Research Summary

Section 1: Introduction
The song we have chosen to create a music video for is Crescendolls by Daft Punk, this is because it is really fun and was catchy on first listen. We loved the song because of the fast tempo and liveliness. Daft Punk are signed to Soma Records and Virgin records therefore we will seek permission to use the track.
        The specific target audience of Daft Punk are 17 to 25 year olds who we intend to promote to in a fun and lively way which captures their attention. The music video will have a fast paced nature, include a dance routine, have lots of colour, bright lights and unusual imagery - as will the digi-pak and website. We plan to use light drawing, UV paints, glitter and material to achieve this, as well as light bulbs around the set and a number of locations for our video to be shot in to keep the audience's interest.
       Our production was influenced by Daft Punk's existing videos being unusual and in particularly by the video for 'Take it off by Ke$ha'. This production includes a lot of coloured dust being thrown in the air and lots of paint. We were also influenced by the end scene from the music video for 'Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling' which is a party scene. What our group took from this was to include UV paint in our make-up designs. In addition to this, i really like how the meat is hanging from the ceiling in the video for 'Cassius by Foals', i thought we could use this idea but have light bulbs hanging. To go with the genre conventions it would look good to hang them from strings that are coloured or ribbon. We looked at other music videos from the electronic genre and took a lot of inspiration from MGMT, specifically the videos for 'Kids' and 'Time To Pretend'. The video for 'Kids' has a lot of lighting, uses face paints and has set dance routines. Whereas what we took from the 'Time To Pretend' video was the fact that it is green screened which means creativity can be set wild.
      The music video we create will correlate with the stylistic qualities of existing videos in the genre of electro. Videos from this genre are usually conceptual, which our will be. Green screen is used a lot in electronic videos to achieve unusual effects. For our production to be recognisable as an electro video we will need to use lots of colour and bright lighting with unusual costumes and props, with the overall look being eccentric.

Inspirational Videos

Screen shots from Take it off by Ke$ha

Cara.

Section 2: Who is your artists specific target audience?
We are going to target our video at 17-25 year olds. We think this is appropriate because the song has quite heavy beats and sounds might might to be to the taste of those under 17. Also, people over 17 are more likely to go out to parties and listen to this type of music.
    As a group we feel that Crescendolls by Daft Punk is not gender specific - both boys and girls can enjoy it. This song would appeal to gay culture as well as straight people. As with all Daft Punk's songs, Crescendolls appeals to all subcultures - there's something for everyone to enjoy. This would be expressed by the song itself and also the style of the video.


Section 3: What are the conventions of form and genre for your artist?
Daft Punk is an electro-alternative band. Conventions of this genre would be lots of colour, flashing/strobe lighting,futuristic costumes and settings. For our video we want to take inspiration from Ke$ha's video for 'Take it off'. In this video there is lots of glitter and colourful powder along with electro synth sounds in the song - a convention for electro-alternative music.
Music videos are wuite different to TV texts in that they have scene/setting cuts within 3-4 seconds. This usually happens for fast paced songs. However, if the song is slower, the cuts will be around 5-10 seconds if the video shows the band performing. This occurs mainly for indie/rock music. In Daft Punk's videos, cuts will happen on a beat or if a new beat/sound is introduced the scene will usually change on this.



Emma.

Section 4:

Regarding the content of Daft Punk’s music videos, they generally consist of themed costumes e.g. skeleton body suits (in around the world music video).  The only provocative outfit we could find is a bit of cheeky under buttock on female dancers! Clothes designed by Heidi Shimore. The movement content is static, robotic or isolated dancing or movements in groups, generally in unison.

In “Around the world” there is only one location shown however in most of their video’s there are cartoon animated people running around all sorts of different animated locations.

The editing style used in most daft punk videos are mostly simple cuts or panning across the set. The set normally consists of colourful surroundings not necessarily matching with unusual objects. This is all shown to the audience through a wide variety of camera shots.

The artists current image is mainly shown as people with bike helmets on or digitally obscured their faces to hide their identity. They either star in their videos hidden behind masks or design themselves as animated memorable characters.

The way in which we are going adapt Daft Punk’s typical music video by showing our audience our view of what should behind the mask! But keeping the weird and wonderful daft punk experience with colours flying and odd events taking place. We would like to add personality to Daft Punk’s single Crescendolls by involving a paint fight, glitter and an enthusiastic trio of dancers. It would reach our target audience as the video would star people our age in the video which fits into our target audience age group of 17-25.

Our music video would compare to existing examples of various music video’s of the same genre e.g. MGMT and Klaxons.

Harriet.

Crescendolls

I thought it would be a great idea to research into our chosen song Crescendolls a little more to get to know more about the song. I managed to find out that Crescendolls is the 5th track from Daft Punk's second studio album, Discovery. The name of the title Crescendolls is a reference to the protagonists' band, Crescendolls from Daft Punk's animated film Interstella 5555. Like all songs from the album Discovery, the music video is a scene from the film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, which features no dialogue, but rather songs from the album, Discovery. Crescendolls uses a sample of 'Can you imagine?' by Anthony and the imperials.

Cara.

Summer Work

Over the summer we were set individual tasks to select a genre of music and analyse music videos from an artist of choice within it. I chose to do Pop punk and selected Blink 182, Four Year Strong and A Day To Remember. Upon looking at the videos from this artist, I decided that it wouldn't work for me to make a music video in this genre. I wanted my music video to be fun and lively, and i decided that would work better with a different genre.

 These are the homework sheets we worked from.

My analysis

Below are the 3 videos i analysed for the summer homework long with my analysis.

Depending on the genre of a music video, the conventions change. However, the general conventions are that the artist is shown performing, the lyrics of the song influence what is shown in the video, the pace of editing fits the music and the codes of dress reflect the mood of the song. Also, every music video is produced in a style, which can either be what is called illustration – a straight forward performance or narrative video that shows the meaning of the lyrics and visualises the music in a straight forward way, or amplification where the director will amplify both lyrics and sounds with creative interpretation rather than simply illustrating the lyrics. The other style of creating a music video is disjunctive where there is no obvious link to the music and is completely abstract. Artists who use this style of working are Daft Punk and Radiohead. The music of Daft Punk is abstract and the videos match, particularly 'around the world' which consists of a circular platform of all different heights with dancers using cannon to start their set motif.

Depending on the genre of music, the style of video changes. For example, rap and hip-hop artists have a thug element to their videos. Rock artists tend to have videos with a story line such as 'Through glass by Stone Sour' which has elements of performance in the way of the vocalist being tracked as he sings. The lyrics of the song inspire the storyline of the music video which is a famous musician that feels out of place in Hollywood surrounded by the fake and self-obsessed people. Corey Taylor (vocalist) is walking through a crowd of celebrities which include the band members who stick out straight away against the celebrities. Generally the main focus in bands is the vocalist.

I have decided to use the genre of rock for my artist, more specifically a combination of pop-punk and post hardcore. I'm looking at a Floridian band, A Day To Remember as my chosen artist who formed in 2003 and are still in action now. I have looked at their video evolution from starting out until the present day. Unfortunately I couldn't find their first video, 'A Second Glance' (2007) anywhere which was disappointing, but I did manage to find their second video 'Danger In Starting A Fire' (2007) which was a performance in front of a black backdrop with a variety of camera angles. Since then, my artist has evolved slightly musically and have included more of a pop punk sound to their music as opposed to the previous hardcore style. Some of the band members have been switched ,only leaving two original members, Jeremy McKinnon (lead vocalist) and Neil Westfall (rhythm guitar). The film style has also changed over time in the sense that the first music video was very serious and devoted solely to performing. Since then, every video created has combined performance with a fun element and storyline, identifying themselves with tattoos and t-shirts, in particularly in the video for 'I'm Made Of Wax Larry What Are You Made Of?' (2010) where the band are wearing American sports jerseys with the band name and their name on.

A Day To Remember have a range of videos, but I am choosing to compare the most recent and first video that can be found because the most differences will be apparent. I have looked at 'Danger In Starting A Fire' (2007) and 'I'm Made Of Wax Larry What Are You Made Of?' (2010). The mise-en-scene of the first video from 2007 is fairly basic with a black setting, with spotlights being used to illuminate the musicians playing instruments and dry ice cascading around them. The only colour in the video is in the bright graphic t-shirts being worn by band members. This visual set up is used so the entire focus is on the band. Camera and editing has also been used to this advantage by the means of the shot being completely unfocused as it first appears, the musician then comes into focus. Camera has also been used to make the audience realise which part of the music is important at any given time. Close ups are used on the hands of the guitarist when the guitar can be heard alone and when open notes are being played, just the hand is in focus and the guitar neck is soft focused. Editing helps the audience to enjoy the music with fast cuts which portrays energy and when the music breaks down the clip is slowed down and gets faster as the music peaks. In comparison to their other video I have looked at, which is from 2010, the main difference is that it has a storyline inspired by the lyrics as well as an element of performance. The video for 'I'm Made Of Wax Larry What Are You Made Of?' is set on an american sports pitch and the lyrics make reference to a ball game. Overall this video is more fun from the other video I analysed by including fooling around and trying to impress the cheerleaders, but failing by beginning to lose to a team of kids. The dilect in the video is lyrics from the song and the part where a throat clear is heard is also used in the video when someone is injured on the floor. However, the thing that is carried through from the other video is the bands confidence and cocky attitude. This video seems to relate to any comedy sports film, which I think is intentional because the audience can relate to it and compare the two medias finding humour in it. Camera shots are varied including close-ups, long shots and mid shots. Tracking is used to follow the band members as they are running in the ball game. In the performance sections, the band are slightly out of focus at first sight in a shot then they come into focus. The camera and editing techniques are the same as in 'Danger In Starting A Fire'.

Cara.

Related imagery

For our genre, i researched some images, using google, that were relevant to create a mood board with. Below is the album cover for the first album, Homework, released in 1997 by our chosen band Daft Punk.

The next image is the cover of the second Daft Punk album, Discovery, which was released in 2001. Crescendolls, which we have decided to make a video for, is featured on this album.

Underneath, the image is from the third album by Daft Punk entitled Human after all from 2005.

Images from Daft Punk

The three images below are created by the band for advertisements and such. Directly below is an image of the two band members, in which it is possible to distinguish a genre. Daft Punk create 'robot rock' using electronically generated sounds and voices.

 This picture is of cartoon characters that the band feature in their music videos.

 This image is from DJ Hero in which Daft Punk are featured on turntables.

This is Daft Punk captured playing live. I love the shape of the stage and the lighting is great.

I found a cartoon impression of a daft punk show which i really liked.

 The font used for this text really matches the electro theme and the pattern involved gives it a real edge with exciting colours which fits really well.

The duo of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter are french, so i thought it would be great to include their nationalities flag. What i particularly like about this image is how the movement of the flag has been captured.

I thought this image was a really good representation of the word electro, so i included it.

 The movement going on in this image is inspiring and i think it would be really cool for our group to include something like this, possibly for a cd cover or for use on the website.

The colours in the below image are vibrant and eye catching. Our group definitely need to include colouring like this in our digi-pack and website.

Below is an image of an electronic keyboard / synth which is used to create electronic sounds by Daft Punk.

I found such a cute picture of a robot, so i included to go with the whole 'robot rock' theme. I just think the cartoon is so sweet.

Lyrics

These are the only lyrics our chosen song has.

 Cara.

Lesson - Weds 22nd September.

In this lesson we talked about generics for music videos within genres and theories behind that. These are the notes i made in class.

Our theme is Electro / Experimental.

Cara.

Daft Punk - Technologic

It was then required to do a textual analysis grid for a music video of our chosen artist. We each had to do one and I chose Daft Punk - Technologic.

Song Title: Technologic

Artist: Daft Punk

Director: Daft Punk

Genre: Electro/Experimental

Conventions Visual Style	Visuals and music	Visuals and lyrics	Form and structure (what makes it recognisable as being a music video)
Camera: Shot/Angle/Movement (How is the camera used to keep the audiences attention? How is it used to sell the product? At what points in the song are close ups used to cover the performance?)	·         Close ups are used on the robot in the chorus. A combination of shots are used to kep the audiences attention. ·         Panning is used throughout the video.	·         The shot types correspond to the lyrics. ·         Close ups are used on the chorus. ·         When a note is held on the synth, the robot moves slowly.	·         The shot types follow the song structure.
Mise-en-scene: Colours Setting Costume Lighting Hair/Make Up/Style Body lang/performance (How does it represent mood of the music and image of the band?	·         Bright colours ·         Flashing lights ·         Robot represents ‘robot rock’ ·         Lights flash on beats ·         Stood straight with little movement.	·         Lyrics appear on screen in bold black lettering ·         Robots included	·         Location tends to be unusual which this one is. ·         Costumes for electro are generally bright colours or have an edge to them, as do these.
Editing: (What is the average shot duration? How many cuts? What transitions are used? How is this used to keep the audiences attention? What effects have been used? Jump Cuts? How does it relate to the rhythm of the song? Any use of CGI?	·         Average shot is 4 secs. ·         Some shots are shorter to fit with the beat. ·         All cuts are to the beat which keeps the audience attention. ·         Jump cuts are used to get closer to the robot.	·         Straight cuts ·         Cuts every time a new beat is brought in the shot changes ·         Every bar of 8 a cut is made ·         As tempo increases, shots get shorter.

Content/category	Performance		Narrative		Conceptual
To what extent (%) does the music video fit into the following categories?	% 50		% 0		% 50
Content. Describe the events/idea or concept behind this music video. (Write a treatment for it)	The video features Daft Punk performing on a pyramid stage. Also, the lyrics flash as individual words on a tv set. A robot character is featured in the video which chants the lyrics.
Describe the recognisable aspects of style and content expected to be found in an example of a music video of this genre.	Within this genre, videos tend to be conceptual rather than a narrative as well as including bright colours and flashing lights. ‘Technologic’ includes all these aspects.
		Name: Cara Wain		Production Title: Crescendolls

Cara.