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.