Advanced Portfolio Research Completion

The deadline for completion of all research tasks relating to your Advanced portfolio is Monday 9th October.

I have provided screenshots below of a document you will all be provided with which should be used to track your completion these tasks.

Please remember that, in the research stage, all work must be produced individually regardless of whether or not you are working alone or in a group.

Music Video Research (Main Task)

                                         Music Magazine Research (Ancillary Task)

CD Digipack Research (Ancillary Task)

MV Research: Applying Music Video Theory To Artist 'Song'

Your final research task relating to music video is to write a textual analysis of 2 music videos from within the same genre as your chosen song.

This is a repeat of the task that you completed for the video for Little Mix's "Shout Out To My Ex".

This should include analysis of:

• Use of the camera (angles, shots and movement)
• Use of Editing
• Use of Mise-en-Scene

It MUST also contain references to all 6 of the media theorists that we have looked at.

In what ways does this video use, develop or challenge the opinions put forward by Kaplan, Goodwin, Carlsson, Vernallis, Keazor / Wubenna and Railton?

This should be produced as  2 separate posts on your blog

Each post MUST:

• include screenshots from the video which act as supporting evidence for your analysis of use of the camera and mise-en-scene(costume, props, locations).
• include GIFs which act as supporting evidence for your analysis of editing (think about pace of editing, cutting to the beat (Andrew Goodwin) and lip-syncing.

MV Research : Lyric Analysis Artist Name 'Song'

Once you have completed research into who a typical member of your artist's target audience would be you need to complete a lyric analysis of your chosen song.

Find a copy of the lyrics and other copy and paste these into Word or Powerpoint.

Read through the lyrics carefully and think about their meaning, tone, etc.

Make comments around the lyrics.

Your comments should be a mixture of observation, interpretation and questions. 

Think about how a mood is created in the song - a good way to do this is to make a list of all of the adjectives and verbs in the song and think about what type of picture they help to paint. 

Once you have done this, create a post title:

Research : Lyric Analysis Artist Name 'song'

In this post, provide an explanation of what you have done together with screen shots of your Word or Powerpoint document.

You could also use a website such as Word It Out to create a word cloud for your song's lyrics. This could then be added to your post as further evidence of your efforts for the examiner.

Copy your lyrics into Word It Out and it will create a word cloud which alters the size of the words according to their frequency in the song. This can help to show where repetition takes place. 

Here is an example for the Frank Hamilton song, 'Summer'.

MV Research : Who Are The Target Audience For My Chosen Artist?

You now need to move away from your chosen artist and think about who their target audience is.

This is vitally important before you move forwards as you are producing a promotional package and you must know who you are appealing to with your music video, CD Digipack and Music Magazine Advertisement.

Most magazines produce media kits or press kits for prospective advertisers - these allow them to promote themselves and for advertisers to commission advertisements in the most cost-effective and targeted manner.

Create a post titled Research : Who Are The Target Audience For My Chosen Artist?

Take a sheet of paper and create a pen portrait for a typical member of your artist's target audience that includes as much information about them as possible.

• What age are they?
• What sort of things are important to them?
• How do they dress?
• What types of music do they listen to?
• What do they read? Watch? etc
• How do they use social media?
• How do they spend their time?

Here is an example produced by one of our students last year. This student was producing a promotional package for the artist Nina Nesbitt and she is describing a typical Nina Nesbitt fan.

Nina Nesbitt : Initial Audience Research

Here is another example produced for the artist HAIM.

HAIM : Initial Audience Research

MV Research : Detailed Research Into Chosen Artist : Name Of Artist

Before proceeding to this point you must have completed your research into potential artists / albums / and songs.

Once you have chosen the artist and album that you wish to proceed with (from the choice of 3), the next step is to undertake detailed research into your chosen artist.

You need to make a post titled;

Research : Detailed Research Into Chosen Artist : Name of Artist

in which you provide, unsurprisingly, evidence of detailed research into your chosen artist. 

This should not be copied and pasted from Wikipedia but, rather, show that you have researched from lots of different sources.

The post should include 

• information about the artist's background
• information about the artist's career to date 
• the artist's discography (what they have released and when - use this website to help you)
• links to their internet and social media profile (website, Youtube channel, Twitter feed, Soundcloud feed, Instagram, etc.)
• embedded videos of examples of the artist's music promo videos
• evidence of any interviews that have been conducted with the artist - do a Google search h under the terms 'artist name interview'.

You need to make this evidence as 'media rich' as possible so include lots of images, video and sound. This is important if you are to score highly.

Present your research as a normal blog post which contains a mixture of text, images, sound and video.

MMA Initial Research : Codes and Conventions of Existing Products

What can you identify as the expected conventions of a MMA and how are codes (typographical + visual) used?

Use your notes from class where we looked at a selection of MMAs from R2 Magazine initially in order to identify and analyse codes and conventions.

Your analysis of codes in these MMAs needs to show that you have thought carefully about purpose and effect.

For example, think about the following:

• Artist's name - placement? font style? font size? colour? relationship to other aspects of the mma? relationship to the artist's image and visual presence elsewhere? (ask if you don't understand...)

• Album title - placement? font style? font size? colour?

• Image(s) - what is usual? Is the artist's image more likely or less likely to be used? could this change according to genre? What other sorts of images are used and do these reflect the genre of the artist?

• Other - what else could be included? why choose to include these things? How do they support the promotional nature of an MMA?
• Does the genre of music have an impact on how codes are used?

Here are some other MMAs for albums that you could use:

MMA Initial Research : What Are Music Magazines?

Your first piece of research on your MMA page should answer the question above. Try to include a mixture of text and images.

MV Research : Research Into Potential Artist / Album / Song Choice

You must research potential album choices once you have caught up with other work.

When conducting research you must remember to keep an evidence trail of HOW you came to the 3 potential choices you will be considering.

You need to post your evidence to your blog in a post with the same title as this one:

MV Research : Research Into Potential Artist / Album / Song Choice

The rules for the evidence are as follows:

• It must cover all 3 potential artist / album / song choices.

For each potential album choice you need to include:

• The name of the artist
• A brief biography of the artist (including the genre of music they are most associated with)
• The title of the album
• The record label for the album
• The release date of the album
• The track list for the album 
• The song from the album you think you would produce your music video for
• An explanation of why you think this album / artist is a good potential choice for your coursework