Analysis of Pop Promos

Mika- We are golden

Genre Characteristics

Mika's style of music is very typical pop with catchy beats and lyrics, it has a following of young girls and also has a homosexual following, his videos are typically bright and bubbly, full of colour and are usually over the top.

This is the video for "We are golden", the song is basically about being young and having fun and the video emulates this with lots of shots of Mika running around acting like a child, the use of long shots show how he is an adult that doesn't about showing his young and childlike side, here are lots of cuts scenes to toys and cartoons and the room itself has a childlike feel due to the mise-en-scene used e.g toys around the room and bright colours makes the room like a young boys room.

The visual images link with the music as at the start of the promo Mika puts a cassette in a cassette player and then the music starts and he starts dancing around which gives the feel that he listening to the song a singing and dancing around to it in his bedroom, also he is acting like a child which is relevant to the song.

Mika's performance is more performance based but not the stereotypical kind of performance as its not on a stage and there is not a obvious audience.

This video also has shots of Mika against colours backgrounds just performing and also this video has religious and sexual connotations with him towards the end of the promo standing in a crucifix position with an open roof and a time lapse sky, also the there are shots of him in a childish gimp style mask and there are shots of him with lights around his head which looks like the crown of thorns and also lights around his crotch which gives a sexual feel, this is unexpected in his videos and could hint at his sexuality.

Album Cover and Advert Analysis

This album cover is very childlike with the use of animation and the cartoon style gives a very childlike tone to the album cover. This album cover seems to be quite masculine with the space imagery and the messiness of the room in which the character on the cover is laying. the book that the character is reading teamed with the space imagery and the strange view from the window in the bottom left corner create the idea of imagination which again is childlike trait.

There are two different fonts used on the album cover the font used for "MIKA" is very comic book like and stands out against the background, the font used for "the boy who knew too much" is rounded making it look bubbly this also gives the album cover a child like tone. the advert uses the same image as the album cover but the space imagery is in black and white with the album release date and other information in white this makes it stand out against the black background.

Analysis of Pop Promos

Killswitch Engage- The End of Heartache

This video is mainly performance based with the band performing the song against a black background and the band

are all in dark clothing which is significant as the band is a metal band. The song is a dark love song which is indicated by both

the background and clothing of the band and also the lyrics.

There are interesting uses of cinematography in this video such as when the band are performing there are nice camera movements

around the band which sweep through the band as they are performing. There are many interesting shots in this pop promo such as close ups

on members of the band and parts of their instruments and at one point there is a nice close up into the bands logo on one of the guitars, and

throughout this pop promo there are extreme close ups which seem like they zoom in so far that it breaks in to pixels/ individual skin cells or particles which are

mini TV screens which play shots from an exophoric reference which is Resident Evil- Apocalypse as this song is from the sound track i found this an

interesting use of editing. When they used this they also had a graphic match from the two characters in the film and then the lead member of the bands eye

which also shows how the characters are linked. This song fits the genre that Killswitch Engage are from as its all about heavy guitars and drums and shows

that they are serious about their music. They also dress like typical "metal" artists as they are all in dark clothing and they are all headbanging and thrashing their

guitars around.

The Lyrics

Seek me,

Call me,

I'll be waiting

Seek me,

Call me,

I'll be waiting

This distance,

This dissolution

I cling to memories while falling

Sleep brings release,

And the hope of a new day

Waking the misery of being without you

Surrender, I give in

Another moment is another eternity

(Seek me) For comfort,

(Call me) For solace

(I'll be waiting) For the end of my broken heart

(Seek me) Completion,

(Call me) I'll be waiting

(I'll be waiting) For the end of my broken heart

You know me, you know me all too well

My only desire - to bridge our division

In sorrow I speak your name

And my voice mirrors, mirrors my torment

(Seek me) For comfort,

(Call me) For solace

(I'll be waiting) For the end of my broken heart

(Seek me) Completion,

(Call me) I'll be waiting

(I'll be waiting here) For the end of my broken heart

Am I breathing?

My strength fails me

Your picture, a bitter memory

For comfort,

For solace

(Seek me) For comfort,

(Call me) For solace

(I'll be waiting) For the end of my broken heart

These are the lyrics to the song and the song is about a broken love and one of the people from the relationship isn't willing

to let go of the relationship yet and how they are waiting for their other half to come back to them this indicated in the song when

the lyrics go -

(Seek me) For comfort,

(Call me) For solace

(I'll be waiting) For the end of my broken heart.

because he is saying that he will be there to comfort and provide solace for the other half of the relationship and that he will be waiting for them to come back which will in turn mend the broken heart.

These lyrics are also relevant to the film that this song is from as the film is about how a couple got split up and turned in monsters, as they were both injected with the "T virus" to turn them into weapons, one was Alice and she stayed in human form and remembers some of her previous life and then there is "Nemesis" who was Alice's boyfriend in the previous life and he becomes a monster and doesn't have his human form and the film is about how they are put against each other and then they realize who they are to each other and how they used to love each other.

I think the intended audience for this band/song are people who like the film or people who are into metal so i would classify this as teenagers and rebels, i think this a more "lovey" song by the band so therefore i think that it accessible to females even though there audience are probably predominately male.

What Makes a Good Pop Promo?

A good pop promo depends on the audience as an audience for the rock genre will have a different idea of what makes a good pop promo compared the audience for the RnB genre.

A good pop promo also depends on what type of promo it is for example whether it is concept based, narrative based or performance based.

I have found that a good pop promo should include a range of interesting shots and camera movements that focus around the idea of the promo whether it be the band and their performance or the story line of the promo.

The use of mise-en-scene helps to attract the viewer, for example in the Mika pop promo for we are golden there is a lot of bright colors and props which capture the audiences attention.

Sound is a clearly important part of a pop promo obviously with the track being the most important part of the promo but some promos also use other types of sound such as diagetic sound for example nature sounds or traffic sounds which relate to the world of the promo.

The editing of a pop promo helps it flow and work with the music for example in the Zero 7 music video i looked at the visuals are edited to work with the music, which helps the audience connect the visuals to the music.

The History of Music Videos

One of the first noted relationship between music tracks and visual material can be traced back to Oscar Fischinger in Germany in the 1920’s and the in the 1930’s with his abstract, visual interpretations such as Komposition in Blau (1935) and his later work on the Disney film Fantasia (1939)

After this, short films were made to showcase an artist in the early days of sound filmmaking, films upto eight minutes long in duration were used to display the talents of artists from Billie Holiday to Bing Crosby. These short films played in cinema screenings but were mainly as reels on the forerunner of the video jukebox the panarom.

The panarom was used in juke joints and bars in its heyday from 1939-46 but died out quickly after the war, it contained a 20inch screen with back projection and contained a reel of eight shorts with played in a sequence and thousands of these 16mm films know as “soundies” were produced. In these days the shorts were more sexually and even politically explicit than the music videos of today are as they were less likely to be censored.

The idea of the panarom was resurrected in France with the birth of the Scopitone, the machine provided films in colour and indvidual selection, play and rewind 36 short films, giving consumer choice.

Within time television coverage of pop music attempted to capture the new teenage audience from American Bandstand in the USA in the 1950’s through to Top of the Pops in the mis-1960’s in the UK and the need to have musical act on TV led to the creation of short promo films often used in place of studio appearance. The Beatles made films for Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever.

MTV was launched in 1981 airing “Video Killed the Radio Star” and beginning 24-hour-a-day music television and by the mid-1980’s MTV was taken over by Viacom, MTV also played a central role in popular music production and the music business, also having it’s own version of the Oscars, The Video Music Awards. VH1 was established as an album orientated channel aimed at an older audience. Then the launch of the European version of MTV in 1987 led to a swift uptake of subscribers.

Viacom was responsible for music moving away from the narrow rock video market to a wider range of music genre giving MTV a more conventional schedule.

At the start of MTV it was very white music orientated with not much music of black origin until Hype Williams who lead the way for music of black origins in the 1990's.

Production Meeting 1

Today the class were given their brief by Jon, and we discussed what was required of us. Our first task was to organise ourselves into groups for our coursework. Our group consists of Maya Mathias, Jessica Hayward and Nicola Wright. Jon asked us to discuss our options for the music track for our pop promo. I (Nicola) mentioned a friend, Lawrence King, that is doing music production at university, and that it may be possible to use one of his tracks. For next week we will try to contact Lawrence and get some tracks from him.

Brief

Brief

Our coursework task is to create a promotional package for the release of an album for an artist of our choosing, The promotional package will include a music promo video for an album track together with two of the following;

· A website homepage for the artist

· A magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package)

· A cover for the album release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package)