FINANCE: pay to meet-and-greet stars at gigs

Read Michael Hann's article here.

This is either despicable exploitation or a sensible means of countering the reduced revenues from record sales: the trend for pop/rock acts to offer premium gig packages which include meet and greets amongst other things. Would you pay £215 to meet Avril Lavigne and have a photo taken 'with' her (standing apart with a clearly faked, fixed grin)? Clearly for a lot of folks the answer is mais oui, but she's just one of many plying this field:

On Kiss's forthcoming US tour, for example, you can pay $1,250 (£737) for a package that includes a seat in the first 10 rows, a meet-and-greet, a photo with the band, autographs from the band, sitting in on the sound check and a selection of merchandise. A similar package for Def Leppard, who are opening for Kiss, is $750 ($441). The lower the star power, the lower the price. For example, £159 will buy you the chance to meet Michael Bolton on his UK tour – and get the inevitable photographs and array of merch.

Anita Elberse (2013) Blockbusters - must-read book?

"Because people are inherently social," the Harvard business professor Anita Elberse points out, "they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do." What's more, and equally understandably: "People have a taste for winners: if, say, a book is popular and has been widely discussed in the media, consumers have more reason to read it." [from Guardian review]

Scroll down for sample quotes and review snippets, such as Bloomberg's fairly critical view

Use the look inside feature for a preview

I'd recommend at the very least sampling this, a book that basically argues that the tentpole strategy (or blockbuster as she terms it) is vital for any and all modern media/entertainment giants. Her examples take in music, film and other media, but also widen out to incorporate 'entertainment' industries such as football, looking at the examples of Barcelona and Real Madrid, and the latter's 'galacticos' strategy.

She very convincingly picks out examples of major conglomerates that have tried more austere, penny-pinching approaches ... and shows, with forensic financial detail, how disastrous this invariably proved.

Interesting that she's not simply referring to production, but also as much about distribution, and the marketing muscle and capacity to make very widely available and prominently placed a given release, Lady Gaga being one such example she dissects.

You can preview some samples by using Amazon's 'look inside' feature, or GoogleBooks (add keywords related to cinema, music or whichever industry you're most interested in to get the most relevant sections), and its for sale as a Kindle book too.

Here's a few snippets from various articles/reviews:

"Because people are inherently social," the Harvard business professor Anita Elberse points out, "they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do." What's more, and equally understandably: "People have a taste for winners: if, say, a book is popular and has been widely discussed in the media, consumers have more reason to read it." [Guardian review]

Fanbase not Audience the future say YouTube

Various web 2.0 theorists have signified the end of the old analogue/early digital producer-consumer paradigm through such bold statements as "the former audience" ... now one YouTube's top honchos says we should abandon the very term audience, with its links to scheduled programming, and think in fanbase terms instead...
Simon Cowell and Disney are picked out as exemplars of the new more copyright-flexible order, in which UGC is seen as benefitting copyright-holders, not cannibalising their revenue streams.

“An audience tunes in when they're told to, a fanbase chooses when and what to watch,” said Carloss at the MIPTV television industry conference in Cannes. “An audience changes the channel when their show is over. A fanbase shares, it comments, it curates, it creates.”
...
He also praised Simon Cowell’s You Generation brand, a YouTube-focused global talent show, and Disney for the way it encouraged fans of its film Frozen to post their own cover versions of its songs on YouTube. One by musician Alex Boyé has been watched more than 30m times.
“The studio could have very easily issued copyright claims against this video and any others and taken them down, but they made a different choice: a fan-friendly choice. They chose to let those videos stay,” said Carloss, suggesting that the buzz around Frozen on YouTube contributed to its strong performance at the box office.
“Creators everywhere can make the choice Disney did. Allow fans to pay tribute, and you will see the incredible benefits of their passion.”

A lot of this closely echoes some of the arguments put forward by Anita Elberse (a Harvard economist) in her fascinating (a highly recommended read) book Blockbusters, published in December 2013.

Copyright holder - can't find who?

As you are tasked with evidencing contacting the rights holder and asking for permission for your non-commercial use of their track, you obviously need to know which company to contact. Looking at physical media (the CD) is an obvious starting point - you can generally find sleeves on a number of websites which specialise in just this. You can also try the band's official site, and look up Wikis etc.
If still struggling, yet another method can be your YouTube account ...
As I've previously blogged, you should look out for (hyperlinked) messages under your uploads, such as 'Video blocked in some countries'. Just click on these to then click 'acknowledge', keeping your account in good standing. You should find specific reference there of which company claims copyright of the recording, such as in this example from an upload of a student music video for a Storm Queen track:

BBFC to start age rating vids?

I've blogged on this before, when leading politicians have fallen behind the bandwagon to 'do something' about the issue of the sexual content of contemporary vids, blamed by some as a key component of the premature sexualisation of today's young, and also accused of spreading misogynistic attitudes.
Now there's news that the BBFC look set to expand their remit and start rating vids - they've already been asked, on a voluntary basis, to do so by major acts such as Metallica. This could become a major for anyone considering the target audience for a video, though the question still remains of how feasible UK-centred censorship is in this globalised, digitised age - will screenagers really be prevented from viewing 'age inappropriate' vids by online age restrictions, which are notoriously easy to get around?

See Guardian article for more on this.



UPDATE: This has been firmed up; see BBFC's site. Try searching for your act's name (see this KO post for example)

To improve consumer awareness about the content of certain music videos, and to improve child protection online, Vevo and YouTube, working in partnership with the BBFC, are making permanent a pilot scheme to age rate all music videos by artists signed to Sony Music UK, Universal Music UK and Warner Music UK that are unsuitable for younger children (under 12s). On 18 August 2015, Government also announced that independent UK music labels will take part in a further six month phase of the pilot.

The ratings appear on Vevo online and on YouTube, both online and on smart phone Apps.  
On Vevo, the BBFC ratings symbol appears in the top left hand corner of the video player for the first few seconds. The rating will reappear when you move the cursor.  You may also click the 'i' icon to see the ratings information.

On YouTube, look for 'Partner Rating' label on the YouTube website; or a 12, 15 or 18 in a square box on the smartphone app underneath the video.
The record labels submit to the BBFC any music video by their artists for release online in the UK which they would expect to receive at least a 12 rating.  The BBFC then classifies each video, watching it through in its entirety and then assigning an age rating and bespoke content advice (BBFCinsight, for example, strong language, sex references or sexualised nudity) on the basis of the BBFC's published Classification Guidelines.  The sort of issues the BBFC considers in classifying music videos include:

• drug misuse 
• dangerous behaviour presented as safe
• bad language
• sexual behaviour and nudity
• threatening behaviour and violence

Mag Ads - Basic Research Tips

TBC
This builds on the mag ad post from the top links list, plus the links list (look down the right-hand side), + various posts added since I last updated the mag ad post.
Scroll to end for an example of publisher info on a mag's audience.

BASIC STEPS:
1: You must have a clear, specific primary (and differentiated secondary) audience in mind. This should incorporate not just age range/s, but also gender, sexuality and any other relevant demographics/lifestyle factors
2: Research what UK magazines there are. You're looking for any genre-related titles, but also any more general titles that reflect your target audience/s. Consider which would be appropriate for primary and secondary audiences separately.
3: Use publisher sites or magazine sites to find descriptions of their readership; most provide detail on this (age range, social class, gender and lifestyle descriptors) as otherwise advertisers - including YOU!!! - wouldn't have confidence in spending money on placing ads which might not match up to that readership.
4: Try a hands-on browse in a WH Smith or equivalent!
5: Blog on your findings, making it clear which titles you'll target your primary and secondary audiences in and why you feel these are the most appropriate. Such evidence is useful for the Evaluation, but 'audience' is a key part of the R+P marks. If you do a vodcast, you can re-use this in your Evaluation.

Finding publishers' guides is easy!

6: Now research ad conventions. You must look at a reasonable number of egs and sum up what you've seen. Digipak ads ideally, but general album ads are also useful. You should note the growing prominence of tour dates, merchandise links, and social media links on such ads, being specific in your notes on what logos are used, how URLs are presented (do you still see/need the 'www.' in 2014?)
7: Sum up any specific IDEAS you've taken from this research, especially if you've found examples for your artist. You could also usefully list which conventions you aim to reflect.
8. Start blogging on your ideas, including basic dummy/mock-ups of these where possible (ie, adding a block with only 'tour dates' inside, or a box with 'CD track listing', but not actual details at this point), and highlighting images taken as part of this
9. Post drafts. Number these. Its vital you include somewhere clear and specific detail on how you think this will appeal to your particular target audience/s. Audience feedback needs to accompany each draft, with a summary of your response - remember, this is the topic of 1 of the 4 Eval Qs.
10. Links lists and proofreading: add relevant links lists, and simply check that you're happy each post is tidy, clear and multimedia (and that the published dates are appropriate/helpful).


EXAMPLES OF PUBLISHER'S AUDIENCE PROFILES

You need the media kit...

Mags need to have a clearly defined audience; advertisers (YOU!) need to know what sort of reader they can reach before spending money.

Take 2 simple examples: Glamour and Now magazines. I googled 'glamour uk magazine publisher' (without the UK, I was taken to the US site) and clicked through on the UK link (see screenshot above).

I clicked through the 'download media kit' - this is what they provide for advertising agencies, breaking down precisely who reads their magazine: see screenshot, left.

Here's a snippet from that 'media kit':

I also did a quick search for Now's publisher, which turned out to be IPC Media. Their website has a dropdown list of all their titles (as most do), which provided an idea to consider Nuts for a small (quarter page) ad targeting a secondary male audience for a girl band.

Here's a snippet of what they tell us:

Miley Cyrus v Lily Allen: binary opposites?

I'll return to this with more links/points later, but for now consider these two seemingly sharply divergent representations of gender and sexuality (Allen has faced considerable flak too) in these two much-discussed vids (part of a contemporary, 2013 triumverate of controversy with Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines [previously blogged on]):

NB: Cyrus' video for Wrecking Ball contains sexual content, while Allen's Hard Out Here contains strong language (and has been accused of racism)

and...

TBC
We could view one as reflective of post-feminist attitudes, the other more traditionally feminist, but its worth noting too such debates take place in many different forms - and with more serious consequences elsewhere. The Femen movement have achieved a high profile in a short space of time, with tactics criticised by others who would label themselves feminists too: appearing topless with slogans scrawled over their bodies. Femen have been active in many countries, but notably Ukraine and Russia - in the latter the travails of Pussy Riot, feminist Russian punks, are well documented in the BBC Storyville film.

Twitter: Adding live feed to your blog

Once you've accessed the code from your own Twitter page its simple...

The process is the same is it is for adding your track as a clickable (for example) DivShare embed: you get the required embed code (in this case from your own Twitter account page), Layout - Add a Gadget - Add HTML/Javascript.
If you need further help with this, use MyBloggerLab.com's guide or ... a Mumsnet guide!!!

Interactive videos - Dylan, Queens of Stone Age etc

There are screenshots/links below to several egs of interactive vids: QoTSA, Death Grips, Bob Dylan etc

Writing in The Guardian's Music Blog, Harriet Gibsone reports on a new phenomenon, one which takes the postmodern/web 2.0 notion I often raise, the blurring (at least) of the producer/audience divide, on to a new level:

His video for Subterranean Homesick Blues may have unwittingly pre-empted the lyric video by 50 years, but Bob Dylan's telly-hopping interactive video looks like it could be another first of a kind.
With Like a Rolling Stone as its soundbed, the player allows its audience to flick through a range of fake television channels, each of which features different characters lip-synching the words to the 1965 classic. "I'm using the medium of television to look back right at us," director Vania Heymann told Mashable.
While Dylan's new video feels like an inventive way to breathe new life into an old tune, other artists are using the format to make a quick online buzz: in the past week alone we've seen interactive videos from Queens of the Stone Age, who are at the end of their album campaign, and Bombay Bicycle Club, who happen to be at the very start.

Here's a screenshot from the Dylan site, where I've 'switched channels' to a shopping channel:

Football club use Pussycat Dolls linkup for PR

A novel example of the diversification of the music industry, and also a good illustration of how you can continually pick up useful snippets from diverse sources ... in this case the football section of The Guardian!
[article link]

The club is Yeovil Town, who:

are bottom of English football's second tier but will be the first football club to have a girl group and the plan is for the band – to be based on the Pussycat Dolls – to perform at home matches for the rest of the 2013-14 season.
Auditions for females aged 18 and over will be held at Huish Park on 4 December and the successful girls, a lead singer and a group of south west-based dancers, will work with The Famous Company to record a single that will be released on iTunes. The record will raise money for Prostate Cancer UK – the Football League's official charity.

As it happens I've recently blogged several times on the use of social media and viral campaigns - well, here's yet another example where these take centre stage.

Inside: Hollywood blurring audience/producer; are YOU?

'Social film': blurring audience/ad/producer divide

In time, we'll consider various web 2.0 theories that typically argue that the contemporary, highly interactive (as opposed to top-down, one way) web is seeing the traditional dividing line between audience/consumer and producer wither away. Concepts such as UGC (user-generated content) and fan-made videos (a key revenue source for YouTube and record labels, through the advertising attached to these) have become very mainstream. Viral campaigns also present ads as fictional or reality texts (including music videos, not just film/'reality' clips).

The fiasco of Snakes on a Plane showed that democratising and outsourcing creative work to an audience (in that case in an effort to create money-spinning buzz and awareness) can be a disaster, but we will most certainly see more and more of this. I've blogged elsewhere about examples of film production company Working Title's slick marketing campaign for films such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which used online (spy-style) puzzles as part of multimedia campaign spanning supermarkets, posters and other such traditional fare with social media elements.

If you watch the short video below (3mins), ask yourself where the line is drawn here between audience and producer, and film and advertising (the title meshes with Intel's slogan, Intel inside), with the audience given chances to appear in the film and shape the script, whilst the blogs and other online videos and guides that sprang became part of the meta-text (a postmodern theory term).

Then ask yourself what use YOU are making of social media for producing your work. Have YOU used social media for...

• casting?
• initial genre/audience research through fan forums?
• generating pre-release buzz through a company blog/FB/Twitter/Instagram (etc!)?
• gaining audience feedback through any of the above (and YouTube/Vimeo of course)?
• used tagging/labels in Blogger/YouTube etc to attract more hits to help with the above?
• tried YouTube video responses/messages/comments to link to other film/video-makers?
• designed a viral-style campaign element which helps to involve an audience and increase publicity/awareness?
• generated and used a QR code as part of this?
• generally considered options for direct audience involvement in/influence on your production?

This is the film Inside, which is itself a good example of the viral methods used by conglomerates these days to get through to ad-weary and wary consumers (Toshiba and Intel were behind this movie): IMDB, Wiki, links to their FB/website etc are in this article. They coined the term 'social film' for this approach.

DPAK sabotaged covers (Chris Brown, Paris Hilton etc)

Just as you could (and should) think up a simple single-take vid (as seen with Pixies, U2 and many more), you could also produce a 2nd d'pak outer cover, using the sabotage approach taken over covers for Chris Brown, Paris Hilton etc albums. This brief article outlines the history:

Chris Brown's albums sabotaged with protest stickers

Goodwin 6 key aspects of music vids

I'm taking this from http://longroadmusicvideo.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/how-to-analyse-music-video.html (always acknowledge your sources).

Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

Sony CEO: Social Media drives music biz today

Sony's CEO says in an interview for the CBI's magazine that One Direction have shown him that social ('new) media are now more important than the traditional ('old') media. Sony used UGC, such as fan campaigns to get One Direction to play a gig near them ("Bring 1D To Me"), to build up buzz and a following for One Direction before any material was released to radio stations, traditionally the key to breaking any band.

Gatfield says this has completely changed the dynamic of launching an act, enabling music companies to bypass the traditional radio-station gatekeepers.
“Traditionally you’d have to persuade radio to support it and there’d be a long, hard slog while you built up the support and marketed them on the back of airplay,” he says. “This is the other way round: you market them and then airplay is the accelerator.”

He goes so far as to say that Sony wouldn't now consider signing a band that didn't already have social media profiles up and running.

Article Source.

One Direction: Social media made them a global phenomenon, says Sony CEO

One Direction have become a $50m business thanks to their army of fans across the world - and this is just the start, according to Nick Gatfield

15th February 2013
This article appeared in the December edition of Business Voice, the CBI magazine

'Their live business is through the roof. I haven’t seen anything this big in my entire career on a global level.'
- Nick Gatfield

To understand the transformative effect of social media on how music labels market their acts, look no further than the success of One Direction.
The boy band, who are signed to the Syco label, came third in The X-Factor TV show in 2010. Since then they have won a Brit award recognising their worldwide success and become a $50m business – with Sony Music UK CEO and chairman Nick Gatfield predicting that this will double in 2013.

Nick Gatfield: X-Factor made us complacent >>

“They are a global phenomenon,” he says. “Their live business is through the roof. I haven’t seen anything this big in my entire career on a global level.
"You can get that kind of explosive moment if you galvanise young music fans and find something they want to engage with – it goes worldwide incredibly quickly. That’s the beauty of social media and the internet: we sign locally but we market globally from day one. That’s a fundamental change in our business.”
By acting on pockets of support for the band that emerged online in places from Sweden and Italy to Australia and Canada, the company built support for the band before they’d had any airtime on the radio. This was particularly important in the US – an impossible nut to crack for British pop bands for more than 20 years.
Sony Music’s US division picked up on a campaign called “Bring 1D to me”, originally developed in the UK, which encouraged fans to pitch for the band 
to play in their area. As a result, What Makes You Beautiful, their first single available to buy on iTunes in the US, sold 130,000 copies in a week and entered the top ten without any airplay.
Gatfield says this has completely changed the dynamic of launching an act, enabling music companies to bypass the traditional radio-station gatekeepers.
“Traditionally you’d have to persuade radio to support it and there’d be a long, hard slog while you built up the support and marketed them on the back of airplay,” he says. “This is the other way round: you market them and then airplay is the accelerator.”
He adds that he would be loathe to sign an act that had no social media profile. “All that would say to me was that they hadn’t got sufficient wherewithal or drive.”

DIGIPAK initial research task

You will need to add details of more specifically genre-related examples (for all 3 texts you initially research then summarize the general format conventions THEN the (sub-)genre specific conventions), but this task has worked very well in the past to get a flying start on research into the general conventions of the media format of 'digipaks', one of the two ancillary (ie, supporting) texts you produce as part of an integrated package.
Time is limited on this task, so you need to be swift!

1. Set up a new Word doc in landscape layout, not the default portrait, along the lines of the example I've embedded below.
2. Pick one of the commercial examples provided (Spice Girls, Britney, Ignacio, + a dummy from a digipak designer/manufacturer). Comprehensively note the features of this. Once done, share notes among the three so that you've already got 3 examples. If you can add notes on at least two more general examples, that will enable you to summarize the main codes + conventions. You must look at the small details (logos, text incl. copyright blurbs, etc) too..
3. Now look at the past examples provided + note any good ideas you see.
4. Now explore the MusiVidz blog for past posts related to digipaks and see what further info you can find, for example on examples of digipak packages.
5. Reflect your learning so far in a post titled DIGIPAK initial research, starting it with the digipak task as described by the exam board (in bold + diff colour + applying quote tool), with the 3-part basic markscheme [UofT, UofE, EAA] + more detailed assessment criteria below this.

TIP: USE MY POST FROM THE TOP LINKS LIST TO FIND PREVIOUS POSTS ON DIGIPAKS, INCLUDING SOME WITH LINKS TO JPGs OF DIGIPAK EXAMPLES (also try past blogs for such jpgs)

Digipak Conventions Table for Notes

In the Thicke of it: Robin women of dignity?

More news of Robin Thicke's now notorious (but big-selling) Blurred Lines being banned by over 20 UK universities, it being seen to fall foul of anti-rape/sexual abuse policies.

Thicke has made some wildly divergent statements on the track and accompanying controversy, appearing to welcome and revel in it at times, and declaring himself a proud old-school sexist ... but at other points he's struck a very different note:

Thicke has defended the song, telling one interviewer: "If you listen to the lyrics, it says 'That man is not your maker' – it's actually a feminist movement within itself."
In October, he told Radio 1 the song had been misunderstood. "I don't think people got it out here [in the UK] in those positions of power," he told Newsbeat. "I think the kids get it … I just have to deal with that."

Is Robin Thicke a feminist?!

Perhaps a more interesting question: to what extent should we differentiate between the likes of Wrecking Ball (or Miley Cyrus' on-stage twerking) and Blurred Lines? Is Sinead O'Connor's contention that many young female performers lose authorship of their work, becoming mere puppets for male managers and record executives, a valid one? Is a model sexually posed/objectified in a male artist's video in any regard inferior or superior to a female artist doing likewise in her own video?

DIGIPAK: album covers

Created using random Wikis, Flickrs etc!

There are plenty of past posts on digipaks to look up - and I'm half way through tagging the 500-odd posts on this post to make these easier to find (using the tag cloud or a search; there are also links within the blog's top, vertical links list...)

But here's another nice resource I've come across, from the chief examiner of OCR Media Studies; @ Pete's Media Blog (why not subscribe/follow?!) he blogged on album covers ... A really nice demonstration of how quickly an album cover can be assembled, the example pictured was created using his 5 random steps method...

He also discusses the decline of album sales (as have I several times), and includes this rather useful link: http://lpcoverlover.com/ is a site well worth visiting, especially if you're of the generation more used to downloads/streams than physical media (tapes, vinyl, CDs).

Speaking of which, if I can rescue them from a shed in Huddersfield, I'll put up some pics of the vinyl that I picked up back in the day, when gazing lovingly at an album/single cover was a fairly normal thing to do!

2Pac Loser Radiohead mashup

I'm not going to say anything about this, bar - I defy you not to be gripped by the (essentially) lo-fi FX, framing being the key as much as CGI in this mash-up of Beck and 2Pac...

I came across this via a FB'd link from videostatic.com; the link features further contextual info..

YouTube Music Awards signify YT as industry king?

(or indeed queen!)

Can YouTube create live content that inspires watercooler zeitgeist moments like television? Google’s giving it a shot with the YouTube Music Awards, a celebration of do-it-yourself Internet culture livestreaming on YouTube right now. It’s chaotic, innovative, offensive, silly, and downright weird. But one thing’s for sure. You won’t see this on TV.  (all quotes from TechCrunch live blog)

The fact that I heard about this on Radio 4, highbrow + 'high culture' station, certainly reinforces the impression that this event is seen as highly significant. Their media correspondent (530am bulletin, 4.11.13) was clear that YouTube now leads the music industry, its position as leading source of streamed material just one string to its bow. I've blogged on YouTube and its rise, expanding beyond its original format on the way, many times - click on the tag cloud (bottom right of the blog) to find out more.

DANCE EG: Fragma - You Are Alive (2001, Ger)

1st shot: an Ibiza link perhaps?

Fragma -

You Are Alive.

Dir: unknown, 2001.

Trance.

Lyrics.

SUMMARY

For me, one of the worst promos I've ever seen, though it is very professionally produced with strong cinematography. There is little going on bar the incessant objectification of the vocalist, who we often see running, Baywatch slo-mo style, or dousing herself on the beach wearing sheer clothing, plus the 'exotic' (depending on the viewer of course) setting - which seems utterly incongruous for the track. Also features an attempt to eroticize fruit! We follow the singer through a village, though this is a world away from The Verve video which tracks the singer walking along; our location here is left polysemic, as if anchorage might detract from its exotic 'otherness'. The track itself features a ridiculously long fade-out: 20 seconds!!!
I make some comparisons below to Bond movies and a Lita Ford video....

The cinematography is sharp; variable focus is used to good effect, a particularly suitable diegetic 'effect' given the musical genre

DANCE EG: Tata Young - I Believe (2004, Thai)

1st shot: walking towards lense, stays in MS. Semi-revealing costume

Tata Young -

I Believe.

Dir: unknown, 2004.

Dance-pop/R&B.

Lyrics. YT Channel.

SUMMARY

The track is dull and tedious, and it gets the video it deserves! Its all proficiently done - the green-screened CGI is fairly impressive, the dance routines are slickly choreographed, the male performers are suitably tight-lipped and moody, the shirtless male provides eye candy for a female gaze/audience, a wind machine adds that dramatising touch, some aerial shots are set up well.

Nonetheless, it suffers from a lack of shot variety; the studio setup and the cliched basic romance setup both fail to hold the attention. Britney Spears shot to fame by fusing signifiers of innocence and sexuality in a polysemic promo that be read as raunch or innocent; this video appears to be attempting a comparable blend, less successfully blending these binaries - although this Western-centric reading may be misinterpreting Thai cultural signifiers.

It is worth working through all the screenshots for the final shot, which is beautifully lit and very well executed.

For quite some time we crosscut between this shot (graphics colour changes) and that below

DANCE EG: T-Funk feat Katie Underwood - Be Together (2006)

Mise-en-scene is used effectively throughout

T-Funk feat Katie Underwood -

Be Together.

Dir: unknown, 2006.

Eurodance/House.

Lyrics.

SUMMARY

A basic, single location video lacking SFX, centred on a powerful female protagonist (the singer), tho' framing focussed on dancers' busts seems dubious. Despite the simplicity, the unusually frequent cutting to the beat, effective use of all the possibilities of the single location, and a strong performance from the singer make this a successful production likely to boost the appeal of the track.

1ST SHOT

Polysemy is initially retained

This is a word I'll use many times in discussing this basically effective vid: simple. A simple example of narrative enigma: we fade up and tilt up to slowly reveal part of a face in CU, with half the frame given over to the mise-en-scene. It takes several shots to fully anchor the club setting, let alone the narrative of a woman setting out to pick a man. The ear-rings, hair styling and heavy make-up are also notable, so too the direct gaze which quickly emerges as a feature of this vid.

DANCE EG: NG3 - The Anthem (2003); post-feminist?

Costume and lack of 'big hair' denote accessible; aud can identify with?

NG3 -

The Anthem.

Dir: unknown, 2003.

Eurodance/R+B.

Lyrics.

SUMMARY:

A simple video with a linear narrative, using movie signifiers (especially titles). Lyrically centred on women

Filmic titles are used

standing up to men and demanding respect, it can be read as hypocritical or assertive depending on whether or not you buy into the post-feminist position. Key to it, either way, is that the performers costume and appearance ensures that young F viewers could identify with the trio.

1ST SHOT (see screenshot above):

Fade up into a simple ML 3-shot, cut to the 1st beat of the track. The location is a 'grand' hall, but the 3 F performers are fairly plain in terms of clothing (leisure/sports wear) and general appearance - hair tied back rather than scaffolded using enough hairspray to euthanize the ozone layer.

DANCE EG: 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor (1996)

(Click pic to enlarge) These screenshots provide a sense of this act's approach

2 Brothers on the 4^th Floor -

Come Take My Hand.

Dir: Arcade Creative, 1996.

Eurodance/Happy hardcore (Dutch).

Lyrics. Wiki. Videography (eurokdj.com), YT Channel.

NB: Dance music is a genre I have some familiarity with, but lack a broad enough knowledge to be picking up on intertextual links with other dance vids; if you spot any, let me know via a comment below. At the end of this post I've also added a couple of pointers on how to go about blogging on a single track.

SUMMARY OF KEY FEATURES: 

1ST SHOT contains many key characteristics of the vid

• CGI is very evident; very sophisticated at points, fairly simplistic (intentionally low-tech/non-realism?) at others.
• Playful, surreal and offbeat (visual at times) humour, with characters that could be in a David Lynch movie; there is no coherent narrative (beyond getting off a bus, walking, and re-boarding). Pomo playfulness, aka deconstructionism, is evident, eg revealing the daft fake moustache.
• Interesting gender countertypes with the male a mostly decorative, passive presence; also notable that overt sexuality (clothing, framing/shot selection, dance moves) largely absent.
• Cinematography has an Anton Corbijn feel: monochrome with occasionally oblique angles and framing. Panning and tracking are common, but vertical movement is limited, with smooth, steadicam action (and no zooms). Also signifiers of Soviet realism through lighting, framing, angle, subject choice and facial expression?
• Editing pace isn’t frantic but still zips along, with no take more than a few seconds, and increased pace/cutting to the beat for only short periods in the track. Cross-fades are common.
• Diegetic intro and outro.
• Lipsynched MCU 2-shots are dominant, but there is considerable cross-cutting between these and non-lipsynched 2-shots, plus other characters and even CGI creatures and a vortex; successful in shot variety terms despite the simplicity of the setup.

1ST SHOT (see screenshot above):

Diegetic intro: ELS of bus, rapid editing (ellipsis to ensure this isn’t a slow start) + good shot variety; beach setting; narrative enigma: where is this/who’s getting off bus?; surrealism – bus on beach!; monochrome/B+W

CrowdFunding: Universal muscles in for vinyl reissues

Universal appeal? Ah, never mind

Crowdfunding is generally seen as one of the key means by which digitisation offers a democratisation of media production, enabling producers at any level to appeal directly to fans or investors (the line is often blurred) for funding for new projects, which might be a new game, album, film, app, etc.

I've blogged on this before, with many big-name artists and film-makers turning to this model for funding, generally offering promotional packages rather than financial returns for this funding - signed copies, chance to appear as an extra, extra tracks, deluxe packaging, etc.

So much for levelling the ground for the little guy: news comes of Universal's (rather smart to be fair) wheeze to take any risk out of the recent trend of re-releasing albums on vinyl, reflecting the steep increase* in vinyl sales (and the long tail theory). So, instead of taking a punt on which album to expensively re-press on vinyl, Universal instead put it to fans: if enough of you provide advance funding, we'll do it - advance publicity and sales in one go, and premium pricing to boot. Cynical, but smart.

*Vinyl sales doubled from 2012 to 2013, with David Bowie and Daft Punk releases amongst those seeing sales of the format soar.
 
Here's Sean Michaels on the story: