Mock Exam 2 - Music Industry

“Cross-media convergence and synergy are vital processes in the successful marketing of media products to audiences.” To what extent to you agree with this statement in relation to your chosen media area?

Re-phrasing the question: To what extent do you agree that synergy is a vital key for music   & marketing to be successful (does music need synergy to be successful?)

I disagree with this statement, the music industry does not need synergy as a vital process of marketing their music to audiences, even though in some areas it can help success, for example, X-factor, synergy is useful. 

Independent labels do not need synergy to be successful. Indie labels use new-media technology such as the internet to distribute and market their artists. This is because it is cheaper and still covers a global audience. They are able to distribute their music for free, using websites such as YouTube and Spotify. Indie labels tend to target a niche audience, therefore there is less need in having to use synergy to promote their artists to a wide audience. The audience for the film may not be the right ‘type’ of people that would be interested in the particular genre of music from the independent label, by using the internet they can directly target the niche audience they desire. 

However, in contrast to this, X-Factor, owned by the record label SYCO, of the conglomerate Sony, need synergy to enable the success of the show. Sony uses synergy on a regular basis, this is because it is a successful way for major labels to market their products to the audience, as music has become very visualized due to new-media technology. 

Prosumers and mash-ups can be successful without the use of synergy. For example, Madeon made a mash-up of mainstream music. He used YouTube and social networking sites to distribute his mash-up. By doing so he managed to gain millions of views and his mash-up became a success. Also mash-ups cannot necessarily be used in synergy because of music ownership issues. If songs in the mash-up are from a conglomerates back-catalogue this may exploit a copyright policy if the mash-up is then used in a film without permission. Similarly, prosumers can also be successful with out the use of synergy, new-media technology has enabled easy access to music from websites like youtube, and using software such as garageband has enabled the consumers to be prosumers. For example, my band ‘FVVE’, have produced a mash up on garageband from already existing music. We then distributed it on YouTube and marketed on social networking sites. We managed to gain over 1,500 likes for our mash-up and over 300 views on Youtube. Therefore being able produce, distribute and market our own track on the internet using YouTube and social networking sites can be successful without the process of synergy.

In conclusion to this, I disagree with the statement that cross-media convergence and synergy is a vital process in the music industry. Synergy can be useful to some areas in the industry, such as the conglomerate Sony. However, there are other areas that do not need it as a vital process to be successful. Indie labels do not use synergy and have control over 24% of the music industry, therefore have managed to have success without it. Prosumers and mash-ups use the internet to distribute and market their products, some have become successful and gained many views, a perfect example being Madeon.

Construction - Composing the Soundtrack

 

I went through each part of the edit to change the volume of each layer in the track to make it suit the final edit.
I also gained inspiration from some of these tracks.

These are screen shots of the ideas and soundtracks I was trying to find that were 'Royalty Free' / Copyright free music. After I had found a couple of soundtracks I took ideas from them and also downloaded the ones I liked to see what one was my favourite. Some of them did not create tension or create the affect we are aiming for, therefore I made sure that I didn't use this track to get ideas from.

I made sure that the soundtracks I was getting ideas from were copyright free from because I planned to use parts of some of the tracks to build the suspense in the sequence.

Construction - Producing My individual edit

This is the colour grading I done to my edit. 

This is a screen shot of the shot I reversed.

Doing the final editing and making it precise. 

Individual Edit

Evaluation
We have taken many shots for the final opening title sequence, and for my individual edit I decided to put most of my favourite shots into it. It is way over the 2 minutes for the final group edit, this is because I wanted to put the whole thing together with my favourite parts.

I am quite proud of my colour grading on some parts of the edit. I colour graded each shot the same as the shots and made sure the darker shots were light enough that they would match the other shots. I matched them up so the sequence flows smoothly.

In my edit, I made sure that I included match-on-action shots and as many different techniques as possible. I also used fast cuts at the end of the sequence to create more tension. When 'Charlie' (Ricky) was walking along the sidewalk before he takes a picture of the victim (Max), I cut out parts of the shot to build tension as he was walking towards the destination. I also reversed the shot of Ricky getting the camera out of his bag, so that we see him putting the camera back in the bag too. I decided to do this just it see how it looked, however I know that to cut our final edit to 2 minutes we will not need to reverse this shot.

When I colour graded the shots I refered back to the L4 example on the blog, 'The Edge'. This is because the colour grading on the piece of work is similar to how I pictured my edit to be.

Update - Finished Filming

We have now finished the filming of the opening title sequence of our thriller. We managed to get it all filmed within two days. The trip Alex and I made to London on the Friday before filming had a big impact on the pace of which we were filming. We knew exactly where to go and what angles to shoot at, and as a result of this we have got all the shots we need in a much shorter time that what we was expecting.

Saturday 26th

The first day of filming went well. Nicole and I got to Alex's house for 10am, to allow as much time in the day to shoot the scene. We cracked on with the filming straight away by setting up the equipment and getting our actors costumes ready. We filmed the phone ringing shots first because Henry and Laura were arriving later, so we had to film in a different order to the storyboard. We could do this without confusion easily because Alex and I had drawn a storyboard of each shot we had to take on the Friday; therefore we knew what shots we had to do that involved Ricky only.

After the match-on-action shots going into the study, and the filming in the study, we went out in the mini to get some shots of Ricky driving. This proved to be quite a challenge, having to make several trips to get the shots we needed, we took in turns to film inside the car to try and get the best possible shots. As a result, we got really good shots and we are all very pleased.

When Henry and Laura arrived, we filmed the shots we needed with them in straight away because we were starting to lose daylight. We got the last shots done just before we lost the daylight and then after this, Alex backed the camera up onto his laptop immediately.

Sunday 27th

The second day of filming went well but was very stressful. Nicole, Alex, Max and I, all met at Dartford station for 6am. We caught the train to London Bridge and the jubilee line in the underground to Canary Wharf. We went directly to the shopping mall of Canary Wharf and done the first few shots of Max walking up escalators through revolving doors. We got many shots around this area and in the park, we got most of the shots with only Max in as possible before Ricky got to London. Ricky arrived at 11am and at this point we decided to split up because we had two cameras. Alex went to get some shots of Ricky in the underground, whilst Nicole and I got some shots of Max on the phone in the park and some shots of him walking. This was even more efficient and helped to get the filming done even quicker, we were ahead of schedule. Nicole and I also filmed Ricky taking pictures of Max and the start of the tracking; mean while Alex getting some motion shots of London. By doing this we got the filming done a lot quicker and managed to get as many different angles and shots of each frame as possible, that way we get to choose what to use when editing.

After we done all the filming in London we made our way to Porsche Service Centre Byfleet by catching a train from Waterloo. That was a 40 minute journey, of which we rested and had our lunch. By 4pm we arrived at the Porsche Centre, whilst waiting for my dad to open up, we set up the equipment and organised where we were going to film the shots. We finished the scene in the Porsche Centre by 6:30pm and caught the train back home.

Filming 26th & 27th

These are pictures of us filming at all three locations.

Filming in Alex's house, the phone call scene.

Alex getting the laptop ready

 

Discussing the shots.

Early morning - On our way to London at 6am.

Setting up the camera

Me filming the pan of Max walking through the mall.

Alex filming a panning shot

A shot of Alex and Max in the garage.

Filming the assassination scene.