Research into Industry

The music industry is a vast and complex topic to try and analyse, therefore I will focus on music videos since this is what we are going to be producing.

Generally there are two big divides in the music industry; The famous, mega budget superstars that make millions from each single and the obscure indie groups that work on micro budgets with unique songs that gather a cult following. Which ever generalisation that an artist/group falls into directly affects the type of music video that they would produce, with the main difference being the available budget.

An artist that falls into the former category would be able to have expensive lighting, equipment and production team which should, in theory, produce a superior video with higher quality overall. However, this isn't the case. Often, having these high production values can cause the video to lack direction and emotion, instead showcasing a male power fantasy.

Indie groups differ from this due to not having a huge budget to afford every luxury. Instead they have to rely often on a single actor and camera. This forces innovation. Most music in this genre have an overall message or meaning which, due to constraints, are creatively implied via the imagery and emotion in the song/music video.

This relates to our music video because of how we fall into the latter group. Since we have no budget, and the only equipment available is what is given to us. The locations we have access to are limited by both our ability to travel, if the location is free etc...

We are forced by these limitations to think outside the box and come up with interesting and creative methods of storytelling. To this end we will focus on aspects such as mise-en-scene, lighting as well as setting to give the viewers a sense of what is happening in the scene as well as the emotions and motivations of the main characters.