Halsey- New Americana Music video- Independent

This is a very brief analysis of Halsey's video for New Americana.

Halsey is an American singer/ songwriter who is most well known for her singles New Americana and Ghost. She has recently collaborated with artists such as The Chainsmokers and Lido but has in fact only been in the industry since 2014. In 2014 she signed to astralwerks record label and following that then went onto release her first ep ( Extended play) called room 93. This ep featured songs such as Ghost and Hurricane in which Ghost is actually the song that got her noticed by the record company. Halsey's first album 'Badlands'  was released on August 28th 2015 and features hit songs such as New Americana and Colours. The album Peaked at 184 on the UK charts but it did peak at number 1 in new Zealand and has platinum certification in the united states. 
The song 'New Americana'  was originally released on the 10th of July 2015 and was the second single from her album 'Badlands' although this single did not reach number one in the charts it was a big hit on radio stations and between her fans. Halsey is considered to be involved in the indie pop genre

In the music video the audience see a primarily performance based narrative which actually features the artist. Within the audience we see a war-like environment in which the artist and other actors can be seen to be preparing to fight. The audience who are fans of Halsey could interpret this as them fighting for their rights in the dystopian world that we are presented with. The narrative could also be interpreted as the actors being hostage because they don't conform to the societies rules and regulations. This could be shown at 1:26 in which people come running in wearing helmets and could be viewed as attempting to attack the people that are there, including the artist. In the beginning of the music video the actors can be seen to comply to the ambiguous characters demands and line up with their heads held in shame. This is reinforced by the mid shot at 1:34 which displays the artist and others lining up due to the ambiguous characters who as the audience we are never introduced to. (Add screenshot) As well as the narrative having performance aspects it aims to tell a story to the audience by having the artist and actors create a disequilibrium narrative (Todorov).

Within the music video Halsey is always made to be the focus of the shot this could be because it is a demand of the record label (Goodwin). An example of this is 1:53 in which the audience can see Halsey emerging but also the director showing the diversity within the music video. The video uses a tracking shot to display the diversity but it also uses a shallow focus when it comes to the artist. The audience can recognise the artist as she is the only person with blue hair. This has become apart of the artists brand and is something that the majority of fans associate her with. 

This music video conforms with the genre of music that Halsey makes. Due to the
genre being indie pop, it allows for the music video to be dystopian and fantasised
 The music when listened to reflects this dystopian fantasy due to her voice being very vulnerable but as well as this the light piano/synth reflect the dystopian.

Their clothing also connotes dystopia due to them being very bland and monotone as well as being dark coloured making the actors and actresses blend in. An example of this is at 2:00 in which the artist is wearing a revealing top and legging type trousers. The top could be revealing to rebel against the dominant ideology of authority from the guards. The guards clothing also fit in with the music video this can be shown by their white helmets and police type vests. By the helmets being white it contrasts the hostages who are wearing all dark colours. The colour white also symbolises purity and innocence however this contrasts their negative behaviour that they display at 2:00 

Final print Productions

Fourth draft for print productions

Third draft for Print productions

Inside front cover

Inside back cover

Back cover

Front cover

Magazine Advert

This is the third draft for all of my print productions but this is unsuccessful due to the black boxes surrounding the text on each of them not standing out enough. I am going to re edit this and change the colours that surround the text an try to use a similar pink to the one that surrounds the actor in my print productions. I am also going to get rid of the 'Out Now!' part from my magazine advert as this is a convention of older magazine adverts and could now be considered as an outdated convention. By removing this part it allows me to move the reviews further down the magazine advert and by changing the colour hopefully make them stand out more. As well as this I am also going to change the font colour on my front CD cover of the word bloodstream. This will only be completed on the 'Red' Bloodstream as the other two fit with the colours of the Cd cover. I am doing this in hope that it will create more continuity between all of my print productions.

Rough logo and Cd Covers plan EDITED AS OF 7/5/17

These first designs that are on display in the blog post (pictures 1,2,3) are rough initial plans in which for most of them I did not stick to because they were either not up to a good standard or in my opinion did not match the indie pop genre. 
My initial plans for my front and back cover have not changed as they appeared to fit the genre but it also included my influence of the psychedelic visual style. But the plans for my inside covers did change drastically as they did not reflect the genre but they also didn't match the rest of my productions such as magazine advert and front cover. This forced me to rethink my idea for the inside CD covers as they needed to aesthetically match the rest of my productions whilst reflecting the genre. I also recently got some feedback on my productions so they have slightly changed from when I first planned them but this was to do with the composition of my covers and where I had placed the font on them. I have recently changed these and hope that the placing of these has improved the overall production of my CD covers and magazine advert. 












The logos that are displayed here are very rough draw ups (I'm Bad at art) and what I would have originally gone for if I was having a logo. But I decided against a logo as it would have stood out on my  print productions compared to the other features of them. One of these plans is for a font that was a possible choice for the singers iconography but after finding a similar one on Dafont.com it ended up being too simplistic for my print productions and it was established that it wasn't readable enough for an audience thus making me change it and find a new font that was more readable for the audience and one that would fit the genre better. Although the drawings are very rough and not exactly how I would have produced them in photoshop I believe that they convey how they would have been had I of stuck to my original ideas. The logos would have been white as this would have stood out against the background and helped to make the font readable to the audience. 

Question 2

Question 4- EDITED AS OF 21/04/17

I will use social media to market my Band by putting adverts on platforms such as Facebook as well as creating a page in which the fans could regularly post on as well as hear about announcements about things such as albums and tours. I would also display adverts on twitter and the website to promote the album and the band.

Question 3- Questionnaire EDITED AS OF 19/04/17

I begun by collecting my feed-back using a google forms document. I chose to use this form of questionnaire as it was easy to complete for the audience as well as easy to write. Google forms made the questionnaire simple to write as well as analyse. It gave me different options for question types such as long answers and check boxes as well as linear scales. I decided to collect my feedback via Facebook as it allowed me access to a lot of people, some who i'm not necessarily friends with and would therefore be objective about it. Currently, I only have 10 responses for feedback but aim to collect some more via social media and emailing people. Although social media doesn't allow for direct address to people other than via message it is a way to reach a lot of people and allow for many people to see the questionnaire. There are a variety of questions featured in my questionnaire such as demographics like age and music preference as well as questions that specifically focused on my print productions such as the quality and whether it reflects the music video.








I believe that the answers aren't influenced by the demographics, although the video was aimed at both genders the majority of my questionnaires were filled out by females. This could show how females are slightly more drawn towards the video and can relate to the events that happen more than males can. Females could also be drawn towards the video due to the female protagonist and female POV for the whole video which could be viewed as the music video being biased towards the female gender. This could influence the response that I have received about my productions but in my opinion this seems unlikely. The pictures that reinforce that the demographics haven't massively affected my answers are () as well as this the answers do not vary about the print productions as they are all in agreeance. This demonstrates that the demographics may vary the answers that I receive but inevitably in my opinion, I don't think that the demographics have affected the current answer I have received.  

  

My feedback for my print productions has taught me that my print productions ( Cd Covers, magazine advert) reflect the genre of music as well as the music video. This is reinforced by the latter questions in section 2 in which both genders have replied 'yes' to my CD cover matching the genre of the music and reflecting the music video. The feedback showed me that one of the strengths of my productions is that the transitions are smooth within my video, this is probably helped with the frequent use of additive dissolve which we chose to use as it helped the style of our video as well as making a few of our clunkier transitions smoother. Another strength of my productions is that the Cd covers and Magazine advert all reflect the genre and music video. This is reinforced by the latter questions of section 2 thus showing me that my CD cover and magazine advert are possibly the strongest points of all my productions.  

There were some negative criticisms made towards my productions which was expected  but unfortunately some of these are unchangeable with the ones that involve the music video. I learnt that a weakness of my productions is that the font could possibly suit the genre a little better so I aim to fix that and choose a better font. Another slight weakness is that the visuals apparently don't match the audio, unfortunately this is unchangeable as it would mean re shooting the whole video and we don't have time to do that. 

  

My audience found the Cd Cover and Magazine advert the most appealing thing of my productions as these are the items that have received the most positive feedback. This could also be reinforced by comparing the feedback from my music video section of the questionnaire to the latter CD cover section. By comparing the responses it can be seen that my CD cover and magazine advert are better received than the music video. This could be because the audience believe that my print productions reflect the genre better than the music video.  

The audience feedback has taught me that perhaps the music video could have been planned more thoroughly and that we possibly should have stuck to our plan instead of spontaneously filming shots and making them work. The video may also not be fully relevant to the audience that I asked to fill out the questionnaire. I have also learnt that the music video narrative could have been made slightly clearer for the audience. 

  

I believe that my productions do target the correct audience through the colour schemes and age of the majority of the actors. Although the actor on my cd cover is actually 12 I am hoping that this is not obvious and has been covered up by the make up I have chosen for her to wear. In my opinion, I believe that if I had of targeted a niche audience, this would be too specific and would miss out audiences that could possibly relate to the events in my music video.  

  

My target did read my productions how I planned for them to be read. This is shown in the narrative question (picture ) in which the majority of the audience could roughly write what the narrative was. There were a few exceptions  who could not write the narrative, this may mean that the narrative should have been presented clearer to the audience through the camerawork and plot of the music video. 

  

In my opinion, we did think of the audience when planning our music video, but unfortunately we didn't stick exactly to our plan so quite a few of our shots were spontaneous and weren't thought of until we were filming at the location. For example, 1:22 and 1:32 were both spontaneous shots which means that we weren't thinking of the audience at the time. This could be a downfall for us as it could make the audience become disinterested in our video. But as well as this I tried to be aware of the target audience when making my Cd Cover and Magazine advert as I wanted that to somewhat relate to the audience. I think that I have succeeded in this area as the audience gave these the most positive feedback. At points, I do think that our music video is made for ourselves purely because of the spontaneity of it and because of this, as a group we didn't think about the audience at that time. 

Stuart Hall's reception theory could be applied here as the audience have a negotiated view of my productions. Although there was a mixture of responses, each of them choose to highlight the good things in my productions but  also highlight the negative things within my productions. Although in my opinion I may not agree with some of the opinions, I understand that these are all constructive and I aim to try and meet these goals and improve my productions through their feedback to my questionnaire.  

During the planning and producing of my productions I have received a vast mixture of feedback form teachers and friends. This feedback has been a mixture of positive and constructive criticism which I  am aim to act on thus hopefully improving my productions. The feedback has mainly been based on my music video and has been focused on the editing and lip sync. Originally we had not planned to put Lip sync into our music video as we felt that it didn't fit in but we then filmed a version to see how it would look. The version we filmed did not match the correct mise en scene for the genre and looked out of place. To resolve this I went away and filmed another version against a white backdrop wearing the correct costume that reflected the genre. As well as this a friend advised me that the font on my magazine advert could be interpreted as a word document font therefore unprofessional.

This feedback influenced my productions as it has taught me what I need to change within my productions such as the font. The lip sync has been updated and hopefully has improved for the better.

  This has taught me that the process of producing a music video and then marketing it can be a mixture of difficult and lengthy. This has been taught to me by having to complete the planning and constantly having to consider the target audience. It has taught me as to how much work goes into planning and shooting a music video in which as a group we discovered is difficult to gather people in the same place at the same time.