Music Genre Logo's

There are a few record labels which specialise in metalcore music. They sign bands that play metalcore or hardcore music similar to defeater in order to organize tours, or host festivals with lots of bands who will attract the same crowd. Some of these labels include:


Rise records was founded in 1991 by Craig Ericson in Nevada, California. The record label started off small, having only a few bands, they started off making 7" records, then moved on to CDs. Rise now has 34 bands.


These include: Of mice and men, Miss may I, Sleeping with sirens, Crown the empire, In fear and faith, Sharks, Bleeding through and The plot in you.





Fearless Records is an alternative rock-oriented record label that has been signing artists since 1994. Fearless is based in Westminster, California and are best known for their early pop-punk. However the label has experimented with different acts in recent


years, these include:


A skylit drive, Motionless in white, Blessthefall, For all those sleeping, The word alive, Upon this dawning, Pierce the veil and Alesana.





Sumerian records is an american independent record label based in Washington DC. Like fearless and rise, they specialize in metalcore bands, and Sumerian have mostly american bands signed to their label, and only a few British bands. Sumerian's bands include:


Asking Alexandria, Born of osiris, I see stars, Upon a burning body, Stray from the path and After the burial.

Watsky- Live From Public Storage! Analysis

The below video is a mix of genres and so the codes, conventions and music is a combination of the types of music.

The video is a rap music video and so is done quite simply and on a low budget. The setting is the storage area that the artist keeps his belongings, this keeps with conventions because the majority of rap video's are about real life and are set in an urban or local environment to the artist.
The lyrics are about his real life and have a story, although the video alone doesn't show a narrative it helps to the lyrics.
When it comes to the artist George Watsky wears lose, baggy comfortable clothing and clearly isn't a tread/style setting musician instead choosing to focus on the musical side which is most important to him. Watsky behaves like a lot of  rap artists, he keeps with the flow of the music and and doesn't add huge narrative stories to his rap music, although he has dipped into other genres and done narratives.

Presentation

 As a group we presented out initial ideas to our class. This was to get feedback on our ideas and to see the response to our ideas and music choice. We presented four idea's for music video's for;
Huey Mack - Looking
at the Sky, “I Don’t
Mind” by Defeater,
Pick Up The Phone” by Falling in Reverse and Don’t Ask" by an indie band called Blood Red Shoes.
We asked a friend to take pictures during our presentation for evidence.

Additional Group Ideas

Although we all shared ideas on songs which we would bring to our group i know very little about the songs apart from what i have been told and what i have learnt from the Music videos themselves as well as a small amount of research.

The first option made by my group members for our song choice was a song called “I Don’t Mind” by the hardcore band Defeater. The lyrics in the song are descriptive which means we could act out the lyrics to the song as if it is a story. It also has a decent plotline for a narrative music video. Using various different cuts and pans in the music video, we can easily create the correct atmosphere for the purpose of the music video. The only downside is we would have to travel to several different locations to shoot each scene/shot, which will be very time consuming and we would have to organise transport and get the shots right the first time, which would but a lot of added pressure to the whole process. If we made a mistake or missed a shot it could potential ruin the shoot so we would have to return to the location again, causing more unneeded hassle. Click here for link...

The second group choice is “Pick Up The Phone” by metalcore band Falling in Reverse. Similar to the lyrics of the first option "I Don’t Mind",  the previous song, the lyrics in this song resemble that of a story. There is also plenty of humorous content that can be added to the song and make it funnier. The setting for the storyline would be simple to produce and we wouldn’t have to go too far out of our way to find some great locations to shoot at. (A house would do fine.) Although, this would possibly appear too simple, as we want to present some creativity within the production of the video. Click here for link...

The last group song choice is "Don’t Ask" by an indie band called Blood Red Shoes. This music video would be a fair amount harder to produce if we were to attempt a narrative music video. The lyrics are rather repetitive, although we would not have to include the stereotypical pop conventions which could lead to a very creative and unique video. Click here for link...

Huey Mack - Looking at the Sky

Huey Mack and other Hip Hop artist
within his genre of music.

Over the summer we decided to each meet up and choose a choice of song to bring to the group and then we would choose a single song to base our project on. My song choice is Looking at the Sky by hip-hop artist Huey Mack. This would be a good video to use because of the there is a narrative story. But the song itself also has a music video, so if this were to be our choice, we would have to be careful we’re not completely copying the original video for it. This means that creating a video for this song would be pretty much obsolete as their is already a video which has been done to a professional standard. Also, with this song being a rap song, the main focus is clearly the lyrics. This means that the major convention is to have the majority of the song done through
people singing/rapping, and our ideas would most likely have to keep to this convention and limit our creativity during the music video, as well as having to find the resources and human resources to do so.

Although i would like to have this song chosen for our project, i don't believe that this would be a smart choice. With all of the issues and possible limitations as well as having to ask for permission, which could be hard. I believe that the negatives far out way the positives. 

How Stars are Represented and their Image

The Stars of music videos for example the artist or band that creates, sings or plays the music will often be the focus of videos. A large amount of music videos take clips from live performances and recreations, this shows off the star and helps to give them a larger image in the media. The same effect can be done in music videos by making the star the main feature of the video or the main character in a narrative, an example of this is Labrinth's - Earthquake ft. Tinie Tempah where the artist is the only feature apart from graphics for a large amount of the video.

The Image of stars and celebrities is very important and if a celebrity and if a an artist has a small image within the media and the general public then a good music video with bold image branding can really help.

Music directors and styles

Definition of a Music Director
Source- Wikipedia

A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the coordinator of the musical ensembles in a university, college, or institution (but not usually the head of the academic music department), the head bandmaster of a military band, the head organist and choirmaster of a church, or an Organist and Master of the Choristers (a title given to a Director of Music at a Cathedral, particularly in England).

Styles

While some directors specifically music video directors stick to certain styles or to genres there are directors such as Shane Drake who don't stick to either.

The visual style of Shane Drake is affected a large amount by the artist of which he is shooting for, he genuinely seems to love to come up with a concept for the video, however if it doesn’t suit the artist and reveal a certain truth, he says “it will fall flat”. He will look at what the band or artist means and how they wish to be perceived in the video and in general and goes with that. Shane states that favourite video is Pearl Jam’s, Jeremy. “It was such an honest introspection into the heart and soul of the song, and captured the emotional qualities of the lyrics so magnificently in a way that very few videos are able to do.” this served as his inspiration. 

On the flip side of the coin is Chris Cunningham. He uses a particular style throughout his work. I have found that he has a fascination with abnormalities including human distortion and alienation as this can be seen in videos like Rubber Johnny in particular. He also appears to have a large amount of knowledge about technology and this can be seen in his creation of Bjork as a robot in the music video- All is full of love. Recurring themes which I notice in Chris's style was the use of light and dark, as a lot of his videos seem to put across a feeling of entrapment or depression but then he also goes to the other end of the spectrum in the sense, with his use of artificial lighting, which is exaggerated in particular in Bjork’s All is full of love.