About the Merley

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Loughton, essex, United Kingdom
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Monday 14 February 2011

Marketing- Reaching the target Audience

Recently I have been looking at my own musician " Deadmau5" as an example to show how artist connect with their audience. Recently I have come across sound cloud, and now I have found a website called u stream.tv which allows anyone with a webcam and an account to stream live whatever they may be doing.

So Deadmau5 has made himself an account and through this he streams himself live.  This enables the audience to see him create his music and gives a more personal feel/connection with the audience and artist.

There is also a feature that allows him to speak to his fans through a chat bar next to the video, which gives live chat feed to whom ever is watching.

Deadmau5 Live stream channel:

http://www.ustream.tv/discovery/live/all?q=deadmau5

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Marketing-Music Industry Changes

The music industry is now fast moving and constantly changing to adapt with the audiences demands and with technology.  There are now new ways in which we consume music.  Whether it now be wirelessly from our Laptops, iPods, iPads and so on.

We now find music through the internet.  This has changed the way we gain music.  We get it illegally off of websites such as "Pirate Bay" or "LimeWire".  There are however some websites and softwares that actively allow users to share music for free or at a small cost.  For example on iTunes you can buy music for a small price.  Also another software called "SoundCloud" that I use allows artists to upload music they have produced and then anyone to download it they want to get their music out there and heard.

This advancement has meant a severe decrease in people going out to record stores and shops to buy music physically.  Businesses who will feel the full effect of this will be the likes of HMV and Virgin Megastores.
WHo will see a decrease in, in store customers but an increase in customers online, downloading albums from their websites.

Therefore artists can;t market themselves through these Super stores for music, they have had to find ways in which their target audience will come across their music when using their iPods and Laptops and so on. These are some ways in which artist have got themselves into this market.

Deadmau5 and many other artists have made their own website where fans can follow their new music, buy new music and merchandise, and even keep track of fan posts on the website wall.

http://www.deadmau5.com/

He has also; like many other artists got himself onto social networking websites where people can"Like" him or "Follow" him as an artists and follow his feeds he puts on these websites.  Here are some links to his Facebook and Myspace pages.

http://www.facebook.com/deadmau5?v=app_174018782627184

http://www.myspace.com/deadmau5


Artists now rely on their audience using sources such as these where they can find information about them for things such as new album releases and tour dates.

Artists also promote their music through websites such as Youtube which allows the audience to listen and watch their music videos for free.  This gives the artists a much wider audience to play to as anyone could come across a link to an artists music on this website.  You can also create your own page as an artist on Youtube and this then allows for even more promotion of the artist.

Decision- Plan for Office Scene Filming

Plan for Office Scene Filming- Birds Eye View


Here I sat down with my group and we looked at our scene we could shoot next lesson and set out this scene that would be used as a makeshift office.  We looked at essential things such as the props, like the office wall partitions, piles of paper, phone and the computer to make it look more like an office environment.

We also looked at where our sources of light were coming from as to give a natural lighting effect and try not to use too much lighting from room lights.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Decisions- When talking to Sir

When talking within our group about our video we talked about our doubts of our capabilities of shooting.  As a group we are afraid that we are not capable of making a music video that is flowing and that will be some what interesting to the audience.

When speaking to Sir he said that to make it interesting to the audience we can do it through camera shots.  However we could go along with making it a less interesting video to go along with the theme of the video being a day in the life of the character is boring.

Monday 7 February 2011

Decision- While Shooting

While shooting our video we came to a number of new decisions when going through our story board.

We looked at the shots of me going through the different parts of our music video and found some new things out that worked and didn't work when we came to film it.

For a start we went to go film the gym section.  When filming the shot of me on the rowing machine I wanted to do a low down shot looking up at me, but we thought of a number of things that were wrong with this that we didn't initially realise.

Like when you have a low angle shot on the person, this gives the audience the view that they are looking up to the character (me) in the video which creates a sense that they are more powerful than them.  However we are trying to show the opposite so therefore we need to show more high angle shots of me.

We also came across the problem that I would keep moving in and out of shot too much for it to look good enough, therefore we found it hard to choose a shot that was good for this section.

Also when filming the section for the office scene at the start it wasn't easy to show the boss coming in to give him the papers to put them down on his desk, so we have only shot me at the desk doing some repetitive stamping.

I feel now we have started to film a few of the different scenes we need we now realise the difficulties and time involved in filming a music video which we have had to learn how to adapt to and work with what we have.

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Editing-Text

Editing- Text


Here are some font styles that I was looking at for my album art or poster advert to show my development, I will talk briefly about my decisions and choices on each of them:



This was my first choice, I liked this one because of the non-conforming grammatical style with the capital letters in the middle of my name; however I felt this was too plain and wanted something with maybe an italic slant on it.



This font is a lot more bubbly and fun loving and in accordance with the style of music however I felt that it looked a bit like tribal writing or some kind of Sci-fi crop circle style and therefore went against it.


I then came across this font which I felt was the best so far, I liked that it had some curved edges and somepointed corners which gave a sense it was fun but at the same time was literally "edgy"which would be code for the style of music we are doing as a group.  However I felt it was too plain like this.

I then went into photoshop, I edited the black and turned it into white and then added an outer luminosity of green.  This is code for the style of music that I would be making our music video to, thereofore I felt this text was the best.

However I feel I may go onto other website to look around to see which a style of text I feel fits my genre of music and which would appeal to our target audience so it would catch their eye and make them want to buy our album.

These fonts were all found on:   http://www.1001freefonts.com/

Deadmau5 4x4=12 Album Cover Analysis


Deadmau5 4x4=12 - Album Cover Analysis

This album cover as plain as it is has a number of codes in it.

First off all are the colours used.  The dark black could be code for the dark night club and the scene of a night club.  It could also be code for the type of music and that it may be some kind of darker sinister style music.

As black is a formal colour, it could be an oxymoron as this type of music is not formal at all, the lyrics in some of the songs are informal and so is his whole style of music.

Black also is code for suction and sexualization; this is seen in women with wearing black dresses.  He could be denoting that there is some sexual element to his music.

When researching codes behind the colour black it said that it was "mysterious evoking a sense of potential and possibility"  This is interesting as his style of music is very creative, because the sounds are made on synthesizers so therefore in this album cover he could be using the colour black as code for that there is mystical sounds and possibility for a sound you have never heard before.

Another meaning behind the colour black I found out when researching it was that is was described as a "restful emptiness".  This could be code for the euphoric style and repetitive style of some of his music, that you may feel restful when listening to his music, but at the same time his music will will get you up and going but feel at piece in the madness.

The next colour used on the album cover is this luminosity from the green.  I also researched this colour and the meanings and codes in it and found out this:

Green is meant to be a "soothing, and relaxing mentally and physically" colour which therefore ties into the idea of the black being restful which means he has encoded the message that people will feel soothed an calm when listening to his music.

The luminosity from the green could be code the lights and style of clothes this type of audience would like to see and wear.  This is also adding an element of a fun side to his music which will appeal to this type of audience.

This luminous green will also appeal to the euphoric style of audience as people who may take pills look for this kind of music that when they "trip out" will look for a good place to go to really let loose and feel relaxed.

The green is reflected in the bottom of the album cover.  This I feel could be code for his music being reflected into us as an audience and that because we hear his music we are then influenced by his style and tastes and we change our views according to this as if he is in a way controlling us.

The album text is in a generic type style this goes along with his style of music being repetitive and always without fault because of the euphoric and electronic style.  It also is a bubbly sort of fun loving style which would appeal to this audience.

The text itself is anti-authoritative and rebellious to society as there are a number of grammatical errors.  He   does not use a capital letter for name, however I feel he may be doing this to show the focus is not on him as an artist nut the music.  He also uses the letter "5" as a letter "S".  And then the biggest and most obvious is the album name being a mathematical calculation and the answer is wrong, I feel this could be code his style of music and how he tries to break the conventions of music and break into new genres and sound that were never thought possible.

The face itself and the smiley face could be code for the "Acid House scene" and the "junkies" who take drugs while listening to this style of music and try and get a better high from "tripping out" in the middle of it.

The face is done in some sparkly looking dots.  This could be code for the face being a disco ball which shows the genre of music being a dance/trance/house style of music.

deadmau5 could use all this again and again in his album covers which he usually does to promote his ideas and views, therefore he would be using the "Cultivation Theory" which would be him constantly showing imagery and then us as the audience/listeners relating this to the real world.