background to the music industry

In the 21st century, consumers spent less money on recorded music than they had in 1990s, in all formats. Total revenues for CDs, vinyl, cassettes and digital downloads in the world dropped 25% from $38.6 billion in 1999 to $27.5 billion in 2008 according to IFPI. Same revenues in the U.S. dropped from a high of $14.6 billion in 1999 to $10.4 billion in 2008. The Economist and The New York Times report that the downward trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future—Forrester Research predicts that by 2013, revenues in USA may reach as low as $9.2 billion. This dramatic decline in revenue has caused large-scale layoffs inside the industry, driven retailers (such as Tower Records) out of business and forced record companies, record producers, studios, recording engineers and musicians to seek new business models. In the early years of the decade, the record industry took aggressive action against illegal file sharing. In 2001 it succeeded in shutting down Napster (the leading on-line source of digital music), and it has threatened thousands of individuals with legal action. This failed to slow the decline in revenue and proved a public-relations disaster. However, some academic studies have suggested that downloads did not cause the decline. Legal digital downloads became widely available with the debut of the iTunes Store in 2003. The popularity of internet music distribution has increased and in 2009 more than a quarter of all recorded music industry revenues worldwide are now coming from digital channels. However, as The Economist reports, "paid digital downloads grew rapidly, but did not begin to make up for the loss of revenue from CDs. " The 2008 British Music Rights survey showed that 80% of people in Britain wanted a legal P2P service, however only half of the respondents thought that the music's creators should be paid. The survey was consistent with the results of earlier research conducted in the United States, upon which the Open Music Model was based. The turmoil in the recorded music industry changed the twentieth-century balance between artists, record companies, promoters, retail music-stores and the consumer. As of 2010, big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy retail more music than music-only stores, which have ceased to function as a player in the industry. Recording artists now rely on live performance and merchandise for the majority of their income, which in turn has made them more dependent on music promoters like Live Nation (which dominates tour promotion and owns a large number of music venues.) In order to benefit from all of an artist's income streams, record companies increasingly rely on the "360 deal", a new business-relationship pioneered by Robbie Williams and EMI in 2007. At the other extreme, record companies can offer a simple manufacturing and distribution deal, which gives a higher percentage to the artist, but does not cover the expense of marketing and promotion. Many newer artists no longer see any kind of "record deal" as an integral part of their business plan at all. Inexpensive recording hardware and software made it possible to record reasonable quality music in a bedroom and distribute it over the internet to a worldwide audience. This, in turn, caused problems for recording studios, record producers and audio engineers: the Los Angeles Times reports that as many as half of the recording facilities in that city have failed. Changes in the music industry have given consumers access to a wider variety of music than ever before, at a price that gradually approaches zero. However, consumer spending on music-related software and hardware increased dramatically over the last decade, providing a valuable new income-stream for technology companies such as Apple Inc.

Task 1 - In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

In our music video we aimed to apply the conventions used in real media products such as certain graphics and editing choices, for example close ups to show emotions and the choice of colour combination for the video e.g. the black and white effect throughout to put across the emotional aspect of the video. However I feel that in some respects our media product challenges the forms and conventions of real media products. This is shown through the use of a clear story throughout the video of being melancholy and that individuals in society tend to walk pass the things in life that really matter and are unaware of them. The use of colour is used to heighten the gloomy feel to the video. I feel that our media product also develops the forms and conventions of real media products through the use of close-up shots shown in order to portray and heighten the dialogue in the lyrics of the song. All the editing and shots that we chose to use are there for a clear reason throughout the video. They are there to be symbolic in terms of the message being represented. The establishing shot during the first few seconds of the music video is of the lead singer walking through a rural setting which is gloomy, its been raining and the overall picture image is black and white. In this respect we have used the forms and conventions of real media products in terms of the use of cinematography and visually stylish ‘mise en scene’. The portrayal of the lead singer walking through the puddles is used to emphasise the message in the lyrics which is that people tend to just watch the world go by without taking a clear notice about what they are actually looking at as the are too familiar with what they see and therefore do not see the true meanings behind things. Again in our media product we have chosen to develop the conventions of real media products through the use of cinematography and ‘mise en scene’ because we have edited the video so that each image is symbolic in one way or another. The mid-shot of the lead singer walking through the puddle (right image) is used to portray the message of walking through life leaving things behind unnoticed. This is shown through the ripples in the water trailing behind him. The long shot (left image) follows the rule of thirds to make it aesthetically pleasing and clear in establishing the entire band. We have chosen to follow the conventions of real media products in terms of the use of stylish visual images. This is presented in the long shot of the band in the stylish room they are playing in and the floor. The coloured, red patterns on the wall and cream colour of the floor tiles are all used to stylise the imagery and connote the progression in the realisation on the world around them, as this is what is put across in the lyrics and the rest of the video. We chose to challenge the convention of real media products in terms of the stylised graphics that we used. This was shown in the use of different coloured rain throughout the video in order to be aesthetically pleasing and emphasise the symbolism. Most real media products use lighting graphics, with flashing lights, whereas we chose to challenge this and use a continuous amount of flashing imagery.

Quick Set Change

Previously the set was going to be designed as a bedsit. However I have decided to change this due to time limitations and because as a group we have decided to just use green screen. By only using the green screen we are able to insert any kind of pattern or image into the background by using after effects and the techique known as chromo keying. Below is the tile pattern we used and the wall paper pattern.

shooting locations

Studio – blue/ green screen and set

Guildford in various places

Outside the boiler room (a gig venue in Guilford)

costume and make up

Studio – Green screen (In puddle) and performance in relaxed yet fashionable clothing eg. Jackets/blazer/ Jumpers, black skinny jeans, men's shoes or plimsolls (no trainers) This is so that they look similar to there target audience, this is because they are a new band and need to be easily recognisable what genre they are in. Guildford – Casual tops (shows individuality), black skinny jeans, men's shoes or plimsoles (no trainers

lighting and set design

This is currently our initial idea for the set although it may change on the day due to what props we could get hold of and the amount of space is left for the band to perform in. However from what you can see in the image we want to make it a dark messy bedsit. So we wanted to have a bed in there and a wardrobe and have bits of scrunched up paper on the floor and wallpaper on the walls that has started to peel away from the wall and is all scratched up. We also want a window on one side with blinds so we can do interesting lighting effects and create interesting shots with shadows. We want to represent what they see originally (Which is this set in black and white) and then slowly throughout see the colour return and the room be restored to order. This is our idea for the set design, dim lighting, dirty faded floor and dirty old wall paper, we wanted it to look as if it was shot in a basement, this was to show that there status in the music industry isn't widely known so they are playing at the back of a grungy pub