What is a Music Video

A music video is a production intended to create visual and audio that is to impact what an audience sees/or hears. Music videos motives have different reasons, to make the artist, who is in charge of creating the music production, to relate towards the audience, send them a message through the song which is song lyrics. Music videos include instruments to create sound, sound equipment to modify the sounds/make quality better & visuals which can be a location that has something to do with what the song is needing to say or is about. They are streamed on various sources, including Spotify, YouTube, concerts & music festivals.  

It's main purpose? Promotional 

Music videos are produced for the benefit of the artist; to create revenue and influence to gain views and acknowledgement in the industry. The music industry is a multi-billion £/$ industry, so it's also potential gaining for that specific artist who want's to join. The music industry also has competitive sound tracks and records which view monthly listeners or statistics, it's to keep track on how an individual piece of music is doing or the artists career path success rate. And always all the time, artists can either die out or slowly grasp to the top, it's about gaining influence over large communities to make record amounts of plays. However, in the production of music videos, artists can collaborate with other artists in either directly being in the music video or behind its producing editing stage. Artists can cut deals with television, brands from TV can feature an artists song in their film/show or even adverts as partnership deals to gain both profit and benefit to audiences and popularity.  

Other Purposes: Construction of Image

Construction of an artist can include their self-image and style in many forms and can be considered art, the visuals and lyrics are extremely important to understand; because music can be considered one thing: It has meaning. It has a purpose on why it was made considering people listen/pay to help their artists succeed. Music has an emotional impact on the audience in any emotion given. Even an artists appearance can determine their image, because a lot of artists have professional portraits of themselves made. Perhaps even clothing, some artists wear specific and even eccentric styles of clothes to reveal their personality within their music style.  

Extension of income & Label strategy 

Independent labels of music videos can be coordinated with low level amounts of budgets - because this may be a time that an artist/band or solo musician is starting off hence they have no strategy yet to advance. Instead of signing contracts with a musician company label the artist can be self-employed and so therefore it's up to them in order how to produce their needed music video; Because music labels can convey 'non creative freedom' - creative freedom is the utility to focus and create something without a deadline worth of contracts and censorships from a company or government in music/film.  They may specialise in one genre of music because it's their ideal demographic. However music artists who sign up with record labels tend to male more amounts of income, depending on the popularity of the label coming into terms of business with.

History of Music Videos

Music videos have primarily been around for half a century but became popular in the 1980s, because music back then was becoming a larger industry with the trends of bands performing and becoming realities. Prior, in the 1950s music was just recorded and listened on the radio - however people who performed music on theatres became getting popular on television during the later 1950s such has Elvis Presley; his current goals at the time were opening up music choices and performing them to younger demographic's of people. In the 1960s, and that's exactly how music marketing became a thing, when in the 1960s, ABC alongside 2 other film companies, started conveying music producing by hiring artists. Broadcasting television became a prime subject for music as it allowed record producers, technicians and directors to work together on broadcasting, television and film industries' to create the Ed Sullivan Show, which later hosted The Beatles. A new dynamic of music technology and industrial complex was coming into spotlight.  

Exposure on Music Channels/Outlets

In the 2010s, music was taking a digital step forward, leaving CD's and records behind and enhancing a new prime of advertisement and extension. Television was a habit for music video content, but it wasn't TV's primary interest for showing music, many reality TV shows and host/talk shows would grant showing music video's for a target audience demographic including Teen Choice Awards, American Music Awards and America's got Talent. These television companies grew larger film-based audience's than music ones at the age of future digital television, since then YouTube which was a rising source became a choice for music to be uploaded on by independent artists and established artists with connections in television and radio. YouTube managed to stay in prime and begun to attract young people's attention alongside social media that was forming to grant a large interest in both TV and music video production, the deal with TV and music is that it was competitive, in the 1980s-1990s that was the golden era for music video production, but you needed to become popular with television net-working connections granted on TV, it was the only source for advertising music before YouTube. 

Synergy (Linking with Media)

In order for a music video or an artist/band to become successful, they need to link with other forms of media, including Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, Apple Music, Internet/websites, I-phone's or even advertisement, in order to do so, music video's and artists need to strike up deals and contracts with other forms of media that can be business orientated or advertisement/marketing and in the film industry. Primal connections in other forms of media are essential for music to become successful to attract their needed target audience demographic. Now today that we have YouTube as the prime content space where music videos are uploaded onto, through YouTube when a video goes public, YouTubes recommendation profiler looks for the intended subjects that may show interest in watching a music video, the more in popularity that video gets, it attracts wider audiences and revenue. 

Producer Strategy 

Controversy

Music videos can have controversy in them because it can be dependable about the visual appearance of what's being shown towards an audience about a specific subject matter. "This is America" music video had some debate about what was being shown because it was a song about America's gun violence on the streets. Although the song is moderate in terms of controversy as the song was a blueprint for attention in order to get the message out there about talking of gun violence stereotypes, and other issues in America needing to be addressed , it's like the song was just showing the reality of these situations. The producers/makers of the song wasn't targeting certain groups of people in terms of calling out. 

Entertaining

Songs from music artists can variously be entertaining as in comedic when written, the song "Smash Mouth - All Star" became famous after it was used in a lot of internet comedic culture, it also went into some other popular films which had a sense of comedy towards them including Shrek. The song is noted for it's bright usage of colour grading, the lyrics being said, what's happening it (e.g. pushing someone over at the intro) In a sense to get the listener to laugh and feel inspired because the song isn't about feeling sad emotion. 

Thought Provoking

These type of songs can have a type of serious undertones in them, mostly emotional or serious that grabs the viewers attention. Sometimes artists can turn their songs into performing about their own traumas in childhood, suicide/depression and drug addiction. It's about sending a message towards an audience about the artists own experiences. Artists who wrote and sang serious songs can include AVICII and JuiceWrld. Music artists can turn the atmosphere of the song into what their conveying it to be, the visuals representing their previous locations on where these timelines of events happened in their lives. 

Demographic-centred  

Sometimes songs can put their focus into a person/persons or established groups - meaning that a song can be directed about another person's experiences, or the music artists experiences with a person, or a person's experiences with the music artist. These either can be good or bad in terms; it's storytelling or creating a narrative about what's happening in the music video visually and through the lyrics. Little mix made a music video about "breaking up with her now ex" writes about what had happened and how'd she's dealt with it and turned it into an inspirational song. 

Example Music Videos:

This video has a great amount of animatics included into it, a lot of it could be greenscreen, props included - it's used in an eccentric way, because it fits with the time period the song was released in. 

Storyboard Camera Angles

Bringing the visuals of my music video to life in a practice storyboard development process. Creating visuals from camera angles either in a music video or something different, I chose my music video. It was a good chance at doing my music video as in preparation for the real video production. I had to pick out 6 camera angles to find/choose and create visuals by drawing them as best I can; say how I would do it/set up the location, equipment and who will be in it, and then what inspired me to do it. My inspiration was The Black Keys, which was the entire storyboard camera angles. 

Demographic/Socio-Economics' 

Researching into my chosen artist choice, I need to look into the social economics of the demographic that artist/band attracts. I have chosen The Black Keys band, they consist of concerts underground in clubs instead of concerts, which largely suggests of budget management, that it is lower; although, that doesn't affect the quality of music performed, which is high. The Black Keys themselves didn't start off with a great budget when creating the band, they practiced in their parent's houses' sheds and basements before gaining huge attraction. So they kept that style when performing, in underground clubs as previously mentioned. This suggests the demographic and economic balance of the band and audience is lower class, working class, perhaps even middle class.  

Frame Rate 

Frame rate or FPS (Frequency rate) is a terminology used to capture videography or imagery which are shown on a camera that's being recorded. If a frame rate is bad it can be lowered in numbers especially in videogames and cause the screen to glitch and not capture enough imagery that's happening on the screen - it can apply to film as well, for example a lot of films use 24 FPS, which captures videography at normal speed to watch with our own eyes. Poor quality devices whether if it's phone or TV can affect frame rate and how it's produced depending on budget of the electrical device and it's Wi-Fi connection.