NEA

Initial Ideas

I have chosen to focus on the music video brief of Alternative music for Domino Recording Company.

Song Ideas:

• Not Strong Enough- Boygenius
• Themes: This would focus on social media causing people to lose their individuality and sense of self. I would follow the songs overall message which critiques superficiality and materialism and attempt to create a world where everyone is the same by featuring all characters in the same outfits and having similar behaviours as a way to reflect the song’s ideologies by showing how everyone is losing their authenticity and becoming the same. 
• Target Audience: The music video’s theme is especially important due to the target audience of a primarily 16–25 year old middle and up market audience of people who like to be engaged because 16-25 year olds are the digital native and are therefore most likely to fall into the false reality created by social media.
• Locations: Park, bedroom, school, shopping centre
• Genre Conventions: I would fulfil the genre conventions of an Indie/Alternative music video by following more of a narrative, but also combining this with performance and also attempt to add an artistic element
• Lyrics and Melody: 
  
  The song has a somewhat upbeat melody which is reflected in the locations. However, as shown by the lyrics on the left, it is quite a complicated ad sad song. I would use symbolism for lyrics like ‘black hole opened in the kitchen’ to show a phone which connotes ideas of negativity surrounding phones. The chorus shows how self identity is being lost and how social media is worsening people’s mental health.
• Overall, if I were to use this song, the video would challenge the ideas presented in social media to 16-25 year olds and attempt to remove their addiction to how they are perceived. The video would be a call to action to bring back authenticity and encourage people to be who they are, not who they want people to think they are.

• Thirst Trap- Audrey Hobert
• Themes: This music video would have similar themes, but focus on insecurities and dressing in a way to impress a crush. The song suggests that wanting a boyfriend is embarassing and humiliating, because all you do is wish you were with them, making you view yourself negatively. I would use intertextual references to different social media platforms to show the different ways in which people try to show off and hide their insecurities, as well as looking at the stereotypical 'perfect' girl.
• Target Audience: The target audience of 16–25 year old middle and up market people would find this relatable as a common teenage experience is feeling insecure as well as having a crush. This relatability would make the video enjoyable for the audience. 
• Locations: Bedroom, park, school, beach
• Genre Conventions: This would fulfil the genre conventions of an artistic DIY style because it would incorporate animations of things such as thought bubbles and things to emphasise certain elements. I would also take inspiration from 2000s coming of age movies to convey the message of the song.
• 
  Lyrics and Melody: This song uses a lot of lyrics that focus on insecurities and having a crush. As previously mentioned, this song is relatable for the target audience which would create interest for them. I would align the content of the music video with the lyrics. For example, ‘I’m taking thirst traps in the mirror in my room’, I could have the main character taking mirror selfies.
• Look At That Woman- Role Model
• Themes: This music video would focus on celebrating women and also challenging the idea that only one type of woman is beautiful. It would aim to create female empowerment. It would also encourage female friendships by showing the beauty in how women interact with each other.
• Target Audience: This would appeal to the target audience of 16–25 year old middle and up market people because they are very active on social media which pushes insecurity onto people and suggests that only certain types of women are beautiful. 
• Locations: Park, Bedroom, School, Beach
• Genre Conventions: This music video would follow less of a narrative structure and would be more like a compilation celebrating femininity and diversity. It would also have a performance aspect as part of this compilation style video.
  
• Lyrics and Melody: This video would align with the lyrics of the song as the chorus repeats the sentence ‘look at that woman’. This would show a lot of different women and celebrate their beauty.

Having considered at all of these, I think that Not Strong Enough by Boygenius would be the best option for my music video because it calls the target audience to action. It would also have the most opportunities for the different theorists we have studied.

Audience 

My Target Audience

The target audience for my chosen brief is 16-25 middle and up market people who like to be engaged.

Age: 16-25

Class: Middle and up market

Interests: Like to be engaged

Considering my target audience for planning my music video

My music video will have a primary audience of women due to the all-female cast. It will focus on women with a large online presence with the secondary audience being men with a slight online presence.16-25 year olds are the digital native, and particuarly those in school (16-18ish) are online a lot. Due to being middle and up market they also probably have the money to keep up with micro trends, which is also bad for the environment due to fast fashion. It will be aimed at a range of races and ethnicities as it’s not just one ethnicity that participates in micro trends, and everyone is guilty of falling for this at least once and everyone likes to be engaged. My music video idea will call out those who are engaged by criticising the micro trends that lots of us follow. 

Audience Research

Primary Audience- Focus Group 1

Name: Caitlin 

Age: 18

Occupation: Second year A-Level student preparing to study nursing at the University of Surrey with a part time job as a shop assistant at her local M&S

Subjects: Psychology, PE and Business

Psychometric group: Explorer

Interests: Music, fashion, sport

Name: Grace Ball

Age: 17

Occupation: First year A-Level student

Subjects: Biology, Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths

Psychometric group: 

Interests: Theatre, food, science

Name: Ara Kayode

Age: 16

Occupation: First Year A-Level Student

Subjects: Classics, Sociology, Media Studies, English Language

Psychometric group: Reformer

Interests: Music, food, film

Name: Holly Longbourne 

Age: 17

Occupation: First year A-Level student

Subjects: Maths, Biology, Chemistry, PE

Psychometric group: Succeeder 

Interests: Music, sport, theatre

My first focus group contained 4 people from the primary audience of middle and up market women aged 16-18. I found that all 4 of them had a screen time of 5-8 hours online. This shows how women spend a large amount of their time online scrolling to gather the new trends. This aligns with the apps they use, which found that all 4 of them spend a lot of the time they’re on their phone on TikTok and Instagram. These apps are less used for communication and more for what has become known as ‘doomscrolling’. A lot of content on these apps sets an unrealistic beauty standard for people, which these women felt who all said that they always feel pressured to follow microtrends with one person saying they always do ‘because their friends do’. This shows how social media not only impacts how an individual feels, but also strongly influences the way friendships work. All of these women said that they almost always feel out of place online, but feel even more out of place in real life. This shows how online spaces affect real life scenarios and how women feel impacted more than men. 

Secondary Audience- Focus Group 2

Name: Dylan O’Neill

Age: 17

Occupation: First year A-Level student

Subjects: Economics, Politics, Maths, Further Maths

Psychometric group: Succeeder

Interests: Politics, celebrities, music

Name: Tom Young

Age: 16

Occupation: First year A-Level student

Subjects: Maths, Psychology, Physics, French

Psychometric group: 

Interests: Sport, politics, psychology

My second focus group contained 2 people from the secondary audience of middle and up market men aged 16-18 who like to be engaged. I found that one of the men had the same screen time as the women I had asked and one of them had a lower screen time, with it being between 2-4 hours. Despite having similar screen times to the women, both men said that they didn’t feel as much of a need to give into . Even though one of the men said that they are online the same amount as the women who I spoke to, he did not feel the need to follow micro trends nor did he feel out of place in online and real life spaces. Although, neither of them said they never feel out of place so this shows that men are still prone to follow micro trends, just not to the same extent as women.

Industrial Context

Context of Music Videos

History of my chosen medium for my primary product

Contemporary Context

Finance and Distribution

The budget for the music video an artist makes is funded by the record label they are signed to. They can also make money through advertising within them by collaborating with other brands or product placement. Streams and digital downloads can also indirectly increase revenue as they work as a form of advertising by increasing merch and ticket sales.

Music videos are mainly distributed through agreements between record labels and video distribution services such as Ditto and Symphonic. These services allow labels to sell their music videos to places such as VEVO and Youtube where they are shown to the public. Although, with independent artists it is difficult to reach out to these distribution services so instead they tend to upload their music videos to different forms of social media where the audience are able to engage more, whilst maintaining the artists following

The Brand

Domino Recording Company were founded in 1993 in Putney. They say that even now, ‘Domino remains a record label whose characteristics are best represented by its artists: individuality, originality, and a total immersion in music’s world of possibility’. Artists signed with Domino are typically associated with the Alternative/Indie genre, such as Arctic Monkeys and Wet Leg.

Pitch and Feedback

I found that a lot of the people enjoyed the style of my 30 sec video, as well as my campaign idea to create digital convergence between my video and website. However, I need to make sure the lip sync is always perfect as it was a little bit off in my presentation video.