Thursday, 7 April 2016

Final Website

Below is a link to my finish website. I've also created a small Prezi presentation just highlighting  a few features from my website, but to get a better understanding it's best just to explore the website itself. 


Wednesday, 23 March 2016

Applying Research to my Website Design

My previous indie-pop website research gave me an insight on how artists of the genre layout their websites, and I'll be following some of the conventions used. 

All three artists I looked at stuck to very simple yet modern designs, something that I feel is representative of the electro/indie pop genre sound. They also only used a maximum of 3 colours throughout and they all matched with their latest album releases. This gave them a very consistent and professional look, and I've chosen to design my website following these conventions. 

I plan for my website to be primarily black and white (like the front and back cover of my digipak) and then for my third 'colour' I'll be using a similar technique to the London Grammar website. I've decided to take some band shots, potentially on Dartmoor and at a beach location, to show the duo and present their fresh, indie and quirky character. However, I plan to edit the photos so they're all roughly similar in colour, so that this will act as my third 'colour' on my website. 

It was my website research that swayed me from using my inner digipak design on the website. Despite its effectiveness at showing the duos creativity and imagination on the digipak, I felt that their were too many bright colours for it to look effective on my website - it could feel clustered and this would stray away from the simplistic design I'm after. This is therefore why I've chosen to use band shots instead, with the black and white and simplicity of the website providing the link with the digipak. 

My research also showed me how different artists use text differently depending on the image they want to represent; more edgy groups tended to have less text, whereas groups such as Oh Wonder, with their laid-back, gentle style have more text. 
I plan to be fairly minimal with my text; however, may create an 'about' page which I've seen on several websites since my initial research in which I will use a fair amount of colloquial language to address the viewers. This will be representative of the character of Oh Wonder and will provide an engaging element; however, on the whole my website will have minimal text and will keep in the simplistic and modern style of the indie pop website design. 

Thursday, 17 March 2016

Final Digipack


Here's my final digipak design. 

Overall its design is very similar to my initial draft. So on my front and back cover I've created the silhouette design, and kept the whole thing black and white. It looks modern and clean and I feel this reflects the modern, electro sound of the group. On the inside several of the images have changed since my draft; however I have stuck to my initial idea for the concept. All the objects used were found around my house and some of them reflect the song titles in an obvious way (e.g. the heart represents Heart Hope) and others in a more abstract way (e.g. the marble represents Midnight Moon). Some of the objects have no link to the song list at all (e.g. the banana) however, they are all playful and childlike objects and so it enforces the image I wanted to produce, this image being the imaginative and pure nature of the duos music (I felt using small child-like objects would represent this). 

Saturday, 5 March 2016

Digipak Progress (Silhouette work)

For the silhouette shots I was aware I had to make it easy to see that it was a boy and girl (to represent the Oh Wonder duo). Therefore I made the girl wear a dress and have her hair flowing, whilst I made my hair stand out and wore jeans etc. so that in the silhouette we'd be easily distinguishable. 

I also experimented with several photographs (below is a sample) because I was unaware which photos would look best as silhouettes. In one of these shots we created O W (Oh Wonder) using our hands, and I have now decided to use this for my front cover as it looks very effective as a silhouette.



Initially I was unsure how I'd be able to create the silhouette effect for my front and back cover. I wanted to create a matte black silhouette and experimented with PowerPoint to see if this would be possible to achieve on there. 

I discovered that despite giving a reasonable silhouette effect, PowerPoint didn't provide the mat black effect that I required as it still showed our faces, and I felt this would detract from my simplistic pure black silhouette concept so decided to use Photoshop as it is designed for editing photos so was more likely to have the tools necessary.


Using the 'quick selection' tool in Photoshop I could easily remove the background and I also used the tool to highlight the individual parts of the photos that I wanted to turn black. After highlighting the parts I right clicked and selected fill and change the 'contents use' to 'black' with 100% opacity and this gave the matte black silhouette effect. 

Monday, 29 February 2016

Digipak Draft

Here is my draft for Oh Wonder digipak. I've tried to create a digipak that I feel represents the sound of their album. 


 My analysis of the Oh Wonder music and their album design made we want to pursue two styles. I wanted to address both their clean cut, modern sound, with the creative, pure and imaginative sound they produce and design a digipak that embodied my interpretation of both of these.

The outside:

So for my front and back cover I've focused on their clean cut style. I want to create a matte black silhouette to show the duo, which will be the main focus of my front cover, alongside the album title (which will be in white text with a black box behind it). The back cover will be similar with white text for the song list and a black box behind it, with a much smaller silhouette of the two on top of the box, doing something that highlights their quirky personalities (e.g. jumping). The typography will be Sans Serif as this is a much more contemporary and fits the electro-pop sound better than Serif fonts. 


The inside:

I've taken inspiration from Oh Wonders current digipak and it's inspired me to create a very bright and vibrant inside to my digipak. My inside design signifies the imaginative nature of the duos sound. I plan for there to be a vibrant 4 colour square for each of the four inner segments, these colours being blue, pink, orange and green as they all work well together. On each colour will be a different object, and the majority of the objects will represent songs from the album. For example, the toy car will represent 'Drive', the heart will represent 'Heart Hope'. 

I'll be using childlike objects to emphasize the pure, imaginative style of the music, and so certain objects may not be relevant to the albums songs specifically, but are just quirky in nature and so fit the general image I'm trying to produce.

                         

So overall, my design will have two styles, representing how I feel the music would look if it was to be turned into imagery and typography. I'm showing the modern electro pop style through my front and back cover, and the innocent and pure sound through my inner pages.


Friday, 29 January 2016

Editing Update

EDITING UPDATE:

Editing has been successful so far with a first draft completed recently. Below is a video of us showing the other media group the first draft to see their thoughts on it, primarily to see if our story came through strong enough. 


Just to recap, the storyline of the music video is that there is a female who is remembering memories with her partner, these memories being both good and bad, and initially, when she sings along we want the audience to think her sadness and conflicted emotions are due to a break up, potentially encouraging the audience to dislike the male, but then at the end we reveal he's died, which brings a whole new meaning to her loneliness and makes the viewers reflect on their previous ideas.




This meeting was positive as it revealed that, despite the message coming through, for it to be more potent and easier to understand, a shot in which the male presents his partner with the ring would be useful. As a result of this we plan to film this shot and add it to the video. 
They also were unsure on the relevance of the beach, and so we've also decided to add a shot of the couple at the beach, which was filmed as a practice shot whilst location searching. By adding this shot, it will establish the beach's relevance as of significance in their relationship, hopefully adding further clarity to the videos story. 

In terms of successes and issues so far with the editing, there have been a few shots and transitions that have changed from the storyboard. Certain shots, due to technical difficulties, or just not being as effective as we'd initially pictured them, have been replaced. For example, our opening shot which was meant to show Connies feet in the sea was hard to film successfully, and so we've replaced this with a sunrise shot which was initially filmed to form part of the behind the scenes film; however, in general we have stuck to the storyboard. 


For the car shots, we decided not to speed them up as it seemed obvious they were altered (due to it highlighting the shakiness of the shots) and so we have left these as they are, but they still look effective. We have also added a two shot sequence which shows a shot outside the car and the a shot inside the car (when the car is moving much faster) to give the perception of the car moving fast. 


Wednesday, 20 January 2016

Behind the Scenes and Outtakes



These two videos give a taster of the filming process for Drive. We took a large amount of experimental shots not in the storyboard whilst on location (which you can see in these two videos) and some of these may feature in the final cut if some of our initial planned shots don't look as effective; for example, our opening shot filming Connie's feet in the water was challenging and may have to be replaced. However, many of the shots we took will not feature and these two videos give an insight into the set up of our filming and how the filming process occurs. 


Friday, 8 January 2016

Digipak Research


The video above shows me undertaking some research on digipak's to help give me a better understanding on their conventions and generate some ideas for my groups digipak. The video isn't scripted and is my initial views on the digipak as I'm viewing it for the first time.

Tuesday, 5 January 2016

Filming Update

We're currently almost finished with our filming for our music video. 

Filming has proved more challenging than initially thought; well not the filming as such, but more so the time management. Finding time when everyone is available for filming, with the correct weather conditions has proved difficult. This is primarily due to all our locations being off-site and so we couldn't just leave school for an hour or so and return, we have to commit to whole afternoons. Connie, Lucy and George also all have weekend jobs which removed these as potential filming days, leaving us with Wednesday afternoons and Tuesday afternoons every two weeks; with these days being weather dependent. 


In order to tackle these set backs we kept our filming schedule adaptable. For example, we'd keep an eye on the weather up to the last minute and try to maximize our time with good weather. If George wasn't available in the preferable weather conditions (due to other commitments) we'd shoot Connies individual scenes and below you can see some examples of how we used social media to communicate and arrange this, overcoming the issue. 


We also decided that for the beach scenes we'd film at Meadfoot, not Dawlish Warren purely due to time constraints, we thought Meadfoot would be more time effective.

As predicted, it has also been challenging filming shots which involve tracking with the camera, as we lack the equipment, and so this had to be done with handheld shots, which ran the risk of an unsteady shot. 

This was apparent when filming the car scenes. Shooting within the car has been fine, but for outside shots it was challenging to film the moving car whilst keeping a steady shot. To tackle this we made the decision to make the car travel slower (around 5mph) in order for me to successfully track with the car and maintain a steady shot. The plan is to then see how this footage looks when editing, and see if the car looks like it's going unrealistically slow, and if so, look into increasing the speed of shot so it looks like the car is travelling at a faster speed. 


We also had to deal with this when filming the lip syncing shots which involved me tracking backwards whilst Connie walked towards the camera, so that it'd show her movement, whilst having her position in the frame remain constant. 

Like with the car scenes, we made Connie walk slower than she perhaps normally would to allow me to track back slower (which in turn would make the camera steadier). I also utilized the camera stand, by placing the handle on my shoulder and holding the base with one hand it steadied the camera and so as a result our lip syncing shots have been fairly smooth.

Now all we have to film is Connie walking on a country track/field and also some more car shots and we will have finished filming.



Friday, 4 December 2015

Filming Meeting



Below is a recreated video of the discussions we had during our meeting with George our actor.

In the meeting we realized that getting a timetable to film that all of us could adhere to would be challenging, especially due to our reliance on the weather. 

Every two weeks on a Tuesday and Wednesday all four of us are free. We have also discussed the possibility of asking if we can take a few periods of other lessons off for filming (for example Friday, when both Connie and Lucy are free but me and George are not). Our current issue is whether our timetable will match the weather; for example, we'd need there to be sunny weather for our car scenes with George, and this will be where we'll have to adapt and have some leniency with when we shoot. 

Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Costumes

The costumes for our music video aren't going to be a focus for the viewers and so we're planning to keep them discreet. We are using them to represent stereotypical male and female teenage characters and the drawings below show our rough ideas. They aren't striking and so allow the focus to be on the characters themselves, and the emotions they're trying to portray. 

Connie will have several costume changes; we'd like her to be wearing different clothes in each lip syncing location, as this will hopefully suggest the idea of time passing. 

We also plan to subtly change her clothing depending on whether she's alone or with her partner. When she's alone the clothing will be more suited for colder conditions (i.e. big jumpers and jackets or woolly hats etc), and when she's with her partner her clothing will be less. This subtly emphasizes her loneliness in her scenes without the partner as it show's the audience she lacks the warmth she had when she was with her partner; however, this will be minimal as we don't intend for it to be distracting.

Below is one of our initial sketches showing our ideas for costume design in the music video. 


Friday, 20 November 2015

Lip Sync Practice


For our music video, Connie will have to lip sync in several scenes. In order to make the lip syncing appear genuine we had some practice sessions (Lucy and I also took part to make Connie feel less pressure). 

We discovered that actually singing the lyrics rather than mouthing them looks much more realistic (from around 1:20 Connie does her best lip syncing), and also that subtle facial expressions are much more effective in conveying true emotions (more obvious, and over the top movements look unprofessional and less believable).


Thursday, 19 November 2015

Location Research


Here we're looking at some potential locations for our music video. 

In the video above we're at Meadfoot (the beach) in the weather conditions we want for our beach scenes, a very grey and miserable backdrop - to emphasise our characters loneliness and negative emotions. Unfortunately as the tide was in we had very little room to do test shots; however, it gave us a good indication of what our beach scenes will look like. 


We also went to Dawlish Warren (see below) to see if the beach there would be more effective, due to its more remote location. In terms of practicality however, Meadfoot would be much easier for filming, so, as our filming is weather dependant, we will have to play it by ear as to which location we use. We'll look at forecast for both Dawlish Warren and Meadfoot and see which one provides us with the maximum time in the weather conditions that fits all our schedules.



We also went to two woodland locations, the one featured in the video above (Daddyhole Plain) and also a woodland path in Highweek village (see below). Like Meadfoot, Daddyhole Plain's benefit is its accessibility; however, the Highweek woodland path fits our vision more. The path also leads to a graveyard which is perfect for our final scene and so we've chosen the Highweek woodland path to shoot our wood scenes (and graveyard scenes) as, despite it taking more effort to get to, it will provide more aesthetically pleasing footage. 




In terms of the house scenes, we've chosen Connie's house due to it being near the school which will ease the pressure of time constraints. Her lounge's pastel pink walls also provide a warm and atmosphere that will be desirable for our scenes as we want them to appear cosy and intimate.

Storyboard






Tuesday, 3 November 2015

Story Boarding (Vlog 3)


Today we did some further planning towards our storyboard; focusing a lot more on the specific timings and how we will use our locations and shot styles to match the changing tone of the song. 

We feel it will be near on impossible  to create  a shot for shot storyboard because our music video is weather dependant in places, and obviously, even though we can have an idea of what we'd like, shots like this will be unpredictable. However, we are nearly there in terms of our basic storyboard of shots and timings.


Following on from this lesson, I created much more detailed storyboards. The image on the left shows this progression. The storyboard at the top of the picture is our original: a very basic plan of timings and locations. Below this is the more detailed storyboard (however, in the image it is unfinished as only one shot has a drawing). The descriptions are more detailed, and the shots are more specific. For example, in the original storyboard, the first box says: 'Beach 6secs' whereas the second storyboard this is split into two boxes, with two different beach shots - the first shot being 0.00-0.04 and the second being 0.04-0.06.
This improved storyboard will give our filming more structure; however, there is still the potential for changes due to our reliance on the weather.

Saturday, 17 October 2015

Pathetic Fallacy in Music Videos

Pathetic Fallacy (where the weather is used to represent the emotions and powers at be within a scene) is commonly used within literature and film. To show positive emotions, the weather is often warm and inviting (i.e. the sun is shining). For negative emotions bad weather such as rain and cloud is used; the different weather creates very different imagery, with the grey of the clouds often reflecting loneliness.

Below is an example from the film The Matrix. On the left the rain is used to show the anger of the antagonist and the dyer situation that the protagonist faces. Whereas on the right the sun rising shows hope; the warm orange tones on the characters faces gives a sense of happiness and better things to come.




In our music video we intend to use the weather to show contrasting emotions. When the girl is alone a grey pallet will be used (i.e. cloudy and rainy weather), emphasizing her sadness; whereas for the flashbacks of happy memories we'll use the low autumn/winter sun to create a sense of warmth and companionship. 


A music video that does something similar to this is Shiver by Lucy Rose (see below). The beach scenes are similar to the images we wish to create to address our girls loneliness, and the flashbacks (which in this are on an old fashioned camera) have warmer colors, showing the happiness there once was.




Thursday, 15 October 2015

Oh Wonder Case Study


Oh Wonder is a London based duo, new to the music industry scene. The pair (Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West) began releasing songs in 2014, and their debt album is self-titled.


Their music genre is alternative pop, with modern and chilled electric ballads being a consistent sound throughout. The balance between the two unique voices is the forefront of the music, and so every song has a very emotive feeling. Despite each song being different, the duos unique style features in every song and so it is somewhat easy for each song to flow into the next. 



Over the past year the pair tried a new business model and released a new song every month onto their SoundCloud account before then releasing all twelve songs in an album in September. This ambitious move proved highly successful with most songs having millions of views on their account, and just emphasises how this young pair are trying new and unique ideas within the music industry with both their sound and their promotion.

Audience Research

I recently completed a SurveyMonkey survey to gain feedback of how different ages respond to the song and also the groups concept. By asking a variety of ages it allowed me to see if our initial target audience (teens to young adults) was the best audience to focus on and also just see any general improvements to our initial concept.


You can view (or complete) the survey here:
  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6GK6MRD

Results:


Q2.

“Love and heartbreak”
“Someone is torn between their head and their heart. The singer is conflicted as to what to do, they obviously love the person, but also get hurt”
“Someone trying to shake off some bad feelings, but finding it hard to do so and being confused as they love the person but being in a relationship with them is tough.”
“love, pain, and relationship issues; a classic love song”
“Love and hurt”
“Someone is torn as to whether they should leave their lover. They love the person but also suffer pain from the relationship”
“The timeless classic of love and heartbreak.”
“It's a song about the troubles of a relationship. In terms of characters, it could be any two people at any age as being in love and the trials and tribulations of this are relatable to everyone. I don't particularly like the sound of the person the singer is singing about”
“I think it's about two lovers who are having trouble, with the singer of the song reflecting on how tough it is for him/her”
“A song about relationships and they can be hard”
“It's about love and heartbreak.”
“I think the lyrics show a theme of heart break and emotional pain. The character is obviously someone who's been unlucky in love and been hurt by their partner. Although they still love them they can't carry on being hurt this way or avoid thinking about the past, and so they've decided to end it for their own good.”
“The person singing has been in a relationship where the other person has cheated on them. Leaving them in a mess as they still love the but know in their mind that they shouldnt. They seem torn between what their heart wants to do and what their mind says they should do.”
“Love, a break-up, letting someone go”


“It sounds like a song about breakup and how someone gets hurt. Sounds like the singer cant move on from the situation, and just ends up getting hurt each time they get close. Sounds like the singer was betrayed and cant move on from that. But at the end sounds like he cant stop loving the other person, no matter how much they hurt him”

Q3.

“Very chilled, more up-beat than expected, makes me feel happier than the initial lyrics would suggest”
“It makes me dislike the person for causing the girl pain because the song presents an image of innocence and loss”
“The changes in sound of the song (i.e. quiet at some points and louder and faster in others) is good in representing the confused and changing emotions of the girl”
“Quite upbeat, different to what I expected!”
“Can hear the pain in her voice. Gentle sounds are easy to listen to.”
“Quite up-beat! voice sounds very innocent, makes me want to stand up for her.”
“Very easy on the ears. Very pure voices, makes me relate to and feel sad for the victim”
“Very easy listening, it's relaxing.”
“The track is lighter than i expected, if I was unaware of the lyrics I wouldn't think it was about heartbreak, which is interesting.”
“Quite upbeat! I'm confused as to whether I should feel happy or sad”
“The song is more upbeat than I first thought it would be; it isn't too slow and so it isn't overwhelmed by sadness like the lyrics alone suggest.”
“Due to the lyrics I thought the song would make me feel sad and reminiscent but I think its actually quite acoustically upbeat for a song about love. To me it generates optimistic emotions, like shes trying to move forward and is quite content with the idea of it if it means she can be pain free. It makes you feel quite mentally strong, independent, and confident as if you can finally take charge of your life and remove all the bad parts so you can be care free.”
“Up-beat even though there's a sad theme, makes me resentful of the person it's about.”
“The song sounds upbeat, the tune is more upbeat than the lyrics suggest. It sounds like a difficult battle to move one from the situation”

Q4.

“Good idea, I think your idea of using different locations and weather to represent different emotions will be effective”
“The twist has made me completely change my view on the boy, who i initially thought of as antagonistic. It changes the whole meaning of the song, clever”
“Good idea, can see it working well with this song”
“Nice ending, wasn't expecting it and makes me change my view on the whole song. I picture a car at some point, don't know how it'd be possible but could be nice as a happy flashback with the wind blowing in their hair etc!”
“Make sure the two people acting in it are good, because you don't want to make the video come across tacky and cheesy because the music doesn't fit with that! But good idea!”
“I like the concept. Have fun filming in the rain!!”
“I like the ending! And the different locations sound good. Having her isolated will show her loneliness. Good pathetic fallacy”
“I wasn't expecting the partner to have died. This makes the song much more powerful and makes me reflect on my first ideas! Never judge a book by it's cover I guess! It makes the video different from generic love stories”
“Her walking etc will work well with the soundtrack as its upbeat-ness suggests movement. Good twist, makes me feel bad for initially misjudging the person she's singing about, changes the whole meaning of the lyrics”
“The happy and sad memories will work well with the music. Clever twist at the end!”
“I like the idea, I feel the ups and downs of the music will match the different emotions of different scenes. It mentions a car a lot, could you use a car in filming somehow?”
“I like the concept of flashing back to the happy/sad memories of the relationship as the lyrics suggest a sense of nostalgia, but I dont think the beginning should be walking. I imagine shes driving seeing as it's in the first line and is also a symbol of moving foward and leaving the past behind you. I like the idea of the isolated locations, for example i imagine shes on a long empty road, maybe bad things are happening around her but she carries on driving (in a cool car with no roof) with the wind in her hair and the sun in her eyes as shes heading for a brighter future and not looking back.”
“Good,fast moving plan. I like the twist at the end, adds depth to the songs meaning and makes you question initially formulated opinions.”
“Really good idea. Very dramatic. I like the idea of the different weather for the different scenes”

Vlog 2

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Kanye West Case Study

Kanye West

Kanye West, also referred to as Yeezus, is one of the most successful artists of all time having sold over 21 million albums and 100 million digital downloads. In this blog I'll be looking into what has caused his large success.


After dropping out of Chicago State University to pursue his dream of becoming a producer and rapper in 1998, it took a few years for Kanye to establish himself on the music scene, only doing minor producing work (for example Beanie Sigel's song, The Truth). However, in 2001 Kanye produced 6 songs for Jay-Z's album Blueprint and it was this that set Kanye going, with him being signed to Roc-A-Fella Records by Jay-Z and Damon Dash the following year. 

In 2003 we saw the first of many rants that would occur in Kanye's career, after he defended himself as a rapper and not just a producer. And following on from this he released his first album The College Dropout in 2004. It debuted #2 in the charts and with bit hits such as Jesus Walks and All Falls Down, Kanye became a well known as a hip-hop artist in the music industry. However, he continued to produce and in the same year founded G.O.O.D. Music with Common & John Legend being the first 2 artists signed.



His following 3 albums: Late Registration, Graduation and 808s and Heartbreak were all successful, furthering his achievement in the music industry; however, following this Kanye seemed to intensify his sound. These past four albums, though part of the rap genre, had a much pop-ier sound than his next solo album Yeezus, which featured very little of this up-beat style. This slight tweak in style led to the album achieving number one in over 40 countries and is representative of the Kanye West we see currently; the parallel being the much more intense sound showing a man happy to cause controversy and with strong views.


Throughout his career he has caused controversy with strong views in both the music industry and on global issues: two examples being when he claimed "George Bush doesn't care about black people"



Or when he stormed the stage at the 2009 VMA's claiming Beyonce should have won the award not Taylor Swift. And during this years VMA's he's announced he'll run for presidency in the 2020 elections, furthering fuelling his large egotistical nature.



He has always had a fiery relationship with the media, lashing out at paparazzi on several occasions. But despite all his outbursts, which one would argue could end a career, Kanye has utilized them to get himself noticed, in a way that has allowed for huge success.

Fashion has a large influence on Kanye's career. He has no particular style that he adheres to; however, he usually avoids the stereotypical rapper attire of sleeveless shirts and jeans. For example, in Runaway he's sporting a tux, whereas in Mercy he's in much darker clothing.



What is noticeable though is, as his music has subtly changed so has his styling, with his clothing moving from less hip-hop (for example the 'shutter shade' sunglasses he made infamous in Stronger) to more unique, somewhat 'rough and ready' attire.


In total Kanye West has won 89 awards (21 of these being from the Grammy's) and had 352 nominations. Though not always popular for his seemingly spontaneous outbursts, his music continues to receive massive praise, with him now one of the most influential music artists of our time.

Such is the influence of Kanye that you can see many artists pick up traits from his successful career. In fact, many big hits of recent times have either been produced by Kanye or have been inspired by Kanye in some way (E.g. Beyonce, The Game, Ludacris, John Legend, Jay-Z etc).

Monday, 22 June 2015

Music Video Styles and Representations

Representation of solo females:

Crazy in Love - Beyonce
Adheres to common stereotypes. It's very sexual, attempting to attract the 'male gaze'. She is the focus; it's an exhibition of her, and no one else. She is sexual, but still maintains a sense of dominance. There are lots of close ups of body parts, once more presenting her somewhat objectively; however, she maintains control.



Representation of solo males:

Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud
A romantic male lead. Somewhat metrosexual, more intimate and emotional (other genres, e.g. rap, show more stereotypically masculine depictions). Despite Ed being less dominant, he still takes the lead. There is even some, though less obvious, attempt at attracting the female gaze.



Representation of boy groups:


Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
The group trys to appear desirable to (perhaps) their main target audience of teens; i.e. the teen heart throb idea. They have a variety of looks, from the 'boy next door' to the 'ordinary Joe' to relate to more people, and seem very manufactured. They is lots of harmonization, and dance routines. It is very much a performance to the camera, and with the adoring fans in the background it seems to be trying to enhance the prophecy of how great they are.




Representation of girl groups:


All Saints - Black Coffee
There is much less focus on attracting the male gaze than in Beyonce's video, though it is still present. Like the boy group they too harmonize, however, there are many more individual sections. 



Representation of male bands:


Muse - Mercy
The video has more of a story line than the boy group, and there is a much greater emphasis on the band and music rather than individuals and their appeal. 



Representation of female bands:

Hole - Celebrity Skin
There is intensity throughout the performance and through the camerawork. Their attitude is almost challenging the viewers, and there is an equal focus on the women but also their instrument playing.