Shortlist of Songs

• Bros by Wolf Alice, from their album "My Love Is Cool"

• Be There by Seafret, from their EP of the same name

• I Walk The Line by Halsey from her album, Badlands. (The song is a cover of Johnny Cash's)

• Hourglass by Catfish and the Bottlemen from the album "The Balcony"

Target Audience

The band which I am creating a music video for have a very broad appeal. This means that I am able to easily target a group of females aged 16-22 who I think are likely to enjoy this band's music and videos.

Typical person
An 18 year old student who loves music a lot; they tend to go out as much as they can to see live music to discover as much music as they can, whether they are local artists or popular well known ones. Popular artists include bands such as 

• Wolf Alice
• Foals
• Circa Waves
• Catfish and the Bottlemen 
• Arctic Monkeys

Aside from music, this person is very sociable and creative and spends a lot of time either hanging out with their friends or investing time into their photography. They are very up to date with fashion and take a lot of pride in their appearance.

Their main source of income is from their weekend job, most of which is spent on new clothing, music or going out with their friends to places such as the cinema or general shopping.

This person enjoys listening to the radio, especially the stations "XFM" and "Radio One" due to their variety of indie rock and alternative songs played there. They also spend a lot of time on social networking sites such as:

• Facebook
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Snapchat

So these websites are the ideal places for my music video to be advertised in order to effectively reach out to my target audience.

Audience Research Data

To collect my primary data, I decided to use a qualitative method of research. I used a website called 'Survey Monkey' which allows for people to create a series of questions and have members of the public anonymously answer them over a selected period of time. 

In total, 35 people participated and answered the following questions:

• What is your gender?
• What is your age?
• What is music video do you prefer?
• What is your favourite genre of music?
• Do you think that music videos are necessary?
• How often do you watch music videos?
• On what platforms do you watch music videos?
• Do you prefer one or two locations, or multiple locations?
• Do you watch a music video more than once at onetime?
• Do you think that the video should match the lyrics of the song?

Here are my results.

From this, I know that: 

• My target audience are predominantly females aged 17 (on average) who enjoys listening to indie music with a music video that has a mixture of performance, narrative and concept within it. 
• My target audience think that they're not necessary but they are helpful and that they're watched a few times a month on YouTube. This is useful in choosing where advertise and post the video.
• The location and how many different locations there are isn't important to my target audience.
• 60% of my audience think that the lyrics to my chosen song should match the video.

This research has been very useful with deciding what to do for my music video as I am able to cater to my target audience's preferences in various different ways, e.g. having multiple locations throughout the video.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

The uses and gratification theory (UGT) is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. 

It is suggested that the UGT has to fulfill one of the following when we choose a form of media:

• Identify - being able to recognise the product or person in front of you, role models that reflect similar values to yours or aspiration to be someone else.

• Cognitive - being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.

• Entertain - what they are consuming should provide enjoyment and a form of escapism, enabling an audience to temporarily forget about their worries.

• Social Integrative - The ability for media products to produce ad topic of conversation between other people, spark debates or to enhance the connections with family, friends and so on, e.g. through the internet which provides emails, chatrooms, social media etc.

• Personal integrative - enhancing credibility, confidence and status, e.g. through videos

This can be applied through music videos, a form of media text, as people are likely to watch these videos and feel better about themselves, their lives or feel motivated to do better because of the video they watched. 

Many examples of this would be charity videos, such as One Direction's One Way Or Another rendition made for Comic Relief. 

People select music videos that not only fit one's particular mood but also in attempts to show empowerment or other socially conscience motives. This can be reflected through the genre of the music and what type of video they're choosing to watch.

Music Genre Conventions

Pop:

• Performance based videos/narrative with performance elements to promote the artist, e.g. Body Talk by Foxes

• Close ups of the artist
• Dance routines included, e.g. Jason Derulo's I Want You To Want Me

• The artist is almost always apart of the story line, e.g. One More Night by Maroon 5

• Usually quite fast paced editing to - enhances the need to watch it again
• Shots of the artist even when they're not singing
• Includes unrealistic concepts, e.g. Wide Awake by Katy Perry; the general idea of waking up in a different universe and meeting yourself at different points of your life is unrealistic.

• Low key lighting but you can still always see their face - puts an emphasis on the artist

Rock:

• Generally performance videos - more emphasis on the music and lead singers. It's almost as if they're proving a point by playing their instruments because pop artists don't, e.g. American Idiot by Green Day

• Or narrative based with a storyline completely different from the song, e.g. Nobody Knows by Queens of the Stone Age

• Low key lighting
• Some rock artists prefer to be in the videos of the songs whereas others tend to have a narrative to their songs.
• Often depends on the genre - punk rock is quite quirky and fun e.g. Somewhere in Neverland by All Time Low
  but with alternative rock, it's more serious and powerful, e.g. Kings and Queens by 30 Seconds to Mars

Indie:

• Usually concept or narrative to match the lyrics or have nothing to do with them, e.g Bro's by Wolf Alice 

• Often set in a city, town or in the woods
• Use of a black and white filter to match the genre of the song e.g. The City by The 1975

• Low lighting to add to the effect
• Handheld camera shots to create the mood for the song, e.g. Be There by Seafret

Magazine Analysis - Jessie J

Jessie J - Who You Are

Magazine Analysis - Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran - '+'

Magazine Analysis - Green Day

Green Day - '21st Century Breakdown'

Conventions of Music Adverts

Functions of magazine adverts:

• to promote the artist

• to promote the latest releases of an artist to the target audience

• to increase the awareness of the artist and sell their material. 

Conventions of magazine adverts:

• includes album/single title

• often has a picture of the artist. if not a picture than the band's logo

• release date of material

• album artwork for both singles and album promotions

• record label

• other well known songs from the same artist

• genre of artist shown through images, colours and clothing

• artist website and label website

• release date

Digipak Analysis - Ariana Grande, 'My Everything'

Ariana Grande - 'My Everything'

Digipak Analysis - Green Day, 'American Idiot'

Green Day - 'American Idiot' Digipak Analysis

• This album was written and produced in 2004 and is inspired by American politics, including topics such as the war in Iraq and George Bush's presidency. 
• Therefore the artwork on the front cover reflects both the themes as well as a lyric in one of their songs; "She's holding onto my heart like a hand grenade"

• The digipak itself includes a booklet in which the lyrics are displayed in a handwritten font to seem as if they were the final drafts of the song. 
• This makes the whole feel of the album seem more realistic due to the heavy topics carried out in their songs "American Idiot" and "Holiday" about American politics. 

Digipak Anaylsis - Ed Sheeran, 'X'

Ed Sheeran, X (Multiply)

• The cover doesn't include his face in this as it reflects his general anonymity in his music career, e.g. in his music videos, he rarely shows his face. 

• Then the fact that he is on the back of the CD follows this up as he always makes a cameo appearance, so he is seen in the music videos as well as on his digipak. 

• The green background makes the X stand out - this is eye catching and appealing to his target audience. It also makes it easier to look at since there isn't too much happening on the cover. This reflects the acoustic pop/R&B style of music he makes.

• Only his name is written along the middle; it's center of attention and the only thing there so it attracts the audience too.

• Overall, the style of this digipak is to be expected of Ed Sheeran since it's of a similar style to his previous album, with the same font and layout as '+'.

Conventions of a Digpak

A digipak is the CD packaging for an artists music. It includes the imagery on the front, back and inside sleeves of the case as well as the design on the CD itself. They are used to promote new music for an artist in order to raise brand awareness of their music and image. 

The front image is the most important due to it being what the audience see first. Therefore it has to be effective and eye-catching as well as reflecting the genre of the artist, e.g. Katy Perry's artwork is likely to be bright colours to match the pop genre of her music.

The inside of a digipak is there to provide extra information about the artist and the songs on the CD. It tends to be more toned down that the outside packaging but is just as important.

Conventions of a digipak

The Front:

• Main image: is usually the artist themselves (especially in pop culture) in order to raise brand awareness of the artist and for the audience to familiarise themselves with them. Other artists from different genres don't do this as much and use concept art instead. Sometimes the image will reflect the name of the album/EP.

• Artists name: this is always on the front cover of the CD and is always in the largest font in order to be eye catching to the audience. The font is specific to the genre as well, for example, cursive or loopy font can represent pop whilst a more formal font can represent indie rock.

• Album/EP name: this too is always included on the front cover, but in a much smaller font than the artists name. It can either be a song from the album, a certain lyric or nothing to do with the sound of the music. 

• Logo: some artists use logos along with their name as a use of brand imaging and so it'll be featured on the front of the digipak, e.g. Ed Sheeran's usage of mathematical signs for his album (debut was + and follow up is [Multiply] x)

• Sometimes the front cover will include promotional text, such as "featuring the hit single..." so that the audience are able to recognise the song and buy more material from the artist.

The Back

• Artwork: The artwork featured on the back of the digipak is generally ties in with the main image with a similar colour scheme or design to maintain the theme throughout

• Track List: the tracklist is also included here so that the audience don't have to go into get depth to get an idea of the songs, how long they are, where they are on the album etc.

• Extra information, e.g. production companies

• Bar code and record label: the record label of an artist can define an artist before the audience has even heard it since they may know of other artists of similar sound on the same label. This can heavily influence a decision to buy or not.

Inside:

• CD: often includes similar artwork to the main body of the digipak or has the same image on the front of the pak.

• Track list booklet: including the information about each song, who wrote it, produced it etc. as well as more photography of the artist or of images reflecting the genre, sound, artist etc.

• Background photography