Media Magazine - article on 'Analysing music videos - It goes like this'

What I learnt from this article:

Some may criticise music videos, specifically making the argument that modern day music videos are simply exaggerated advertisement of songs and artists. David Stubbs explains the music videos have turned into a, basically, very expensive advertisement and presentation of international corporations.From this article, I gathered that some make the criticism that music videos from the bigger artists have become lazy and do not stimulate the audience any more, despite their phenomenal budget. I agree with this point of view, however, I do believe that modern day music videos, even from bigger artists, are becoming much more creative and symbolic in their creation. 

For example, Taylor Swift's first well known music video is 'Love story' which has a very basic, lovey-dovey narrative that is boring to watch and follows Todorov's very predictable narrative theory. But, her most recent iconic video 'Bad Blood' has a lot more creativity applied to it. It consists of highly feminist ideologies being presented and can be considered to be very empowering. This shows how although music videos are often simply a big advertisement, they can often have very empowering and powerful connotations, and can reflect our society in a creative fashion. The latter steers clearly away from en masse product placement and company promotion, as does the video for 'love story'. The reason for this could be because, at the time of 'Love Story', Swift was a fairly new artist on the block, and therefore would not have recieved many offers or advertisement or product placement. However, there is no reason for her in 2015, being one of the biggest artists in the music industry, to not follow in the footsteps of the similarly successful artists in the industry and include product placement, as a prominent feature of her music videos. Yet, some may propose the argument that Swift's use of an array of other celebrities in her later video is an advertisement in itself. This is because fans of those celebrities will create more hype and buzz for the video and thus generate more profit. Essential a subtle money-making scheme for all celebrities involved. 

But this raises a very important question in the music and music video industry; is this really such a bad thing? 

Things to develop in A2:

• Experiment more before we produce the final text, for example I will try to do quick experiments of each genre to get a feel of each one, hopefully this will also generate ideas for our final video
• When carrying out these experiments I want to try to use the new equiptment available to us as much as possible, for example use the new lighting and slider as much as possible to allow myself to get familiar with the equiptment. This way when it comes to filming our final product I will know how to use the equiptment to the best of my ability. This will build my confidence in what I'm doing which proves to vital to success.  
• I want to try and find another means of editing footage rather than only using SerifMovie+ so I can add some diversity to the type of editing I do as well as develop my editing skills 
• I will also try to use social media more for feedback from our potential audience to get a bigger range of opinions. I want to upload to YouTube more as I only used Vimeo in my AS's. 
• I want to remember to think much more about my location and actor research because I believe that will overall bring up the quality of the music video, rather than just picking someone I know and just asking them to wear whatever they have. I want to remember to focus on the mise en scene of the product as I now know how important it is. 
• Also, when finding actors I want to try and do some test shots to ensure they have the ability to do what we want them to do. 
• I want to try and break away from convention more with the music videos. For AS I believe we stayed too close to the conventions of gritty realism which is why it wasn't the best it could be.
• One thing I need to work on more this year is definitely time management. Remembering to stay on top of work or getting ahead is something I believe will make or break this coursework. 
• I also want to make sure I get as much feedback throughout my work, both before and after so I know what to change, what to keep and how it's being perceived by certain audience types (focus groups of different audience types)
• As well as this, I want to be sure I'm watching music videos and examples of media texts whenever and I stray from just the famous music videos. Look into less popular music videos, even looking at student made to show what is possible with limited experience and equiptment. 

This task has helped me identify the ways in which I could have improved my AS coursework and helped narrow down went wrong. It also allowed me to focus on what I have to do this year to make the coursework the best it can be. Furthermore, it made me realise how everything isn't going to be perfect from the start and that experimenting and gaining confidence in my work is vital to a successful final product. All I have to do now is to ensure that my work showcases that I followed to the things I said I would do so that I can excel.