Media theories

Audience Feedback

The First Draft of Our Storyline

For a while we have been thinking about what the narrative would be for our music video, after brainstorming some initial ideas and casting the roles we now have a solid storyline that we can translate to a story board.

We start with an establishing shot of a train pulling out of the station. The camera pans along a row of empty seats till it reaches a profile view of a young girl around 17 years old. She has no name and is meerly referred to as "Girl". Her hair is messy and her eye make up has run leaving two dark streaks down her face to show she has been crying as we see her reflection in the window. To juxtapose with the darkness and shadows she iswearing a pretty white dress underneath a worn out leather jacket and is carrying a large bag. She is a teenage runnaway with connotations of a very different life before and as the camera zooms in on her face she closes her eyes and leans back as she contemplates how she got to this place.

This a device to take us to a flashback as we cut the eyes of her as a child opening. The frames are sepia-toned to indicate this shift in time period. As the camera zooms out we see her lying star-fished on her parent's bed in a bored manner wearing a pale pink dress with her hair in tight ringlets. She sits bolt upright and aimlessley makes her way over to her mother's dressing table. At this point the intro would be over and the song would be into the first verse. The child is a sheltered, bored dreamer who yearns to be taken seriously. She covers her face in her mother's make-up and as she searches through her dresser she opens a drawer to find a bottle of pills. The young girl eyes them suspiciously as she holds them up to the light, then opens the bottle and swallows a few. This marks her attempt to escape from adolescence and the world that appears to be strangling her as the line, "Slow down you crazy child" suggests. There is then a 360 degree revolve around her is followed by her mother, a tired looking woman in a cashmere twin-set and pearls, appearing at the the door. When she sees her daughter she laughs endearingly at her make-up slathered face and strokes her hair in a motherly fashion as the girl sits awkwardly looking down and feeling guilty. Her mother then noticing the open bottle of pills becomes alert and empties the bottle, counting each pill. Once realisation has hit her that they are not all there, her behavour becomes erratic as she tears the room apartsearching for the stray pills. Admist all the chaos, the girl backs out of the room slowly. the next shot we jump to is the young girl, weighed down with bags, quietly leaving the house at the crack of dawn.

We then cut back to the train, focusing the camera at a young man dressed in black watching protectively over the teenage girl which brings us to the performance element of the video as he sings the line "When will you realise...Vienna waits for you". In our music video, we have interpreted Vienna to be a metaphor for a sanctuary to escape to when life becomes too claustraphobic. this also introduces the unrequited love sub-plot between the young man in black and the 17 year-old girl in white however, initially, she is so wrapped up in her troubles that she is oblivious to his prescence. Throughout the video, he will always be on a higher level with the camera looking down on her. This is not to diminish her but to connote a sense of caring that the boy feels towards her. It is not until the end of the video that they are both on common ground.

Iconic Album covers

One of our requirements alongside producing a music video is creating an album cover. To prepare for this I decided to research iconic album covers (internationally reknowned and my personal tastes) to identify what makes an album cover memorable. By analysing these covers I hope to take on board some tips in the process of creating our own album cover.

The Smiths "Meat is Murder" (1984)
The image repeated on the cover of the band's second studio album was taken from Emile de Antoni0's 1968 Vietnam war documentary. The soldier's helmet originally read "Make War Not Love" before being replaced with "Meat is Murder" and giving it's name to one of the most notable vegan/vegetarian information sites today.

The Velvet Underground "The Velvet Underground & Nico" (1967)
The eponymously titled debut album from the protopunk group collaborating with the vocal stylings of Nico, a moody, beautiful model/actress/singer-songwriter/one of Andy Warhol's many muses from Germany. This Warhol print of a banana on a white background was minimalistic at a time when embellishments in the entertainment industry were in full use. Original copies of the album even included a peel-away sticker with the suggestive tag "Peel slowly and see"...

Britney Spears "Baby One more Time" (1999)
Love her or hate her, you can't deny that this cover art was memorable. Her debut album at 17 portrayed her as sweet and innocent as the camera looked down on her smiling face. The clean-cut image she presents with the candy bracelets, denim skirt, pearly white teeth and golden locks that established her as an American Sweetheart played a big part in marketing her music.

David Bowie "Aladdin Sane" (1973)

Bowie's alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust, with the lightening bolt brandished down his face is immortalised on this album (intended as "A lad insane"). described as "Ziggy goes to America" it epitomises the two faces of the country which which led Bowie to be simultaneously "appaled and fixated by America".

The Rolling Stones "Forty Licks" (2002)
A retrospective two-disc back catalouge that combined the band's London era of the 60's and their self-owned post 1970 material. All bought together with the lips-&-tounge icon for which we recognise them best. This ain't your average run-of-the-mill Greatest Hits album.




















Joy Division "Unknown Pleasures" (1979)

The back of this album cover contains no track listings and is left completely blank so alredy breaks the conventions of what you would expect and makes the pulse lines, taken from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy stand out even more. It appears like an optical illusion and its simplicity has made it timeless and memorable.

Madonna "American Life" (2003)

What better way to make an icon out of your cover than to emulate an existing icon. Madonna did just that with her ninth studio album, American Life. Chosing to don a beret and pose with her head held high was a slaute to Che Guevara which went accordingly with the military theme she based her album on. The splashes of red on the black and white image also elevate the album and make it memorable.


















Pink Floyd "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973)

Richard Wright requested for a "simple and bold design" for the cover of "The Drak Side of the Moon"




















The Sex Pistols "Never mind the Bollock, Here's..." (1977)






















The Beatles "Abbey Road" (1969)

The immortal image that iconized the road.




















Blur "Parklife" (1994)


















The Jimi Hendrix Experience "Are You Experienced" (1967)

The Clash "London Calling" (1967)

Nirvana "Nevermind" (1991)

The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967)

Skills we learned from our Summer short film project, "Home"

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/video/video.php?v=162291697072

Target Audience

When constructing our music video, it was vital to consider the type of target audience that our video and the music would appeal to. We needed to consider the style of music and the style of the video separately, as the two are not necessarily synonymous, then integrate aspects from both to create an audience profile. For example, a fan of BIlly Joel's folksy ballads may not necessarily be a fan of the kind of love story we want to explore in our video. Likewise a video about a troubled young teenage runaway may appeal to a young girl who is not necessarily a fan of Billy Joel's back-catalogue.

In order to assess this I have spoken to a range of people (males, female, teenagers, young adults, adults etc.); some of which are Joel fans and all of whom understand our video concept and seen our rough storyboards as a work-in-progress so we are relying on them to visualize the finished product with the resources provided.

Issues Facing the Music Industry Today

As our track is from the late 70's, it is significant to note that music has moved on since then and we needed to find a way to make the song relevant to the modern music industry...despite me, Suela & many people we talked to being in agreement that it's a timeless song. It wasn't about the actual song but our presentation (or adaptation) of the music & lyrics visually (ie. a music video). As we are presenting our video as a package along with an album cover and press release, it has made me contemplate the kind of issues that face the music industry today: the artists, the producers, the marketing team and, of course, the audience that listen to the music. S I did a little reaserch to learn more and consider what issues would be relevant for out project...

*Is the internet a friend of the music industry or a foe?

The internet is greatly beneficial to showcasing up-and-coming acts, giving a platform for unknown & unsigned artists and spreading information concerning gigs and band updates. However the internet is also infamous for hosting illegal downloading sites and leaking music videos before their official release which greatly impacts the industry. This is shown in the amount of money that has been lost due to people illegally downloading songs rather than legally downloading or buying an album the old fashioned way. The music industry also faces much more competition than ever before and it's a challenge for record companies to sign the best acts before their rivals do.

Billy Joel's influences and Similar Artists

Joel produces a diverse range of musical styles yet he has a trademark folk-inspired, harmonica sound that derived from other musicians and, in turn, inspired his successors. His profound lyrics that explore human diversity and society and his simple bass lines over piano music create a distinct sound that ties in many areas in general popular music. Some similar musicians are...

Bob Dylan

Paul Simon

Ray Charles

The Beatles

Elton John

Although all of the above artists may have pioneered or been synonymous with the music from older generations they still resonate today as their music is still downloaded, their songs are being covered by more contemporary artists (Avril Lavigne covered Dylan's "Knocking on heaven's door, The Hot Rats recently released a cover of The Beatles' hit "Baby You Can Drive My Car") and also sampled in various genres (Kanye West sampled the bass line of Ray Charles' hit, "I got a Woman" in his song "Goldigger" whilst up-and-coming UK urban artists Dj Ironik featuring rapper Chipmunk remixed the Elton John's song "Tiny Dancer" for their own version. Moreover these artists create the cannon of music that continues to influence current acts on the music scene. These are all the reasons why an artist like Billy Joel is just as relevent today as he would've been 40 years ago.

Update on Progress of Production on Music Video

Music Video Analysis of 3 No Doubt Videos: "Don't Speak", "It's my Life & "I'm Just a Girl"

I decided to also analyse a couple of music videos from a more current artist to compare and contrast...

No Doubt: the ska-influenced, Grammy award winning American pop-punk band, fronted by the peroxide blonde bob and throaty female vocals of Gwen Stefani, have a unique trademark style in their music and their image... yet they are still open to experimentation. This is evident through their music videos, which always deliver on a high level so I will be looking at three of their videos in order to compare and contrast and look at how their videos may have evolved over the years (hence, the chronology). The first one I will be looking at is "Don't Speak", arguably their biggest hit, from their 1995 album Tragic Kingdom; Next I will be looking at "Just a Girl" the first single released from the same album; and finaly I will be looking at a more recent video, "It's My Life" a cover track for their Greatest Hits compilation, The Singles, released in 2003.

"Don't Speak"

The begining of this music video sees band member, Tony Kanal, pick a fruit in an exotic Adam and Eve style garden. As the camera slowly zooms in to an extreme close-up the audience can see that the fruit is rotten. This may symbolise either forbidden fruit or the inner mould of something that appears ripe and fine may be metaphorical for the kind of toxic behind-the-scenes relationship the band portrays in the video. The video also concludes with this same orange-picking process, only in reverse, which ties together all the loose-ends. The lighting contributes to the cinematography of a smudgy, dream-like quality which is maintained to the performance in the garage with the sunlight flowing in. A tracking device establishes this switch of location & time. During this performance the band is sombre and slow as the camera does a 360 degree close-up around Gwen as she sings- to emphasize her status within the band, that becomes relevant later on. This juxtaposes to the archive footage of the band onstage, sweaty from the high energy show they're putting on, as the chorus kicks in. We are able to tell this is archive footage by the kind of grainy documentary way it is shot and it gives the music video some variety visually. The narartive elements tie-in during the second verse. In this video the audience is witnessing the disintegration of a relationship, whether it's fictional or relevant to the band's own history. The fundamental lyric of the song "Don't speak, I know what you're thinking" suggests the communication in this particular set-up is all in the expressions which say more than words could. The orange theme appears again as the band is doing a photo-shoot and the photographer take a particular interest in Gwen and slowly discards the other members of the band from the shoot, leaving her pouting glamourosly, bandishing an orange. A series of cut shots displays the band members individual reactions to this and the incident sparks of a series of disputes they have interwoven into their performance becoming more and more intense. In the segments of the band arguing the lighting is more dark and cast more shadows.

"Just a Girl"


"It's My Life"

The contextual features of this videa are not dissimilar to that of a 1940's film noir with Gwen embodying the role of a murderous femme-fatale, reminiscent to screen sirens such as Barbara Stanwyck or Jean Halow. Her "murder victims" are played by the rest of her bandmates

Billy Joel's "Piano Man", "Uptown Girl" & "We Didn't Start the Fire"

We were advised that it would be useful to look at other Billy Joel music videos to get the gist of the kind of artist he portrays himself visually. Joel's music spans from the late 70's through the 80's so the music videos don't have the technology and tricks that modern videos have the advantage on, yet its nonetheless effective in portraying an assortment of characters in one place that illustrate the lyrics of his songs. I will be looking at the relationship between the images and the semiotics they convey.

Piano Man (1973)


Uptown Girl (1983)


We Didn't Start the Fire (1989)

Vienna Lyrics, Analysis and my Personal Interpretation

It was important for us to look into the lyrics of the song to find where we could base a narrative around it and what the weaning conveyed. Some things were implied but others we had to take licenses with so it would be our interpretation of the song.

Slow down, you crazy child

You're so ambitious for a juvenile

But then if you're so smart,

tell me Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?

You'd better cool it off before you burn it out

You've got so much to do and

Only so many hours in a day

_______________________

But you know that when the truth is told...

That you can get what you want or you get old

You're gonna kick off before you even

Get halfway through

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

____________________________

Slow down, you're doing fine

You can't be everything you want to be

Before your time

Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight

Tonight,...

Too bad but it's the life you lead

you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need

Though you can see when you're wrong, you know

You can't always see when you're right. you're right

You've got your passion, you've got your pride

but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?

Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

______________________

Slow down, you crazy child

and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile

it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two

When will you realize,..Vienna waits for you?

And you know that when the truth is told

that you can get what you want or you can just get old

You're gonna kick off before you even get half through

Why don't you realize,. Vienna waits for you

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

One of the advantages of using a song like this is that it could have multiple meanings. I have researched the history behind the song but, in all honesty, all of that's irrelevant. What really matters is my (as a music fan) initial reaction to the song and what kind of images it conjured up in my mind by default. To me Vienna is metaphorical for a sanctuary where you can escape from the everyday stresses of life. I see a girl who's life has snowballed and she has taken on far too much that she can sope with, "Slow down you crazy child" or she is forced to grow up far quicker than anticipated due to circumstances beyond her control. The song is re-assuring and comforting with a dose of reality, "Dream on but don't imagine they'll all come true" and its not patronising. "Vienna" is suggested to always be there as something you can count on in an everychanging world and sometimes you need to abandon you're pride and escape to a place where you're allowed to be completely selfish.

About Billy Joel & Research into the song "Vienna"

Billy Joel

Billy Joel is an award-winning American rock musicians and composer whose hits include "Uptown Girl", "All My Life" and "Piano Man" among others. Born in the Bronx, New York in 1949 to German-Jewish parents, Joel discovered and utilized his musical talent from a young age. His lyrics are inspired by the metropolitan streets of New YorkCity and Long Island and focus on an assortmant of characters. Joel decided to persue a career in music upon seeing The Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show and began recording with The Echoes, a band that specialized in British-Invasion covers in the 60's. This helped him develop his folksy-classical style with a modern twist. In 1973 he moved to Los Angeles and signed with Columbia where he released his first official record Piano Man with the hit single of the same name. Throughout the next few decades he went on to have a string of sucessful hits in the United States and internationally. He is currently touring with Elton John and is recognised as one of the most influential figures in popular music.

-

-

-

Research into the song Vienna

To get a full impact of the song we researched the history behind Joel writing it and looked into what the song lyrics conveyed to other people to provide us with inspiration for what we would do in our music video.

From our own knowledge and some research we knew "Vienna" was a song from Billy Joel's 1977 breakthrough album "The Stranger". Although neevr released as a single, Joel still cites this as one of his favourite songs.

We looked at various websites and found a re-occuring story that Joel told when asked about the song and why he chose Vienna to represent a sanctuary to reitire into while the rest of you life awaits:

"Why did I pick Vienna to use as a metaphor for the rest of your life? My father lives in Vienna now. I had to track him down. I didn't see him from the time I was 8 'till I was about 23-24 years old. He lives in Vienna, Austria which I thought was rather bizarre because he left Germany in the first place because of this guy named Hitler and he ends up going to the same place that Hitler hung out all those years! Vienna, for a long time was the crossroads. During the Cold War, between the Eastern Bloc, the Warsaw Pact nations and the NATO countries was the city of Vienna... Vienna was always the crossroads - between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. So the metaphor of Vienna has the meaning of a crossroad. It's a place of inter...course, of exchange - it's the place where cultures co-mingle. You get great beer in Vienna but you also get brandy from Armenia. It was a place where cultures co-mingled.
So I go to visit my father in Vienna, I'm walking around this town and I see this old lady. She must have been about 90 years old and she is sweeping the street. I say to my father "What's this nice old lady doing sweeping the street?" He says "She's got a job, she feels useful, she's happy, she's making the street clean, she's not put out to pasture". We treat old people in this country pretty badly. We put them in rest homes, we kinda kick them under the rug and make believe they don't exist. They [the people in Vienna] don't feel like that. In a lot of these older places in the world, they value their older people and their older people feel they can still be a part of the community and I thought 'This is a terrific idea - that old people are useful -and that means I don't have to worry so much about getting old because I can still have a use in this world in my old age. I thought "Vienna waits for you..."
There is also a lot of inside stuff on the song. The beginning and the end is very Kurt Weill. That kind of sick, middle-European, kinky decadent thing.. cabaret kinda.... there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. We are seeing the result of it in this ethnic warfare in the Balkans which is a tragedy. This century started out with this Assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo and that begat World War I which begat the Russian Revolution, then you had the Depression then that begat World War II and then that begat the Cold War and all that's over but they're still blowing each other to smithereens in Sarajevo. So this whole thing is going on in middle Europe - it's Kurt Weill. And some composers, Dvořák, Smetana - they captured it."

Initial Ideas: Brainstorming possible track and considering who I will work with

Before I got started on the task I needed to consider two things: one was whether I would choose to do a short film or a music video and the second was who I would work with. Luckily neither took much time to think about. Before the summer we were assigned the task of creating a short film based on one or two emotions with the brief of including a range of camera shots. Whilst we enjoyed the experience of making the film, I felt I wanted to evolve into something else; trying a music video but taking on board the skills I had learned from the short film into the process. Suella, a member of my group on the short film task shared my views and after the film task we had vowed to work together on a music video which solved the latter matter.

With a partner, a new school year and a summer to consider what kinda of music video we were going to make, Suella and I were keen to get started which meant finding a song we could interpret a narrative around with some performance elements and making sure it did not already have an exisiting video that we would conciously or subconciously be influenced by. It's not secret that Suella and I have very different music interests but we undestood that the video wasn't supposed to be a reflection of our personal tastes but a showcase of the skills we have learnt during our course. With all this in mind we began to brainstorm various tracks we could use (some were well-known artists whilst some were more obscure) from various genres. We compiled a list of possible tracks that we knew fairly well and looked at their opening lyrics to decide which one stood out. The list went as follows,

Possible Tracks
"Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode (remix by Mike Shinoda)
"Bang Bang Bang Bang" by Soho Dolls
"Vienna" by Billy Joel
"Life on Mars" by David Bowie
"Memories are made of this" by Dean Martin
"I've Just Seen a Face" by The Beatles
"She's a Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones
"Out of My League" by Stephen Speaks
"Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin
"Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix
"Grounds for Divorce" by Elbow
"Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes
"She's in Fashion" by Suede
"Cherrybomb" by Joan Jett & The Runaways
"Venus in Furs" by The Velvet Underground
"Moi je Joue" by Brigitte Bardot
"Wrapped up in books" by Belle & Sebastian
"Hard to live in the City" by Albert Hammond Jr.
"Eighties Fan" by Camera Obscura
"La Foule" by Edith Piaf
"Jimmy Mack by Martha & The Vandellas
"Laisse Tomber les Filles" by France Gall
"Jeepers Creepers" by Hayley Mills
"I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper" by Erika Eigen

Despite the extensive list it was pretty clear that we were both very enthusiastic about creating a music video for Billy Joel's "Vienna" which has no existing video and which has some beautiful lyrics which we could create a story around within the video. With our track down we needed to start considering research into Billy Joel's back catalouge, the history of the song, potential actors, filming locations, schedules etc.