TV commercial analysis

In this blog post i will be talking about adverts because we will soon be making our own adverts, here is some research i done on a few adverts which i found very interesting. These are all from my choice and i selected them because of their unique methods and techniques to get out to the audience.

SNICKERS.

The first advertisement i have chosen is the very well known snickers advert which has a massive audience  first of all i will be showing the product, which is a candy bar with nuts and caramel. This bar is one of the most iconic world wide of all and it is associated with a lot of stuff.

Here is a typical Snickers bar.

In the actual advert the technique of using a celebrity to popularize the item is used, this is called celebrity endorsement  In this case it is the celebrity Mr. T, a very hard figure which represents an alpha male and strength. The reason why celebritys are used is because the target audiance are familiar with the figure and some might even take the individual as a role model, this makes the audience want to be like their idol and will invest in the product to do so.

Here is an image showing both the celebrity and the produce. Also notice how the slogan get some nuts is also on Mr. T's gold chain. This is very interesting because the gold chains he wears is a massive part of his iconography, this shows that he is very at one with the bar.

Below is the video:



This advert is very interesting as well as quite humorous. The structure of this advert is a anti realistic narrative with quite a funny story. The conventions are used in ways in which the product is shown exactly the way the producers wanted. Camera wise the shots were very interestingly layed out for example low angle shots of Mr.T to show he is superior compared to the footballer who has a high angle shot of him as well as having the tanks cannon right in his face makes him look very vulnerable  The music used is very iconic because it is from the A team which Mr.t is part of this shows the advert is using the celebrity to the best they can in order to put the iconic imagery out there.

The target audience in this is mainly men and boys who like all males like to show their masculinity and take pride in their strength. This is unique because there are not many other candy adverts which do this effectively mainly because they like to go out to both sex's, but because Snickers is such a big brand they can afford to do this, the only other candy bar which i can think of that does this is the Yorkie chocolate bar advert.

PETIT FLOUS

The next advert i will be analyzing will be the petit filous advert. Petit flous is a yogurt for young children which has health benefits for children and offers a nice taste.

The advert here is very different from the Snickers advert. It does not have a celebrity endorsement and defiantly isn't aimed at masculine males. Instead the technique which it uses is an emotional technique where it makes you feel a certain emotion into buying the product after all the target audience is kids and parents, this is called emotional manipulation. A lot of these adverts are directed towards parents which think that the product will benefit their children. Petit flous does exactly this.

Below is the advert.

As you can see in this advert is very innocent and gentle a lot as if a child is talking directly towards you in a calm and gentle matter, this also means it is quite realistic and more specifically sensible, it doesn't have any over exaggerated assets such as tanks, flying dolphins  tap dancing horse etc.  

another massive aspect of this is music, most people will sub consciously listen to the music without paying any attention but it still has a massive effect on the person about how they take in the info. For example the nursery style music here makes the audience feel like they are in the environment shown on screen perhaps even going as far as to making them remember how it is to be a child, this allows them to feel a connection with the advert and pay more attention. also the surroundings which is bright and sunny like the french countryside also makes the audience feel as if they are there in the same place with the kids.

The brand identity here is shown plain and simple as it shows the benefits to the children and health factors this alone is a very good way to advertise because this is ideally what a parent would want for their child. what also helps their advertising is the slogan which is 'helps bones grow stronger' this basically sum up the whole product in one sentence, this is unique because most other advertisements have a motto style frases like nikes 'just do it' or snickers 'gets some nuts'.

LYNX

This is one of my favorite, defiantly one of the most popular too and people even actually call it the lynx effect. this is because lynx uses the same techniques where they take advantage of sexual aspects and incorporate them in all of there adds. In particular we will be looking at this add which is one that shows most of their techniques.

The shots here are very dramatic, always changing shot just like in an action film from close up's to Ariel shots  from a helicopter. this is done to keep suspense at peak level and to make it very interesting to watch for the target audience which are men. Another point is that there is no better way to get the attention of a man than to get a half naked attractive woman in slow mo, this is nature. The only other way to have a bigger impact is to get an army of half naked attractive girls girls running, and that's exactly whats been done here in a massive proportion and makes the target audience believe what they are seeing believing that they can have the lynx effect too.

close up shot on the woman gets mens attention straight away.

sheer number of women

one lucky guy that others guys wanna be

areil shot

 using the sexualisation technique works so well and this advert uses it to its fullest potential and defiantly helped the product to sell and get recognized. Another aspect that i covered in the other adverts is the music here you can hear tense vocals which work so well with the music and amplifies the feeling of suspense which is done by the camera and the music gets tense as the woman get closer to the male and then climax's.

There is not a real slogan here apart from the lynx effect, i believe they don't need one because the visuals are so powerful and remember able that a slogan would just kill the feeling or confuse.

TALK TO FRANK

For anyone who isn't familiar with talk to frank, its a call in center which helps people dealing with drug related problems, obviously this is a very important matter and this advert isn't selling anything unlike the other adverts in fact it is offering help and is a government organisation.

First of all notice that it is an add different from the rest, whilst the other concentrate of you buying their product this add is here to inform people about the risks of cocaine using what is called shock tactic. Shock tactics are used mainly in adverts like this to inform the public about the risks of such things like drugs, alcohol, drink driving etc. 

In this advert the target audience is teenagers, young adults and people who are thinking of trying out cocaine  this target audience like humor but to be humorous and serious is very hard but this advert executes this very well and effectively separated the humor and the suffering in the video to show the contrasts. The also have a mascot  this is a bit like celebrity endorsement but it is a figure which the advert created, these are also very successful and some companies who use this are go compare with the 'fat man' and compare the markets Merkats.

More to the point, the advert is also very graphical, depicting images of suffering hurt and the side effects of cocaine, these images are there to show the bad sides of cocaine and the harm it could do to scare the audience into staying away from drug. This is very helpful for the advert because it works as a sudden shock of reality and makes the audience reconsider, and having the call number at the end also helps straight away as the person is thinking about the situation.

different styles of music videos

These days all music artist are competing for first place and there is a lot of competition out there, just like many products the artist have to have USP. A unique feature to show who they are and  differ them from others to become more noticable and start there own iconography. Some examples are Wiz Khalifa's weed smoking scene and lady gagas whacky out of the world style. Music video's must also contribute to this by showing off the iconography of the artist and potraying the artist in the way which will benifit them.

Public.

Almost all music videos you see these days are rehearsed or made so the public see the artist the way the producers want to show them. This video is an example of a complete example of a typical publicity video, the shots are taken exactly the way they want and in this particular video there is a lot of extra editing and illustrations added to give a more stronger feeling of the artist. Here in Kanye Wests good life this is shown very well.

As you can tell from from this picture the white background and car illustration has been put in the shot separately in post production. So this was altered for the public to see.

This has also been edited, in fact the whole video has this sort of editing.

Location

This video is great for showing the location concept of a music videos, this is also one of the most popular one, this technique makes the audiunce relate to the area and if the audiance is familiar with the location they will feel an attachment to the video. producers can use this very well to make a lot of aspect relivent, for examplhip party based artist may use the location of ibiza which is a capital for clubing, another example would be nikki minajs video pound the alarm which was show in rio de janiro the home of the carnival, people will notice the carnival and know this video would be as crazy as the actual carnival. Below are a set of pictures and this video 'till i'm gone' by tinie tempah shows a varety of world famous places.

This is him in amstadam

Japan

Milan

Singapore

Sydney

And of course London, other places include Paris, Switzerland, Monaco and NYC

Mood

This video is very different from the rest of the videos here because it is so underground and gritty, this video gives off a feeling just like a previous video i analysed called 'getting nowhere' by magnetic man. this is a great mood video because it shows the artists mood so well and with the graphic images it also makes the audiences feel the same mood. This is a song by professor green about the means streets of London in particular hackney, the scenes in this give a strong impact to the audience because the stuff shown here is very strong and stays in the mind very well sort of like a shock tactic. Some of the aspects shown here include drugs, crime, prostitution, gangs, youth, killing, guns, chaos and a lot more. This is done to show pro greens life style and shows where he came from most likly to show that he started from the bottom.

Youth being submerged into the gritty life.

Prostitution

Beat up of another.

Storming into a drug house

Intimedating looking figure, creates tension.

Gun violence

Bleeding

Group of hoodies, shot in a wayto show gritty lifestyle.

The reason why this is really good for a mood video is because the mood is such a strong one in which the target audience can relate with. This video in particular does it through shock but many others use the mood technique in a less intimidating way for example one of these videos is Jessie J's music video 'price tag', instead off using the mood technique to give a shock the mood tactic here is used to give off an impression of how Jessie J is to here audience  a tool to advertise here iconography. This also works very well and has proved to be effective with many other artists such as Eminem, Ed sheran, maroon 5 etc.

Jessie J's 'Price tag'

candid

concert

Here is an example of a concert style music videos, these would be watched by mainly hardcore fans or just to show off the artists vibe and energy. This sort of music videos used to be really popular before but these days the other styles of music videos prove to be a lot more emersive and enteraining to watch rather than there concert types. As you can see this song is quite old, it was really hard to find a modern one becasue many music videos do not use this anymore and use better stratgies but the closet thing i could find was jay-z's sone  'niggers in paris' which is ona concert but one that is edited extensivly.

After looking some examples from music videos and understanding the concept properly we went out and took our own versions of publicity, candid, concert, mood and location shot types. We took pictures around the college and we had some equipment like professional cameras to make the shots look realistic. below are a few of the pictures we took.

Mood

This first one is a great mood shot, it shows a classmate standing in front of the window watching over a great veiw which could also be seen as a location shot as well and a great mood shot. The shot shows the charecter as if he is seeing a new light and gives the audiance the feel that the artist is having. This is one of the best shots too show the feelings of the artist advertised.

 Concert

Here is my version of a concert as you can see the audience are shown and the artists are on a platform higher than the audience, this gives a great view of the both the audience and  the artists. More specifically it makes you feel as if you are on of the fans within the concert and gives that feel with the actions of the fans. The artist also show great acting with their air guitars and really simulate a real concert.

 Publicity

 location

Surprise

In this post I'm going to show Kanye West's iconography, Kanye West has a very cocky attitude, he believes he is better than the common person and special, he is very proud of himself and his music videos show it very well. This is shown very well in the video 'Power' which is dedicated purely to himself and he tries to show himself as almighty.

Here is the video 'Power.'

Mise en scene is the most used convention to portray the idea of  Kanye West having all the power, this is done by using the wide number of props, most of these props have ancient origin and are normally associated with wealth, power and being majestic. These are also from ancient empires that everyone sees as the superpowered civilisation, the main references I noticed were from Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Chinese origin. some of these are:

• gold owl chain
• horns
• daggers
• swords
• girls
• pillars
• throne
• staffs
• halos
• crowns
• fireworks

As well as this he also shows the aspect of him being god like, the most obvious is the fact he is surrounded by angels, other objects which depict this are the grapes, devils, clouds, wings and scenery, which looks like a vision of heaven. This shows Kanye as if he were a god. 

One other use of mise en scene being used is the sexualisation of women, this goes in with Goodwin's theory of a successful music video and here it shows that the women flocking towards Kanye as if he has everything, this is to show that he has everything and makes people want to be like him.

Here are a few pictures of some objects:

Illuminous eyes, shows he is a higher being. The glare which is looking directly at you can be quite intimidating, this is done to show power using fear. 

Devil

Angels

Dagger

Heavenly women

Grapes in a vase, majestic and very royal

Sword

Sword and halo

Solid gold chain with pageant god on it.

The camera is very stationary in this music video, it is just a slow progressive zoom out from Kanye which could be a transition. this makes kanye stay in the centre of the shot through out the whole clip, the only other time it changes is at 1.15 where the camera changes rapidly to specific parts in the shot such as the angels and devils yet still it's the same shot, the reason why there is only one shot is because only one shot is needed and cutting to different shots will lose the concentration of the audience. it does this five times before going back to Kanye. These are short, continuous jump shots which helps you focus on Kanye West by showing what's around him.

Lighting is used very well in this mainly on Kanye as there are the lights on him which are the primary light, the fill light and the backing light. the backing light has the effect of him being illuminous and makes him a lot more distinguished compared to everyone else on the shot. most of the other light was from the blue screen behind. most of this video was filmed separately on blue screen and then put together.

Creative media btec: Goodwins music video theory

Andrew Goodwin had seven theories about how succesful music videos work, he said most videos include the following aspects, but sometimes not all of them. His theory pointed out what a successful music video would need.

His theories were:

• The lyrics of a music video are connected to the visuals.
• The visuals are connected to the music.
• There should be a lot of close ups on the main artist.
• The artist should have a clear star image (original theme).
• Most of the time females are sexualised.
• There are intertuxtual references to other past videos.
• Has a performance or narrative (story).

I personally believe that his theories do point out a lot a successful techniques in making a good video but it is not always the case in some of the videos I have analysed, although every video did support at least one of his theories. One example is the video 'You Need Me, 'I Don't Need You' by Ed Sheeran where this challenges the normal conventions of music videos, yet still supports the theory of the lyrics being connected to visuals and a few others, if there is a video that does not support a single theory it is probably not popular and a complete failure, that is why most producers tend to use these because they don't want to take any risks, and use conventions to create a good selling video.

This is Tupac's music video 'California Love' it was the video out of all the videos we studied which followed most of the theories, it followed all seven of the theories.

• the lyrics go with the visuals
• visuals connect with music
• a lot of close ups on the artists
• the artist definitely have a star image
• females are sexualised
• intertextuality to some films at that time
• there is a definite narrative, and form of performance.

Here is another video:

This video has:

• Close ups on artists
• Star image 
• and a performance

Music video 'getting nowhere'

Here is the video 'Getting Nowhere' by Magnetic Man and John Legend.

The reason why i have chosen to talk about this video is because it is very creative like the other videos I have chosen, and it has an original theme and puts you in a trance. As well as this the video has a massive amount of symbolism, mostly dark and depicts the dark gritty side of London. One way it has been filmed well is the fact it was filmed on a council estate on East London as well as being filmed in the financial district. To me this shows the corruption and space between the poor and rich in London.

This music video is also filled with crazy random moments which still relate back to the theme it is trying to portray. On the whole i would describe it as surreal with a partial narrative if any.

Some of the themes in this are:

• hoodies
• BMX's
• crime
• youth corruption
• poor
• prostitutes
• drugs
• urbanism
• suffering
• greed

To me these tell a story about the London that most people don't know about.

The four main charecters, who are all on BMX's and have facemasks as well as a hoodies, is a great way of showing this culture and depicting what the video is showing (they are the illustration to the music). They are also shown as being there yet not taking action (silent witness). They are also shown as the modern day version of a highway man, this is shown perfectly at the point 2.59 where there is a two shot of both the biker and the highway man via mirror reflection so they are shown as one entity.

I also noticed the colour of each of the hoodies corresponds with its own theme, i say this because of when the hoodies are shown during key parts of the video.

White - connotes death
Black - connotes crime
Grey - connotes mystery
Red - connotes suffering

Music video 'you need me, i don't need you'

I chose this video because is one of my favourite and has always captured my attention every time I've seen it, it explores its ideas in depth.

The video does not show the main singer much, instead its has a person translating what is said in sign language in a very fluent movement. To me this idea is very well done and shows a twist to the video instead of conventional music videos which have the main artist shown a lot. This video has no narrative, it just explores many ideas and themes such as disability and dancing.

This video really uses the lighting to its full potential with the spotlight technique, where there is a spotlight highlighting the main importance which keeps the audience's attention. Other things that are in place to capture the attention of the audience are the flashing lights and fast editing which has a variety of cuts, mainly fast cross cutting. The cinematography in this is very rich with a wide use of all shots from different angles and perspectives, for example close ups on facial expressions and movement of the arms, this is done to make the audience feel as if they are being spoken to directly.

The mise en scene in this piece is used very well too, with a lot of props. The point is made clear and also keeps the mind of the audience with the lyrics. Another theme I noticed was the black and white look, which was quite simple compared to the rest of the video yet still has a profound effect when watching.

All together I would say this video is a new sort of video in which producers are becoming more creative with the videos they are making. This is a great example and works well for an urban rap video, this also holds some similarities with the 'Glory Days' and 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' video in a way that it has something illustrating the lyrics, in this case it will have to be the sign language.

Music video 'glory days'

The reason why i like this music video is because it was made 6 years ago and still gives an impact to people watching now, this song is truly a classic and speaks for the care free and happy life, compared to the Magnetic Man music video which shows the dark gritty side to London  this video has a narrative but it is not a full story, most of it is shown in the lyrics.

One thing I found very interesting about this music video is the wide use of mise-en-scene, every scene has a number of different props and the body language and actions work well. The main props used are the t-shirts which illustrate the lyrics and change to keep the audience's attention, the cartoonist images on the top also show a happy care free attitude. this is creative and very abstract, but reminds me very much of another video i have studied and talked about before which is Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' which uses cue cards in a similar way to which the t-shirts are used in this video.



The song is also very slow in tempo has a relaxed feeling to make the person have the trance of being in a 'glory day', this is to lighten up the mood and the dance scenes are also very abstract with a unusual dance. the reason why i say it has a narrative is because of the scene in the beigel bake where he talks about his dark past and the letter he talks about how he left all that behind and is looking forward to what the future brings.


" And I can feel that destiny is on my side  

Above are some lyrics to show he's come out from the bad life into the new.

The 1980's part 2

This is the second part of my 1980's post.

By the 80's music video's became a prioroty for artist if they wanted to get heard, it brought a movie like feeling to music.

Micheal Jackson's 'Thriller' was the forerunner for the pop music culture and also led the way for music videos. The music video was quite long compared to the ones these days, this is because it packed in a story behind the actual music video, therefore it was 13 minutes and 43 seconds long. it was directed by John Landis.



This music video was soo influential it was called the watershed for the music industry. The video came out in 1983 and sold massively along with the backstage videos of the making of thriller in total 9 million units. It's been calculated that it had been watched by 4 billion people worldwide.


What this music video brought new to the industry was :

• Used a lot of actors to give it a hollywood look
• Used a wide variety of shots and cut shots too make it look more fast paced
• The quality of the video was better than others of its time

Whilst making 'Thriller' a behind the scene's videos was made to show the process of creating the music video. This was included when people bought the music video. These days you cant make as much money from music videos on a whole, this is because people can download the video or watch on TV or Youtube.

1980's part 1

This part of the homework is divided in two parts, one with the music channel part and the other about 'Thriller.'

So in this day and age there are a wide number of platforms dedicated to music videos, one of the main ones are the music channels which we have many of these days. Music channels are completely dedicated to music  therefore they must be connected to music videos. The first music channel was  launched in america in 1981 called MTV which many people will be familiar with today. 

Since MTV there have been many other music channels all over the world, some are exclusive to a particular genre and others with different age groups (niches). As time has gone by such channels as MTV have changed according to the cultures of those times and has stayed successful.

At first MTV was an American cable channel which launched at the first of August 1981 and was the first channels of its kind. At first it was a channel that used to play music videos with an on screen host called a VJ (video jockey) later on the channel changed and became more close to the audience, when people changed so did the channel, keeping up to date with the latest trends in music and knew what the viewers liked. These days the channel also shows many reality TV shows and scripted shows, although it has moved away from the music experience it still holds some musical value.

MTV had also had many sister channels but many of them went independant and some of those channels are MTV2, MTV Desi (Bangra), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central etc. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," were the first words the channel ever opened with which was voiced by John Lack, and then played footage of the first space shuttle launch countdown of Columbia since then the channel still holds some evidence of this in recent times, such as astronauts and space.




Here is footage of the first broadcast and the shuttle launch.


Here is a modern day version taken from the beginning of a show called 'Jackass.' Some of the shows from MTV are 'Pimp My Ride', 'Jackass', 'My Super Sweet Sixteen.'

MTV is also part of the Viacom conglomerate network.

Channel AKA is a TV channel with a different niche compared to MTV. Formerly Channel U this channel is mainly playing music from urban/grime/hip hop culture and is a UK based channel. Many artist such as Tinchy Stryder, Devlin, Tinie Tempah have made breakthroughs with this channel, and also the comedian jazzy.

This is the logo from channel AKA, formerly this channel was called channel U and with its sister channel fizz, but after they were sold and bought by mushrooms TV the both changed names, channel U into channel AKA and Fizz TV to Stars TV

This is Devlin

 Tinchy stryder

Tinie Tempah

comedian Jazzie

Another way this channel is unique is that it shows many videos of upcoming artist which have music videos shot on hand held camcorders, this is to boost the artist's popularity, give them a platform to perform on and to highlight to the public the new fresh talent from the UK. Many artists show their appreciation to this channel in their lyrics, people such as Lady Sovereign, Ironik, Kano and many more.

Another familiar face from channel AKA is the DJ Tim Westwood. before being signed to MTV and hosting a UK version of 'Pimp My Ride' he had his own show on channel AKA and became known through it.

Tim westwood

The next music channel in here is BET (black entertainment television), what's unique about this channel is that they mainly aim at TV for the African American community but also have a lot of other viewers  This channel is very popular and pushes African American hopefuls to success, and is more of a community music channel.

the BET logo

BET started off as a 2 hour program block on Nickelodeon, in 1980 showing many new music videos and black sitcoms, in the year 1983 it became its own channel, the channel was later owned by the conglomerate Viacom in 2003

These days we still have BET and the channel has growth massively, it's like many other big channels has its own award ceremony which gets a massive audience worldwide, as well as that the channel also has a walk of fame including names such as Micheal Jackson, Boys 2 Men and Whitney Houston.

The 1970's

During the 1970's the British TV network only had a few channels,in fact only 3 channels which still exist today (BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV). so there was no channel dedicated to broadcasting music videos, the closest thing to a music channel was the popular show 'Top Of The Pops' which could be called the forerunner of many shows such as 'X Factor' and 'American Idol'. this show was shown once a week and consisted of popular groups lip singing their pre-recorded songs or live performances.

At this time music videos were not taken seriously as a market and no-one had interests in selling them until the group Queen which you may know as the band behind 'I Want To Be Free' and 'Another One Bites The Dust' asked the director of the show M. Bruce Gowers to film a promo for their song 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. After it was created and shown it had an incredible success and stayed at the top of the charts for nine months! After this it proved massive amounts of money could be made off these music videos and the rise of the videos started.




Here is the video of the track.

Here you can see a slow fade being used to go from one shot to another, this is done to make an immersive feeling and to be as if the video is taking the audience with them using the fade, this technique is very widely used in music videos but is used less in modern day ones.

The two images above which are taken from the music video show how the video experimented with early effects with successful outcomes, as you can see the top image has two clips overlaying each other, this was new and unseen which made it very interesting to look at. Something which shows this better in the second picture which depicts the same image changing colour and falling back. this was also new and authentic. This was very early in effects usage and in more modern day music videos effects have evolved from these to much more extravagant and amazing effects.

Another aspect noticed was the transitions and multiple shot angles which made the footage more intense and kept the audience's attention.

Also on 'Wayne's World' they also show the song and have the actors miming and playing along with the song, this is a form of synergy as both things (film and song) are helping each other gain more popularity in a mutually beneficial way.




...and of course there are always parodies, this one by the muppets:

The 1960's

In this blog i am going to speak about music videos from the 60's and how the they similar and where limited in in music technology compared to the quality we are used to.

Technology at this time was progressing very fast and a lot of experimentation was happening to make video's more interesting, a lot of new and extravagant techniques were being used and Bob Dylan's 'subterranean homesick blues' was a great example of this. lip synching was also very widespread so the actor or musician could film in ways which would be more creative.



This is the video 'subterranean homesick blues'

To us it may be seen as very simple and old but back then it was the latest and the most modern. some of the things i noticed were:

• instead of a transition, a zoom out with the camera was used at the start

this was done because editing was not widely used and very expensive, as well as that it was in a early stage where they were only able to put different clips together by hand (cutting film strips with scissors and splicing them back together). there was no massive editing like transitions or effects etc.

• black and white 

colour was around at this point and was used, but black and white was still wide spread and being used, this shows where in time there was the difference of black and white to colour.

• one long clip

because there was only one camera there was a lot of continuity issues and even then the 180 degree rule was still used to make the footage look real and good. so the easiest technique was to use one take instead of multiple takes which with one camera would be very hard and take a massive amount of time and mistakes were sure to be made. another reason was that editing was not very good and the film strips were expensive.

Bob dylan also made this video in this way to express himself as a simple and 'out of the box' mind that is why he used black and white and such a different location. because it was so simple yet effective his technique was used again and again, one example of this being used again is in the music video.
'in and out' by jernade miah. please keep in mind the subject of this song is VERY VERY explicit.