Research -Industrial context

    To gain an understanding of Universal Music Group it is important to look at their talent and people who are signed to them, some of their most popular including; Billie Eilish, DaBaby, Lewis Capaldi and Summer Walker. Most of their artists are fairly mainstream as that is their brand identity. 

Universal is a huge conglomerate and owns many other brands which are shown below: 

Universal Music Group promotes themselves as being a true activist in social responsibility and also state that they are: 

A driving force for equality and social justice, the Task Force for Meaningful Change (TFMC) works to amplify and expand UMG’s current programs, devise new initiatives and support marginalized communities in the ongoing fight for equality, justice and inclusion. Our work is divided into six areas, including:

1. Aid/Charitable Giving

   We support initiatives with organizations working in areas such as: economic empowerment and business development; housing; legal services and bail; mental health services; legislative reform; physical health services; and voting resources and education.

2. Global

   Acknowledging that racism, intolerance and bias know no borders, we are identifying and adopting global policies and initiatives to address equality, bias, equity and inclusion efforts for all UMG offices and their communities around the world.

3. Internal/Institutional Change

   We examine UMG’s workforce policies and procedures, and work environment. This includes identifying areas to improve access, recruitment, advancement and retention of a diverse workforce at all levels within the company but with a focus on leadership positions and other senior-level roles.

   We work closely with UMG HR’s Diversity & Inclusion team to continue its ongoing efforts and build upon the company’s partnership with USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative.

4. Legislative/Public Policy

   We pursue constructive social change by supporting public policies via: Federal, state and local legislation to challenge laws and regulations that promote bias and systemic discrimination; and voter education, registration and participation.

5. Partners

   UMG has a history of investing in, and partnering with, entrepreneurs who have grown their business out of the community, building some of the most impactful and dynamic voices in entertainment today. Working alongside our partners in their focused efforts to initiate and support change in their communities, we reap the benefit of their insights, which help us continue to grow our own efforts in the fight for justice and equality.

6. Programming/Curation

   Just as music connects people around the world, our goal is to promote dialogue and understanding through speaker fora, counseling, and educational and creative programming focused on the themes of tolerance, equality and inclusion – especially around the intersection of Black Music, art, lifestyle, fashion, technology and creators, as well as celebrating Black artists and creators, and conducting thoughtful discussions on current events.

   We will continue to expand upon UMG HR’s Diversity & Inclusion programming, including their Belonging Table town hall series about diversity and inclusion and other series bringing outside experts to address relevant topics, ranging from economic empowerment and business development, mental health and voting.

Planning: Reflecting on moderators report

These are some key points that examiners stated where problematic and caused marks to be dropped: 

In general, less successful music either missed key elements from the brief or did not adhere to the codes and conventions of the form. Some examples were: 

• Tracks that did not fit the dance genre. Although this is a very broad field, some songs chosen could not be regarded as dance, with a number of pop/ballad tracks, for example (e.g. a low-tempo piano track by Lorde with no drums or bass; several indie rock pieces and at least one 1980s classic which, good though it was, was clearly not ‘dance’) 

• Failure to mention the name of the band/ artist/ track at the start or end of the video 

• Editing which did not match the pace/ BPM of the track (particularly important for the genre)

 • Concepts which lacked a clear through-line (for example, pieces which were effectively just environmental studies where candidates had gone into the countryside or down to the beach and simply filmed footage with little or no consideration of structure/ theme) 

• Mise-en-scene featuring school fields / classrooms/ uniform. In several centres, it was hard to see that two social groups were represented 

• Pieces where performance footage was used in a perfunctory manner or where lip-synch was not fully effective

 • Videos where some sort of simplistic narrative, e.g. a chase or use of a candidate’s holiday footage (a huge number of airplane windows were filmed through this session!), was imposed with little or no consideration of the content/ mood/ tone of the track

 • Camerawork/ camera movement which did not demonstrate the level of skill, finish or excellence required for Level 5 marks to be secured – although this is less important than it was for the legacy specification, the criteria relating to this uses the descriptors ‘sophisticated’ and ‘accomplished’; where shots are out of focus or the camera-operator is reflected in glass, it is difficult to agree that these are appropriate terms to use

Research -Contemporary Context

The industry 

 In the music video industry the key players may be the production companies, directors or even the talent themselves, some influential individuals who have been known for producing high quality and successful music videos include, Logic ft. Alessia Cara, Khali for their song 1-800-273-8255 where they raise awareness for mental health, Beyoncé for one of her newer songs ALREADY featuring Shatta Wale, Major Laze where the music video is promoting diversity and Brent Faiyaz who has been gaining mass attention for his music and his music videos which have interesting editing. 

In terms of the directors, according to 'lights film school' the top 5 are as follows; 1. Michel Gondry is the Academy award winning French filmmaker who directed the hit feature film “Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Science of Sleep”. He has also directed music videos for Bjork and Daft Punk, Foo Fighters, Chemical Brothers and Radiohead to name only a few. 2. Hype Williams is undoubtedly the most famous hip hop music video director of all time. When music video budgets were still large he directed the music videos for names such as TLC, Busta Rhymes, Usher and many more. 3. Spike Jonze is a household music video directors name. He has worked on creative music video projects with The Pharcyde, Sonic Youth, Bjork, Beasty Boys, Fatboy Slim and the Notorious B.I.G. 4. Chris Cunningham should be watched by every up and coming music video director. He has a very unique style and is always pushing the boundaries of the medium. He has worked with musicians ranging from Portishead, Madonna and Placebo. 5. Floria Sigismondi

 is a photographer and filmmaker who has made her mark with her dark and mysterious images. She is currently getting into the feature film world and is well decorated in many artistic awards. She has worked with the likes of Christina Aguilera, Fiona Apple, Incubus, and David Bowie to name only a few.

Finance 

All companies must finance themselves to become established, when looking at music video production companies it is prominent that it is either their own finance they have saved or earnt from producing smaller music video's and worked their way up, loans. And when speaking about the equipment most established companies will either have already bought their own cameras and equipment, the client may have provided it, or usually smaller companies will rent their technology. 

In terms of who is paying for the music video itself It can range from the artist themselves, the producer, the record company or anyone that wants to take the chance and make the investment. It used to be that the record company would put up the money to record the albums and take care of financing the entire endeavor start to finish. Over the years, they have become much more guarded with their investment.

Distribution 

When looking at how music videos are distributed the most popular has always been Youtube as its free, easy to use and accessible to most. But there are other options, whilst they may not be as popular they are still online, Vimeo is another video sharing platform like Youtube and so is Utreon not only do these all allow companies to share their videos but this is also where viewers will access them. In terms of exchanging these music videos this can be done on mostly all social media sites, for example, Twitter is a great example of where to promote a new music video and get people speaking about it, this also relates to theorist Clay Shirky's ideas of the active audience. 

Research -Industrial Context (history of the music video)

 The History of the Music Video 

1963- The first appearance of a music video was made here, was Jan & Dean's "Surf City", made in July

1964- June 28th marked the birth of The Beatles first music video to their song A Hard Day's Night, shot in black and white and directed by Richard Lester

1975-  The band Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make a promo video for their new single "Bohemian Rhapsody" to show it in Top Of The Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape.

1983- The most successful, influential and iconic music video of all time was released — the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller". The video set new standards for production, having cost US$500,000 to film.

1985- Music video's grew to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.

1992- MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors i.e. Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Hype Williams all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed.

1995- Two of the videos directed by Romanek i are notable for being two of the three most expensive music videos of all time: Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream", which cost $7 million to produce, and Madonna's "Bedtime Story", which cost $5 million.

2005- The launch of the website YouTube made the viewing of online video much faster and easier, just like Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook, etc. which uses similar technology. Some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online, i.e. the band OK Go.

Planning - Brief (Nights)

 

Draft 2 - updated plan 

This is my initial brief and plan for my Nights music video, it contains set types, dress codes and mise en scene whilst also exploring the generic conventions I want to use, aswell as the semantics and connotations the video will hold.  

Planning- Brief (Say it)

This is my initial brief and plan for my Say It music video, it contains set types, dress codes and mise en scene whilst also exploring the generic conventions I want to use, aswell as the semantics and connotations the video will hold. This is my second brief that I have created to compare my two possible results which in turn will help me decide which video to continue with.