Letter to You Me At Six requesting permission to use "Stay With Me"

To make sure that our video is not infringing the rights of the band we have drafted a letter to send to them, asking for permission to use their song. Here it is:

"Dear You Me At Six

I am writing to you on behalf of my school (Epsom and Ewell high school) to ask for permission to use your song “Stay With Me” in my 6^th form media class’ media coursework.

I’m an A level student studying media and as part of our coursework for the course, we have to create a music video, CD cover and advert to promote a single. Our group decided on your song and as such we are writing to you to ask for permission to use your song. We understand that under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 we do not have to ask for permission as this is for educational and non-profit purposes, however out of courtesy we would still like to extend to you this letter asking for express written permission.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and we hope to hear from you soon,

Yours sincerely,

Tom Burlinson, Sophie Griffin, Pryank Patel and Shanice Farley"

song we decided on

Our group decided on Stay With Me by You Me At Six

We decided on this after much deliberation and thinking about what style of music we wanted to go with and then narrowing it down to a band and then song. This was difficult as we all have different music tastes, but we managed to compromise and came up with a good song in the end.

Analysis of a music video: The Strokes - Last Nite

The Strokes are a garage/post-punk revival and indie rock band from New York, America. Formed in 1999, their unique brand of indie rock has garnered them critical aclaim both at home, and most notably in the UK, getting support from magazines such as NME. Since then they have released 4 albums and toured the world, playing many large festivals, most recently headlining the Reading and Leeds Festival on 26-28th August 2011.

This is an analysis of the music video released to promote the single Last Nite from their first album Is This It


The music video is a very simple performance video in which the band plays the song on a set that looks like it might be on an American chat show (Jay Leno, Conan O'Brian etc), however, rather than have the song taken from the album and dubbed over the video and the band mines the track, the song featured in the video is being performed live and would have been recorded on the set at the same time as the video. From this we can assume that the song would have been done in one take, with a multi cam shoot (like on live television shows) further adding to the late night talk show style of the video.

As the video is purely a performance video there is no relationship between the lyrics and visuals other than we can see the band performing. Even when examining the meaning of the lyrics and the story behind it, (which is about the break up of a relationship and youthful depression) there is still very little link. It could be argued that Julian Casablancas' performance in the video is indicitive of the emotion and feelings that the lyrics narrative is trying to convey. However, if you do some more research into the band, you will see that this is just how Casablancas is onstage. It his usual act and stage persona, or even, just how he is as a person, and so we are just seeing his version of the typical "nonchalant, sex, drugs, rock n' roll attitude and arrogant-tinged-swagger". This can be seen with the other members of the band, playing the song with a passion and rock n roll attitude, either moving about or standing still, looking at their instrument, their face obscured by long hair.


This along with the bands "costume" (one is to assume that this is what they normally wear and it is not a fabricated look/style created for the video) which is t-shirts, jeans, leather jackets and converse trainers (which are commonly known to represent the counter culture) all give the representation of masculine, strong and slight arrogance. All commonly associated with rock music. This is all part of genre specific iconography (one of the key parts of Goodwin's theory)

Research: audience research into music videos

I have created a survey on www.surveymonkey.com - 
to do research into the demographic that watches music videos and how they consume them. This will be useful when it comes to promoting my music video at a later date and when we have to make a digi-pack for our chosen song. 


Here is a link to my survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NL6GSX2


I will psot this on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit and other forums it for 4 weeks before collecting, analysing and collating the results to be posted on this blog

Goodwins analysis Prezi

http://prezi.com/s9vtskiw0tde/media-goodwins-analysis/

Analysis of a music video: Ghost Town - The Specials

The Specials are a Ska/2 tone band from Coventry, England and were at the height of their success between 1977 and 1984. This is an analysis of the music video for their song "Ghost Town"  which was only ever released as a single.


The video focuses on the band all driving in one car, around an empty city, which fits with the title of the song. And we get a lot of shots looking at the band in the car, singing along to the lyrics of the song. In the case of this promotional video, i think the aim is purely to promote the band and their message (which i will come to later) and get it out to people rather than tell a story or entertain people. 


The main focus of the video is on the empty town and the lyrics to the song. the song is about the themes of urban decay, unemployment and violence in the inner cities, it is a piece of social commentary as it also references the recession that the country was experiencing at end of the 70's/beginning of the 80's. therefore the central idea of a ghost town is actually a metaphor for what is happening to the inner cities at the time. this song and by extension the video, which looks at the effect of these and shows the band exploring the ghost town, is voyeuristic and has intertextuality. 


In terms of keeping with the conventions of a music video, this does well. there are a lot of close ups of the artists to promote them, as well as a lot of genre specific iconography. the band is mixed race, and they are all wearing "mod style" outifits, which were common, suits, loafers, pork pie hats etc, which are all black and white. the video is shot in colour though. 


There is also a link between the music and visuals, with most of the cuts in the visuals happening on the beat of the music. also the music is quite dark and serious, so the visuals reflect this, with a lot of shots of concrete tall buildings on a grey day or in the evening to make everything more serious.

Album cover from The Specials self-titled first album

Analysis of a music video: Mary Mary - RUN DMC

RUN DMC are an early rap/hip hop group from the late 80's. This is an analysis of the music video created to promote their single "Mary Mary"  ( a song originally by The Monkees) from the album "Tougher Than Leather".


The video is created to promote the band and the song, as well as to tell a story, the story seen in this video is of an angry mother who thinks that RUN DMC has a bad attitude and their lyrics are "poisoning America" and so has gone to a show to protest against them etc.The video cuts between this comedy and RUN DMC's performance at the show  that Mary Mary has gone to protest. However, this is had been made into satire and instead of this being a serious video, it is more a video about RUN DMC rejecting the notion that they are bad and promotes their good side instead. 


Nevertheless, as the song is by a hip hop group there are certain things we expect,  stereotypes to be seen etc. so we do still see the band in their Adidas clothing and trainers (the band even loved the brand so much they wrote a song about Adidas), gold chains and a DJ deck in the centre of the stage with a large percentage of the audience being African American. We also see the promotional video follow the conventions of a music video and we get a lot of close ups of the band , as well as a voyeuristic look into their show and to the "story" that is happening in conjunction to this. 


Mary Mary tries to show that the band follow the conventions of a band in the late 80's with "sex, drugs and rock n roll" and we see her try to prove to a "documentary crew" that is following her that RUN DMC promotes sex and drugs, and instead we see this turned around and with each example something else is offered - a van in the parking lot that looks like someone may be having sex inside, instead turns out to be people exercising, and they say "no Mary Mary, RUN DMC promotes a healthy body, we're aerobecising", the same happens when she approaches a smoke filled car expecting to find drugs, but instead finds monks who are lighting incense and say "no Mary Mary, RUN DMC promotes a healthy mind, we're spiritualising". This is how the band rejects the bad notions that people have about them (which when put in context with the time, were quite significant as i will discuss later) and instead promotes them as a good example.


There is a link with the lyrics music and visuals as well, all of the lyrics are about mary and her attitude etc, something we see reflected in the portrayal of Mary's character in the video, and with the music, we see visual links such as fireworks that go off at the same beat as the drums etc.


As i mentioned earlier this video means a lot more when put in the context of 1980's America, as it has intertextuality. In the late 80's a group got together called The Parents Music Resource Centre, a.k.a The Washington wives (after the women that set it up) and it aimed at censoring music and getting music banned that was deemed inappropriate, bands were attacked and accused of poising America's youth with glorification of violence, drugs, sex, the occult in some cases. this may seem normal as this still sometimes happens, however this was a major event in the late 80's and RUN DMC's video is not only a promotion of them, but a counter attack against the PRMC who devalue the name of musicians who are just trying to make music

RUN DMC during their heyday in the 80's