Daughter

Daughter are an indie folk rock band originating from London. The band consist of the main singer Elena Tonra, guitarist Igor Haefeli and drummer Remi Aguilella. The trio are a very recent Indie band which only released EPs in 2010 and 2011, but in March this year (2013), they released their first full album 'If You Leave'. Their image is like other Indie artists' images, for example they use positive, light and natural colours in their album covers but make sure they seem personal to the target audiences. Their music is soft and slow yet has the natural beat of the drum with the acoustics of the guitarists. The target audience would be from teenagers aged 15 to adults that want to be relaxed with the soft vocals of Elena.

The trio tend present themselves as a solo artist with Elena Tonra (the main vocal artist) as the face of the band. In my opinion I think this because the name 'Daughter' is more feminine than masculine and from the listeners point of view you guess that the band consists of a feminine vocal which is apparent in the songs. As the face of the band, Elena presents herself in an old fashion but natural way, with her short black hair and innocent face; this attracts the young and old.

To the right shows the EP cover for 'The Wild Youth' which features only a few songs compared to an album. When this was released in 2011, the trio decided to link the title of the EP to the cover of the digipack, therefore they chose to include some children in the cover. This portrayed their indie style as by not placing themselves as a band or Elena on the cover shows that they want to hide their image in some way and be original in their artwork.

However when looking at their recent full album called 'If You Leave', it features more of a natural and light coloured style to the front cover. They have also used an effect that looks youthful as it looks like a young girl is running in the woods due to the fading of the cream clothing. But if you look closely at the album you can see under the trees on the left, it seems like there are two men standing which indicates that they are part of the band.

This music video by Daughter called 'Still' was released from the album 'If You Leave' and is generally about how two people falling out of love of one another, but still clinging onto the ghosts of the love they once shared. Daughter show this through a narrative in the evening making it more depressing and can relate for the audiences.
-Diegetic sound is used at the beginning to emphasise the use of heels walking up some stairs to a flat, the non diegetic sound also starts at the same time. This helps to draw the audiences into the narrative of the music video.
- Low angle of the camera at start of the stairs and the girl walking up, underlines the late night and the clothing of the girl and how provocative she comes across as. The low angle of the camera also shows that a cat is there and emphasises how late at night it is.
- Having the tv on in the bedroom with Daughter performing highlights the use of non diegetic sound and that those images on the tv are the band.
- Aerial shot near the end shows two emotions and creates a longing effect for the audience.
- Behind the shoulder shot of the girl as she undresses shows how the pain of the relationship is hurting her as through the camera you can see how thin she is. Also showing the tattoo on her back supports this.

Kings Of Leon

Kings Of Leon (KOL) is an American band which was formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 1999. This band are particularly unusual due to the formation of brothers and cousins, the group consist of the main singer/guitarist Caleb Followill, bassist Jared Followill, guitarist Mathew Followill and drummer Nathan Followill. In contrast to today, during the beginning of their success their music was a mixture of an upbeat blend of southern rock and garage rock influences but today we see them expanding their sound to include a variety of other genres such as alternative rock.

Like other boy bands, throughout their album releases KOL have chosen to add mystery to their image by not posing on the front of their albums in an obvious way. Although they have included images inside the digipacks, the front cover is a different image that would reflect the particular album in some way. For example, one of their first albums 'Aha Shake Heartbreak' features the famous band Queen's 1975 album 'A Night at the Opera' but KOL have edited the image to give it more of a floral look but eye catching at the same time. 'Aha Shake Heartbreak' includes their southern rock styled music which compared to their recent songs is very different due to the twang of their origin in their early days.
From having this album myself, I can see inside the digipack that the album has included an image of them all standing alike staring at the camera. Compared to their recent image, they all seemed to have the look of long hair which emphasises the contrast, their youth and also how they were brought up in Tennessee. Although it can come across as quite feminine by having a flower looking image on the front of this album, they have made it more masculine by making the background black but it also becomes more bold with the contrast of colours and sophisticated.

In 2010 when KOL released their 5th album called 'Come Around Sundown', their audience noticed a change in their image. Although on the front cover of this album they hid themselves like their earlier covers, inside the digipack you can see how they wanted to represent themselves individually to bring a more personal appearance to the audience. Another contrast between their recent albums and their earliest ones is that 'Come Around Sundown' is shown as more positive with the light colours and sepia effect on the photographs whereas their 3rd album, 'Because Of The Times' is more of a mysterious album cover with the black background again with a white image on the front.

 In terms of Mise En Scene, Kings Of Leon have been styled in a typical boy band way but that would attract a wide range of audiences:
- From looking at this photograph to the right, you can see that by Caleb wearing a cross necklace symbolising his religion which will attract audiences from different religions and societies.
- Having no expression on their faces and just looking at the camera brings out their rebelious side, their boy image and their southern look.

Recently, KOL have released a song called 'Supersoaker' along with a music video. Compared to their previous music and videos, this music video brings their alternative rock genre as well as their interpetation of the lyrics through the ages of the 1950's. The music video features a love story set in the 1950's using the rock and roll culture to reveal the angst of teenagers and the sensual ideas of them. They do this by using different effects to the lighting and colours, for instance they tried to get the look of pop art and did this by hand tinting and technicolour film. 

The music video involves the band performing in a concert styled format but with shots of the love story. The video includes long shots of the band to identify the surroundings, set the scene and to emphasise the mise en scene such as clothing and props. Medium shots are also used to identify the band individually and in some shots the camera is tilted upwards, for example when the camera focuses on Jared Followill on the bass, the camera is tilted upwards to make him look bigger and powerful with his bass guitar.

Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus is known as a teenage icon through her acting and singing career. From the age of just 11, she rose to fame as a Disney Channel star by casting the role of Hannah Montana, a children's television series about a teenager who runs two lives; one normal and one as famous pop star. Now at the age of 20 years old, she is building up her own unique style and image to attract an older audience rather than the Hannah Montana image and young audience that she left behind a while ago. Being the daughter of the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley has been in the starlight of America from a very early age.

Throughout Miley's career, she has been represented through various media texts in all kinds of approaches such as photo shoots, music videos, album covers, posters, magazines/newspapers, film and TV. During her time at Disney she was known to be represented as a young innocent 12 year old with her young role in the children's TV series Hannah Montana. The Disney series helped her to make the move towards the music industry by bringing her own songs and voice into the series, which then became so popular they were made into an album. Miley then began to explore the representation of other texts, for example she started to do photo shoots to influence the image of innocent, young, Disney star to her fans and audiences ranging from the age of 7-15 years. As she progressed through Disney, she took on the role as Hannah Montana more seriously with the various released albums and a film which demonstrated her maturing into a teenager. Her soundtrack of the film introduced her to country and adult contemporary markets which helped lead to her adult image.

During the past few years, Cyrus has developed an adult image and mainstream pop sound with the album called 'The Time Of Our Lives' (2009) and her maturing image progressed with the film 'The Last Song' and her third album 'Can't Be Tamed' in 2010. These albums featured more prominent dance elements than her earlier releases and was promoted through sexually-themed performances. In these texts, Miley presents herself as a teenage icon and shows that she has matured from the Disney stage of her career to a more adult career. However she also promotes sex appeal to the audiences due to the long hair, revealing tops, the eye line in photos and the shorts and other clothing she wears to show off her figure.




Throughout the past year, Miley has progressed through a different route as she has developed the ability to perform more revealing and provocative music videos, photo shoots, interviews etc. Her audience first noticed this change when she bought out her latest songs "We Can't Stop", "Wrecking Ball" and when she performed with Robin Thicke at the VMA Awards earlier this year. Her image makes the audience feel like she has moved on from her Disney days to a fun, young adult but some believe the change could be bad due to her younger audiences who were big fans of Hannah Montana, becoming influenced by her actions of drink, drugs and sex.



I decided to analyse one of Miley's older music videos to demonstrate the contrast of her image from 2009 to now. Here is her video for 'Party In The U.S.A' which was released in 2009.

- Sex appeal shown through the camera angles and medium shots of the hips and legs which are shown through the mise en scene of the tight shorts. -revealing top also supports this.
- Cutting rate of the camera in sync with the beat of the song helps involve the audience into the video.
- Master shot of Miley singing with a vintage microphone on a stage with the American flag which supports the title of the song. - Just her on stage brings across a rebellious side as she has no backing singers, instruments or band members.
- Establishing shot at the beginning to identify the desert styled scene and the typical teenage rebellion especially when the friends and Miley are dancing and singing on the back of cars.
- Mise en scene of Miley roughing her hair up with her hands throughout the video supports the sex appeal but indicates the innocents she still holds within her.
- Particular shots of her getting out of a car in style showing that shes the spotlight of the video especially with the cowboy boots.

Recreated Music Video -Location & Props

Our location of our filming for Bruno Mars' song, 'When I Was Your Man', will be filmed in our main School Hall as it has all the props needed to film the 15 second clip.

The Props it has is:-
- A Stage
- A Grand Piano
- A black backdrop
- Spotlights
- A Microphone
- The Hall can also be blacked out to help intensify the spotlight effect

The other props needed will be easy enough to get, these are:-
- A suit
- A wig
- A glass with drink in

Confirmed Music Video for Preliminary Task

As a group we decided on the music video by Bruno Mars 'When I Was Your Man' for our preliminary task as an experiment for a music video. The preliminary task will help us to understand how the concept of filming a music video works and provide us with a test run before we decide on the real product. The genre of the song is pop with a slight classical tune to it due to the piano throughout the song.
By selecting Bruno Mars' music video for this song, it provides us with a relatively simple filming technique for roughly 30 seconds as the location is situated at one place (at a piano). We will use Danny from the group to replicate Bruno in the video and he will attempt to lip sync along to the music as a test run. To allow Danny to be able to lip sync to the song, we will play the song aloud when filming and when editing, we will delete the sound from the video, especially as when the piano shots are displayed, we don't want the sound of the piano from Danny to play against the actual song.

Music Video Analysis

The Streets - Fit But Don't You Know It

In this video we see the artist, Mike Skinner, walking down the street reminiscing about his recent holiday through music by flicking through the photos which relates to the target audience of the video and music. From research and listening to 'The Streets' music style, the genre is known as hip hop and UK Garage with the English accent playing whilst rapping throughout the song. However it can be also seen as alternative and indie in some songs.

Personally I think that this video, identified in the genre of Indie, is very different to other Indie artists' music videos. For instance, this video in comparison to other Indie music videos is more common and less original with the walking down the street talking about a wild holiday compared to (e.g) an artist like Ben Howard who involves nature and innocences in his music videos.

The narrative of the music video helps target the aimed audiences of 17-30 year olds as it involves the artist singing about a holiday and girls which happens to relate well with those target age's.
The name of the band, 'The Streets' also plays a big part in the video as the name emphasises the narrative as the singer is walking down the street whilst singing the song.

The representation of 'The Streets' is very casual with the jeans, coat, white trainers and hat wearing in the rain and dark weather which links to the genre of their music. The clothing is grey looking which shows a contrast against the holiday photographs shown.

Artist Image

• In terms of mise en scene, the location of the video plays an important role to the artist's image as it shows the London street background which relates to the sound of the music with the London/Northern accent. 
• With the location looking quite rough with the rain and gloomy weather, it portrays the artist's style and his personal history but also represents how he isn't bothered by what people think of him personally.
• Including props such as holiday photos and typical teenage things (alcohol, games), it brings the modern side into the video which will help attract the intended target age even more. 

Camera Angles and Editing

• The use of camera editing in this video are very well done and have a mixture. The use of long shots whilst panning helps to set the scene of the London streets. Whereas the use of medium shots establish the facial emotions that Skinner wants to portray. 
• Throughout the video, point of view shots are widely used to identify the photos from Skinner's eyes whilst he sings/raps about them. 
• Editing is mainly used on the photographs in his hands which are images that start moving and sing along to the song. 

Sound

• Diagetic sound is apparent through the cars driving past, handling money and the till opening. It is also shown through the voice over as the singing is acting but is aware of the music. 

Music Video Analysis

Black Eyed Peas - Where is the Love?

The video for the song 'Where is the Love?' is generally about the fight against racism, war and terrorism that is affecting the world. The message demonstrates how respect and love has vanished as well as bringing over the message of bombing and discriminations which is an important factor within our youth and society today. The Black Eyed Peas show this through a narrative in their music video which is accompanied by their hip hop/RnB genre that they are known for.

The group's video was shot in Los Angeles and released in 2003 and features the band, children and the general public in L.A spreading the message of the song by acting the song at times instead of the group which helps target the endangered society. The lyrics also help identify what the band are trying to bring across to their audiences and through the particular language used in the lyrics helps the target audience to relate to the song.

The target audience for this song and video would be not only teenagers but adults as well (12-50 yr olds) due to the modern approach from the band as well as the mature issues they are trying to emphasise. Also the audiences can be from all different racial backgrounds as the overall message of the video is to make everyone aware of the issues involved in racism. Therefore this video should help and attract awareness of the population, targeting all sorts of people.

Camera Angles and Editing

• During the chorus of 'Where is the Love?', the Black Eyed Peas have chosen to involve the public through synchronised editing which brings on a great effect for the video. By including children and adults of different ethnicities, it helps to highlight the message the band is trying to bring across as the raised issues are affecting the public who are singing in the chorus. Also to have a greater effect for the video, they have included close ups to show detail of the emotion in the face. 
• At the beginning of the video, a hand held camera is used to not only make filming easier but it helps make the audience feel as though they are part of it all. By using a hand held camera, they were able to track along the road showing men in black running and capture the audience with a close up of the sign of the question mark.
• Like other music videos nowadays, the music has been synchronised with the cutting rate, therefore increasing the emphasism on the message and the sound. 

Mise En Scene

• Question mark motif used throughout the message to get across the issue of racism. The motif is used by Fergie, other band members and the public pasting the image all around L.A in different locations. This adds mystery to the video because the audience will be intrigued as to why they are doing this. 
• Dark clothing to portray the danger, and black, dark van also adds to that. The video is also portrayed through a news report style due to the microphones and speakers on/in the van, this helps imply how important the issue they are trying to get through is. 
• There is a negative stereotypical outlook on the black community at the beginning of the music video and with the mise en scene, it adds to the negative portrayal. 

Sound

• Diagetic sound is used in the music video such as when three quarters of the band are in the van singing through the microphones to the community but non diagetic sound is also used in parts when showing crimes and the public.