Richard Dyer's Star Theory

As part of the research and planning stage of the music video I had to choose two artists and apply Richard Dyer's star theory to them.

Survey Monkey

Adam  created a questionnaire on survey monkey, and send it off via email so that we would get some feedback and ideas for our music video. We only sent it out to people within the age range of our target audience, as their feedback is most important to us.


We sent it out on Facebook and also via email



For each of the seven questions I received similar answers and going through it was good to see how others feedback could possibly influence our video.

Q1. The most common responses were; money, cars, drugs, alcohol and gambling
Q2. Urban type areas, clubs, casinos and mansions
Q3. A lot of responses from Brits so Grime dominated the responses for this question with artists like Stormzy and JME.
Q4. The three most popular answers given were: Kanye Wests - Good Morning, an animation featuring a cartoon bear. Eminem - Not Afraid, a video showing Eminem in an urban setting. Eminem - Rap God, for most of the video it shows Eminem in a TV screen using different effects and bright colours.
Q5. I received many similar answers for this question; Eminem, Drake, Stormzy, Kanye West, JME and Snoop Dog
Q6. Most of the answers for this question were to do with lyrics or what happens in music videos, for example Drake's 'God's Plan' video where he spends his music video budget on helping people less fortunate than him to pay for college or their weekly shopping.
Q7. Most people said they prefer to see the artists through the video to see the emotion in their body while singing the song and acting out scenes where as a storyline can sometimes take that emotion away.

Phase 2 - Audience research/field research

We created some questions that we then asked a group of people that were the same age as our target audience. The questions were worded in a way to get the group to give us useful feedback such as, what they expect to see in a rap music video etc.

We asked a group of three people, one girl and two boys, for their answers to these questions in hope that they would help us find out our target audience and what they want to see in the music video.



Evidence editing the Vox Pops videos for YouTube



Uploading the videos from the iPhone onto the computer and editing the Vox Pops on final cut pro

Putting the Vox Pops onto YouTube



YouTube link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztqMk5W9E78

Initial Research Phase 1 / Jobs roles / Jobs on set

Introduction

As part of our A-Level media course, we have the challenge of creating a music video for our coursework. We will be choosing an artist to create a music video for one of their songs. Things that we will need to consider for this is genre, target audience, props, miss en scene etc. The blog will be showing all of the stages of research, production and evaluation.

Research - Brand ID - Audience research - Audience profiles

Through online research, I have discovered some important aspects of self branding as an artist, what fans want to hear in music and other important tips that will help artists produce high quality output and branding. To find this information, I looked up on the internet "What is the importance of branding as an artist". Here are some of the top pieces of information that I found.

Importance of branding as recording artists:

It’s arguable that the most important aspect is the “Product development” .

The artists develop their music but also the brand overall.

Music isn’t enough nowadays; you have to consider visual identity of their music.

Businesses focus on consumption rather than reception when it comes to artists, audience and money.

Networked communications demolish the traditional concept of audience and replace it by countless sets of limited variety.

Create a simple message that is easy to understand when trying to stand out in front of fragmented fans of your music; therefore it is simple, not complex.

Fans buy into music that signifies themselves. Their signifiers are value to the listener. Most of the time this is emotional value.

Listeners don’t consume your music. They consume the brand in the process, which creates their identity.

Brand should have a meaningful message that fans would attach themselves too.

Artists gain more fans and loyalty for a brand that is meaningful and stands for something.

Create a short message, a deeper meaning and try to make the world a better place.

Good music comes first and the deeper meaning comes second.

Stars (2^nd Edition) by Richard Dyer

Stars matter because they act out aspects of life that matter to us. Performers get to be stars when they act out matters enough to people.

Stars is separated into three distinct sections: stars as constructed social phenomena, stars as commoditized images, and stars as reflective signs of cultural ideology, which forms Richard Dyer’s star theory.

The star is not a real figure, but rather a construction of materials and branding, creating an ideal image of a person.

Industry constructs the image of some stars i.e. advertisement, magazines, fashion and albums. Some items may symbolise stars such as Bono’s trademark Emporio Armani sunglasses and Justin Bieber’s hairstyle.

Individual contribution

Throughout the entire time on the course, my individual jobs included, being the main actor in our swede of Mean Girls, creating several story boards for our horror, this also involved market research; asking individuals, and a focus group to find out which horror conventions they would commonly see in horrors, and what frightens them. From this information, I was able to come up with more ideas for my group’s story. Once the horror story was decided, it was then my job to show representation of age and gender through the use of mise en scene, camera angles, editing and sound. For this I used enigma code, symbolic code and conventions to achieve a deeper meaning to the story for horror enthusiasts. I was also in charge some of the recording using the filming camera, taking behind the scenes pictures such as how we recorded some of the scenes and how the makeup art was done. For several of the scenes within the horror, I provided different props for the scenes such as a teddy bear and pill bottle. There were also several occasions when the main editor was not in therefore I contributed to editing by gathering different sounds from online, and putting them into the horror. There are also a couple of scenes that looks like they are glitching, however that is due to the editing, and I am partially responsible for this editing (It was intended).

My primary role within the course was to be the director/producer. This meant that I would come up with the ideas for each scene, decide where the scene would be filmed, tell the actor what to do and make sure that the camera man and editor knew what they were doing, and what I wanted the scene’s to look like.

Evalluation

Now that we have finished the final piece of coursework, we are now able to start the 7 evaluation questions. For each question, they will be created and presented using technology. For example, one of my questions about enigma code and symbolic code will be presented by a voiceover, and relevant pictures popping up throughout the speaking. This will be created on Final Cut Pro.