McFly's career...

McFly formed in 2003. They were signed to the Island Records label from their 2004 launch before creating their own label, Super Records. The band rose to fame after Busted helped them out at the beginning of their career as a boy band by inviting them to tour in 2004. To date, McFly have sold more than 10 million records worldwide. In 2005, they won the Brit Award for Best British Pop Act. McFly's debut album Room on the 3rd Floor debuted at number 1 in the UK Album Chart and is certified as double platinum; this led to them becoming known as the youngest band ever to have an album debut at number 1. A month after the album was released, the band had their first UK headlining tour.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFly

 

 

In 2004 when McFly released '5 colours in her hair' which was a huge success for the boys. This video was very lively and used a lot of bright colours to create a happy, enthusiastic vibe to their fans and this video was probably one McFly's most well known and famous videos of all that really was the start for their career. The image of them reflected in this was they were being shown as boisterous, typical teenagers that liked to have fun with music. At this point, their target audience was teenage girls from the age of 10-14 approximately which is demonstrated through the video because they're young themselves at this point so girls can relate to them and like them as a band. They were very successful with this song because it ended up being number 1 for 12 weeks in the UK Charts.



 

During 2005 they did a song called 'I'll be ok' and this was when they started to grow up slightly. They became more serious about their music in particular and in the video the band were in shirts and ties which showed they were starting to develop as artists. Their target audience was still teenage girls but the age increased a little to 15-17 year olds as their fans were growing up with them. In that year they were extremely successful with two number 1's: 'All about you' and 'you've got a friend' which both stayed in this position for 13 weeks which is impressive!



 

 

 

 

The following year they were really starting to settle into their fame. Transylvania was the video for this year and they started to come through as a shining band, each showing off their personalities as an individual. In this video the boys weren't very serious about their image as they were dressing up girls but this showed their fun side and demonstrated to their fans that they liked to have a laugh! Through this video, their fan base was increasing because this was the time when they could really get a feel for the boys and what they were really like, so their population increased a lot.

 

 



 



 

 

 

'Do ya' in 2008 was the beginning of narrative videos for McFly where their videos were trying to portray a certain image to their target audience through their lyrics and this was also when they came much more serious about their music and their focus was the content of their videos and the music they were producing because this was when they really realised what they wanted and what they wanted to achieve etc. However, despite this, they continued to have fun with music so fans were still familiar with them as artists and they knew that they hadn't changed too drastically as a band. During this period, they lost popularity for a while because their music was changing, but this was when they became settled as a band as to what kind of music they were to do.

 



 

 



 

 

In 2010 'Party girl' was released and this was where they grew up massively. Their video had locations that were quite sexual including a strip club, girls were involved, there was more sexual content and they became more sexualised as artists as well. This was the time when their target audience changed slightly. They still aimed their music and videos at girls but slightly older teens and young adults, about 18-25 because of the type of music and videos they were creating. Their success here declines a bit more with no number 1'st, but they still had singles in the top 10 which meant they were still pretty successful. They changed from a 'boy' band to a man band because they were growing up too.

 



 

 

'Love is easy' was released in 2012 where they looked really good as a band. They all wore matching suits and looked really grown up, smart, and along with this, because of their professional looking image, their music matured as well. Because of all these changes to the band, they started to act like role models for audiences and people aspired to be like them. This single was in the top 10 which was helped by Tom's wedding speech which went viral and received lots of view on YouTube as a result. During the previous year though, quite a lot went  on... Dougie Poynter's battle with drink and drugs, his attempted suicide and his relationship with Frankie Sandford. This meant the band had to go through big changes and re-establish their image, but it also had it's positives. Harry won Strictly Come Dancing, Dougie won I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Danny participated in Pop Star To Opera Star and Tom participated on the game show The Cube.

 

 

2003- McFly

 

 

2013

 



Analysis of music video...

I've chosen to analyse the music video by Avril Lavigne- 'Here's to never growing up' which is directed by Robert Hales- This song falls into the genre of pop and characteristics of her video that show this include:

• Catchy soundtrack that draws the audience in
• Uptempo with a defined beat that stands out and familiarises the viewers with the song
• Appeals to a younger audience usually and they could easily dance to the song
• Regular structure with chorus' and verses which are repeated throughout
• Appeals to an audience in general not specifically- someone could be a fan of another genre but still like pop because of its catchy element

Now I'm going to look at the lyrics to this song and see how the lyrics are reflected in the visuals of the song and how the song is illustrated by the lyrics as well:

Singing Radiohead at the top of our lungs
With the boom box blaring as we're falling in love
I got a bottle of whatever, but it's getting us drunk                                  
Singing here's to never growing up
Call up all our friends, go hard this weekend
We don't ever stop, and we're never gonna change
We can stay forever young

Oh whoa, oh whoa, here's to never growing up

We live like rock stars, dance on every bar
This is who we are, I don't think we'll ever change (hell no!)
They say just grow up, but they don't know us
We don't give a f***, and we're never gonna change

These lyrics above are just some examples of how the action fits with the lyrics. For example, the first part of the song in red "I got a bottle of whatever, but it's getting us drunk" shows that they are young and they like to party and have fun with their friends. "We're never gonna change, we can stay young forever" demonstrates that they don't want to grow up and are happy living their lives as young people and having fun. You can relate this to the music video because they are dancing and singing and drinking which is all very typical of teenagers and young adults so the audience can relate to this! "We don't give a f***" shows that they don't have a care in the world, they have nothing to worry about with their life, it's all about getting drunk and by swearing this is typical language of teenagers who like to have fun and be rude! This can all be shown in the video through the location of the video in a club with them dancing, partying to music. Young teenagers will find this easy to relate to because they will have been in these types of situations and it's one of those songs that doesn't get boring because of the content and the music- it's catchy.

When the artist is playing her guitar at the beginning with other guitarists accompanying her, there are close ups on the instruments to show the detail on them and they are quite funky looking guitars with glitter on etc so it makes the audience interested and to know that they are creating the music themselves which makes them unique. The video doesn't tend to change pace with the music much- the video seems to be quite fast paced, especially at the beginning because this is when there is most going on but when there's focus just on the artist herself it slows down slightly because she is the main bit of attention that people want to watch the video for. However, when there are crowds of people singing it's slightly faster to show the busy atmosphere but it's still easy to follow and you get to see different elements of the video, but mainly the artist. For example when there's a party going on in the hallway, the artist is just sat down on the floor and there's specific focus on her because we know to pay attention to her and you become more familiar with her as an artist and the video as well. About 43 seconds into the video, there is specific focus on the artist and the video slows down significantly- before hand it's quite quick in pace because it's showing pictures of people at parties and people having fun but then it holds back a bit so that people can get a feel for the artist early in the video.


The image that is being offered by the aritst is that they are current- they are singing very modern music with very modern costumes and design sets, for example they are in hallways and clubs and places partying and dancing around which all young people do these days so it creates a sense of familarity because they can relate to this as they will do it as well as an audience. The artist is also shown to be very fun and it's a catchy song so it will draw people in and more people will want watch the video and buy the artist's albums. Compared to Avril Lavigne's previous songs and music videos, this video is fairly different, however there are a few of her songs that have similar music videos to this one, but she is a changed person- she used to be quite gothic and emo like which meant her songs were quite often sad, depressing and quite dark in general, but now she's more fun and happy in her videos. One video that is quite similar to this one is "girlfriend" but this is one of the only ones that shares similarities. "Girlfriend" has more elements of rock in it than now which is more pop based and she wears a lot darker clothes, e.g. black in older videos but this new video is showing a different side to her. In her video "wish you were here" which was released late last year, it began to show a new image to her, with blonde hair and less dark videos, however this video was quite a sad song of hers, so even then she did a different style of video, but in this one "here's to never growing up" there's a much more lively vibe being created a new image to this artist which I think will increase her popularity.

Not at any point during the video is the artist on sexual display or any other people in the video- it's more about young people having fun and partying and getting drunk but not being represented as sexual objects. I think if the artist or the crowd in the video were shown to be sexualised it would create a negative impact because although people often quite like to see sexual videos, for teenagers it would possess them to want to be more sexual and might lead to them doing bad things if they see it in videos. No camerawork, costume, dance or anything else implies a sexaulised display at all during the video, they are just having fun, drinking and dancing but not taking it too far- this will hopefully put a positive image in the viewers head, in the fact that they can have fun but not take things too far. Throughout the video there is no reference to sexual things, but in terms of shots and camera work there is a lot of close ups on the artist herself so that people that may not have seen the video or artist before get an idea of who the main star is. There are a lot of establishing shots used, particularly in the beginning to set the scence and by doing this it creates a sense of familiarity for the audience as to where the videos set etc.

This video of "here's to never growing up" is mainly performance based- Avril Lavigne because she is performing live throughout the music video. There is a use of close up shots on the artist and lots of intimate camerwork and focus on her so that she can connect with her audience better. The video sort of tells a story through the lyrics because it's all about young people not wanting to grow up but they just want to live their life partying, drinking, dancing and socialising however there's more emphasis on the performance side of it.

Movie music...

Movie soundtracks have been very successful as well as the films that they have featured in, for example Celine Dion sang my heart will go on in the very successful film Titanic in the 90's. This promoted the film and the artist because it created a sense of familiarity for the viewers in terms of the artist and the film. That song became Dion's biggest hit, and one of the best-selling singles of all time, and was the world's best-selling single of 1998. It also won an academy award in 1997 and also a grammy award too for the best orignal song which proves how successful it was.

                                                         My heart will go on- Titanic


Movies can help the music industry and individual artists as well. Promotion is a powerful marking tool which helps to develop an artist and build upon an existing fan base. It also expands on the audience and allows more viewers and creates a sense of familiarity because the audience can connect with the artist more, therefore are more likely to become interested in the artist, which all helps with the success of an individual. Also, I found out whilst learning about movie music that more movies nowadays have soundtracks featuring artists at some point during the movie- by doing this it means that an audience enjoy the film more and have a feeling of comfort because they may already be familiar with the song, but on the other hand, if the film is a new release in cinemas and it's an unheard song before, they may develop an interest for the artist too which will benefit them even more.

Movies help raise the profile of an artist as well, and sometimes you end up seeing a different side to the artist, for example they may sing a different genre of song that you may not have heard that artist do before, or may have a different appearance in a movie than to their normal videos so it creates an element of interest for the audience.

I am finding this area of media very interesting and we are starting to look at music videos in more depth now, and different aspects of video and how they have evolved technology wise and content wise from when they were first created.

Purposes of a music video...

Today in class we got an introduction into the functions of music videos and why they are so important in terms of purpose to the artist and also the audience.

Functions of a music video:

• Appeal to the audience and builds a connection with the fan base
• More familiarity with the artist
• Creates hype
• Seeing a different side to an artist
• Increases popularity of artist which helps to raise their profile
• Promotion purposes
• Confirm the genre
• Publicity purposes
• Show meaning behind the song
• Creates a connection between the artist and an existing or new audience
• Promotion through TV shows which means that the artist doesn't have to do as much- TV is one of the main platforms which helps promote music

One of the main purposes of a music video though is the marketing and advertising aspect of it and ensuring that the video raises the profile of the artist and promotes them and their songs as much as possible along with making money!

During 1950 and 1960 artists such as The Beatles produced short films for the increasingly popular medium which helped to promote albums and songs and this was the time when music videos were created properly. Slightly later on in 1981 MTV was launched in the US and music PR changed forever from then on. MTV became an artist's largest promotional tool of the decade, however because the artist's would be appearing on TV a lot more, looks became a lot more important. Before, it was all about the voice and what you heard, but it soon became about the appearance as well as the music when they were on TV. The audience for MTV during this period were teenagers and young adults because they were the ones that were going to buy albums and pay money to go to their favourite artist's concerts. MTV was ground-breaking, however it still created problems during the generation such as audiences were only exposed to some music genres, there wasn't much variety. This was because only the major artists had the budgets in order to create music videos, therefore the more unknown artists weren't as popular and didn't have as much money to create videos to promote themselves as artists. Success from the videos meant that money was constantly being reinvested back into the artist and so the smaller artists struggled to be promoted and there was a lack of platforms too which meant that these artists weren't able to gain a following from the audience.

YouTube was launched during 2005 and it was the beginning of a tool as powerful if not more so than MTV. It also brought about a lot of changes to music and videos, and allowed free worldwide promotion which meant that artists that weren't quite successful yet had the ability to upload and share their videos and engage with an audience as a result.

In the music industry nowadays, videos are split into three categories: performance, narrative and concept.

                                                Performance based

This is where music videos specialise in featuring the artist of  the song performing live throughout most if not all of the video and usually consists of the closer shot types and more intimate

camerawork to focus on the artist. These types of video can still appeal to an audience even though they are simple.
 

For example Lady Gaga- Edge of glory

Foo fighters- Best of you

 

 Narrative based

These music videos use actors and the artist in an attempt to tell a story through the music video. The story is often linked to the song lyrics but there are still elements of performance in the video.

 

Gwen Stefani- Cool

 

Eminem- Stan

 

Concept based

Creative music videos usually based around a certain concept or idea- they may or may not feature the artist but in some way are unique. Today, this is the most common type of video.

 

Coldplay- The scientist

 

Ok go- Here it goes again

 





Introduction

My name's Tiffany Leftwich and I'm studying A Level Media- for our coursework our task is to create a music video which I'm rather excited about! This project is going to take a lot of organisation and thinking, but it will also be a really fun one! Once the task is well under way I know I will be even more excited, however at the moment I'm feeling slightly apprehensive about it because my use of technology isn't very advanced, so I'm worried I might struggle a bit when actually putting together the video and the editing of it, but the whole idea of making our own music videos sounds really fun. At the moment, my short term plan is to investigate music promotion and explore lots of music videos from different genres and artists to see why music videos are so important and the promotion side of it too. In my next post there will be an update on the functions of music videos and how videos have changed over the years, so something really interesting to know about!