Music Sites

Today I looked at 'The Coral' and how their website differs from Kate Nash. It is a lot busier than hers and as you enter the site you hear their latest songs play on a playlist with the video down the right hand side of the page. The font is similar to that of which is featured on one of their previous albums. It has a very basic colour scheme of beige, black, red and orange with lots of pictures over-lapping each other. This takes up the top and left hand side of the page. The over-lapping pictures was also seen on the same album cover I mentioned before. Therefore I think this has become a trade mark for the band which makes them recognisable to their fans. Their hyperlinks are at the top of the page like Kate Nash's and it's easy to spot. Their are links featured by themselves which may be of greater interest to fans like their videos and gig listings. I think it's a good website because the viewer can see everything that's going on and have lots of information infront of them straight away. The homepage also contains a blog which seems to be updated regularly with all sorts of information and updates about the band.

The links are the same as Kate Nash but also has links to their youtube videos and myspace which is good as fans are brought directly to other sources of information about the band they may not have known about before.

This website is an effective way of publicising the band and a good source of information for any fan.

Fan Sites

Today I've been looking through various music fan sites to explore the codes and conventions used in each one. The first one I looked at was the artist Kate Nash. Her site was very simple but pretty. It has a grey background with two pictures of her at the top surrounded by pink and black flower designs. It was a very sleek and tidy layout so the viewer could see everything and not get confused.

The hyperlinks were neatly laid out at the top and as you scrolled down there was a welcome note with a brief outline of who Kate Nash is and features her 'update' link as the homepage with the latest news of her. This would be the information about an award she's been nominated for and a video of her being interviewed for Radio 1 at the Glastonbury festival. This may be because fans would want to look on her site to receive the newest information which is why it's set as her homepage.

Along the side of the page there are links to sites of people who may have worked closely with Kate Nash or artists that her fans would also like. This could be a way of Kate Nash boosting her popularity by putting famous names on her website like Jordan aka Katie Price and the Spice Girls. She could also be using her fan base to help other singers/actors etc.

Her website includes links to a biography of her where fans can learn about her life which includes quotes from herself. This is so fans can learn something about the artist they like and feel they 'know' her. It then includes lists of all her songs, music videos, interviews, release dates, tour dates, lyrics and downloads which fans may want. The website makes fans have easy access to everything they want related to her. The site also has a link to get "promotional tools" like pictures for their desktop.

The website wants fans to like the site and feel they are in contact with the artist as it has a link saying 'contact me' where they can get direct information about the site.

Media Lesson

Today, we focused on R'n'B music videos and the task was to again analyse them effectively looking at the codes and conventions of this genre. We looked at 3 different videos today and made notes about each one. I thought Shaggy's 'It Wasn't Me' video was very good because it seemed to tell a story that related to the song but had its own story too. The song is about the singer Rik Rok getting caught cheating and the video is based around this but it also has a spy themed story too. We saw this through various things featured in the video like the gadgets, hidden cameras and the girls choice of black leather clothing. There were many signifiers in the video about the danger, anger and passion going on. Rik Rok was seen to be wearing red clothes which shows he could be in danger as his girlfriend is spying on him and knows he's cheating. The girlfriend is also wearing red highlighting her anger but also shows the connection between her and Rik Rok and makes it clearer for the audience. The use of colours to depict each person or have them seen to be together is also shown in a Destiny's Child video; 'Bootylicious'. All the girls wear the same colours when they're together to highlight their equalness but all have their own unique colour scheme when they are by themselves. This is to reflect their personalities and have them recognised as an individual and the audience are able to pin-point each girl by the colour. Again, the videos held a message as the video progressed which is something I will work on when making my own music video.

Music Videos

In today's lesson we carried on looking at music videos. Today we focused on the genre of 'indie rock' and looked at various videos from over a period of 20 years. Again we looked at the codes and conventions of this genre and the message each video was trying to show if there was one. We made notes on the media technology being used in each video we watched and what the effect of it was. We also looked at who or what the video was focusing on. i.e when the camera was focused on someone we thought about who the person might be in relation to the song. We focused on the mise en scene too to see where it was being filmed and in one song 'Panic' by The Smiths a rotating crown was seen and we thought about its reason for being there. We gathered that the band and/or director was trying to say something about authority. This helped me because I'm now gaining an understanding about the different ways in which music videos are filmed and how it changes with each genre. This will definately help me when creating my own music video because I will have all these different elements to think about and take inspiration from.

First Media Lesson

Today is my first media lesson for year 13 and we are starting to look at different music videos for our coursework. We began by refreshing our knowledge on some media terminology that we would have to look at specifically. Our teacher informed us that we would be looking at a different genre of music each lesson to help us in producing our own music video. We looked at the genre of dance today and watched various dance music videos. We looked at what camera shots were being used in each video and what they showed and why they were being used. The use of digetic or non digetic sound also gives the video a new meaning too. We also focused on the codes and conventions of this genre of music videos. We saw that most videos had a DJ and all had dancing. We saw that a lot of the time the video related to the lyrics of the song i.e. in Bob Sinclair's-World Hold On the video focused on a young boy building a rocket and saving the world and the lyrics included "children of the sky". Dance videos typically have dancers as did this one however, the dancers were not the traditional women in skimpy clothes but the boys toys coming to life and dancing. Some videos were also trying to send out a message like Fedde le Grand's-'Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit' where the man was taken away when he looked at another man instead of the women. So it was trying to say it may be "wrong" in some way to be gay.