this convention:

A narrative inspired by some or all of the lyrics- Typically, indie pop videos will alternate between shots of the band performing and a narrative based on the lyrics. For example many of them are based on stories of romance. Therefore we would see sequences showing how the couple met and lots of their good memories together. Another popular theme for this genre is heartbreak, thus we might see a couple arguing and maybe someone crying. The narrative would normally just be shown in extracts to get the overall idea of the story. The video for 'This Ain't a Love Song' by Scouting for Girls shows parts of different stories occurring at an airport.

 

Different sets and costumes/make up- In many upbeat pop videos, particularly those with a female pop star, there will be a lot of locations that the whole song was filmed in and these will be cut up so it stays interesting for the viewer. This is the same for the costumes; they are sometimes very flamboyant and there may be a lot of them.  This is 'I am Not a Robot' by Marina and the Diamonds, which shows the performer in a few different sets with different extravagant makeup on in each one.

 

 

 

The performer wears mainstream and fashionable clothing – This is similar to the convention above. It is about how the pop stars themselves are wearing mainstream clothes that will appeal to the masses. The fans will see their stylish clothes and want to dress the same as them. This links in with product placement and consumerism which are seen in pop videos to give the idea that it is important to buy lots of glamorous and expensive items, and paying for ‘brands’. In this video, Lana Del Rey wears two glamorous white dresses and trendy denim jeans with a white jacket.

Disjunctive style - While some indie pop videos will involve typical performance and narrative, others will show events that appear to be completely random and irrelevant to the lyrics. Despite not being relevant to the lyrics, the nature of the video tends to fit with the atmosphere of the song. This is 'Somebody that I Used to Know' by Gotye which follows the convention.

 

Teenage appeal- Although this convention is mostly for typical Pop videos, a lot of Indie Pop videos have the same idea. This is because teenagers are the target market that is very likely to watch the most music videos. They appeal to this age by including issues that teenagers might have experienced themselves so that they can relate to it. For example a number of Pop videos include issues like worrying what others think of you, stress, relationships, trying to fit in, eating disorders and even self-harm.

 

Post Modernism in Music Promos: 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love'

The music promo ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ by The Darkness is a post-modernist video, as seen by how it uses elements from the cult film ‘Barbarella’. This is intertextuality as it is influenced by and reflects another text. It can be said to remodel and satirise the past, and also to transform iconic images by how it spoofs the film.

One of the main ways we can see that the promo is parodying the film is from the mise-en-scene; the set and costumes in particular. 'Barbarella' is a futuristic sci-fi film set in outer space and inside spaceships. ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ uses the same idea, as most of the video takes place in and around a spaceship. The pictures show the set in the music video, and a poster for Barbarella showing the themes and psychedelic atmosphere of the film.

The lead singer of The Darkness is seen the most in the video. He wears a white all in one jumpsuit that is open at the front. The character Barbarella wears a number of different costumes which are all quite revealing and strange. Although the costumes from the music promo are not exactly the same as what Barbarella wears in the film, it does have the same otherworldly nature to it, as it is unlike what people regularly wear in everyday life so it gives an alien feel.

 

The post-modernist music video uses intertextuality from this cult film, and out of the three options of parody, pastiche and homage I would say that it falls into the first category. Pastiche is when it celebrates another art form rather than mocking it, and homage is when another art form is being treated with a lot of respect as if this is what should be achieved. This music video seems to reference ‘Barbarella’ in a light-hearted way as the singer parades about and pulls exaggerated faces. Later on in the video the band are seen trying to defend themselves against a giant octopus, with the use of their guitars. This does seem to be lampooning maybe not only this film, but the science fiction genre itself. The song is also quite upbeat and optimistic which highlights the easy-going nature as opposed to a more serious homage or pastiche.  

 

Communication with the Artist

I emailed the artist whose song we wished to use. We hoped that through this she would give us permission to use the song, and possibly give us creative ideas for the video, for example telling us about what the song means to her. We hoped that she would be enthusiastic for us to use the song. This is the email I sent to the artist letting her know of our plans, and asking permission for her to send an MP3 of the track so then it would be easy for us to listen to and edit with:

This is the email I got in return, informing us that it was alright for us to use the song and if the video was good quality then the artist will put it on her YouTube channel.

 

 

I realised from this reply that I had forgotten to say what song we wanted to use, so I sent another email to her so she could then send us the MP3 of it.

I then had a reply with the MP3 of the song we wished to use, 'Ink Settles In'.

Post Modernism and the Music Video

What is post-modernism?


Remodelling of the past/satirising









Transforming iconic images









Adding to past tradition

Mixing genres









Plays with reality












Intertextuality



 






 
How does post-modernism come about?
- The Experimental stage starts to establish trends
- The Cannon stage works within the trends to fix them into our cultural understanding 
- The Post-modernism stage looks at the trends and manipulates them, adds other things in and makes something new

Different types of intertextuality

- Homage: Imitation is the highest form of flattery
- Pastiche: Using the imagery of one text to make a comment about another
- Parody: Satirising something else

Analysis of our song

We printed off the lyrics to our chosen song and analysed them with our initial ideas. We wrote down any ideas that came to us through reading the lyrics repetitively and drew diagrams to get us in a creative zone. They also help us to picture the ideas quite well. There ended up being quite a consistent idea of using a lot of paint in the video, which we were pleased about because it meant that the song had potential for very imaginative ideas that should make an engaging video.

 

 

 

Style for our promo

We created this video in order to shows answers for the following questions:
'What will your video include?'
'What style will your video be?'
'What inspirations have you had for your video?'
'Will you subvert/adhere to any theories?'

By creating this stop motion video it helped us to convey our ideas in a more imaginative way. We made it by taking lots of photographs and adding to it each time so the words would grow and the two of us would move around. It was also useful as we plan to use the stop motion animation technique in our video, and this gave us the chance to practise this and learn about how to make it work successfully.

As we are aiming to create a popular styled promotional video but with a number of different features to it, we naturally have had a lot of inspiration from other videos and media. One of these was Gotye’s video for ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’. This was because we felt that there was an element to the song that was like ours, and this was how it begins with only one or two instruments, but it becomes more powerful and louder as the song goes on. This meant that we looked at the video for the song to see how they approached this style. We liked how the artists were seen in just one room and had strange face paint on. In the video, paint builds up across the walls and goes onto the bodies of the performers. We found this very creative and thus were keen to use face paint to make the performance of an artist more interesting than just seeing their face as they sing. For the chorus of our chosen song, the lyrics are ‘underneath my skin, as the ink settles in’. Therefore the idea of paint building up and spreading across someone’s skin could be linked to the lyrics. Similar to this is the Marina and the Diamonds video ‘I’m Not a Robot’. There are different shots with the singer wearing various extravagant make-up styles.

 

We were also inspired by Adele’s video for ‘Rolling in the Deep’. We liked the idea of the video alternating from the performer on their own, to lots of other shots of varying length that showed simple actions; glasses of water vibrating, somebody drumming, someone dancing on a floor covered in white powder, plates being smashed etc. We think that the song we have chosen would not lend itself well to a video with a linear narrative. Instead we think a better approach would be similar to this video as it has performance but also a whole range of other occurrences that link to the lyrics and the tone of the song.

 

Stop motion is another idea that we have had for the video. An example of when this technique has been used very successfully is Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’. Throughout the whole video we see the singer’s head, and around it stop motion has been used to animate lots of objects that link to the lyrics. For instance, as he says ‘You could have a steam train’ a track is built around his head and a toy train starts to move around it. We think using stop motion is another way of keeping the video interesting and would challenge us to use more skills. As the song uses only two instruments it gives a simplistic feeling and we think that stop motion would be very suitable for this as it is quite a simple technique itself. For the part of our chosen song when the lyrics are ‘underneath my skin, as the ink settles in’, we thought we could use stop motion here because it could show ink spreading across someone’s body or down their face.

Even though the video is slightly dated now, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is never the less an inspiration for us as it uses multiple effects to maintain interest throughout the promo. The way it uses many effects suits our plan to have lots of different goings-on.










The Mumford and Sons video ‘Whispers in the Dark’ is another video that uses an effect that we think could work well for our own video. It splits the screen into quarters to see different parts of a narrative. An idea for using this in our promo is that it could show the various instruments being played, or the different parts of the rhythm. This links in with another idea because it could show four sets of lips and using an effect to put them all in different colours. This is similar to the art of Andy Warhol, as he would show the same picture in different colours four times. It would sort of be in homage to his work. 

Quite like ‘Rolling in the Deep’, we like how the video for ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ uses a combination of performance and lots of events that are symbolic of the lyrics. It is a very unusual and melodramatic video but we like the theatricality as it makes the video quite majestic.

Style of Music video

 

Our chosen track is 'Ink Settles In' by Andrea Storm Kaden. It fits into the popular/acoustic genre as it only uses an acoustic guitar.  This song follows a stereotypical pop song- it about someone breaking her heart and it sinking in that the break up is real. So, we are going to create a popular music video, as this will fit best with style and lyrics of the song. However, we do want to create something new and original so we won’t be having a narrative and the performer won’t be dressed in a sexual way. We plan to have a theme in a video created from the lyrics of the song ‘Ask the ink settles in’- we are going to be using a lot paint to represent this.   By doing this it will create a montage like video, which will help to keep the music video interesting and engaging for the audience.

The music video will have performance in it, as this is key element to the song. We will use a normal looking girl who becomes more distressed and angry as the song goes on (as this fits with the flow of the song).  Our female actors will also mime the acoustic guitar in the song, as this will help to make the music video look more realistic.

During the song we also plan to have a small section that is stop-take animation.  We really want to push our skills to the highest standard possible and using stop-take animation is a good way to do this.  Also by doing this it is another way of keeping the music video original and entertaining to watch.  We want to either use plasticine models or drawing, depending on what is available and works best with the music video.

Conventions of popular music video  

A popular music video will have a theme that runs throughout. The things shown within the shots will be related to one another, often they relate to the lyrics of the song or the artist. This theme is often quite easy to recognise as it means the audience don’t have to think too much about what happening and just enjoy it.

The editing in a popular will be very fast pace, showing a number of different things in a short space of time. This is done to keep the audience engaged and interested in the music video, as this helps to boost sales. Often in these types of music videos, there is so much going on that when an audience member watches it more than one, they will notices different things.

The artist of the song will always appear in a popular music video, whether it is in a narrative or in a performance. They are often made to look glamour’s and not like a normal person. This is done so that they can become more mainstream and famous.

Any props, lighting, costumes and location do depend of the theme of the music video. The theme is depends on what artistic route the artist wants to take. It is important that the mise-en-scene and lighting helps to create a certain mood and relates to the theme of the video. 

Theory

A media theory that relates well to our music video is one created by Julia Kristeva. She said 'any text is the absorption and the transformation of another'. This means that every media text is just another copy of something that be done before.  This is true to an extent with our music video. Although impressionism music videos are about being original, within our montage style video, there will be things that has been done before that we have taken inspiration from other videos. However, with our music video we also will be purposely doing things that have not been done before to be original and unique. So our music video will be a mixture of this theory and something completely different.

Deconstruction of our chosen song

I deconstructed the lyrics to the song so that we knew when different parts of the song start and began. This would help us construct ideas and will also be very useful in the editing phase. From deconstructing the lyrics it can be seen that the structure is typical for a pop song: e.g. verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus etc. 

 

 

 

Our chosen artist

The name of the artist that we have chosen to create a promotional music video for is Andrea Storm Kaden. The song we have chosen is called 'Ink Settles In', and we found it on the website 'Unsigned.com'.

Biography of Andrea Storm Kaden

·        Andrea lives in Australia and auditioned for the Australia version of the x-factor (only made it to the boot camp)

·        Andrea is inspired by Paramore and Flyleaf

·        Andrea music genre is pop, indie and acoustic

·        Andrea has a YouTube channel in which she does covers and her own songs. It has over 1,000,000 views on her channel.

·        She is unsigned but is hoping that she will be discovered through her YouTube channel.  

Musical Genre

On unsigned.com Andrea's music is described as pop, indie, acoustic. The song features only vocals, acoustic guitar and a bass guitar. The song begins with quite gentle dynamics as her voice starts softly and so do the instruments. As the song continues the three elements of the song become louder and more aggressive and she gives across the anger in the lyrics and the meaning of the song. The song has a tempo of 120BPM, and follows the classic structure of chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, etc. Andrea's voice is very clear sounding and mostly high-pitched.       

Branding in Media

From looking at the images posted on her account on Unsigned, it seems that Andrea represents herself as popular artist, with her long blonde hair and by the style of her make-up. The promotional pictures of her have bright pinks and other colours which show her to be a pop singer, probably mostly appealing to girls. This is also because her songs tend to be romance/heartbreak themed, which is a typical choice for female teens. 



Below is a link to our chosen song. It is Andrea's unsigned page where you can select her song to listen to:

Ink Settles In