Music video analysis of 'This is America'

 

After studying and analysing the 'This is America' music video by Donald Glover, I picked up on the key topics of gun violence and cultural erasion of black people. The genre is conveyed in this music video through the use of genre conventions, for example, it is clear that the genre is rap/pop due to the imagery of police brutality, weapons and violence, these technical conventions of rap is used to sell the meaning behind the lyrics by using imagery. 

The music video opens with light hearted music, Glover is seen wearing grey trousers and shirtless which emphasises his vulnerability and also it allows the viewer to identify with the ‘humaneness ’. This African upbeat music is broken when Glover references a pose by a historic character named Jim Crow, a fictional racist character who created a stereotype against black people in the early 1800s. This reference to Jim Crow suggests the topic of racial segregation laws in that era.

 The threat of African Americans is resembled as Glover shoots this man as the music breaks to dialog saying 'This is America' for the first time. Each time this sentence is repeated throughout the song after every gun shot, it highlights the significance of gun problems in America. 

We see the gun being carefully handled in a red cloth which intertextualises how the government respond to shootings against black African Americans, meanwhile, the man is dragged off frame without any care. This highlights the issue that guns are given more care and respect than the victim. As the body is dragged off in the background, us as the audience are focused on Glover in center frame. The camera angle does this to show that the viewers are more focused on what is in the spotlight rather than the real issues going on, how we are distracted from real world issues about race and African American history. As glover continues to walk on, he does not hesitate to look back at the victims.

The next important scene in this music video is the symbolism of how police deal with racist, hate, mass shootings, this is referenced to the Charleston church shooting in 2015. The gun chosen in this scene is an AK-47 which was created to kill mass people in wars, it is now a weapon of choice for mass shooters in America. After Glover shoots all the gospel singers, we see the rifle once again being carefully wrapped in red cloth resembling that guns are more important than black lives. Then we see imagery of police officers running to the black shooting victims, not the actual shooter who walks past them all. This is because Glover is trying to point out how police ignore the white shooter and immediately assume it was because of the black gospel singers.

As Glover and other black children are dancing, a man in the background supposably jumps off from the prison like balcony and commits suicide, in this moment Glover is smiling and not acknowledging this, which suggests the ways that black cultural production is appropriated by white audiences. His dancing serves as a distraction from the riots and violence happening behind him.

As the camera angle moves, we see more of the location of this music video. It is set in a empty wear-house with prison like balcony's. This is emphasised when Glover says 'This is celly not a tool' while we see imagery of black people recording videos on their phones off the balcony. This suggests how black people use social media and phones to document police violence and also using prison cells as a tool for black oppression. 

We see imagery of a white horse being ridden through riots as cars are burning and violence is going on. This imagery of a white horse symbolises judgment day and the day that the world ends, Glover is pointing out that we all are distracted that we don't notice the world falling apart behind us. 

Everyone disappears in fright when Glover pretends to hold a gun, this imagery symbolises how white Americans who do crazy things with guns aren't as feared as a black man holding a gun. The silence in this scene lasts for about seventeen seconds before the music continues.

The ending scene is very important. It highlights clear links of the themes and elements of imagery from the referenced film 'Get out'. We see Glover running for his life from a group of white riot police officers. 

Sources used: 

Insider - https://www.insider.com/this-is-america-music-video-meaning-references-childish-gambino-donald-glover-2018-5

Analysis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_LIP7qguYw

Feedback on Album Artwork

 After presenting my album artwork to my class I received feedback on it. 

Was it clear if your artwork was a band or artist?

It was confusing due to the two images of girls on the front cover which could convey that it is a band, however the title 'Aura' signifies that this is a solo artist. 

To improve on that, I should only include one person on the front cover to make it clear that this is a solo female artist. The feminine feel to this artist cover does not sexualise the girls, which portrays that the target audience is majority teenage girls.

Was your genre clear? What conventions did you use that were successful? 

My class guessed that the genre was indie, alternative pop and perhaps a lofi feel to it. This was because of the pastel colours which matched with the colour of the sunset, and the design of the grafiti lines which gave an edgy, alternative feel and the reflective writing is similar to other indie/pop titles on album artworks. The style in which the photo looks like it is a poloroid photo which suggests it's a new, trendy artist as this style is similar to those on instagram.

What worked well overall 

I received positive feedback about what worked overall, such as the ideology which is created by the album name relates to the two faces of the girls as they almost fade away which relates to the title of 'nothings real' suggesting an ideology statement that nothing is real and that the two girls are even temporary ewhich resembles the outlook on life its self. 

The grafiti drawn line along with the black parental advisory label gives an edgy feel and also gives off a personal touch, making it seem as if she had signed it. 

The randomness of all the editing and layout further emphasises at the genre and makes it feel relaxed and lighthearted. 

On the backcover, the name is in center top focus which reinforces the artists name and the selling point of the albums artist's name. 

What could you have improved

Some elements of this album artwork which didn't work include;

The basket ball hoop on the back cover, it doesn't correspond to the artist or the front cover and it also suggests that the artist is American. The track numbers could also be in the center of the back cover along with the track names, this would help center the design. 

The font of 'nothings real' doesn't match with the other title font, this could be improved by using the same font as the artists name as the albums name.

My designed artwork

 

Here, I used an image I took and uploaded it onto photoshop to create the front and back album cover.

I included the artists name, the aesthetic of their image, the album name, parental advisory label, legal copyright information, barcode, list of tracks in alphabetical order and studio label name. 

Why is album artwork so important and how is it used by artists

 Album artworks are important because they suggest the genre and also portray the image of the artist. The album is what sells the artist, it is important for the album cover to be significant to the consumers and identifiable to the artist. 

Artist Logos

 In this weeks task, I learned the importance of logos in order to represent the identity of the artist/band.

Logos are part of the artists business which are a trade mark to identify the band. There are different types of logos, the main ones are; 

• abstract, mascot, combination, emblem, letter mark, pictorial, word mark-

In some cases, the logos are iconic and become more important than the band itself, this plays a big role in marketing the bamd. If the logo is sicessful, it can become iconic to its genre. The logo is important because it is printed onto artwork, stickers, merchamndise to sell the artist, and the album. the logo almost plays as a cultural impact as people tend to draw the logo, get it as a tatoo and produce stickers from it. 

One example of a successful logo is Metallica. 

The harsh font of the logo is the name of the band, it easily is related and hints at the genre due to the black and white colours, the jagged, font. It helps identify the metal, rock/punk genre of the music. 

This logo revelas al lot about the band, that it isnt pop or happty music and more harsh, angry music

their logo is easy to be put onto merchandise and stickers as the wiring is iconic to the bamd. The band logo creates an idealogy of agressive, thiunder, masculine, big loud imagery and suggests anti authoritve. 

Another example of an artist logo is Arctic Monkeys, their logo is simple yet carries the bands name as it is iconic. It's simplicity is easy to be printed on merchandise and album artwork. Once again, the logo is just black and white, it's logo is similar to the sign of the music wavelength. It suggests it is a band and due to there is no album name or band name written, suggests that it is an indie genre music. The logo is'nt harsh, or aggressive so gives the idea that the music is quite edgy and chill. 

Finally, this example of Taylor Swifts iconic logo, it is simply a signature style of writing to reflect a personal touch to the consumer. The cursive style is very feminine and girly which suggests it is for a female audience. We know that this is a solo artist as it is just her stage name, and it doesn't suggest that it is more than one person. Her logo is used on merchandise and on the album covers as it is apart of Swifts brand image. This logo is easy to draw and so perhaps fans can get this logo writing tattooed onto them, which advertises her brand. 

I have created my own logo to go onto the band/artist album artwork which I have created to go along with the album cover I designed using the website 'Jimdo Logo Creator'. This simple logo is easy to be printed onto merchandise, artwork and album covers. The stars and moon correspond with her star name 'Aurua'.

Conventions of album artwork

 In today's lesson we covered the key conventions to create good album artwork. 

The front must include these conventions in order to sell the name of the artists image: 

• Name of band/artist 
• Album name 
• Parental advisory sticker 

The back of the album must include certain elements: 

• Track list (in order from A-Z and numbered)
• Legal information 
• Barcode 
• Studio/label/producers

Dyer's Star Image

Richard Dyer wrote about the image of 'stars' in films and the music industry, he explained that 'stars' are simply an image which is constructed out of a range of materials such as TV, performances, videos, social media, usually created by the record label in order to create an image to sell to the public. The stars image is constructed by a range of meanings which are then attractive to their target audience. Overall Dyer believes that celebrities are constructed to represent 'real people' experiencing real emotions in order to relate to audiences and sell products such as films or music.

Richard Dyers star theory suggests three main features which make up a 'Star':

1. The Star as a construction - Through advertisements, the stars image is portrayed in magazines, films, television, social media and more which has been created by their label management. 
2. The Star as a commodity - The star has been created by their management in order to sell to a specific target audience.
3. The Star as an ideology - What the artist represents, a meaning such as girl power, rebellion, friendship and more

Paradox 1

'The Star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer" 

this means that making a star a role model, someone who people can look up to but also see someone that you can relate to. Their image has to be ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, eg. Photos of a star living a luxurious lifestyle in private jets, red carpets and travelling, but also allowing the public to see photos of the star going through pregnancy, or sitting on the sofa in their pyjamas on a Sunday, something which ordinary people can relate to. 

Paradox 2

"The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer" 

Meaning that everyone knows who these stars are, but they are not constantly in the spotlight. They want people to know that they are always present but not seen or heard of too much that the consumers get sick and bored of them. They will be marketed when there is an album release but then also an element of mystery. By doing this, it makes people want to constantly consume their brand. 

Narrative functions within music videos

 Today I looked at Andrew Goodwin Narrative Theory. He believes that pop videos are built around songs. He came up with these 3 narratives of music videos: 

3 types of narratives of music videos: 

1. Illustration - the video tells the story 
2. Amplification - the images are amplified by the lyrics and the artist usually take on a role in the video 
3. Disjuncture - when there’s little connection between the lyrics and video or where the video contradicts the lyrics. 

Music videos usually reflects the genre of music as well as to reinforce the artists image. While there are different approaches to the narrative/non narrative presentations within the video they almost always follow the key tone/styles and visuals of the genre. 

Illustration 

For illustration I chose Katy Perry's Last Friday Night from the album 'Teenage Dream' which was released in 2010. In this music video, it tells the story of the lyrics about what happened on her Friday night. The bright, colourful, typical American girl scenario attracts young teenagers and is PG friendly. It is happy, upbeat and set as if it is a teenage, comedy, child friendly film.

This is clearly a high budget, expensive music video to make as it involves lot's of actors, props, costume, hair and makeup. In this music video, she is recapping her memory of what happened last Friday night. The music video helps to tell the story as the lyrics tell us the events which took place. During the lyrics, we watch as she enters a party and has a wild night.

In this music video, Perry is presented to be playing quite a nerdy character, she doesn't seem to look like the other girls in the part and is presented as the weird, geeky girl. The full head brace and glasses reflect that she is playing a nerd at her first typical high school party. The stereotype of this nerdy girl tells the story as she likes the popular looking 'jock; character. As she plays a stereotypical, American nerd character, she transforms in the music video into a pretty, colourful, young and fun looking girl who is now perceived as the life of the party.  

The music video is created like a film, with an opening title sequence, a beginning, middle and ending, as well as credits and extras and bloopers. This music video sells her image that she is appealing to a young audience and is very clean and pg friendly. The bright colours, upbeat, fun video gained over 1 billion views on Youtube. 

AMPLIFICATION

As an example for amplification in music videos, I chose 'Judas' by Lady Ga Ga which was released in 2011 from the album 'Born This Way'. In this music video, the lyrics are about one of the 12 decibels of Jesus, the music video amplifies the lyrics using imagery.

 The music video opens with 12 men in leather jackets on motor bikes, all with the names of the disciples on their backs. We then see the artist on the back of the motor bike of a man dressed wearing a crown which symbolises Jesus. Her religious significance to this music video is often noticed, details include the cross on her bikini. 

The music video is mainly presenting Lady Ga Ga as a performer as she is dancing and singing. Most of the song is repeating the name 'Judas'.  

DISJUNCTURE 

For disjuncture, I picked Childish Gambino '3005' which was released in 2013. This music video has no correspondents to the lyrics or meaning of the song. it's just a video of the star on a ferris wheel sat next to a teddy bear which slowly comes alive. Usually disjuncture music videos are purposefully intended to show off the graphics, and special effects in order to make the artist be presented as cool, eye catching and also to show off the high budget of the music video. As the music video goes on, the teddy bear next to him looks more worn out as it comes to life. 

The lyrics are talking about his future and how he comes to accept the realism of life. The bear is intended to represent his childhood and innocence, as the time passes the bear gets more and more damaged as the artist talks about understanding that the world is not such.a good, happy place as he had thought when he was a child. 

The music video's purpose is to represent Gambino's growing up, as he realises that his friends aren't loyal, and falls into the circle of depending on materialistic items. He disappears at the end of the music video, leaving the bear there alone as he steps out into the real world to achieve something on his own. 

Music Videos for the 'YouTube age'

Music videos were originally shown on platforms like Top Of the Pops which was an early evening, family friendly, live performances of bands. Then they made music videos which were broadcasted on MTV, wheere television shows would show pre recorded music videos which were poplular at the time. Then youtbe came alomg and changed uit all, it allowed anyone to post videos which were unristricted and had no rules about nudity or bad language, unlike how it would of been on MTV and Top Of the Pops  which woukld have restricted certain types of music videos. Youtube also gave everyone the opportunity to watch them anytime, anywhere. It made a massive impact on music videos because they were cheap to create. It no longer became about selling the song and more about using music videos to promote the artists image and target audience.  

YouTube allowed starting artists to cheaply make a music video in order to sell their image to the audience. It gives off their first impression as to what they are trying to promote. For example, this is Nikki Minaj's first music video that she released in 2009.  In this music video, it is clearly low budget, filmed around the city. We can tell from the way she is dressed that her genre of music is rap, this is sold to us as the audience to get an idea of her persona. She is dressed wearing trendy, bright, streetwear clothes with the statement gold jewellery  and very long nails which gives the impression she is an image of hip hop. Her song 'Jumpoff' is most likely aimed at the teenage audience as the locations she is in gives off a cool, teenage vibe.  The label here is presenting her as relatable to the teenage audience in this low budget, fast shot music video. She is presented in front of a graffiti wall, around the city, on a motorbike with her friends and also in a record shop. 'Jumpoff' is Minaj's cover mixtape which was her first music video she had released before signing a recording label with Young Money. 

We can see she is being presented to be a street, hip hop American, female rapper. This 2009 music video gained over 2million views on youtube. From this first video, her latest music video in which she collaborates with Doja Cat called 'Say So' reached 8.1 million views. 
At this point she wasn't a huge star. In this video sells that she is pretty, trendy, young and street style. It doesn't sell the rap song but more promotes Nikki's image of being hip and cool to the teenage audience. Her rap songs have quite a rebellious, female empowering feel to them as she becomes one of the most successful first female rappers in the industry. She is sold in this video to be talented, that she can cover and also rap songs in her own style. She began with these mixtapes before releasing her own songs and music videos. 

Social Media

 Social media is an important marketing strategy. By using these 3 strategy, in order to attract a wider audience to your account to build a following. 

• Engage - Involve the audience with your posts, asking them questions, polls, giveaways... 
• Tell a story - show them your journey like behind the scenes, back stories to buy the audience into following you. Eg on the Xfactor, where Simon Cowl picked out certain people to tell their stories on the show before their performance. This is to get the audience to sympathise them or feel a connection towards them. This strategy is important to market the contestant. 
• Promote - By subtly selling your followers products in order to achieve brand deals and more

For this task today, I created this fake instagram account as an example of a starting influencer on the platform, this account I made focuses on fashion blogging. 

ENGAGE

 First I made a post to welcome the audience to the page and to address what this influencer will be focusing on. I also included tags of the brands that this influencer would be wearing as well as a question to engage with the followers.

TELL THE STORY

In order to show growth within this influencers personal life and journey on instagram as she grows her account, I included a post for her followers to grasp an understanding of this person behind the screen. This also allows the followers to perhaps relate to the influencer and feel connected to her, meaning a gain of supporters. 

PROMOTE

A big part of influencing is reaching out to other brands and businesses to sell products to the followers. Brands will often send instagram bloggers a range of their items in order for the blogger to post a review to their followers in order to influence the followers and make them want to buy the product which they see their favourite blogger or instagramer wearing/using. Here is an example post I created.