Fandom

With the Media bombarding our everyday lives with all sorts of music, tv shows, films, games, cartoons, it is a consequence for all of us to become a fan of something; since there are endless options for all different tastes. 

Stereotypically speaking, fans who get utterly attached to music idols and go to extremes in order to get their attention, are usually teenage girls and young women. The tendency is for these artists to be set in the Pop/RnB music scenario.

"this emotional attachment - some have compared to a form of love - is a vital component. May even be so intense as to go beyond an individual fan's ability fully put into words and explain it(...)" Matt Hills.

This video shows how obsessed one can become with a famous musician, but more importantly how -unfortunately- often, only girls go to extremes like this.


With new technologies such as Twitter and Youtube, fans have gained the freedom to interact with their idols. It has become easier for them to meet their favorite artists, as the majority of them post on Twitter when and where they will be, hence it goes beyond online interaction, it enhances the relationship between fans and their heroes, as it often gives them the opportunity to actually meet them in real life, many times.


"It is important to make contact in real life and not just online in social media like Twitter." Amanda Palmer, lead singer for The Dresden Dolls.


Youtube is also used by fans who are trying to gain their idols attention, or to simply show  how much they appreciate their work and their style/image.
There are tutorials teaching fans how to copy their artist's make up...




There are fans who are also artists and are trying to show to people -and their idol- their own talent -and again- how much they love the artist's work.




Some videos do grab the artist's attention, and it may ultimately result in this..

Music Video Director Research

Joji Koyama

London-based director, Joji Koyama is also known as "Woof Wan-Bau"; After his graduation in art, Koyama started to direct music videos; he has also shown his talent through short films, comics, animations, drawings and photographs, which ultimately displays the versatile artist that he is. Koyama won the prize for 2004's Best Music Video Public Choice Award, British Animation Awards, as well as 2005's Best Animated Film, Halloween Short Film Festival ICA London.
It can be observed in his work that skills are abundant as he masters different techniques such as stop motion, computer animation and live action. The surrealism and creativity are surely the main aspects of his works, he has once said in an interview: 

"My ethos is to be as playful as possible, to make something that is not just simple and glossy—with something a little bit more imaginative going on."

One of Koyama's work that can be linked to our music video, is the video to the song 'It was acceptable in the 80's' Its main style: vibrant colours and comic/playful visuals, are aspects that are also found in our music video. We researched various music videos, including Koyama's work, and the video below inspired us to produce something similar.

Evan Bernard

Evan Bernard is an american director of both commercials and music videos. He is known as he has directed videos for punk bands such as Green Day and Rancid, as well as other artists like The Beastie Boys, Moby, etc.
He is also famous for directing television ads for companies such as Toyota, Puma and Red Stripe.
Bernard's most recent work, is the music video to the song 'Double Vision' by 3OH!3, which gained positive reviews due to its creativity and originality.




Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton

Faris along with her partner, Jonathan Dayton, have directed award-winning music videos, such as "Californication" by the band Red Hot Chilli Peppers, "Freak on a Leash" by Korn, Smashing Pumpkin's "Tonight, Tonight". They have also made music videos and documentaries for artists such as Oasis, Weezer, Janet Jackson, Beastie Boys, R.E.M, etc. The couple has gone even further since they have directed many commercials for IKEA, GAP, Apple Computer, Mastercard, Puma, and many others.
The team has received critical acclaim due to their comedy-drama film, as it won them two Academy Awards.




Liz Friedlander

Friedlander is highly respected in the music industry and is considered one of the most admirable directors. She has directed over 80 music videos, and is known for working with artists such as U2, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, R.E.M, Blink 182, Plus 44 and others.
She won the MTV's Viewer's Choice Award for Best Video of 2002 for her work with the artist, Michelle Branch. Friedlander formerly worked as a producer and editor, she has worked with The Red Hot Chili Peppers among others.
It can be seen in the music video "Adam's song" by Blink 182, a important concept that conveys the lyrics to the song. Stop motion technique is also used in this music video, and is surely one of the main aspects of this video that makes it eyecatching, and it was one of the techniques we considered to use at the beginning of our project. 

Music Video Analysis

Wikipedia:"The Pierces are a New York-based band. The principal members are sisters Catherine Pierce and Allison Pierce. Their genre is Alternative,Folk rock & Pop rock."
So it is not your mainstream pop music. The music video reflects on the song and has a rather dark theme. It is a mixture of narrative and perfomance as the lead singer performs throughout almost the whole video.The main message of the song is quite straight forward and I believe they have succesfully elaborated on the lyrics with their music video. There are often music videos one might forget or not even watch until the end but this is definately one of those videos that you have to watch untill the end. This is because of its originality and individuality. The story of the video is about two friends, one tells the other a secret,the other pormises (on her life) not to tell anyone, eventually she does tell others, her friend finds out and kills her because "two can keep a secret if one of them is dead". In the video you can see a person that is supposedly dead because she did not keep a secret as the video moves on the audience is shown how and why exactly she(the leadsinger) decided to murder her.
The represantation of women in this video is actually negative because it impliments that a woman might kill someone for such a trivial reason as exposing a secret. Also we can see that after she murders her she "beautifies" her with make up,a wig and nail vanish. So even though she is dead what matters most is the looks. It also represents American culture in a way as "image is everything" and by exposing somebodies dark secret, you are basically threatening their existence.It also shows that the Band is creative and not scared to experiment and be different. The song is used in the intro of the American mystery teen drama television series Pretty Little Liars.
On YouTube you can see some of the audiences responses to the video e.g. :

"sounds creepy...i love it!!!" ; " I love how it sounds like its from the 1920's.. makes it sound creepy-ish.... Guess thats why i love it so much! :)" ; " Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.-Benjamin Franklin" etc.

Audience Research

Editing

                                     

 We've nearly finished editing our music video. One of the last things we will need to do is change the background colour (green screen). There has been a few issues with the green screen, for example when we were filming we did not have the knowledge of, and therefore access to, the green floor- so our shots have a green background but a normal floor which doesn't look as proffesional as we would have liked. There is nothing we can do now, since we have a time limit and re-filming is simply not an option. So we are going to overlook that and focus on what colour the greenscreen should be. At the moment, we have roughly decided on a plain bold coloured background and for the catwalk shots, we would like to superimpose a catwalk video from youtube in the place of the greenscreen, as the background, to make our ending catwalk scene more realistic. 

We received some audience feedback this week on our nearly completed music video. It was generously positive (for example it was mentioned that the theme is rightly obvious and it is interesting and relevant & also that the visuals correlate to the music and it is generally, ok and good to watch), so we pushed for some criticism... the one and only piece of negative feedback we could get was that there was too much repetition of some of the shots in the middle section of the video. Having noticed this earlier, it is definately something we will inspect and change in due course. All in all, the feedback was positive and we are constantly receiving it at all stages of the production to help us improve our music video and make it as good as it can be. 

Another issue we had when we were editing was that there are some (very small) gaps between our shots, this occured when we were cutting up the shots and arranging them to the time of the music. So we will be fixing that soon.

Lastly, we've experienced a difficulty with the black margins on some of the shots being "stubbon" and not the same size as on the majority of the other shots. All of the "Lesson 1..." shots have somehow incurred a slightly bigger black margin. Simon stepped in and made the black margins almost the same size as the other shots so they look fluid when played together.

Editing should be finished in about 2 weeks.

Digipak Research

Digipak's can mean a lot to some fans, take the video below...
They can offer unique merchandise and hidden tracks, and the design is key to how successful a digipak can be.

I found a blog called "sandman-chronicles.blogspot.com". The blogger is a design artist who has worked on CD/Digipak designs for Mika and Bat For Lashes. On the right is a design from his blog. I really like the CD design, it is bright and colourful and suited to Mika's style and his bubbly and up beat songs.

This digipak is simpler than the Mika one but is relevant to the band's image and is also a clever advertising technique as it continues the secretive image of the band, and moreover, the characters are what we relate to the band members. I like the way in which the digipak is constructed, with the sides folding into the middle. The images also convey the multiple characters within the band and the main focus is on the characterisations.

Lastly, this digipak appears to be a different genre and therefore imagery and tone than the other two I've displayed. However, I think the artistic imagery is very nice and gives whatever band this is, a more serious feel and gives their music a more darker or sincere tone. This digipak has a contrasting layout to The Gorillaz's digipak, it seems taller and wider and opens like a book. There is sufficient information on the side panels and no doubt there will probably be further information in the sides of the digipak.

Fandom

Unlike fans of Justin Bieber...



... Indie music fans seem to be a bit more relaxed and there is less hype and sense of "fandom" amongst them...

“Wearing jeans with Converse high tops, a retro tee, a skinny tie, and a linen blazer is one way an indie can up the fashion stakes.”

Instead of crying fans and car chasing madness- Indie fans look to fashion to bring about a sense of dedication to their music brand.

For example, http://bobnbee.com/en/ is a site used by an Indie fashion blogger in New York, it advertises new styles and also introduces new bands.

I think that Indie fandom is centred around image and lifestyle rather than obsessing or following around the actual band themself because most Indie bands are niche and unknown and the mainstream successful ones like Kings of Leon do things like spark controversy within their own fan group...

"Kings of Leon caused minor controversy at the 2009 Reading Festival when Caleb Followill tried to get the crowd going by asking, "I thought this was supposed to be the loudest crowd in the world?" Picking up on a perceived hostility towards the band, he announced "we know you're sick of Kings of Leon, so for all those who don't give a fuck about us, I understand. But we've worked fucking hard to get here. So anyone that has anything to say to us, fuck you. We're the goddamn Kings of Leon." The band later smashed their guitars in anger and made rude gestures before leaving the stage."
(http://www.nme.com/news/nme/47008)

Indie bands, like the Kings of Leon, don't perfect their image as much as stars like Justin Bieber, who has a large fanbase of teenage girls, because they simply don't need or want to. When I saw Kings of Leon at the V festival last year, they were a good hour late to the stage and the crowd were drunk and annoyed but by the time they got on and played "Use Somebody" nobody really cared anymore because we were there for the music and the music only- not for the band members or any individual.

With Indie fans, I guess the nearest they get to some form of "fandom" is the festivals. Huge gatherings of teenagers dressed in indie style, living up to the lifestyle those clothes demand of them- the drink, the smoke, the music, the dancing etc.

However, fandom is when a fan becomes obsessive and the object of that affection is a celebrity- who is usually completely unattainable. And that fandom works both ways as celebrities such as Lady GaGa reach out to fans in turn, making the fans feel wanted and complete. These sort of artists, GaGa and Bieber, give into their publicity and exposure and they increase their own fandom.

Indie artists work from the inside-out, they rely on word of mouth, they don't really care that much about their fans- supposedly they are in this business for the music they produce, and so, their fans should be too.