Barthes theory

Barthes identified five different narrative codes that can be used to analyse media products. This is how our product relates to this theory:

Action Code
In our music video the action code is present throughout as an unwinding story, however, the trigger for the audience is simply when the popular girl and alternative boy smile at each other. This suggests to the audience that there is emotion between them, which in itself shows that they want to be together but can't.

Enigma Code
The enigma code in our video is whether or not the lead singer of the band will get together with the popular girl. The audience at the start of the music video see the boy and girl look at each other but the girls friends drag her away. This is designed to infer to the audience that they secretly like each other but cannot be together. This will make the audience want to know if they will get together.

Semic Code 
The school set in our music video tells to audience that the characters are teenagers. All the props and mise en scene in our video has been placed to indicate that our characters are young , mostly alternative and in school. All theses elements of our video is typical to the genre of Pop Punk and is featured in a lot of Pop Punk artists videos such as Wheatus.

Culture Code 
Our target audience for our music video is tennagers therefore we felt that a school/sixth form setting would be relatable and appropriate to use. We also felt that by having the popular girls friends not allowing her to be with someone from a different social group (perhaps, stereotypically, a less valued one than herself) was an accurate representation of how our alternative audience may have felt at some point.

Code Of Oppositions
Our video features two binary opposites, love v evil. The love element is the popular girl and the alternative boy (lead singer of the band) wanting to be together and having feelings for each other.
The evil element is the idea that two social groups cannot interact as they are too different. This is portrayed through the popular girls friends that are trying to stop this. However, as stated by Vladimir  Propp's theory , the villain is punished and the hero is rewarded , therefore love triumphs over evil.

Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer proposes that a celebrity is an image and not an actual person. He argues that their image is purely fiction and is constructed. The music industry has more control over how a celebrity is portrayed as the can have more control over the image that is being portrayed.

Many examples of this can be found in pop culture such as lady gaga and Johnny Cash. Both of these celebrities have been portrayed in a similar light throughout there career due to the type of magazine articles that are written about them, the fashion they wear, the type of songs they promote and also their music videos. Although these comparisons are very different to each other , it is interesting to look at the similarities between them. They both have a specific iconic identity, and what Richard Dyer argues is that this image is not their own but one constructed by record company's and their manages but also the media.

I thought this theory was relatable to my research of music videos as it indicates that we have to consider the image of out band that we are presenting to the audience. As well as their image fitting with the genre of music, we also have to consider the type of image that we are portraying carefully. Usually with the genre of Punk Pop music, the band members are usually young alternative males that have had a hard life but have a 'happy-go-lucky' attitude towards life. Dyer argues that stars are commodities that are produced and consumed on the strength of their meaning. Therefore, to me, this suggests that our band's image needs to be relatable to our audience.

Sum41 In Too Deep Research

The music video was directed by Marc Klasfeld and premiered in September 2001. It is a parody of the diving competition from the Rodney Dangerfield classic, Back to School. Sum 41 face another dive team, represented as stereotypical high school "jocks" with muscular bodies and red Speedos.

Marc Klasfeld is an American music video director. He has directed over two hundred music videos for artists such as Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Jay-Z, Kid Rock, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Buble', Nelly, Foo Fighters, Jewel, Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, Aerosmith and many others with multiple MTV award wins and nominations.

Music Piracy Research

What is music piracy?

Music piracy is when tracks that are copyrighted are stolen (released without owner consent, sold without owners consent, copied, used without owners consent.) This infringes copyright laws.

The Digital Economy Act 2010

1.       ISP’s music regulate illegal file sharing and downloading files by slowing down accesses to internet, sending letters to the offenders and issuing strikes

2.       ISP’s must tell police

3.       Websites can be blocked if there is a threat of copyright infringement

4.       Fines up to £50,000 can be issued- considered to be proportionate to the harm caused to the UK industry’s

Criticisms of the Digital Economy Act

1.       Public Wi-Fi?

2.       What should happen to people who illegally download material? Criminal record? Fine?

3.       One person or group?

4.       Can it ever be proven?

5.       Do the public want/agree with this law?

6.       BBC found that 87% of people thought that internet access should be a human right

7.       TalkTalk has claimed that 80% of youngsters will continue to download music

8.       TalkTalk – don’t disconnect us , 2009 , shouldn’t be everyone that gets punished

9.       Can it ever be stopped?

10.   Why is it the ISP responsibility?

11.   How have other countries done it?

 

Case Studies

Lime Wire (2010)

1.       Four-year legal battle with the US music industry.

2.       Platform intentionally caused a "massive scale of infringement" by permitting the sharing of thousands of copyrighted works by its 50 million monthly users.

3.       Founded in 2000 by Mark Gorton

4.       US recorded music sales fell to $7.7bn in 2009 from $14.5bn in 1999.

5.       LimeWire planned to release a service called Spoon, which would allow users to legally purchase copyrighted tracks. The deal fell through, however, when record labels were told that the site would need at least a year to migrate illicit filesharers to the new service.

The Pirate Bay (2006)

1.       The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 and has established itself as the world's most high-profile file-sharing site.

2.       The Pirate Bay's fame became too much for Swedish authorities, and in March 2006 the site's offices were raided by police investigating allegations of copyright violations.

TV shack

1.       A British student can be extradited to the United States for running a website linking to sites carrying pirated TV shows and films, a court has ruled.

2.       Richard O'Dwyer, a 23-year-old student at Sheffield Hallam University,  judge Quentin Purdy ruled that there were no valid reasons why he could not be sent to New York state for trial.

3.       US customs agents are seeking his prosecution over a website O'Dwyer set up when he was 19 called TVShack, and ran until his arrest last year.

4.       This provided links to other sites hosting pirated versions of TV shows and film.

5.       so popular that the student earned £15,000 per month in advertising revenue, US prosecutors claim.

 

 

 

I wanted to make sure that we were aware of the piracy that happens in the music industry as this could be potentially damaging to the products that our chosen artists produce.

 

 

Ancillary Task Questionnaire Feedback

We have devised a questionnaire to see whether my target audience will enjoy and want to watch my music video. It includes questions concerning when and where they watch music videos so we would know where to distribute it. We also made one for the ancillary tasks to see when and where my target audience view CD covers and posters. From our feedback we will know what to include on the cover and the kind of things they like to see. If our feedback does not fit with what we plan to create, it allows for changes to be made. This ensures our products will be successful. 

We asked 25 people from our target audience of teenagers (13-20) my questionnaire. 

These are screen shots of each questionnaire. They are one choice answers to make our results clear.

 



1. Do you tend to take notice of album release posters and CD cover images?

2. Do you buy CD's?

3. Do you buy magazines?

  4. If so, what type of magazines do you buy? (You can choose more than one)

5. Where do you notice adverts the most? (You can choose more than one)

  6. What type of genre of adverts do you prefer?

  7. Do you prefer to see the artists or images on CD covers?

8. Do you prefer bright colours/images or darker colours/images?

Music Video Questionnaire Feedback

We have devised a questionnaire to see whether my target audience will enjoy and want to watch my music video. It includes questions concerning when and where they watch music videos so we would know where to distribute it. We also made one for the ancillary tasks to see when and where my target audience view CD covers and posters. From our feedback we will know what to include on the cover and the kind of things they like to see. If our feedback does not fit with what we plan to create, it allows for changes to be made. This ensures our products will be successful. 

We asked 25 people from our target audience of teenagers (13-20) my questionnaire. 

These are screen shots of each questionnaire. They are one choice answers to make our results clear.

 

1. Do you watch music videos often? (more than once a week)

2. Where do you watch them?

3. If on Tv- where?

4. If online-where?

5. What do you watch them on the most?

6. Which music genre is your favourite?

7. Do you prefer music videos that include a narrative or purely performance based?

8. Do you like to see the artists or actors in a music video?
9. What kind of narrative do you most like to see in a music video?

 

Theory

This is my illustration of McQuail's usues and gratification theory. McQuail developed Blumler and Katz theory of what the audience receives from the media. When constructing our video we have to consider what our product is offering to our target audience and also what music videos in general offer the audience.

Ancillary Task Questionnaire

Music Industry post #5

One Direction have signed a £10 million megadeal.
The band will release another three albums for Simon Cowell's record label Syco between now and 2016.
Two of the albums will be studio work and the third will be a greatest hits compilation.
Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson were locked in talks for most of the year, but an agreement has finally been made.
'Simon Cowell and One Direction are delighted to confirm they have agreed to continue their hugely successful relationship with a new long-term agreement with Syco,' a label spokesman confirmed to British newspaper The Sun. 'Simon and the band look forward to many years of continued success together.'
The contract will only be valid after the release of Midnight Memories, One Direction's third album due out in November.

Music Industry post #4

James Blunt will be playing a special intimate show on the 30th September at The Tabernacle.

As the gig is at such a small venue, he wanted to give everyone a fair chance to be part of this one-off show. Apply for the opportunity to buy tickets from: http://live.jamesblunt.com/secretshow Applications close at 12.00pm on Monday 23rd September.

All successful applicants will be contacted on Monday 23rd September with a unique code that enables them to buy up to 2 tickets until 9:00am on Wednesday 25th September to complete the purchase. ALL successful applicants must purchase the tickets in their name and tickets can only be used by the purchaser.

Music Industry post #3

Miley Cyrus has unleashed the Director's Cut of 'Wrecking Ball' as a thank you to her fans for helping her make video history and demolish the VEVO record (previously held by Miley herself) with 100 million views in only 6 days.

Miley promised via Twitter that she would unveil the alternate version of the sexy clip produced by Black Dog Films and directed by Terry Richardson once the original reached 150 million views.

And while everyone was wondering what could possibly be more sexy or controversial than the 20-year old swinging from a wrecking ball nude, Terry and Miley have surprised everyone by replacing the provocative sledgehammer-licking and white underwear with a more personal take on the song's meaning. 

Music Industry post #2

     
Jessie J is leaving the UK to make it in the US.

The singer is determined to be successful in America and will stop at nothing to make that happen.

'The US is such a big market to break. It's such a different thing out there,' she told British newspaper The Mirror. 'I don't like doing anything half-heartedly, so I don't wanna do the US until I can be there - so I'm gonna live there next year.'

Music industry post #1

Arctic Monkeys have scored their fifth consecutive number one album with AM - and made chart history in doing so. In the past seven days, more than 157,000 copies of AM were sold in the UK, making it the second-fastest selling album of the year behind Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, which sold 165,000 copies in its first week of sale in May.

Inspiration