R+P Post 14: My Target Audience

As a group we decided to have the widest possible target audience. We knew that since our track was of the EDM genre this would slightly narrow the target audience, and would also need to have a particular impact on his personality and choice of clothing.

Our primary audience is EDM fans,this practically covers all people who enjoy the genre, however there is some trending towards younger people within the 15-30 age range, whilst being non-gender specific.

Just some of the crowd at Tomorrowland 2014

Our secondary audience is clubbers and festival-goers. This is due to the huge popularity of the EDM genre at festivals, most notably the Tomorrowland festival, which had over 400,000 attendees in 2014. For this reason, we feel that our artist could build a following at festivals, as this may be where he is found to appeal most.





Our tertiary audience is fans of other featured artists in our album. This decision was somewhat inspired by Calvin Harris, as he features a large number of well-known singers in his albums. This is also a great way to gain a following from the audiences of the featured artists.

R+P Post 13: Influences and inspiration from art, fashion, and culture.

Although the majority of influence and inspiration for our music video has come from the music industry, I've found a lot of other things contributing as well, films being a notable area.

The Knife That Killed Me

The style of the CGI in this film is something that I feel would be ideal for our music video, only we would probably be doing it in a more colourful, happy style, as opposed to TKTKM's drab and gloomy style of visual effects.
Furthermore, this seems appropriate as it covers a very similar target audience.

Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton's films have always been well known for their dark, gritty, gothic style. Although those particular aspects are not things that I feel will particularly influence our music video, the style of the CGI in Alice in Wonderland is something that I feel we might aim towards.

One aspect in particular that I think our music video can replicate similarly is the variation in shot framing. There were a lot of cases where there would be close-ups with a very shallow depth of field, reducing what we the audience can see beyond the character. This lets us use our imaginations more for picturing the world around the character. However the CGI in the film is so impressive that this isn't really required. This meant that long shots could be interspersed whilst not breaking the image the audience had pictured.

An outfit from the
Nasty Gal festival lookbook.

Festival culture is arguably one of the strongest influences on our project as the track is one you'd expect to hear played at festivals. Interestingly, festivals have had a huge impact on fashion trends in recent years. For example, Coachella, (a festival that includes big EDM names such as Calvin Harris and Major Lazer), has massively influenced clothing lines in shops, particularly evident from the sponsership by H&M. It goes without saying that festival culture will therefore influence our choice in clothing for the characters in our music video.

Tomorrowland stage 2012

Art also plays into the culture, this is most easily represented at the stages for various festivals. For example, the Tomorrowland stages, although evolve over the years, always seem to follow a theme of bright, happy colours, something we can use in our music video.

R+P Post 12: Artists/Bands that have influenced my ideas

Our artist is based off a mixture of similar real-life artists, including both singers and producers/DJs, which has been very useful, because in doing this our artist has been made to seem more realistic and follow the real conventions of artists of this genre.

Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris has had the biggest influence so far in terms of appearance of our DJ. A lot of his pictures are in a striking black & white style, something we are considering replicating.

Porter Robinson

Porter Robinson

Porter Robinson has mainly influenced the direction we want to take with our music video. Although his music is not all similar to the genre we are going for, the style of his music videos (real footage alongside computer-generated graphics) is something we might like to aim for.

R+P Post 11: Artist websites that have inspired and influenced my ideas

After looking at several different artist websites, I have made a list of particular features or points-of-interest on the various websites that I feel may be logical to include on our website.

Martin Garrix website

• Social media bottom left
• Play track in middle of screen
• Home, Tour, Music, Lifestyle, Contact, Multiply
• Multiply allows users to interact with website by editing photos
• Lifestyle shows a feed of pictures (like Instagram) showing off his life and what he does
• "Join Team Garrix" at bottom allows user to connect through Facebook

Calvin Harris website

• Video of latest track is focal feature
• Can scroll down for videos, instagram feed, random things
• When the navigation button in the top right is clicked, a new menu appears with links to pages such as "News, Live, Releases, Videos, Store, and Newsletter". 

Click-able icons for his YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify accounts also pop up.

1. All of these websites have links to their store either on the homepage or in the homepage menu. I think this is something we should do as it makes it fast and easy for our audience to head to buy merchandise, theoretically maximising our artist's profits.
2. Tour dates and dates of other events are made very clear. This is something very important that I think we should take into account with our website as tours provide the biggest financial profit for most artists.
3. Most of these websites also have optional sign-up forms to receive updates and newsletters from the artist. This acts as a great gratification for dedicated fans as they will feel like they're getting the important news first, and that they are 'in-the-know'.
4. These websites show off the artist's latest music video on the homepage, something that can instantly attract and divert the audience's attention from what they were doing onto the video.
5. The websites I looked at also include numerous links to the artist's presence on other websites, most notably social media like Facebook, Twitter, and SoundCloud. We will definitely include these kinds of links at the bottom of our artist's website as this will allow greater publicity for the artist due to people sharing, 'liking', or following the artist's social media pages. Furthermore, due to the recent proliferation of technology, it is likely all of our audience will have their own social media accounts.
6. The websites aim to reflect their artist's music and constructed personality as well as possible, this includes through the style of the site as well as the colour scheme and any graphics there may be.

Porter Robinson's website has a massive emphasis on interactivity.
It has a chat box where fans can talk to each other whilst they watch
countless Porter videos. There are also navigation links at the top, and
social media links in the bottom left.

The overall function of these artists' websites seems to be as follows:

• To reinforce their brand and style
• To keep audience (specifically fans) updated
• To inform the audience about things such as tours and events
• To promote new songs and albums
• To act as a way for the audience to feel like they're able to 'interact' with the artist
• To encourage sharing and spreading via word-of-mouth on social media

R+P Post 10: Album covers that have inspired and influenced my ideas

Calvin Harris' album, 'Motion' has influenced my ideas as he is one of the most notable artists in the EDM genre so his album cover could be expected to reflect it well.

The album cover for this particular album works well with the title 'Motion' as the focal image itself is some sort of object that appears to be moving, like a cloth in wind; the image seems to be based off a picture of a person.





Porter Robinson's two albums, 'Worlds' and 'Worlds Remixed' also are a big inspiration to me. The artwork for the two album covers was spawned through the artwork for his 'Worlds' tour, animations that are shown in the background whilst he performs.
Interestingly, unlike most artists, he acted as his own art director, and searched out particular artists he liked on the blogging website Tumblr in order to create the style he wanted.

In an interview, he stated:
"The company that I worked with on the tour visuals were called ILN - Imaginary Light Network. It's one guy, and he has artists all around the world who will do the first frame, or build a reference illustration; he has other people who are animators, and none of them have met each other ever."

The two album covers share a lot in common, with the same titling, Robinson's logo, and sky and clouds.
However, despite the 'Worlds' cover just having a single hand, the 'Worlds Remixed' cover art has two hands holding each other. This I think reflects the sentimental nature of his music, as the holding hands can be seen as the different musicians working to create something together.
Robinson also inspires me as he commissions extra art to be made and released with each of his albums.

Much of the album artwork I looked at seemed to either involve photography of real people, or photos that had then been edited digitally. I reckon we will definitely go down one of these two routes.

R+P Post 9: Music videos that have inspired and influenced my ideas

Although there are numerous artists and music videos that I feel will inspire me for my music video, The Hoosiers' 'Goodbye Mr A' is one I felt personally will be most influential. This is because when I first started having my own music taste, this was a song I absolutely loved and couldn't listen to enough.

The music video follows a number of conventions:

• Lip syncing
• Mainly performance
• Artists appear in the video
• Editing matches pace of the music
• Lyrics matched to video
• Costumes change for different scenes

Inter-textual references are used to connote the upbeat action/superhero genre, fitting well with the fast-paced music.

Batman-style 'H' logo spotlight in sky

• Retro Batman-style comic artwork alongside onomatopoeic words such as "biff" and "wham" work well to convey the superhero theme.
• Pole into bat-cave style lair
• Test area
• Mr A merchandise is shown in shot alongside the lyrics 'expect me to buy it', this collaboration between music and visual works to further depict the main characters' personality in the music video as patronising towards Mr A.

• Mr A is held above smoking green vat, sign saying 'acid' - almost cartoon-like style where things are made very simple and easy to understand.

• Newspapers - Mr A was hero - Hoosiers are heroes acting like villains
• Hoosiers' costumes - tights underneath their pants - mask (classic superhero film costume)
• 1:37 - playing FIFA 08

• Simplistic rocket plan, blueprints => "Put Mr A on rocket. Light fuse of rocket. Take over the WORLD!" Very tongue-in-cheek.

• Hoosiers training up, weightlifting, like the 'journey' undertaken in many films, for example Skyfall.

• "Hoosier gonna call?", reference to Ghostbusters - red telephone draws attention to this.

• Split screen at 2:21
• Child in awe of Hoosiers, similar idea to Superman films, i.e. is it a bird is it a plane.

• Saving kittens stopping robbers, The Hoosiers carry out stereotypical heroic acts.

• Key to the city given to Hoosiers, a conventional part of many hero films.

• TIME magazine - "The greatest superheroes of our time." - A play on TIME's other titles such as "The 100 Most Influential People".

• Mr A's eyes opening at end acts as a cliffhanger to the story. 

The amount of inter-textual references in this video work really well together to create the fun, recognisable style of video. I believe for my music video I will probably include many inter-textual references in a similar way.

R+P Post 8: Possible tracks for the single

Whilst holding our group meetings, we all had our own ideas for possible tracks and discussed the following in depth.

David Guetta & Showtek - Sun Goes Down

Mario suggested this song as it has very particular buildups and breakdowns that our ideas could revolve around. Furthermore this track doesn't have a proper music video (just a Lyric video).

Felix Jaehn - Ain't Nobody (Loves Me Better)

I thought this song would be a very good possible track for the single because it has very emotive lyrics that would work well with a narrative story. However we decided not to use this song due to the fact it already has a music video, and coming up with original ideas for the narrative may be compromised.
.

R+P Post 7: Record labels of interest

Since 2012 there have been 3 major record labels, (known as the 'big three'), who control around 70% of the world music market and 80% of the American music market.

Music & Copyright's annual surveys show that independent record labels dominate the sector.

Independent labels will be in our greatest interest as most EDM is released independently, with many artists self-publishing until they fall under the eyes of an independent label.



Spinnin' Records

• Dutch independent record label
• EDM, but focus on progressive house, electro house and big room house
• Founded 1999
• 40 sub-labels
• Have signed in the past names such as Avicii, Borgore, Darude, Martin Garrix, Nicky Romero.

Monstercat logo

Monstercat

• Canadian EDM record label
• Founded 1st July 2011
• Signs artists for single releases only, letting artists retain copyright control and release on other labels
• Every 30 tracks, they release an album
• Albums are available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Spotify, Xbox Music, Google Play Music, Apple Music, Beatport, and others.
• They promote snippets of tracks on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
• Had signed in the past Krewella

R+P Post 6: Current trends in popular music

Since the late 1990's, pop music has been the UK's biggest album seller, overtaking Rock. This is also evident through looking at the UK top music charts.

However, we are most interested in EDM, and the UK Top 40 show's this to be very popular, with 4 of the top ten being listed as sub-genres of EDM, and 2nd place going to an EDM track.

2nd, 5th, and 6th place go to EDM sub-genres. 7th is also arguably EDM
as although it is listed as Pop, it sounds like all the production is electronic
synths.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), found in recent surveys that although Rock albums sell more than any other genre, it is still Pop that sells the most singles.

The term EDM (electronic dance music) was pushed to audiences in 2010 by the U.S. music industry in order to try to re-brand rave culture and increase popularity. It is a kind of 'umbrella term', which can be used to reference many different sub-genres.
The 'House' genre, seen as a sub genre of EDM has been around since the mid 1980's, arguably the first house record is Jesse Saunders' "On and On".

In the mid 1990's electronic dance music (previously associated with European rave culture) was marketed in America under the term "electronica", in an attempt to increase popularity.

By the mid 2000's, popularity of dance music, particularly in North America, had greatly increased. The "tipping point" of EDM, according to Spin Magazine, was when Daft Punk performed at Coachella in 2006.

R+P Post 5: The kind of video I would like to make

I really want to create a video that uses simple yet effective visual effects to take the viewer to a different world.

This is a great example of what I have in mind as it takes normal everyday shots and locations and 'enhances' them with retro and futuristic graphics.



Another similar technique that the following Watsky video demonstrates is called 'data moshing', and it is basically corrupting a video on purpose to create a desired glitchy effect. I find this very interesting considering the fact that nowadays everyone is usually competing to have the best quality video, and this turns the tables.

R+P Post 4: Audience groups of interest

The audience groups I am most interested in are festival goers and fans of EDM. The majority of festival goers are young people, however fans of EDM cover a far greater age range.

I believe the popularity of EDM has risen in direct correlation with the more often occurrence of it being played at festivals, and also in conjunction with the electronic elements seeping into pop music tracks.

This graph shows both concert and festival attendance in 2012 and 2014, in thousands of people.

As you can see from the graph, over the two year gap festival attendance in the UK rose by over 700,000. Although concert attendance rose by well over 4 million, this still shows that the audience for festivals is growing, so is a good audience to try to appeal to.

R+P Post 3: Music genres that interest me

I enjoy almost all genres of music, however there are some in particular that I listen to more than the rest. I'd say my favourite genres are EDM, Pop, and Classical.

EDM is a very diverse genre, which includes practically all electronic music, however the majority is produced for festivals. My first exposure to the genre was on-line, through the YouTube channel of the Monstercat record label. One of the first tracks I heard, (and one I remember best), was Pegboard Nerds - Disconnected

My interest in pop music is relevant to this due to the face that pop music now has many elements of electronic music in it. One of my favourite pop tracks at the moment is a remake of an old song, and this particularly sums up my interest in pop as it is a clean, electronic pop song:

Felix Jaehn - Ain't Nobody (Loves Me Better) ft. Jasmine Thompson

I grew up with classical music on at home a lot, this due to the fact my parents listened often to Classic FM. Although I don't follow any current classical artists nor do I frequently listen to the genre, I still find it one of the genres I most enjoy when I do happen to listen to it.
Having said that, I can still say my favourite classical composer at the moment is Ludovico Einaudi, whose music seems to have a flow to it that you don't find in traditional classical music.