The Dance Fanatic

Scans of image about target audience will appear here.

Student Digipack & Magazine Advert #2: The New York Fund

Here is another example of a digipack and magazine advert from a previous student that used a song from band "The New York Fund" called "Nobody's Home".
*Image*


Use of colour on the front cover is very good in my opinion. It is dynamic, and appeals to the teenagers and youngsters of today. The colourful lines against the black background really stand out well and the artist and track name text on top of the colour bars is the easy to notice. Despite the quirky nature of the text, I don't think it is as clear as it could be - I certainly had to give it a second glance to read what was on the front cover. This however might work in their favour, as the casual passer by in the shop might have to go back to read the cover in more detail...

Student Digipack & Magazine Advert: Blighters

A digipack is an essential marketing tool that comes along with a CD purchase. They commonly have a front cover that attracts the attention of the audience and offer more information about the tracks on the album, as well as including other features such as lyrics.

A past student example is this, from "blighters/".

*Image*

The colour contrast on the front cover has been tastefully done and works well. An image of a guy and a girl walking away from the camera is the most predominant part of the cover. You could say that the image and the colours involved of blue and green highlight the intended mood of the image, as they are quite melocholly colours and may be trying to communicate to the audience that the track may be rather emotional and of a rocky, industrial manner. The colour gradient usage and the predominant feature of a sole photograph is something that I will potentially be using on my own piece, with careful thought about the colours used so it fits the dance genre I am doing (potentially darker colours as it is a darker drum&bass/dance song, but this will be investigated during the design phase). The simple text of just "blighters/" on the front cover is to the point, and does not detract away from the effectiveness of the image - whereas if there was too much text, it may detract from the effectiveness of the image and its colour correction.

Past A2 Media Video - Blur: Boys and Girls

First things first. I've been looking for this song for ages - because it is actually brilliant! This is a music video produced by a A2 Media Student... and I think it's actually quite good.



Strengths

• The whole idea of the "gender swap" is one that has been executed really quite well. 2:36-2:52 is a good example of what the opposite sex would conventionally do. The 1st shot is something convenionlly associated with the ladish behaviour of a guy. The pouting and checking your appearence is something typically females do more than males as they worry about their appearence more.
• Lyrics/Video link is something that is common place throughout the entire video. The "streets like a jungle" lyrics links to the image of the 2 guys going across the road. "Take your chance" lyric links to a picture of someone filling in lottery tickets.
• The practice of on the beat editing is strong and correctly used in time with the music around 75% of the time.
• Use of visual effects was good as we had the guy running in front of the animals @ 0:40 (if not abit random with the colour adaption @ 0:47/2:14). The dancing arms at 0:25 were quite cool too!
• Lip-sync (1:52) is strong and well edited

Goodwin's 7: 3 Video Review

In 1992, Andrew Goodwin published a book called “Dancing in the Destruction Factory”. This book was the result of many years research into music videos, and common conventions between them.

Goodwin came up with a variety of codes and conventions that can be expected in the typical music video. In this blog post I will be discussing 3 videos and comparing them to the codes and conventions that Goodwin has outlined.

Music Video #1: Stanton Warriors: Turn Me Up Some

Copyright: Punks Records (2011)

#1: Music videos demonstrate certain genre characteristics.
The typical dance video will often feature a lot of dancing and you might see the track artist to showcase their producing or DJ talent. Dance videos are often either narrative or performance based, and sometimes a fusion of both.

This video features a wide degree of dancing, from street dancing to ballet dancing (interestingly in a urban backdrop) as is conventional in dance music videos. The video doesn’t show the DJ showcasing his “talent”, but the 3 dancers in the video are showcasing their talent through dance.

A2 Media Past Video: Puretone - Addicted To Bass

Now, call me a critic or a hard-task master, but there is really only one video I have been blown away with when shown it in class. All the rest, just don't have that certain special "aspect" that make them appeal to me. They need to be interesting from start to finish... and the amazing Puretone - Addicted To Bass remake from a few years ago, which rather unsurprisingly got full marks, is one such example.



It might be my love of the dance genre, but I was seriously impressed by this music video when I first watched this back in Year 10.

Andrew Goodwin: Do music videos demonstrate genre characteristics?

Andrew Goodwin states that music videos will often demonstrate characteristics that are specific to certain genres. As my videos are mostly based in the dance genre, I will be comparing them to what can typically be expected of that genre.

First off, let’s have a look at what is expected of the “typical” dance genre music video. LOTS of them are set in clubs and showcase the artist’s talent. This is usually because most dance tracks are created by well-known club DJ’s and producers – and therefore, they’d want to showcase their production qualities through the music and (usually) showcase their DJ’ing abilities through footage taken from club nights or special events. You’ll also typically get lots of male/female eye-candy with an awful amount of clothes missing.

Copyright: Ultra Records (2008)

Representations In Music Videos: Wolfgang Gartner - Illmerica

For my video analysis I chose one of the hottest electro hits currently around on the radio at the moment, Wolfgang Gartner's Illmerica.

Very concept based this one, why not have a watch? :)


Copyright: Ultra Records - 2010

Director Study: Sophie Muller

Why do a bog-standard blogpost, when you can embed a Powerpoint!

(Download the whole powerpoint with the videos embedded HERE > Note the file is 51.7MB and may take awhile to download... but the videos will work even when you don't have internet access. The embedded videos do not work on the powerpoint below...)



Copyright: Food Records/EMI - 1997


Copyright: Fascination Records/Universal Music Group/Polydor (2006)


Copyright: Polydor (2011)