Task one - Understanding The Perpose of a Music Video

The reason why artists will use music videos is to make the song well known to the audience that they are trying to get to buy the single.


Availability of Artist:

In the year 1964, the famous band 'The Beatles' had starred in their first feature film 'A Hard Day's Night' that was directed by Richard Lester. In 1965, The band then began making promotional clips for distribution and broadcast in other counties. This was done so that they could promote their record that was coming out, without having to make an personal appearance.

For Queen, it only took for the release of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' that became regular practice for record company's to produce promotional videos for artists' single releases. The videos can then be shown on TV shows such as top of the pops, without the artist having to make an appearance.

Before promo videos existed, if the artist could not make the appearance, they would have their music broadcast and accompanied rather than dancers such as Pan's people.

Brian May said that the video produced was so that the band could avoid miming such an complexed song on television. Also they would not be able to appear on the show every week as they were meant to be going on tour (Queen's song was number one for nine weeks!)




Promotional:

Music videos can become a key promotional for the artist, this is because a music video can be seen as an advertisement. The music video is designed to draw in attention to the music and will illustrate the song. This is also for visual audience that like to watch the video and listen to the song at the same time. By using a catchy dance routine into the music video, it makes the visual audience more interested into what they are watching. This video is good is good because of the dance routine that is used in the music video that makes it eye catching to the viewers.

  













Creating a brand:

Normally, an artist/group/band are sold as a brand and the music video acts as a product for the brand so that the audience will 'buy into the brand'. This is normally done by using 'mise-en-scene' and extend the 'look' in the video 'for the rest of their lives'. The artist will aim to have a consistent 'image' across their music video, websites, cd covers etc. For a few artists, 'image' means a lot more then the quality of the product. This can be seen with the girl group 'The spice girls'. Each one of them had their own Identity.

Sometimes, the songs and the meanings behind them can be sold and the 'image' of the artist can have little to do with the songs they have written being sold. This can be seen with artists such as Ed Sheeran and singer Melanie Martinez. Their songs hold so many meanings to them but their 'image' may not be the best.

Extension of Income:

A music video can provide a great opportunity to increase income. When you watch the music video it may encourage you to buy a number of Items such as the single, albums, and their merchandise such as their t-shits, wristbands.

By doing this the profile of the artist/group/band will increase and it will make the audience want to go to tours or to festivals that they will play at.

It can also be a good opportunity for 'product placement'. By using 'product placement' it makes the audience want to go out and buy what was used in the music video.  

This is seen in a music video by an pop punk band All Time Low where you have the lead singer drinking an energy dink by rockstar. This brand would have paid to have their product to be seen and used in the music video.

Extension of Outlets:

By using music videos, it allows the artist to expand the outlets of which they are accessible through. this can be through:

• Music channels
• websites
• YouTube
• Phone apps

All theses help people become a fan of the music that the artist/group/band create.

 Here we have the website for MTV. This is one of the ways that you can listening to music and also reading the latest news about the artist that the audience like to know about.

Here is a YouTube channel for a record label called 'Hopeless Records'. By following channels made by record labels, it is an easy accesses to the music videos that the artists have created and easy way to listen to music through YouTube.

Synergy:

Another purpose of an music video can be to show synergy. Synergy is when two media products work together to benefit each other. A good example of this is 'Skyfall' by Adele for the movie Skyfall.

Both Adele and the producers of the film benefit from this arrangement. The film will promote Adele's song and Adele's music video will promote the film, causing people to want to buy the song as well as making them want to see the film. This is an example of synergy.

End of Music Channels?

With all the competitions from different online platforms, Music channels on the TV are no longer the strong promotional platform that they use to be. In other words, Music video channels are in danger of becoming defunct and not really needed. With all the online streaming and downloading, it makes it easier to get the music video fast and quick without having to wait around to listening to it. This can been seen with Top Of The Pops no longer playing on the TV.




Producers Strategies:

There are different types of artists. those are:

• Major Label
• Independent
• Artist self-produced

For each of these the music video will have different purposes. Each of these music videos are different way BUT each of them are really important tools.

Major Music Labels:

The major music labels are:

• Universal
• Sony Music 
• Warner Brothers
• EMI

A lot of the major labels are backed by conglomates with strikes in other industries such as films, TV and electronics.

The purpose of music videos for major labels are really clear. By providing a strong online presence and allows them to make more profit through advertising One strong way of this strategy is by using VEVO. VEVO is a music video website that is owned and operated by Universal music group, Google, Sony Music and Abu Dhabi Media. This was launched in December of 2009. It makes profit through showing adverts before playing the music video.
 
Major Independence 

Most of the major labels own or even license smaller companies to help reach out to different kinds of audience into different kinds of genre.

• Columbia
• SYCO
• RCA
• Virgin

 









































There are a lot of small companies with little or no financial connection to the majors. These companies often concentrate on a small number of acts, within specialised niches in the industry, hip hop/rap/elctronica/dance. They are known as Independents.

Independents or "indie" producers often see their work as an art-form and not just an advertisement for the msuic industry. These music videos are often a stepping stone for up coming directors to further their careers. Producers often become well known by mainstream artists.

Chris Cunningham

Chris Cunningham became known in the year 1997 with the music video for "come to daddy" By Aphex Twin. The music video was praised, banned and raved about by many people in the business. Chris Cunningham has now moved onto making films and advertisements.

 Spike Jonze

Spike Jones is an American director, producer, screenwriter and actor. His work has been included in music videos, advertisements and in films and tv shows. Spike became famous with is music videos with fatboy Slim, this including the songs 'Praise you' and 'the Rocketfeller Skank'.

His feature films are:

• Being John Malkovich (1999)
• Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
• her (2013)

Artist self Produced

When it comes to self produced artists videos, they normally have a small budget and are usually unknown artists. Making a music video is very important to promote their early career. It allows the artists to use websites such as YouTube to help them reach great success.