How audiences are targeted.

At the most simplistic level, marketing is the activity, which connects your organisations ‘offering’ with the target audience(s). Marketing is therefore the key ‘enabler’ to growing your business and achieving success. The principles of marketing are commonly understood around the following core ‘components of marketing’:

• The offering: the products (e.g. ethically sourced clothing) or services (e.g. counselling) your organisation will offer.
• The value proposition: Articulating your offering to the target audience- ‘the solution to their needs’.
• The marketing strategy: Your strategy for connecting with the target audience (e.g. deciding to target a specific geographical audience).
• The marketing plan: The objectives, budgets and tools that will be used to deliver the marketing strategy.
• The target audience: The stakeholders who will be ‘sold’ your value proposition.

Underpinning all of these marketing pillars must be comprehensive understanding of the target audience (e.g. who they are, where they are, what are their needs and their typical characteristics). The relationship between these different components is illustrated in the diagram below:

Defining your target audience.
The relationship between your organisation’s value proposition and the target audience can be slightly more complicated for social enterprises due to the range of external stakeholders often involved. External stakeholders are typically defined as the people or organisations either affect or are affected by your organisation.
Identifying your external stakeholders will allow you to define your target audience(s), thereby allowing you to define your value propositions to these audiences. When identifying external stakeholders, it may be helpful to use the following categories, which will often cover the typical stakeholders for a social enterprise. Your particular project will have emphases on different groups, depending on what it is you will be doing and how you will be doing it:

Understanding your target audience

As introduced earlier, understanding your target audience is a vital step in enabling your organisation to define its value proposition(s). Once you have defined your external stakeholders within your target audience, the next step is to examine the key features of each stakeholder group or audience.
Understanding target groups (e.g. beneficiaries or paying customers) will probably require the most in depth analysis. For this target audience you will need to understand:

• The size of the target audience
• The structure of the target audience (this will often involve trying to segment the audience into a number of core groups)
• The trends associated with the target audience (e.g. growth)
• The needs and characteristics of the target audience (this is vital to allow you to develop a strong value position that addresses the needs and demands of the target audience)

Source: https://unltd.org.uk/portfolio/3-6-understanding-your-target-audience-and-defining-your-value-proposition/

Some key things this article has stated are:

-That establishing the target audience is an essential part of making a product that is usually done in order.
                        It is key to the marketing and selling of a product, which would come in the research section of preproduction. This then allows the business to grow and achieve success.  

-You need to find more precise information about your target audience (e.g. age, typical habits, trends etc.)

-Finding the needs and demands of the target audience.    

Photoshop practice

Some practice I did on Photoshop I preparation for the CD digi-pack.

http://lifehacker.com/5753459/learn-the-basics-of-photoshop-in-under-25-minutes This website helped me find some useful things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLHWlAm0PiQ I used this video to help make this picture.

We have decided not to use face swapping for the CD digi-pack but the techniques I learnt from the practice can be applied  to other images which might end up using.

Some things I learnt: 

- Making sure that both pictures are roughly the same size in pixels (e.g. 1920-1080)

- Image blending: Process where a two images are recoloured and blurred to appear as one.

- Image manipulation: Basic tool that could with some more practice.

-Lasso: A very useful tool which allows you to freely select any part of a picture.

     

 

Research into the construction of a CD insert/backcover

This Insert folds differently to other inserts as it fold twice instead of once, which allows you to have a large peace of artwork/information.

This insert is similar to a lot of inserts as it only folds once, though this example has used the space to display information of the artist. (contact details, production team, location etc.)

Same as the previous but all uses the space for lyrics.

The colour of the insert reflects the genre of the album and so dose the imagery and artwork.

Music video pitch

http://youtu.be/PXflfEhJMEU

Edited by both me and Tamsin.

Key points from "The Kindest cut: functions and meanings of music video editing."

1. "the editing seems to have a rhythmic basis closely connected to the song."

2. "Music video's disjunctive editing keeps us within ever-changing surface of the song."

3. "graphic match" "Such an edit joins two shots through shared compositional elements such as colour or shape."

4. "Low-angle shots are used more extensively in music videos, partly because they reproduce the relations among audience, performer and stage."

5. "This edit might contain a roughened edge (say, a bit of film leader and a white flash sandwiched between the shots) that makes it work like a jump-cut"

6. "Music videos and Hollywood films share a basic premise: that visual information can be communicated by cutting between three kinds of shot - long, medium and close up."

7. "Camera movement in music video also differs from that of film. Most music videos make such extensive use of the dolly that a static shot seems anomalous."

8. "Music video image is relatively discontinuous. Time unfolds unpredictably and without clear reference points."

9."Showcasing the star"

Star Theory

Imagine  Dragons



I think they are Performers because they haven't got a alternate image and come across as themselves as normal people.

A star is relative to who you like and what you like. This means an individual will see someone as a star when someone else will not or as much of a star due to their personal tastes. In perspective of Imagine Dragons they are not quite as well known, as their marketing is not as pushed like other stars like Miley Cyrus.

There is a normative image about them making it hard to tell if they have created a persona. Although there outfits match genre conventions (dark with denim) but still look casual.

Miley Cyrus

Star - Created a persona. She acts her age by being youthful at 21 just coming of age to drink. She is quite rebellious in her actions both in her music videos and in public appearances, almost always trying to stand out in whatever she's doing.
She has a disregard for social values as she dresses inappropriately for example in the music video "Wrecking  Ball" she is wearing almost nothing during the video. She has also succeeded against all odds because she is hated among many individuals.

Richard Dyer's paradox 1 states that "The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer."
In relation the Imagine Dragons they come across as casual, normal ordinary people but are extraordinary because of their talent, record label and stage presence.

Music video regulation

At the Conservative Party conference 2014 David Cameron announced new age rating on music videos. This is in response to many criticisms from parents group that childhood is becoming increasingly sexualised.

Ofcom is  in charge of regulating television and radio sector. People who watch television and listen to radio are protected from harmful or offensive material.

I think the parents/individual should take more care in what they watch/let their children watch. The Parents should set up a firewall with other available parental controls, which they need to learn how to emplace. YouTube has its own age regulations.
ttps://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802167?safe=vss
Yet some music videos are still get through. e.g. Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines.
http://youtu.be/yyDUC1LUXSU

Whether breasts, buttocks or genitals (clothed or unclothed) are the focal point of the video;

Whether the video setting is sexually suggestive (e.g. a location generally associated with sexual activity, such as a bed);

Whether the subject is depicted in a pose that is intended to sexually arouse the viewer;

Whether the language used in the video is vulgar and/or lewd;

Whether the subject's actions in the video suggest a willingness to engage in sexual activity (e.g. kissing, provocative dancing, fondling); and

If a subject is minimally clothed, whether the clothing would be acceptable in appropriate public contexts (e.g. swimwear vs. underwear).

There is a lot of shots of the specific bodily parts throughout the video (with blatant full frontal nudity in the uncensored version). There are a lot of suggestive sequences in the video like a man is leaning on top of a woman.
The song is about the blurred lines between yes and no in a sexual context this can be seen as vulgar or lewd.
Certain lyrics in the song could be heard as suggestive. E.g.
"The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
Go ahead, get at me"
Throughout the video there is a lot of provocative dancing and fondling of women with little to no clothing on them.

I think that this kind of music video shouldn't be on web sites like YouTube or MTV and should be  on web sites that are harder for children to access (block by parental filters) and have more lenient regulations. In my opinion the BBFC should go ahead with the age regulation and that Blurred Lines would be an 18. This would help the situation due to it would restrict the amount of people being able to view it.





"Oh My"
(due to school regulations I cannot post certain images from "Blurred Lines" so heres a picture of George Takei) 

Music video pitch notes

Best music videos of all time

http://www.nme.com/list/100-greatest-music-videos/217342/page/1

http://entertainment.time.com/2011/07/28/the-30-all-time-best-music-videos/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQoPx7v74f0

Like CD covers it very opinionated on what is the best music video ever.
Also most of the top videos are by popular artist and directors.


http://youtu.be/sOnqjkJTMaA

Thriller was very revolutionary for the time and being very unique with a 13 minuet (approx.) length.
It also has its own story similar to a short film which has never been done before and was done to stand out more. With a budget of 500,000 it was one of the most expensive music videos of the era. I think its on of the best because so different to everything else that came out at the time. It also increased album sales drastically selling over 65 million albums making it a huge success.

http://youtu.be/g93mz_eZ5N4

Sledgehammer is done with just stop frame animation which takes a lot of time to make, it was also the first fully stop frame animated music video. Peter Gabriel Laid down for 16 hours whilst they filmed him frame by frame. It was his first no.1 in the US after he split up with genesis.


http://youtu.be/1pkVLqSaahk

Land of confusion is very unique in its use of the puppets from the T.V. show "Spiting Image". Even though "Spiting Image" have made their own music videos but this is the first time that they have been commissioned to make one for a band. The video has an excess of intertextuality as references and parodies to films, political figures and celebrities of the era. The zeitgeist is expressed by showing cold war figures such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. This is used to connect with the audience of the time because they can relate to what's happening. Genesis and "Spitting Image" are poking fun at inept politicians.    

Best CD covers of all time.

 I have researched many sources to find a range data on the best CD covers.
This is a list of some of the websites I used for research.           

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/fedderedder/rolling_stones_100_greatest_album_covers/

http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/music/50-coolest-album-covers

http://www.pinterest.com/santacruzer/top-100-album-covers-of-all-time/

From these I have found that they have the same range of covers but with a change in the ranking order.

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles features highly among the lists.
I've chosen to analyse this because it is iconic as you instantly know its the Beatles, even when the band name is cropped out.

This album cover shows us that the Beatles are colourful, cheerful and shown as rebellious because this mood is in contrast the era of the 60s and time before it. This is due to most things being in black and white in the era. With regards to sizing hierarchy the group encompasses more of the picture but the band name is more prominent because the band name has less images to compete with on it's half of the screen compared with the half with the group which appears as busy.  

Aspects I like: - The title being part of the scene rather than being on top of the image, this improves the visual style.
                        - Imagery behind the Beetles is inconsistent
                        - The Beatles stand out
Aspects I don't like - I bit to crowded.
                                - Some items to be out of place, unknown inter-textually
                                                                                                                        



 
Pink Floyd-The Dark Side of the Moon is very simplistic which is very different to most album covers. It suggests the band are experimental showing a prism which links to science. This suggest that the music is going to be different to anything you've heard before. With regards to sizing hierarchy the band name and album title are not present which draws the focus on the symbol. It stands out because all the other albums at the time have usually have the artist face/s on it.

Aspects I like are: - The rainbow stands out as there is no colour anywhere else.
                              - Quite minimal with the only image being the prism.
Aspects I don't like: - The overall image isn't eye catching and come across as bland
                                 - Too little information       

All the top album covers are by popular/successful artists with few exceptions on other lists.

Textural analysis of a music video using Mulvey's "Male Gaze" theory

http://youtu.be/yyDUC1LUXSU

Song: Blurred Lines

Artist: Robin Thicke

The video supports the theory, it does this by having a lot of scantly clothed girls surrounding men, this highlights that men are seen as dominant. Their dominance can be seen by their suits as there are symbol of authority and power stressing the a patriarchal with it being in contrast with the girl being naked which comes across as vulnerable and manipulated. The mans body language suggests ownership due to his close, intimate hold of the girl, making it seen as an object for his gratification.

In contradiction the girl appears to "play along" with mans flirts, not being forced to do something she doesn't want to do. Also that their is "shared gaze" between the characters, which means that you are looking at both of the characters and not just the woman. 

 

    
This shows the representation of women as a sexual fantasy from a heterosexual male point of view and large amounts of scopophilia. The video suggest to the viewer that the men have some form of authority/control over the women whom seem to only be their to be looked at. Although the women seem to be "playing along" with the men's activity.


This image highlights the active and passive features of the theory. The man appears Animated whilst the girls seem to be static, this suggest that the man is in control (as if they are under his spell) and has told them not to move. There is representation of women as a sexual fantasy and from a heterosexual male point of view in the picture above there is 1 fully dressed man and 3 minimally dressed girls, which is a typical male fantasy and he is covering his groin with his coat pocket.

Music video genre texural analaysis

http://youtu.be/ScNNfyq3d_w

Song: Castle Of Glass

Artist: Linken Park

Genre: Rock

The Music video has very low saturation and dull colours throughout with a key theme of conflict and warfare.  The video also remains a state of sadness which is seen quite a bit in rock videos.


Throughout the video there are instances of actual soldiers and in game footage of "Medal Of Honour: Warfighter" which fits with the conventions of rock music.
Although at the beginning it is slow paced and quite which doesn't fit the conventions of rock music.
The video does support Fiske's theory "genre relfectthe zeitgeist" as the setting for the video is current conflict and military. It also supports Hodge and Kress as it's connection to a video game, the game publishers probably asked for a lot of things to be added and to keep inside conventions.

"Rockabilly" music genre conotations

- "country folk"
- old fashioned
- Stetsons
- guitars electric and acoustic
- concentrates on the lead singer
-very traditional even in modern rockabilly.  

A useful source on how to write a script

http://www.writersstore.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-a-guide-to-scriptwriting/

Discovered when searching the web casually and thought it might come in handy later when it comes down to some of the planning.

A2 Preliminary task

The task was to make a short music video (1 minuet-"ish") to test the new skills we learnt from AS.

Godwin's music video analysis

(Glam rock)
(A style of rock music first popular in the early 1970s, characterized by male performers wearing exaggeratedly flamboyant clothes and make-up)http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/glam-rock


Bowie's make up, hairstyle and outfit tell the audience the genre (glam rock). The video also has constant shots of Bowies face (showing off his glamour) and he is the only person in the video on a plane white background so the audience is only focusing on Bowie. Some of Bowie's movements relate to some parts of the song they only seem to amplify the lyrics, the video is mainly him standing around looking glamorous. There is a high demand from the record label as Bowie is never out of shot and there are constant close ups of his face, this seems to be support a motif. There is no notion of looking, there is only one image at once, there is only a slight voyeuristic treatment of the male body and there are no clear intertexual references. 

CD cover analist