RESEARCH: STARDOM Richard Dyer Stars

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Richard Dyer Stars (1980)

RESEACH: Into real music videos and Shot Count Analysis

PLANNING: HOW MY BAND DEVELOPED ITS STAR BRAND

Miley Cyrus has rapidly transformed  from a child pop star to a much more provocative and mature solo act. A lot of child stars fade from fame as they grow and later re-emerge as developed adults, but Cyrus is different, because she never really left the spotlight. We’ve been watching her grow up and define herself as an adult.

The daughter of country singer Billy Rae Cyrus, she has had minor roles in television series throughout her childhood. Cyrus rose to prominence as a teen idol after appearing on the Disney channel: this is significant because her audience and fan base grew to have certain expectation that she would remain the wholesome innocent star that she started out as. She then signed a recording contract with Disney-owned Hollywood records in 2007 where she combined Hannah Montana the TV Disney series with her music career. The soundtrack became a number 1 in the USA. By the time she was 18 she had seven top ten hits on billboard hot 100.

Cyrus said that Britney Spears has been powerful influence for her, which makes sense. Spears topped the charts when Cyrus was growing up. "The way I am about Britney," Cyrus said in the documentary, "that’s the way a lot of people are about me. She was my first record. I was a lot of people’s first album. First idol. I’ll be a die hard fan for Britney, always.”

Source: E Online. http://goo.gl/yyEzxp 26.08.13

Cyrus has developed her brand through being active on social networks, and even visited Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Cyrus artfully juggles being a celebrity and being a regular person. She regularly interacts with the media and with her fans, but makes sure to take time for herself. VIEW MILEY'S TWITTER HERE!

In 2007 she went on tour with the Jonas brothers, another pop sensation . Tickets sold out in minutes. On the conclusion of the tour Walt Disney Pictures released 'Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus 'Best of both worlds'. It earned over $31 million. 

In 2009 Cyrus launched her clothing line and was promoted with her first play.  
In 2008  she began transitioning into an adult image, she negotiated a film deal introducing her to an older audience.
In 2012 generated media attention after cutting her traditionally long brown hair in favour of a pixie style haircut. 

If there’s one thing we learnt from MTV's Video Music Awards (VMAs), it’s that Cyrus is a very different person than the adorable little girl we once knew. The VMAs were the moment when the world realised just how different she’d become. Cyrus made it clear that she doesn't regret her decisions, and that she's dedicated to being true to herself.

Speaking about her performance at the VMAs, Cyrus said, "I am very comfortable with sexuality. I like pushing the boundaries." This could be applied to the rest of her transformation. Her recent hits, "We Can’t Stop" and "Wrecking Ball," both displayed the ways in which she’s changed over the past few years.

                                                          Annie Lennox on Cyrus

The fashion and documentary photographer Terry Richardson has helped to rebrand Cyrus from squeaky clean Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel to pouting provocateur. In a recent set of shots he has her doing something suggestive with a fizzy-drink can. Sineas O'Connor wrote an open letter to Cyrus urging her not let the music industry "make a prostitute" out of her.

PLANNING: EDITING TECHNIQUES

Slow Motion: I plan to use slow motion in the chorus scenes of the song 'Wrecking Ball'. In this scene i want to show the couple arguing with the lyrics over there speech so they are just seen mouthing there argument. Moreover i want to film the china on the table being thrown and smashed against the wall or kitchen table. This link i found will help me achieve this effect well.
HOW TO ACHIEVE THE SLOW MOTION EFFECT WELL!

Cutaway: My music video involves a vast amount of cutaway shots as the story line involves the couple going from the real world, to the girls dream Alice in Wonderland type world. This link will help me in the process because it involves a lot of careful continuity and good composition. Shooting seamless and well-planned cutaways can add depth and dimension to your story.
HOW TO ACHIEVE CUTAWAY EDITING WELL!

Post production: (colour correction): From researching music videos i'm a real fan for the monochrome, vintage look. I want to have this monochrome effect throughout the video, with a slightly hazy edge to the dream like world so audiences know there is a change.
HOW TO ACHIEVE COLOUR CORRECTION WELL!

Short Takes: The lyrics at the beginning are fast paced and choppy, so i had the idea of several shot reverse shots between the man and the women. I want the camera in close up and show there faces in neutral expression. This involves in editing to cut the scenes and stop and start them.

RESEARCH: Directors

Richard Phillips

WATCH HERE! 

For Richard PhillipS, his merging of subject and genre continues to provide challenging comment on the situation and reach of contemporary art.

Phillips has embarked on a new phase of work that centres on the self-awareness of real-life subjects.  Lindsay Lohan (2011) and Sasha Grey (2011), his first two films, made their debut at the “Commercial Break” film project at the 2011 Biennale di Venezia. In these "motion portraits ", the notorious actresses pose erotically: Grey in a modernist John Lautner home, and Lohan in an aquamarine infinity pool. Both actresses project self-conscious recognition in their performances and in turn point toward the transformative potential of narrative action, framed by their compelling beauty.  Phillips’s third film, First Point (2012) marks his second collaboration with Lohan and third collaboration with legendary surf filmmaker Taylor Steele. A contemporary film, First Point juxtaposes haunting night-time imagery with surf sequences of Lohan.

Phillips uses joint forms of image production to reorder the relationship of Pop art to its subjects. The staging and format of his films presage the return of their subjects as paintings; eventually, they form the foundation for lush, large-scale works such as Sasha, Lindsay II, and Lindsay III.

Born in Massachusetts in 1962, Richard Phillips lives and works in New York. He has exhibited his work in many individual and group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include “Richard Phillips: Paintings and Drawings,” Le Consortium, Dijon, 2004; “Richard Phillips,” Kunstverein Hamburg, 2002, and “Richard Phillips,” Kunsthalle Zurich, 2000. He is represented in important public and private collections worldwide including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; the Denver Museum, Colorado; UBS Paine Webber Art Collection, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Van Abbe museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. First Point premiered at Art Unlimited at Art Basel, Switzerland in June 2012.

Sam Brown

WATCH HERE!

Strong”, starring the band and a guy who puts on an awesome, dangerous-looking and completely one-of-a-kind fireworks show for his young daughter. The band wandering the streets of an apocalyptic-looking LA while a father and child plot what looks like some kind of attack. In reality, they're actually organising a firework display in which the dad is turned into some sort of human Catherine Wheel for no apparent reason. Directed by the man behind the phenomenal ‘Rolling In the Deep‘ by Adele, Sam Brown, has managed to capture the essence of London Grammar’s chilling new track. The narrative of the video is slightly ambiguous, but the muted tones throughout add a strong atmosphere to the clip. It is a cinematic and emotive visual accompaniment to the mesmerising cut. 

Sam Brown is a multi-award winning director who transcends various styles and genres of the moving image. He has worked with music names that we all know; from Foo Fighters to James Blunt to The Verve and produces quality videos which, in his words, “Bring out the best in the artist”. Sam seems to have a gift for capturing artists in a very personal and endearing way, with none of the glam & glitz that Hollywood-made MV’s tend to have the look of.  Magazine called his Grammy & double MTV Award winning promo for Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’, ‘2011’s most watched and liked pop video in the UK’ with over 265m hits on YouTube.

RESEARCH: Industry

Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was founded in 1919.  It was part of General Electric in the hopes that it would take over the radio technology market.

 In the year 1929 RCA purchased the 'Victor Talking Machine Company' which was the world's largest manufacturer of gramophones and gramophone records. So RCA became RCA Victor.

RCA Records is the second-oldest recording company in US history. RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label in Canada, as it was only one of two Canadian record companies (now Universal Music Canada) to survive the Great Depression.

RCA is the name of three different co-owned record labels. RCA Records is the Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop, R&B and Country music label

From the Billboard website- Article 'Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball' Helped Convince RCA To Sign Her'
READ ARTICLE HERE. 

RCA president/COO Tom Corson says

"We feel like [the video] over-performed, and we were very pleased with the pickup," continues Corson. "The video is obviously high-quality, and the song is beautiful and wonderful. It's one of the songs that convinced us to sign her."

Produced by Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald and Cirkut, "Wrecking Ball" offers starker lyrical content and a slower tempo than Cyrus' previous single, "We Can't Stop," which spent most of the summer camped out in the Hot 100's top five.

"Now we're heading into fall, and ... the timing is perfect for this type of tempo and style," Dastur says, adding that "Wrecking Ball" is still in Z100's "new" rotation category but that early indications signal a huge hit. The track debuts at No. 35 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart.

(LINK) Miley Cyrus- VMA Awards 2013

Miley Cyrus is the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus.In 2005, Cyrus was cast as the lead in the Disney series "Hannah Montana", about a teen leading a double life as a pop star.The show was a smash and hit records, sell-out tours and merchandising deals soon followed. Cyrus became a teen superstar. Following the success of "Hannah Montana", Cyrus made the move into other roles - including playing Ronnie Miller in The Last Song (2010) and Lola in LOL (2012) alongside Demi Moore.Cyrus' maturing image progressed with the film The Last Song and her third album Can't Be Tamed in 2010. The latter project featured more prominent dance elements than her earlier releases, and was promoted through sexually-themed performances. In the following two years, she focused on her acting career with several television and film appearances. In 2013, Cyrus will release her fourth album, Bangerz, through RCA Records. Its singles "We Can't Stop" and "Wrecking Ball" were promoted with provocative music videos. The former was additionally performed during a controversial performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, while the latter became her first number-one hit in the United States.



FIND MORE ABOUT MILEY CYRUS HERE ON WIKIPEDIA!

RESEARCH: Genres

Synthpop- 

• stylistic meshing of electro and pop music. 
•  combines song structure typical to pop songs (verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus/chorus)
• predominantly features a synthesizer as the lead instrument.

• Synthpop derived from the same place as electro, although it didn’t find a real home until the mid-to-late 1980s when electronic music really began to influence mainstream pop, yielding what most incorrectly call New Wave
•  E.g Miley Cyrus,Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Freezepop, Bodies Without Organs, The Knife

WATCH 'WE CAN'T STOP'


Hip hop-

• is characterized by stylized rhythmic music, often accompanied by rapping or emceeing and deejaying. 
• influenced from jazz poetry, call and response parterns and soul music.  
• originated from African-American communities during the late 1970s in New York City

•  It began in the 1970s in the South Bronx of New York City and is characterised by scratching, sampling, rapping and beat boxing. 
• E.g Drake, Jay Z, Kendrick Lemar, Pusha T, ASAP Rocky, Tyler the Creator 

WATCH 'AIN'T WORRIED ABOUT NUTTIN'

Rock-

• Rock music, sometimes also known as "rock and roll," 
• a style of music that became popular in the 1950s in America and Europe. 
• It is primarily based on older musical styles, such as the rhythm and blues music originated by African American with a heavy focus on guitar, drums, and powerful vocals. 
• Today, the term "rock music" is used to refer to a wide range of musical forms, including anything from soft pop to heavy metal. 
• The form has changed significantly since the days of Elvis Presley, but the term can still refer to his songs as easily as they can refer to more recent bands like Nirvana or Pearl Jam. 
• E.g. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Green Day, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Kiss, Linkin Park

WATCH 'ROCK N' ROLL'

R&B-

• Rhythm and Blues music, or R&B music
• was originally termed "race music", included any form of music intended for black audiences
• combination of jazz, gospel, and blues
• the original genre focused on boogie rhythms and included such famous acts as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. 
• The end of World War II produced a surprising call for race music, the R&B music genre took off as a result. 
• E.g. Adele, Beyonce, Chris Brown, Esmee Denters, Frank Ocean, Kelly Rowland, Mis-Teeq

WATCH "LOVER'S AND MOUNTAINS"

POP MUSIC

• music of general appeal to teenagers
• a bland watered-down version of rock'n'roll
• emphasis on rhythm and harmony
• often a focus on romantic love 
• E.g.: Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars

WATCH 'TRESPASSING'

PLANNING: Target Audience

When planning on our music video 'Wrecking Ball', one of the things we did was deciding who our target audience is. Our music video is set in the modern days with characters who are in an turmoil relationship. It is energetic, hectic and imaginative, and aimed at the kind of mainstream audience that are into mainstream pop music. Teenage girls i feel would relate to this video as they go through the confusions of love.

This is my viewer profile that I made in Photoshop

 

PLANNING: PERMISSION

We contacted RCA Record Label Company through Facebook for permission to use Miley Cyrus's song, Wrecking Ball.