•How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?
My interest in Lady Gaga's excentric video's and messages put across really inspired me to find an interesting genre, such as abuse. Something which we dont think of happening to us and others around us, just a subject heard via the news. Her video's follow a predominate theme and all link which is something we all found inspiring and very eye catching. Our production work was continually inspired by Gaga's videos, just without the crazy costumes. We brought ours to a more 21st century, modern theme, although some may argue our set looks old which was the idea we were going for as the protagonist being abused was living poorly and being abused.
• How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
We researched into the audience who listened to Florence and the machines music as well as similar genres which would be indie rock. We came to the conclusion our target audience would be Indi rock listeners, of a white British ethnicity and 17yrs+ of age.
• How is your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulation of the media influence in your production work?
At first the institutions we looked at were major record company labels such as Universal and Island Records (the record company Florence + The Machine are with) However we realised that these labels weren’t very specific to our genre and were very big companies that had a variety of artists under their name. After choosing a specific genre and target audience we had to find a record company that portrayed similar artists to our band ‘The Rivals’. We researched further into independent record labels, as this would be the best starting point for us to promote our single to and independent label before branching off afterwards to the bigger labels such as Universal Records. We found lots of specific record labels in America, such as ‘Bloodshot Records’ who based in Chicago have been able to keep their independence they are interested in fresh new Indie alternative rock bands that don’t conform to the original stereotypes and I thought this was a good match for us, however we carried on looking for British based record labels as we are an English group with a predominantly British target audience. Looking at ‘XL’ record label an independent based in the United Kingdom, although started off with artists like the ‘Prodigy’ they have branched out to take the best artists in their genres including ‘White Stripes’. This influenced our decisions to try something different in relation to the themes behind our video.
The Canadian-American band ‘Arcade Fire’ have also kept to their routes of not conforming to the major record labels but kept with the independent record label ‘Merge Records’ since they first began. The band often records its albums in its own studios, to exacting and personal specifications, and retains ownership of the music, which it licenses to Merge. Its previous two albums have gone gold, or close to it, and “The Suburbs” is expected to do the same, or better. This is the same type of exposure that we want our band ‘The Rivals’ to do and as ‘Arcade Fire’ sit in the same genre of and uses a record label focusing on the manufacturing of the product similar to the independent ‘Matador Records’ although these are American based record labels, this would mean we could branch out into the American market thus expanding our marketing techniques and receiving a bigger profit and larger amount of single sales.
•How has digital technology helped you to capture your ideas for media production?
Digital technology has helped considerably by allowing us to use effects in editing and use different cameras to get different qualities in shots. Also, the music video industry has given us lots of ideas to use to create our video. We watched lots of different music videos in preparation for this to see the angles which were used a lot to portray different effects and ambience. As you can see, I thoroughly studied Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' Video which was my inspiration for my groups video.
