MERCH Metallica add socks for middle-aged fans

Of course the term middle-aged won't appear anywhere near the marketing for this, but that's surely the idea for a band who started making a noise in 1983?

They've made further headlines in 2019 for their whiskey and beer lines. The Metallica money-making juggernaut rolls on

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallica-teams-up-with-stance-for-line-of-socks/

CONVERGENCE BIG 3 Sony PS5 horizontal integration push

https://bgr.com/2019/10/24/ps5-leak-sony-music-soundtracks-death-stranding/

PITCH DEVELOPMENT - BUILDING A CHARACTER

You need to be really clear on (especially, NOT exclusively!) the fictional protagonist (or Proppian archetype of the hero... Campbell's 'hero' who, reflecting the 'monomyth' - and to a degree Todorov's theory of narrative structure [NEW equilibrium...] will go on a quest, the hero's journey...).

A moodboard will help enormously with this, which can be a mix of objects, people and more. Try this simple exercise...

List 5 films/TV s/he watches; 5 gadgets; 5 items of clothing; 5 places s/he's been to; 5 drinks/foods they like; 5 random further details (eg family, friends, quirks, talents, job...).
Now add any 3 images which represent their binary opposite (which might help start developing further characters + flag up things to avoid in costume, body language, mise-en-scene generally...)

NOW can you sum up the character in a couple of sentences?

SUGGESTED POST TITLE
NARRATIVE - visualising the characters [or a sep post for each main character]

FORMAT/PRESENTATION
A Ppt could be a convenient, quick way of doing this (1 heading, 5 images per slide), though adding images into a single Word doc without any accompanying text as an ADDITION would be simply smart - killing two birds with 1 stone, with apologies to our avian friends...

REFLECTING KNOWLEDGE/UNDERSTANDING OF THEORY
Note my brief usage/application of basic narrative theories above - the more you do this, the simpler such concepts will become for you. I only learnt them myself through repeated application!!!

THEORY CHALLENGE
Can you further apply more advanced theory like Hebdige's concept of subcultures, or (and these link together well!) Pierre Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital?

CHARACTER COMPARISON
As you review each set of answers, have a go at expressing the ideas as 1+ existing people/characters (eg the Mr Robot lead with a dash of Graham Norton - a brooding, ultra-talented (area?) individual with a camp side, fondness for pop culture as well as 'high culture'. Can you now create an additional moodboard?

STREAMING HAS SQUEEZED BACK CATALOGUE 90pc of streams for post-2000 recordings

This is an interesting corrective to both the infamous long tail theory (comprehensively trashed by Anita Elberse in Blockbusters) and the rather more convincing gist of Retromania, Simon Reynolds' reflection on the impact of converged technology in flipping the music market from its dominance by whatever was temporarily, currently popular.

The figures are astonishing - 73% of all listens are for releases since 2010 with a further 15% for 2000-2009 releases. 

For the student video-maker it does flag up the need for creative music video to boost back catalogue performance - a live Led Zeppelin video and a Rolling Stones lyric video being seen as archetypal examples of the approach of adding new visuals to older tracks.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/streaming/8533315/catalog-music-labels-market-older-music-streaming-singles

TV SOUNDTRACK goldmine for featured artists

‘Golden age of TV’ gives boost to music industry

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/18/tv-streaming-services-revitalise-music-industry-netflix-amazon-prime-video?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

VIDEO EXAMPLES Jinjer one location masterclass!

This caught my eye as a nice example of what you can be looking for and blogging on at any stage, without any template or prescribed points - simply practices that catch your eye!

From the video below I was struck by...
Great use of a single location. I've pushed previous groups to make the effort to haul drumkits out to awkward locations, and you can see the visual impact here. For student examples see Sunburnt in December, Smiths and Joe's Nine Inch Nails...
The single location worked because a narrative was included, taking pressure off the performance shots. It was fairly abstract without really being concept as Firth defines it. Ambiguous and polysemic - Vernallis would spit feathers at the idea of deeming this elliptical fare a narrative!!! - but it raises the video from a simple performance shoot.
Note how the singer is incorporated into this, adding power and intrigue (narrative enigma...) into her performance.
Nice use of a single VFX, the dust clouds. No idea if this was done in FCPX via a plugin (which are created in Motion remember) or After Effects/Adobe, but it's moody and raises the location to another level in a way that'd have been rather tricky if relying on diegetic shots, live FX
In turn, that works particularly well because of the plentiful but judicious use of slo-mo plus accelerating motion. Slo-mo is a basic convention it's easy to overlook - I direct you once again to the Pixies (Silver Snail? from rough memory) for exemplary examples (maybe not Velouria, the ultra-exaggerated version - like 1 of the 3 promos for U2's One...)
Another way the performance is dramatised is drone shots through the widely split legs of guitarist/bassist, a really cool albeit risky (health and safety alert!) diegetic visual effect
The mirroring effect (on top of some actual mirrors at the location) helps too. It's close to being overused but generally works well as a visual but also to signify dislocation and simply to play with (Goodwin's convention of) looking.
A glimpse too of the media c-word... The convergence evident in this small-scale indie band affording the fairly impressive visual FX sparked by the gore of the headshot...
Always worth stating though - never use a gun in a student video. And I'd be wary of doing so professionally too as it's got scope (yup, I punned...) to backfire ... A woke gen Z won't necessarily appreciate the use of one given the easy links to school shootings and more

https://www.metalsucks.net/2019/10/11/jinjer-are-blowing-up-heres-their-new-single-video-on-the-top/