Is Postmodernism becoming more frequent in Music Videos?

Postmodernism is used in Music Video's. For example this newly released Music video called (The Hardest Ever) plays with incorporating a merge of different artists. For example Will.i.am, who is a member of 'Black Eyed Peas', known for his very 'modern', 'techno' music ability. The video features 'Jennifer Lopez', a very standard, american Hip hop singer. The clip also features 'Mick Jagger', lead vocalist and founder of the rock band 'Rolling Stones'. The video mixes different genres into one.The video plays with the use of Nostalgia, traveling back in time, however the clip includes a modern space ship with high technology features to travel back into space. The video mixes from using geometric, scientific themes, which is classed as very 'modern day', the mise en scene at the beginning where everything is white plays on this modern idea, as the colour white symbolises cleanliness, pure and futuristic. The video includes modern props, for example high tech mobile phone, motorbike, jeep and rocket. The mise en scene then changes to what Mick Jagger wore in the 1960's, his statue is very faded which also conveys that they are going back in time. The colour of white then changes to a mix of vibrant bright colours that were known for the time the rocket is traveling back to. The postmodern elements are shown when Mick Jagger begins to sing the song's repeated lyrics, "You can go hard, or you can go home", however he is singing in the the style of how Mick Jagger would sing the song in the 1960's. I believe that Postmodernism will become the future of Music Videos, due to the exciting scientific element of mixing genres!

Within editing GoldBloom's promotional video, I have included an element of self-reflexivity which is used throughout. Self-reflexivity is shown through the edit of speeding which is seen as a constructed text, for example I have used this technique especially at in the opening of the clip, when the camera is finding the band, using imovie I was able to fasten the pace of the footage as the original footage was too slow and slightly boring. Throughout editing, imovie allowed me to bring together bits and pieces of different footage of the band, constructing it's sequences of scenes on the basic of editing techniques. Self reflexivity is also portrayed with the clever use of music editing, for example using the music as a narrative structure, this is shown in the opening when there is a slight pause after the text "GOLDBLOOM", then the use of the beat acts like the 'Que' for the next scene, this portrays that the footage has been constructed. The band's name, "GOLDBLOOM" portrays a significant postmodernism feature of intertextuality. The band originally got inspiration for the band name from the famous actor, 'Jeff GoldBloom', the fact that their band is almost a 'copy' of something else portrays the intertextuality element. After inspiration from 'The Wombats' promo video, I have borrowed specific editing elements from their promotional video, for example the idea of a moving skyline image with text written above image, this idea of creating a piece of work that imitates the style of some previous work, is known as Pastiche. Promotional videos are the development of new mixed-media forms. They are such a form of combining elements of live performance footage with contrasting footage of, for example a band chilling out promoting themselves as individuals as well as musicians.

Postmodern Spiral effect - "A piece of work that imitates the style of previous work" - Pastiche. This is the image of the band in a spiral effect used on the poster as part of their advertising: Can be seen on website...

Band Camp (Media Technologies)

Bandcamp is another site that offers a lot of musician friendly tools to help sell music and merchandise. According to the site, “On Bandcamp albums outsell tracks 5 to 1 (in the rest of the music buying world, tracks outsell albums 16 to 1) On name-your-price albums, fans pay an average of 50% more that whatever you set as your minimum.

GoldBloom have acknowledged that Band Camp is another source to engage and interact with more fans!

http://golddbbloom.bandcamp.com/

Sound Cloud (Media Technologies)

Sound Cloud is an online audio distribution platform, which allows collaboration, promotion and distribution of audio recordings produced in August 2008, allowing musicians to share recordings with each other, and to distribute their music tracks. Sound Cloud has had great success for beginning musicians and new bands, it's popular use, has challenged the dominance of other viral marketing for example, 'My Space'. A key feature of Sound Cloud is that it lets artists upload their music with a distinctive URL. This contrast to 'My Space', which hosts music only on the MySpace site. By allowing sound files to be embedded anywhere, Sound Cloud can be combined with popular viral marketing sites, like Twitter and Facebook to increase it's audience reach.

I have also used sound cloud to create audio files used in this evaluation!

GoldBloom have created their own Sound Cloud account :

www.soundcloud.com/goldbloom

Facebook (Media Technologies)

Facebook offers a very "real" audience and potential fan base for bands and a network that allows you to share important information easily. Information such as upcoming concerts, new music, videos, pictures and links. In today's technology society promoting music has changed from it's original publicity of pinning up flyers on lamp posts and posting flyers through letter boxes, in fact it's a much easier way to promote music these days. Facebook has become such a viral success that the most of the population have a Facebook account. Music artists and bands have acknowledged that their fans are using Facebook, therefore it is a perfect opportunity to promote their music. As a country, we are always wanting 'MORE', in terms of fans and music, hearing their music is just not enough to satisfy. They NEED to know more about the band as individuals, this is where Facebook can portray this personal information through images of the band, knowing what the band are doing, where they are, and what they are doing next, through the access of posting recent 'Statuses' that fans can see. In today's society we have to almost 'stalk' bands to like them and their music. Facebook is also a reliable source to other links, e.g. Bands website and Tour dates.

The co founders of Facebook realized that alot of the members were using the site to promote themselves. So they created a special type of page for business purposes called Facebook Pages.

The main advantage to starting a separate fan page for the band is the ability to send updates to all of their fans at once, no matter how many fans that they have. With a personal profile, they can send messages to only 20 people at a time. (This is Facebook’s way of keeping spammers from bulk mailing thousands of people at one time)

With a personal profile they can have no more than 5,000 friends. That’s not a problem for most people, but if you’re a popular artist or part of a band, you’ll disappoint a lot of your fans when you reach your limit.

Even if someone is already on the band’s email list or following them in some other way, you want them to connect with the band on Facebook too. It’s all about repetition and giving fans lots of ways to stay in touch with the band.

The band 'GoldBloom' have acknowledges that Facebook is a good way to advertise them, as a band, and a good way to promote their music.

I also used Facebook to keep in touch with the band, sending them my idea's and creative thoughts to seek their opinion and own advice for improvements.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Goldbloom/299291986758077

Viral marketing

Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives technology allows artists to introduce their music to a potentially enormous audience at low cost without necessarily affiliating with a major recording label. The design of digital music software encourages the discovery of new music. This, in turn, creates many opportunities for independent bands (like GoldBloon) Digital services offer the opportunity of exposure to new fans and the possibility of increased sales through online retailers. Artists can also release music more frequently and quickly if it is made available online. Additionally, artists have the option of releasing limited edition, out-of-print, or live material that would be too costly to produce through traditional means.

Bands need to consider VIRAL MARKETING as their biggest selling point in today's music industry. Especially for small, indie bands like GoldBloom, viral marketing is basically their only success for making it Big. The images below show a visual image of viral marketing and how using people (the old way) of promoting music and advertisment is just not enough anymore, the second image is the new social site 'Twitter' and how twitter will properly access more fans than human recommendation. "It will take less that a second for news to spread on the internet, which will then lead to buying albums!"

Genre Research

I have chosen this music video as it represents both a narrative style and involves genre representation. The video includes an intertextual link from Mariah Carey's 'obsessed', which is essentially mocking Eminem, similar to the character of 'Stans' obsessiveness over Eminem. The video is obviously constructed, as 'Dido's' singing has been edited to sound like her song is playing on the radio. The edited sound of scribbling when Stan is writing his letter, and the harsh sound of rain in the background. The 'film-like' music video uses flashbacks to convey the moral and understanding of the plot, this again is using a sense of self-reflexivity. The video clearly states a stereotypical lifestyle of a young, violent teen, who got his young girlfriend pregnant in a council estate house. The plot is set within a Distopian atmosphere, conveyed by dark lighting, flickering of lightbulbs and the use of lightning. By creating the 'Distopian' world, the genre of this clip would suit a scene out of a horror film, due to the mise en scene of a dark, claustrophobia basement, and the abusive storyline. The lyrics of the song are cleverly used to narrate the clip, cleverly rapping but sticking to the moral of the story, which is clearly conveyed. This video was made in the year 2000, targeted at a modern audience, who could relate to the certain lifestyle that is portrayed.

Genre Theory

"Genres are instances of repetition and difference"

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, for example: Stage performance in metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band, aspiration in hip hop. The main genre characteristics of an Indie/friendly grunge music video is the inclusion of a performance element. The video would consist of a display of the band's authentic image and to further emphasise the indie 'Do it yourself' aspect that they are trying to portray to their targeted audience. 'Indie' bands are very image orientated, which is another addition to the genre characteristics, as their 'image' is a major factor, to persuade their fans to want to like them, they should instantly become 'fashion icon's' to their fans.

The band 'Goldbloom' have naturally forwarded the casual, laid back traditional 'Indie Look', which again forwards the 'Do it yourself' approach that Indie bands are known for, and admired for. The band quote: "We just wear what we feel like wearing" This quote stresses the 'Indie' portrayal.

The image on the bottom is an images of a current band called, 'Little Comets', the relaxed, home feel of the 'Mise en Scene' has really inspired me. This themed idea of rehearsing in something as small as one of the band member's bedroom was the look I wanted to portray in my image on the top of 'GoldBloom'. I wanted to create a 'messy' look, to again forward the 'Indie' phrase of 'Do it yourself', making it look easy for fans to do themselves.

Musical freedom - Creativity

Musical freedom – artists making their own rules

I believe that this ‘power and strength and magic’ is largely the freedom to be young, to be angry, and to speak from a specific place with a particular identity. Such an idea now seems bizarre indeed at a time like ours, where so much music seems to come from some kind of Pop Utopia or depthless post-modern hyperspace where the origins of the music and the artist are both carefully erased. And in today’s climate, how liberating and wonderful is Tony Wilson’s alleged comment: ‘I will never interfere with the freedom of my artists. Artists make their own rules.’?

"This idea of Music artists able to be creative without rules or moral, and the excitement to involve danger and explicit phrases, however rules and morals take away the freedom for artists to be creative." (Kathryn Sunnucks)

All Factory artists seemed to be unique individuals, making the best music possible – music that was true to themselves, their city, their fans. And, of course, sometimes this leads to trouble and the unpredictable.

(steve Archer)

Creativty

Describe how you have developed your skills contributed to your creative decision making, refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills have developed over time?

The majority of my creativity skills have emerged through learning and exploring new computer based technologies. Improving my technology knowledge from the AS foundation production has developed my creative skills, approaching creative editing websites, for example 'Photoshop' and 'Picnik'. These specific websites have expanded my skills and ability towards editing pictures. After acknowledging the use of these websites I have again used 'Picnik' in my recent A level photo shoot of the band, GoldBloom. After having used the website before I was able to freely use my creative skills, also exploring new, more challenging edits after revisiting the site.

Creativity also plays a main role in transferring sketch images to CAD (computer aided design) This was done when sketching out planning for the website, but also occurred when storyboarding for the promotional video. What can be freely made up on paper, is extremely difficult to draw through technology. This is where I have come to the conclusion that Creativity is found through the nature of the hand, the ability to freely draw whatever creation that is made up in your mind transferred to the paper, the only restrictions that occur is when you try to transfer your creative idea's off the paper.

This current project is allowing me to discover new computer skills, for example: making a personalised website for the band, GoldBloom. Creating a website for the band allows them to expand their presence when music fans find them on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedln and any number of other social networking sites. After discovering 'Wix' a free website design page, allowing you to choose from themes, layouts, page guidelines and allows user to create own design.

Creativity skills play a large role in website design, in fact this is where my skills have developed from. I have learnt that you specifically have to acknowledge that the home page is the 'welcome mat' of any website. After researching website books, 'Guerrilla Music Marketing Online' it supplied me with useful facts and information about what, and what not to do on websites. The book taught me that you have to be careful that you don't confuse people and scare them away before they even take their first step inside the band's personal demain.

Having the freedom to be however creative as you want can sometimes overrule the 'simplicity' of a website. I have considered this aspect, and have created a sophisticated, symmetrically pleasing to the eye layout that is not too graphic heavy, this is why I changed from my first idea of creating a 'cluttered' image dominating website, as I wanted to go for the 'Less is more' effect. I have included an animated slideshow of a few images of the band on the homepage to add animation and interactivity to the site.

A music website can look attractive without overwhelming a visitor's eye and their web browsers ability to render pages. Creativity ability plays to the fact that you have to be aware of not over crowding a page on the site. Too much information too soon may chase people/fans away, or could easily bore them, loosing fans and the ability to sell your music. I have acknowledged this, by creating small rectangular boxes which include 'News updates of the band', 'Recent Album releases' in small detail to draw fans in on the homepage to want to carry on looking through the site to find out more. The secret is to suede people in with the creative design, layout, images, and persuasive text on the homepage.

Naturally the eye prefers a centred image and bold title, as the title and logo are what people remember mostly and it is the band's signature image and name. From developed experience using 'Photoshop' in my AS project, I was able to freely use my editing knowledge to create a logo for GoldBloom. The band have used a 'Golden Sun' to symbolise their 'Band logo', I wanted to stick with this logo and place the sun in the top centre of all the pages on the website. However the image I had chosen on 'Google' had a white background behind the image, which I wanted to erase so that the Golden Sun contrasted with the sophisticated plain black background of the website.

Using my Creativity skills developed from 'PhotoShop', I was able to achieve the look I wanted. Creative ideas can be inspired from other sources. My website design consists of a black background with a contrasting 'Gold' logo, this idea had been inspired from the popular, current music band, 'Mumford & Sons' website. As well as using Creative skills in the design and colour choice, you have to also consider the design of your 'Navigation' access. If you want fans and the music business to truly dig into your site, you must make it easy for them to move from page to page. After researching current websites, I have acknowledged that the 'Navigation Bar' usually sits along the top of every page listing the main sections of your site. I wanted to keep creative by making the chosen link light up 'yellow' to to match the Golden Sun, when the mouse hovers over it, this is also including interactivity. Keeping a good colour coordination is pleasing to the eye, and also makes a website look professional. Keeping the list of internal links short and snappy, 'Home, News, Live, Band, Blog, Video' this makes it easier for people to access what they want to know about the band quicker. When creating a website you have to consider all ages and gender of people who are likely to access the site. One way to get people involved with the band's music is to give them something to do while they are on your site. By creating an interactive element, for example on my 'Blog' page, I have written a blog from the band to their supporters a 'Post Poll' allowing them to feel involved and participate in contacting the band.

Creativity has definitely played a large role in my development of 'Viral Marketing' design, and creativity shown through persuasive text.

As part of the A level project is to produce a 'Promotional Video' for the band I am promoting, I have been discovering and using 'iMovie' to produce the clip and using my knowledge of 'Youtube' and 'Facebook' to promote it. Earlier on in the year we were accompanied by an Apple imac specialist to help pass on imovie creative skills for us to use when we come to creating our videos. After note taking and remembering specific techniques I was able to expand my video with creative skills that I would not have known existed. This enabled me to be even more creative with my new ability of experimenting with the imovie software.

Creativity in the Curriculum

‘Creativity in the Curriculum’ is a one-day national conference held in London on 26 May 2011 brought to you by Optimus Education, Teaching Expertise and Curriculum Management.

Creativity in the curriculum conference will gain practical strategies and ideas that will help design a toolkit for crea

tive learning in schools. They will hear practical ideas for lesson planning, themed weeks, assemblies and collapsed timetabling techniques that provide coherent learning experie

nces and creative opportunities for students.

As 'Creativity' has grown into a major 'needing factor' to get by in today's competitive economy, I feel that looking too in depth into the idea of creativity is destroying it's natural ability and freedom that is gifted to those who use it well. This idea of 'teaching creativity' has been firmly anchored, I believe that creativity cannot be taught, otherwise it ruins it's power of freedom, which we all desire as a positive aspect to define us as individuals.

Making Sense of Creativity

Mark Readman - Bournemouth University.

Creativity is currently a 'Hurrah word' used in the UK education, which we naturally embrace with an uncritical approach. It can be argued that creativity is determined by an economic base that is part of a superstructure. Caution and skepticism is the best response to a sentence that begins with 'Creativity is...' The word 'Creativity' is big in today's technological society. It has become scientised and taxonomical, congealed as a set of principals, whereas we should find it. Promote it. Rather than express it like an abstract idea. The arts converse a 'Glamourous' association of creativity which is then disavowed. It's not juts about art, it's about science, maths and problem solving.

(Gottfried Wagner 2009) presents an antagonist stance to creativity...

"Creativity is a beloved non-word, an almost messianic formulation: One of those public screens onto which everyone can project almost everything. It is a term coined offer hope and positive expectation: a catchword to employers and a must have in job application letters."

The Pragmatic Response

(Anthony Storr)

"Creativity has been defined as the ability to bring something new into existence: and this definition will serve our present purpose well enough."

(David Gautlett)

"This particular understanding of creativity involves the physical making of something leading to some form of communication, expression or revelation."

(Norman Jackson)

"We favour a more inclusive motion of creativity that embraces personal creativity used in problem working, but the outcome would not change the domain."

Defining Creativity

Defining a process that covers such a wide range of activities and personal styles is inherently difficult. Ours is a 'stipulative definition', almost like a proposal. It is also an indecisive definition, we therefore define creativity as...

"Imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value"

(NACCCE 1999 All our futures)

(Paul Roberts - 2006 Nurturing Creativity in young people)

"The review draws on the qualification and curriculum authority work on creativity. This in turn, takes a stalling point of creativity as defined by the report of the National Advisory Committee on creative and cultural education that there are four characteristics of creative process...

1) Creativity involves thinking and behaving imaginatively.

2) This imaginative activity is purposeful: that is, it is directed to achieving an object.

3) There processes must generate something original.

4) The outcome must be a value in relation to the object.

The Tensions which result from this instrumentation and operationalisation.

"Arts curricular and arts education projects emphasise positive social benefits and a collbarative ideal. But what of expressions of creativity that do not fit in with current social definitions of acceptable collective social endeavour that are perhaps individualists, anti-social, troubling or even dangerous?"

(Banaji et al 2006 The Rhetorics of Creativity)

Tension between: Freedom and Control

"Creativity is not simply a matter of 'letting go' it is sometimes assumed that creativity only emerges from 'free expression' and lack of inhibitions or constraints."

(Mark Readman)

"Creativity, like violence, like love, might be best explained through its discursive formations."

The History of Narration

The history of Narration and performance in music videos was clearly shown through the 14 minuet hit single of ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson. The narrative is very important and apparent. The video begins with two characters (one of them as the lead singer) in a gothic mise en scene horror like atmosphere. The video allows the audience a much more varied access to the performer. The visual narrative and performance cleverly works well together, as the Michael, the singer and actor portrays both roles throughout the video. This extract of the lyrics gives a clear overview of the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.

Narrative Theorists

Firth (1988) came up with the theory that music videos can be characterized by three broad typologies.The first, is performance which creates a sense of ‘in-concert’ experience. The performance oriented visuals, cue viewers that the recording of the music is the most significant element. The second is the narrative, which is most common in linear love stories, and action in the story is dominated by males who achieve heroic moments, which encourages female characters to passively react or wait for something to happen. This particular type of narrative is clearly shown in ‘Enrique Iglesias’ music video - Hero.

It includes ‘Todorov’s’ theory of ‘Equilibrium’ which is portrayed as Enrique and Jennifer are happily in love, ‘Disequilibrium’ occurs when the car breaks down, and they are attacked by a group of men. Enrique knows that the gang will not let them go, this is where ‘Recognition’ is shown. ‘Reparation’ is conveyed by Enrique fighting against them, ‘the hero against villains’. ‘New Equilibrium’ is shown when Enrique dies but he knows that Jennifer is safe from harm. This music video also conveys aspects of ‘Propps’ and ‘Levi’

s’ theories of the narrative structure. Enrique is portrayed as the heroic male, which also backs up Goodwin’s theory of a positive dominant statue, that is advertising the singer in a positive light, which will attract the female audience. The plot consists of Enrique sent on a quest to overcome the evil gang of thugs, clearly portrayed as the villains, with the aid of Jennifer, the helper, for the gift of Jennifer, the reward.

Steve Archer (2004) recently forwarded the theory that music video’s will ofter cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Often a carefully choreographed or purposely unchoreographed, humorous dance might be apart of the artist/bands performance or an extra aspect of the video, designed to aid visualisation, repeatability and likable factor. Sometimes the artist will act as the narrator, this allows the audience to interact as it’s a familiar voice, and also a chance for the artist/band to personalize themselves to their fans. This is so they can be part of the story acting as the narrator as well as a participant. The lip sync, close ups and miming of playing instruments remains at the heart of music videos.

Music Video Narration

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‘Steve Archer’ - “Video’s tend to only suggest story lines and focus on the fragments of the lyrics.” This idea occurs in the majority of all music video’s in today’s society.

You have to decide what role your artist will play in the music video. They could either play the narrator, protagonist or both? You have to consider whether the video is a vehicle for the artist's style persona. 'Andrew Goodwin' promotes the idea that music video’s fails to give the audience the complete narrative. He goes on to explain how we, the audience only tend to get a gist of the actual meaning of the song, therefore we have to improvise our own interpretation of what is being told. He explains that music video’s should ignore common narrative, it is only of importance of their role of advertising themselves to the public.

For example, Michael Buble, one of the world’s most successful artist displays himself as a ‘James Bond’ hero in the music video ‘Feeling Good.’ Buble plays the lead role in the video, and although you can’t tell is he is a protagonist or antagonist, the audience is still on his side due to his cool demeanour portrayal and his stylish presentation, which backs up Goodwin’s theory of Video’s being used to advertise the singers positive persona. Goodwin believes that Music video’s coherent repeatedly. He explains that when the narrative and performance work well together, it makes it easier for the audience to watch without losing interest, this is shown in the Buble video through the shots of files and equipment in the room which all adds mystery to the video, which intrigues the viewer. He believes that the artist acting both as the narrator and participant helps to increase the authenticity, however the lip sync and other mimed actions remains the heart of the music video, the audience need to be persuaded that it is real.

The Narrative of a film is the coherence of organization given to a sequence of events. This also can be seen in music and promotional videos. For example, I have included a ‘sequence of events’ through the use of imovie, which enabled me to select different footage of different scenes that that band have been in, for example footage of the band at home, eating pizza, chilling out, quickly edited to a new scene of the band playing at a gig. The type of sequence that is portrayed is the contrast of different places and scenes that the band have been too throughout their journey, allowing the audience to feel like they are part of the ongoing sequenced journey of different events. This is portraying a fun, moving around, traveling rock star lifestyle that the band are promoting as their aspirational lifestyle. The Mise en Scene in narration is a key factor to bulk the artist/bands personas. GoldBloom promote a laid back, easy going lifestyle presented in their promotional Video, which is suited to their target audience of young students wanting that type of lifestyle.The mise en scene has to suit the target audience who you are promoting the music video towards.

You have to consider whether the video is a vehicle for the artist's style persona. Now, throughout my research and finding out more about how the band want to represent themselves through their music and merchandise, GoldBloom are not bothered about how they look, and what image they want to portray, they just want their fans to enjoy their music as much as they have enjoyed making music. This is shown in their promotional video, as the video footage is not perfectly clear, they are not dressed to impress, and the video does not have a specific narrative structure nor does it have a specific meaning.

'Andrew Goodwin' promotes the idea that music video’s fails to give the audience the complete narrative. He goes on to explain how we, the audience only tend to get a gist of the actual meaning of the song. As it is only of importance of their role of advertising themselves to the public. This is partly true to the promotional video as the band want to advertise their fun, laid back casual approach to the music industry, not taking themselves too seriously, however they are more interested in promoting their music rather than themselves.

The audience need to be persuaded that it is real. I think the main positive aspect that GoldBloom’s promotional video portrays is ‘realism’. The video is very believable through the use of the characters/members of the band are being themselves and that their music is real.

Goodwin believes that a narrative in a music video should include an ‘Illustrative’ representation, e.g. band logo, the involvement of repeating key meanings and effects to manipulate the audience, known as ‘Amplifying.’ There should be a variety of contrasting images and film footage against the music, known as ‘Contradicting.’ And a sense of ‘Disjuncture’ which is when the meaning of a song is completely ignored. In the video there is no actual meaning of the song, it’s just there to advertise their music and act as a memorable logo for the band.

"The video allows the audience a much more varied access to the band."