My Artist and Song Meanings

Florence and the Machine is the recording name of Florence Welch and a collaboration of other artists who provide backing music for her voice. There music sound has been described as a variety of  genres, including pop, rock and soul. The bands big promotion was when they performed on the BBC Introducing Stage although they had big praise from the media before this.

The band's debut album is called Lungs which was released in July 2009. On 17 January 2010, the album reached No. 1 on the UK album chart. The debut single for the album was "kiss with a fist". The follow-up single was, "Dog Days are Over". Then her third single released from the album was "Rabbit Heart (raise it up)".

When I first researched my song Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) I found that there were many different views of the song. I decided to get a random group to listen to the song and give me there view of the songs overall theme. Below are a few responses: 


"I got a prostitution vibe from this song.  I guess it's offering your talents for money, prostituting your voice, your body, your mind, it's all the same. I Love it. :) " - Paris


"I think the lyrics could be a relationship analysis. A girl who is sacrificing herself to the 'king' - rendering herself helpless, being bound by someone else's grip and influence. It could be a partner, it could be a parent or even within herself. But eventually gathering a 'lion heart' and breaking free, shedding the 'skin'" - Lewis


"I think it is about how being in the music industry you have to be brave. Its about offering herself up to the industry because she has a gift, and has to use it, but she understands that she's going to have to change to survive that industry" - Jade

Research

Once my synopsis was complete i thought it wuld be a good idea to look at exsiting products in all three areas of my brief. Firstly I looked at exsiting music videos and made a detailed analysis. When analysing I looked at the mis-en-scene, editing, sound and camera angels/movement. By doing this i can see how successful different ideas were and how they use each of these areas to capture and audiences attention to ensure that a song will do well competing agaisnt others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R95CkWaLNo 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDqNcCuFIzE

I then looked at exsiting Album covers and websites, to see simularities between the two. I wanted to see if other artists kept a running theme. I could also see the fonts and colours used that have been successful. This research helped as now i see having a continuing theme helps an audience recongnise an artist. Ive nocticed that with each new album an artist changes the look for both there website, and album, giving themselves an new look and style and keeping an artist fresh.

I then looked at two other websites in full detail. From this i could see the type of information an audience likes to read. This would help me in my supporting projects. I found that the most important information on both websites was the latst news, which was highlighting what the artist has been getting up to. I also noticed that both of them had there latest music video on the front page.

http://www.lilyallenmusic.com/lily/ 

http://www.cherylcole.com/ 

 

Introduction to the course

This year for my media A2 we were giving a variety of briefs to choose from. The brief i have chosen is: 

1.A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• A website homepage for the band;

• A cover for its release as part of a digipak

• A magazine advertisement for the digipak

I decided on this Brief as I instantly had many ideas come to mind when i read the question. It seemed to b a question i would be able to take and develop into a good final piece. I took all the ideas i had and put them on paper and from that i came to my final idea which is stated in my synopsis below:

'When reading the brief to this project I had loads of ideas for the type of music video that I wanted to make. I took the best of these ideas and tried to find a song that matches the themes and style. I decided on the song ‘Rabbit Heart (raise it up) by Florence and the Machine. They are known as a band that has a soul inspired Indie sound. The song is taken from there album ‘lungs’ which was released in July 2009. I want to take the song but create a capturing mood and pull an audience in.

The song matches the theme I wanted, which was to have, autumn trees, leaves and an evening sunset. I want my video to have a cold look using the setting but a warm feel through natural sunset lighting, costumes and make-up.

I am going to use a single girl in my video to keep the focus, but will have her dreaming and these dreams will involve other people. Her costumes will be changes through the video and I will have her makeup natural.

I don’t necessarily want my video promo to follow the lyrics  of the song but have taken into account the theme they are setting so that it matches mine. I want my subject to display a lot of emotion and keep my audience captivated. I feel that emotion is shown through the eyes, so I will make the eye make-up big and get her to look right into the camera.

I will be taking into account my styles and themes and make sure they match through my supporting products. The two supporting products that I will be producing  are a magazine advertisement and a digipak. I chose these two as I feel they will be good to promote my video promo, as they can have important information and photos of the band which all together would help promote the band and help sell the record.'