Industrial Context

 Industrial Context:

The big three of the distributors are Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group. The company, Warner Music Group owns and operates some of the largest and most successful record labels in the world.

Warner Music Group (WMG) finances its operations through a mix of revenue streams including music sales, streaming royalties, licensing deals, merchandise, and concert tours.

WMG distributes its products both physically and digitally: Physical distribution is handled through its own network (e.g., WEA Corp. in the US), partnerships (such as ADA for independent labels), and third-party distributors. Digital distribution is a major focus, with music made available globally via streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.

WMG exchanges its products primarily through: 

- Direct sales to consumers via digital platforms and physical retailers. 

- Licensing deals for music use in films, TV, commercials, and video games, generating royalties and fees. 

- Merchandising and brand partnerships, leveraging artist brands for additional revenue. 

-International operations managed through subsidiaries, affiliates, and licensees to ensure global reach and compliance

History of Music Videos

 

 Audience research

Brief defines the audience as a primarily 16-25 year old middle and up market audience with an interest in style. Audience can be defined using CAGED. CAGED stands for class, age, gender, ethnicity and disability. My target audience does not have to be a certain gender, ethnicity or be abled/disabled. However the class of my NEA's target audience will be ABC1. As previously mentioned the age of the target audience is 16-25 years old therefore the audience is Gen Z. This means they would be able to understand modern intertextual references.

A younger audience usually leans to the left in terms of political viewpoint. This means I may need to include ideologies in my music video which are considered left wing. Doing this would strengthen the bond between the audience and the music video. Additionally, Stuart Hall's reception theory can be linked to. The preferred reading of the music video is that the audience understands all the intertextual references and agrees with everything in the video. The negotiated reading of the music video is that the audience understands some of the intertextual references and has a neutral view on the ideologies presented in the music video. The oppositional reading of the music video would be the viewer not understanding the intertextual references and the viewer not agreeing with the message of the video. In order to get the most people having the preferred reding I must include intertextual references which 16-25 year old people understand and also I must include messages and meanings that left leaning liberal people may have.

Audience profiles:

Gracie:

Gracie is a style conscious individual. She is 17 years old. She likes artists such as The Weeknd, 

Rough ideas for music video

Ideas for music video: Creepin’ The Weeknd

- Creepin' by The Weeknd is a pop ballad as the tempo is slow and the lyrics reflect typical ballad lyrics about heartbreak and love. The lyrics talk about how The Weeknd has feelings for a girl who loves another guy. The song lyrics also have connotations of cheating, for example from the lyric "the person you were kissing wasn't me". All in all, the general topic the lyrics link to is lust, typical ballad. Additionally, the song is very popular with over a billion streams on Spotify therefore it fits the "pop" specification very well.

- 2 guys 1 girl. Keeping it at 3 actors will make filming the scenes easier as there is a higher chance that everyone is free at the same time rather than if there were more actors which could make finding a day to film the scenes more difficult as people may have other commitments.

- Guy is jealous of another guy with a girl he likes

- ABA structure, cyclical structure.

- Suicidal references (Like Sun Goes Down Lil Nas X)

- Girl never shows her face and only shows it at the end. Enigma code

- Creepin’ does not have an official music video for the original song however does have a video for a remix. This video has approximately 31 cuts in 1 minute. There are a lot of fan based videos, these have 30 cuts in 1 minute in fan video #1 and 27 cuts in 1 minute in fan video #2. From this data it can be seen that the music videos for Creepin' all feature fast paced cuts with approximately a cut every 2 seconds on average. If I were to match this speed then I would need to film a lot of shots and scenes and edit these heavily. This may be impractical as it will make the process of making the music video very hard therefore I would potentially make a cut longer than every 2 seconds.

- From the music I watched from The Weeknd, there was a theme of darkness however The Weeknd wore sunglasses even though it was night in a lot of the videos. I could do this in my video.

- Most music videos by The Weeknd have a motif of blood in the videos. To match this motif I may include blood in the video. The use of blood can be linked to Roland Barthes' Theory of Semiotics as the blood can symbolise pain, which is a key part of the lyrics for Creepin'

- I would need to make the video for a mature audience as the specification says the audience is young adults who are stylish and middle to upper class. This means I can include topics which more mature audiences can relate to including heartbreak, rather than if the video was for younger children where topics like heartbreak would not interest them and they may not understand the video.

Super-curricular: NEA brief

 

Super-curricular: Burn the witch & Sun goes down extra research

Burn the witch and Sun goes down research

Source: consequence.net

In case you haven’t been within a mile of the internet in the last 24 hours, Radiohead have released their much-anticipated new song “Burn the Witch”, along with a stop-motion video that’s best described as unsettling. In the eerie clip directed by Chris Hopewell and inspired by the British children’s TV series the Trumptonshire Trilogy, a man is given a tour of a picture-perfect town in which the residents do unspeakably creepy and violent things to each other. The video culminates in the man nearly being burned to death inside a massive wooden effigy — a clear homage to 1973 British horror film The Wicker Man.

Source: capitalxtra.com

The song, produced by Take A Daytrip, Omer Fedi, and Roy Lonzo, sees the rapper reflect on his teenage years and the struggles he faced during high school and college.  In the accompanying music video, Nas can be seen talking to his younger self, with his father R. L. Stafford making a cameo in the visual.

Super-curricular: The Big Issue Infographic