Intertextuality

Intertextuality

Not all audiences will spot a reference, which would not significantly detract from their pleasure in the text itself, but greater pleasure might be derived by those who recognize the reference and feel flattered by this. It also increases the audience’s engagement with, and attentiveness to the product. Many music videos draw upon cinema and other areas of popular culture. 

Exhibitionism means extravagant behavior that is intended to attract attention to oneself.The apparently more powerful independent female artists of recent years have added to the complexity of the politics of looking and gender/cultural debates, by being at once sexually provocative and apparently in control of, and inviting, a sexualised gaze. 

Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears are examples of this. 

Andrew Goodwin, in Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992,

Routledge), has identified the following features of music videos:

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (eg stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)
2. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
3. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.  E.g.s George Michael ‘Outside’ , Duran Duran ‘Rio’, Trey Songz ‘Neighbours Know My Name’

4. There is often intertextual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos, etc).

Claude Levi-Strauss - Believed constant creation of conflict / opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/stillness) or conceptual (love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack. See Green Day ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’  or Katy Perry ‘Firework’ 

Our promo

We looked at the film Narnia for our intertextuality. In our promo you may not see it in terms of walking through a wadroabe but you will see the difference of one world to the other. We decided on Narnia as we like the concept of two worlds, one which isn't very nice and the other where you are free.   

The Pierces

Laura did this research
During last week we have had some different people looking at our music video as we had asked them to rate it and give my group constructive criticism and one person that advised us to research the band 'The Pierces' was a English teacher because he thinks that we could get some inspiration from these two since their duo and our band who we are making a music video for, Sound of the Sirens.
I have researched some of their music video and I like some of their ideas in the video, Glorious especially the retro effect that they have throughout the performance/video.

The Pierces

The Pierces are an American New York-based band consisting of sisters Allison and Catherine Pierce. Allison Margaret Pierce (born July 23, 1975) and Catherine Eleanor Pierce (born September 11, 1977) were born two years apart in Birmingham, Alabama. They traveled frequently and received home-schooling from their self-described hippie parents. Their father played the guitar in various bands, while their mother was a painter. Exposed to music and arts at an early age, the Pierce sisters grew up listening to Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel. As children, they were encouraged to explore their creative side and would perform at parties, weddings and churches. Allison started dancing at age three, and both sisters are accomplished ballerinas.

The Pierces are mainly based in NYC and consist of two sisters, Allison and Catherine Pierce hence their name, The Pierces. They origin from Birmingham, Alabama in the USA.
Genre of music: Psychedelic rock, psychedelic pop, psychedelic folk, folk rock, folk pop, pop and rock. Years active 2000 - Present. 

Website - http://www.thepiercesmusic.com/ 

This shot is placed right at the beginning of the video and it shows the two band members growing through their audience to prepare perform to them. 
They girls are in the middle of the shot because this suggest they are the important people in the shot in that time and all the attention and focus is on them.

With this shot, again, the most important prop is the old fashion camera and this represents the time period that are were in when shooting the video.
Also, on the right at the back, there is a lady wearing a pale, salmon colour dress which also could support that point about the time period.

Slightly further into the video when the singing begins, Allison (brown hair) is positioned in the center of the shot while Catherine is more left to show that she isn't as important at this point in time since Allison is about to introduce he first line of the song and they want to audience to concentrate on the person singing the song rather than other elements to the video.

This close-up shot behind Catherine suggest a positive atmosphere especially with the blue/green tones in the lighting because it contradicts the emotions the audience would associate it with.
Its bright and very bold colour to also represent party and having a good time while enjoying the performances.   

This mid-shot show the retro style as well as the time period.
The red colour effect suggest danger but then again love and effectiveness.On the sides of the shot again shows a retro effect in the mid 1900s. 

The final shot of the video shows the two sisters/band members in their finishing position as well as the drum stick near the center. 
The main focus would be Catherine's dress, hair and body language.
It is a secure and steady end pose.

Analysing a similar artist digipak

Gabrielle Aplin

Below is Gabrielle's digipak for her 'Ghosts' album. All of the panels go well together and keeps with one theme rather than having random pictures put together in a random order. There are simple colours used for the text and the background on some parts. The black and white theme gives the impression of age or memories, it is simple and gives the album a sleek and defined look. The pictures that are used are of her but her face is always hidden, giving the album a mysterious feeling but also it is a intriguing tactic to get the audience interested. But I also think that her face is hidden because she wants her audience to just focus on her music rather than her looks which is what happens alot in the music industry.  

This is an analysis of another one of her albums by someone which I found. I loked at it to help me with the analysis above.

Gabrielle Aplin Digipak Analysis from toriwheatley1



Ancillary task - Digipak

Materials used?
Usually cardboard is used to create 4,6 or 8 pannels which include pictures of the band or things to do with the bands.
Number of pannels?
Normally they use 4,6 or 8 pannels front and back.
Type of prodcut that is marketed using a digipak? why?
The product that gets marketed by a digipak is the band,their other songs and albums.  
What material is included in a digipak?
There can be lyric pull outs, pictures of the band etc.
Design and layout conventions?
The picture below is of the typical layout you would see for a digipak.

Other factors
- 'Swish' CD cover
- Cardboard
- Lyrics/bands/blog (extra)
- Marketing tool/ promotion
- Limitied edition/ promos - collectors

Key points of digipaks 
- 4,6 to 8 panels
- Often used to market special editions/collectors items/singles/albums
- Often include slots for lyric pull outs, etc
- Strong aesthetic purpose
- Realtively cheap to produce but can command price premium as collectors editions

MODO (www.modo.co.uk)
Modo was started in 1998 in response to the need for a specialist and creative packaging company to service the entertainment business. Modo is able to offer a vast range of products that are already available in the market place but SPECIALISES in designing and creating new and exciting packaging that enhances the product at retail BUT remains within budgetary guidlelines.Modo has a global supplier base that enables it to be competitive and source a huge variety of materials and products.Modo has in house design and access to a pool of creative talent that enables it to offer creative solutions to any company from EMI to EVIAN.Modo keeps itself at the cutting edge of creative packaging and by using a vast number of different suppliers and designers it is able to proactively service the home entertainment market.Modo can do production runs from one to one million units and it is successful and well skilled at project management. The bringing together of all the elements for some of the bespoke projects can be a logistical nightmare but something that we manage with the utmost efficiency.

 

This is an example of the type of thing that they produce:

Examples of digipak

Each of the digipaks are from different genres and some are the same. The Ruby James - Desert rose digipak isnt folk but it gives us inspiration for our own. You can see that the pictures that are included have a couple, there is the singer with a guitar and they are set in the country.

A2 students digipak examples:

Promos

Promos

Why are promos made?
Promos are made to promote the song or artist through using a visual demonstration of a particular song. It is used in every single genre  for solo artists and bands as well. Some examples of promo's are:




How are they used?
Promo's are used on different music programs and sometimes as little adverts on the TV but only short clips of them. Mainly they are used on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Twitter which is only the online uses. On music channels they are used on MTV, Vevo and other ones too. This is because these are the types of media which have the largest audience so it is the best way to promote a artist by creating a video that will entice people to buy the artists song/album.    

Current activities (19/11/13)

We are still editing our video. We are making sure that everything is perfect from the syncing to what shot goes where. Today we were thinking about overlaying two performance shots but they only come out green which makes the video look strange so we have scraped that idea.   

Our opening idea

 
 
These shot are some examples of how we were going to begin our music video. However, in the end, we decide that it didn't look right for the genre of the music.
We are glad we tried it out and then found out it didn't work rather than not demostrating our ideas and thinking what would happen if we didn't do it and how could it of changes the promo. 

Current activities (18/11/2013)

Today we are editing our music video. We decided that the start of our video with the pictures weren't working so we deleted them. We have also started to really sync our video to the track which is now on the mac. We are currently only part way through our editing and have got up to the start of the chorus.  

Friday filming

We picked Ronnie up at 9 and got to Laura's at 9.20 and arrived at Shillingthorpe park at 9.30. We started filming and didn't finish the woods scenes till 12.30. We got back to Laura's for the house scenes at 1.00 and started filming at 2 till 4.30.

Friday filming burst effect by Ronnie

Title tester for music video

Laura came up with this idea to use stop motion. 

Friday couples mood boards

These mood boards are to show the good and bad things in a relationship which we are going to be filming Friday (8th November).

Changes

Instead of using Tabby in our video we used Laura because of time management problems. But it worked out as now we have changed our story slightly. As Laura is both in the performance and Narrative we are making it like it is her story she is telling through song.


Changes in the video to be made

Because on the day of the perfromance we didnt have aq picture of the couple we are using(Laura and Chris) we couldnt put a photo of them on the guitar so I came up with an idea. The idea is to use a picture from Fridays film day and take a still of Laura's guitar in the performace and put them together so it looks like there is a picture on the guitar.

This picture is an exmpale of what it will look like if it works:

Wednesday filming

We came into school at 2.30pm and got the cameras and tripods. We then did the make and hair from 2.30 to 3.15. At 3.15 we went down to the drama studio and started to set up the staging area. We collected the mics stands and mics and set up the guitars. After we set everything up as well as the camera for the first shot we sorted the lighting and made sure the lyrics were visible on the big screen and then started to film at 3.40. We filmed all the way to 5.10. We filmed many different shots and did the song all the way through with each different shot. The photos below are of today.