Closing Post

Dear moderator,

Thank you for looking at my blog! I hope you like my work. Please click onto the AL Research and Planning label in order to view my research and planning evidence.
Thank you :)

Cathy Ly (candidate 3122)

This blog is now closed.

Post 10: My Production Review

After I had finished my products, I received audience feedback from my teachers and peers of what they thought was done well and what they believed I could have done better for next time. I also questioned a group of 6 people that were 16-24 to get audience feedback as well. This was the overall feedback.

Website and Social Media:
WWW: Overall, there was a clear sense of branding and aesthetic with a strong colour palette. It was also quite easy to navigate.
EBI: Some sections were not very conventional such as the names in the menu bar. There were also issues with how clear certain aspects were such as the arrows on slideshows and how fast the slides transitioned (which was too fast). There was also a slight issue of not making my artist, Sketch, the clear main focal on the second page.

Music Video:
WWW: There was a good use of colour and the stop-motion was interesting to watch, this alongside the facepaint, made it very memorable. There was a coherent storyline which was easy to follow and the editing flowed well without any sudden or unexpected cuts.
EBI: There was a lack of conviction and slight awkwardness felt in the acting that made the music video feel less professional. There was also a clear quality difference between the studio shots and location shots creating an inconsistency in quality.

Overall, the feedback has given me an idea of whether or not my final product would be successful if it was actually released under Sony. I feel as though it would have been moderately successful. More importantly, the criticism allows me to see where I went wrong and where I can improve if I was to do this brief again, mainly, I need to focus on maintaining a consistent standard.

Music Video shown to my target group.

Music Video with improvements made in response to feedback.

Post 9: My Website and Social Media Pages

Many artists are proliferate users of social media in order to maintain interest and their brand image. What they post on their social media usually reflects the image that is promoted on their website. I decided to look at Madonna and her longevity in maintaining her popularity and image.

When I decided to look at her website, it was very clear that she had a strong aesthetic which matched with her style of music and the aesthetic in her music videos. For example, the gothic style of her website matches the aesthetic of her music video 'Vogue' (2009). Her website also cross-promotes her other platforms such as her social media links on the top bar of her website. The entire website itself consists of promotions of events and extra videos. Overall, her website is easy to navigate, due to her menu bar, and is full of clickablility and animation which means that there is a lot for the viewers to explore and pay their attention to.

Madonna's social links

Madonna's menu bar

Madonna has a massive following on Instagram with 14.5m followers. This means that it is essential for her to maintain her star persona otherwise she would break the illusion. This explains why her Instagram feed matches the same colour scheme of black and blacks as the website. Furthermore, she regularly uses her Instagram to update her fans on events such as her tour and general life events. This not only helps to promote herself as an artist, but also creates a sense of familiarity between her and her fans.

Post 8: My music video

To help create a realistic music video, I decided to look at a handful of music videos to see how they create and presented their performance bed and narrative. In particular, I decided to look at 'Digitalism - Pogo' and 'TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME - The 1975'.

In 'Digitalism', the entire music video was shot through stop motion, which was a unique USP that I'd not seen in other music videos. Due to it being stop motion, the entire music video is done in 'one' continuous shot however is made interesting due to the use of props (such as instruments used in the track) or the deficiency of normal physics.

Despite there not being a clear distinction between narrative and performance, there is still an abstract understanding that the artists feel suffocated in the music industry and are forced to keep up an appearance sue to the use of a single plain room and excessive props such as models and chandeliers. This helps to reflect the artists own values, attitudes and beliefs of having artistic freedom.

In 'TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME', there is a general theme of unity due to the sheer amount of diversity in the video. The video consists on different fans lip syncing to the song in front of bright backgrounds, interlaced with the performance bed of the main singer, Matty Healey. The diversity in the fan matched the diversity of the 1975's fanbase and helped to make sure that all those watching would feel represented and not isolated or secluded, feeding into gratification theory.

Despite the simple concept, it is still interesting to watch due the variation of shots and the bright backgrounds. The backgrounds match perfectly with the fans having fun and the upbeat tempo and vibe of the song.

In both music videos, there is a clear variation in shot types and both music videos were cut at a fast pace, in time to the song itself. All actors in both music videos where also made sure to look 'neat' and clean' and the entire music video had a unique colour grade on them (eg. Digitalism had a darker vintage grade whilst TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME had a brighter, saturated grade). Furthermore, both songs had unique USPs that made sure that they stood out against other music videos. These were things that I had to keep in mind whilst coming up with a narrative for 'Confident'.


I decided to take the use of stop motion and the bright coloured backgrounds and use them in my music video in order to make my video stand out.

Post 7: My pop artist

For my artist's look, I referenced the current style of several different pop artists. I knew that I wanted to create a unique image that would stand out and so I decided to incorporate several different styles together.

I liked the idea of eccentric make up with bold colors in an avante-guard fashion and one of the only artists in the music industry that I knew who did this was Bjork. I was especially inspired by her bold make up looked which took up the whole of the upper half of her face, acting almost as a mask (such as the one on the left).






Continuing with the avante-guard style, I wanted to match the hair with the makeup. Something clean looking that you wouldn't usually see someone sporting. An example of this was slicked back hair like the one worn on the right by Zendaya (on a red carpet event). I wanted to replicate hair that you could find on the fashion runway.

Finally for the outfit, I wanted to use fashion that is currently popular. One of these styles is street wear, in particular Harujuku which was popularized in the West by the Hallyu Wave and pop artists such as Gwen Stefani.

I wanted to pay homage to my oriental ethnicity and use traditional clothing whilst keeping it modern and 'pop', similar to Stefani's backin dancers on the left who have combine traditional Japanese hairstyles with more modern sailor outfits.

Post 6: My chosen track

When choosing my track, I wanted to ensure that it was a popular song that did well on the charts. This was because I wanted to ensure that it's sound had mass appeal. I eventually finalized my choices down to 2 songs:

Whenever, Wherever - Shakira
Laundry Service (2001)
Epic Records

Confident - Demi Lovato
Confident (2015)
Hollywood, Island, Republic and Safehouse Records




Both songs fall under the genre of pop (in accord with the brief) and both had great success. 'Whenever, Wherever' won three awards (including the NRJ Music Award for International Song of the Year in 2003) whilst 'Confident' was nominated for 3 awards and has featured in many film trailers (notably Happy Death Day and Into the Spiderverse). Therefore it was clear that both songs has mass appeal.

Ultimately, I decided to choose 'Confident' as it had influences of pop-rock and heavy use of brass instruments which I felt would match well with the popularity of pop-rock and soul in Britain (mentioned prior). Furthermore, 'Whenever, Wherever' had heavy influence of Latin music which was also overpowering and took away from the overall sound of pop which I felt decreased my attraction to the song.

After choosing to do 'Confident', I decided to have a look at the lyrics to analyse and interperete the meaning of them and themes that I could find. I did this so that I could better understand my track, and later, create a narrative that would match the track well.

I ended up finding themes of being underestimated by others, self-belief and confidence, and being in control of your own life.

These were very strong themes which matched with the bold narrative and settings in the music video which features fighting, prison life and teamwork.


The following stills show strong themes throughout the overall music video.

Still from MV of prison setting

Still from MV of fighting

Still from MV of teamwork

Post 5: My target audience

The brief states that my target audience is 'fun-loving 16-24-year-olds' and that I should appeal to a mass audience. I needed to look at the audience I was meant to be targeting in order to find out their interests and lifestyle so I could adapt my music video ideas to their style and preference.

 I found out that my target audience of 16-24-year-olds made up for the bulk of people who streamed music and that within this age group, there were 5 established groups, known as the UK tribes. The group that consumed the most

pop was the 'mainstreams' and therefore who I would try and market towards the most, however, I could still attract the other groups if my chosen pop song had genre hybridity (eg. indie-pop would help attract the 'alternatives').

I also found that 16-24-year-olds were prolific consumers and users of social media, consistently being between the top two age groups using social media and dominating platforms such as Twitter. This meant that the use of social media would have the most impact and influence on this age group, making it an essential marketing platform for artists to promote themselves and maintain their star identity and brand. I knew that this meant that my artist would have to have a large online presence. Having an online presence can help my artist to create a more intimate and personable relationship between themself and their fans as the fans get to see the star's personal life daily and are able to comment and interact directly with the posts.



I found out that 57% of 16-24-year-olds listen to pop and the majority of them belong to the in the 'mainstream' category which are fans of popular culture. Furthermore, many of them listen to music through streaming channels such as Youtube but in particular Spotify however, only a niche are willing to pay for music, primarily due to a tight budget as many are on a student loan or have just started working.

Overall, by looking at my target audience, I am able to understand my audience's interests and behaviour which means that I can make my music video more appealing to them in advance. For example, I know that the youth enjoy music videos with bright colour over videos with more mundane muted colours and therefore I will try will to colour grade my video in a way where the colours are bright and saturated.

Post 4: The pop music industry

I researched the pop industry in order to find out and discover what was currently popular and the codes and conventions that my products would have to follow. In order to do this, I decided to look through the history of pop to see how trends have changed.

I looked at the history of pop from the 1960s in the UK as the brief states that my artist will be under Sony UK specifically. I found out that pop in the UK had three major spurts (known as the British invasion) where its popularity invaded and influenced other countries such as the USA. The first wave was in the '60s with rock 'n' roll, led by The Beatles in a phenomenon called Beatlemania. The second wave was in the '80s with post-punk rock and new movements, led by Queen and David Bowie. Finally, the third wave is considered to be the 2010s with the rise of Britpop bands such as Arctic Monkeys and Coldplay alongside the rise of grime and rave.

Overall, the British music scene has been massively influenced by rock, soul and world music which has helped create many subgenres of music unique to the UK. The UK has also been very successful with the use of a group format, which was it was heavily relied on in the '70s, with successes like Queen, Spice Girls and One Direction.

Pop has always used genre hybridity in order to make a song's sound unique. In the '90s there was a huge trend of incorporating Latin music with pop which popularised artists such as Shakira and led to Sony's decision in buying out Columbia Records. Lately, there has been a trend of incorporating electronic music with pop, most notably shown with the rise of Clean Bandit. The genre hybridity helps the song open up to a larger audience by combining two different interests into one, therefore opening up the song to two different audiences and therefore increasing the audience size, following Goodwin's theory on intertextuality.

Indiepop has also been popularised in animated films as many indie bands have written for the soundtrack of films (eg. the soundtrack for the film 'Epic' uses 'What If The Storm Ends - Snow Patrol'). In response, many bands have used animation in their music videos, such as 'Strawberry Swing - Coldplay' and 'Fell In Love With A Girl - The White Stripes'. This has inspired me to use animation in my own music video to create genre hybridity.




Pop is widely enjoyed and is made for mass consumption resulting in it being 19% of all music listened to and having a total worth of $19.1 billion. This is notably due to the fact that most pop songs follow a conventional structure of verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge and then chorus within 3-4 minutes. By keeping to this structure, it helps to create a sense of familiarity for those listening as they know what to expect, This sense of familiarity is then further amplified as many music videos usually include intertextuality to popular culture.

I decided to look at Britney Spears who is a worldwide popstar. Most of her songs are between 3-4 minutes and follow the classic pop song structure. Her songs are also influenced by other genres, for example, 'Toxic' has electronic dance and bhangra influences onto it.

Within the music video, there is also use of a lot of different shots types and strong use of colour to convey different moods. Britney also has shots which sexualise her body, connoting her ideals as a pop star.

The music video also includes a lot of intertextualities. For example, Britney's red hair personal is dressed in a superhero costume and stars in an action spy storyline. This coincides with the popularity of superheroes at the time, especially Spiderman and Daredevil. Furthermore, action films with female star leads gained mass popularity with blockbuster films, such as Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill, leading the way. Finally, Britney's black hair persona is reminiscent of Cat Woman, for which there was large anticipation for as the Halle Berry rendition was due to be released the following year.

Overall, through looking at the conventions of pop music and music videos, I was able to understand what gives pop its USP and how it has managed to stay relevant and trendy for such a long time. Through looking at pop, I have decided that my song choice should have influences from rock, soul or world as those genres are most prominent in the British music scene. Furthermore, I need to ensure that within my song, I use a variation of shots and have fast pace editing, on beat with the song, as they are both conventions of pop.

Post 3: Regulation in the music industry

I needed to look at the regulation of music in the UK to properly understand how to conform to these regulations and allow my video to be broadcasted to the mass (in accord with the brief) and therefore reach mass appeal. Music in the UK is mainly self-regulated (with websites such as YouTube self-regulating), however, there are a few bodies that try and regulate it such as OFCOM and several laws that have been passed by the UK government.

OFCOM is based in the UK and regulates broadcasters. In particular, they ensure that no inappropriate content is released pre-watershed, and no content is released with excessive profanity or violent or offensive content. In particular, OFCOM regulates the BBC and radios under them, ensuring that all content released is appropriate.

Another regulator is the BBFC who creates age ratings for many different sites and products. Though they are most prominent in films, they have agreements with music and streaming services such as with Sony and YouTube. Sony has an agreement that any music video, that is not appropriate for those under 12, are required to have an age rating on them whilst YouTube age-restrict any video that is inappropriate for those under 18.

 Music has also made headlines in several ways such as the debate on drill, sexualisation of women in music videos and the pirating epidemic.

Both the debate on women and drill have been on whether it was done out of liberation and self-expression or whether or not it was inappropriate and glamorised a certain lifestyle or image.

Due to this debate, police have tried to crack down in drill due to the fact that many drill artists glamourise the idea of a lifestyle of crime and drugs. Regulation has also cracked down on sexualisation of women in music videos and the general societal view of the sexualisation of women has changed to deem it as wrong.

There has also been the issue of piracy in the music industry that has risen alongside the rising popularity and use of the Internet. The internet has allowed for music to be downloaded for free (illegally) through sites such as youtubetomp4converter and tubidy, therefore reducing the revenue artists and labels could claim. This prompted the Digital Economy Act in 2010 which forces Internet Service Providers to take more responsibility in tackling and dealing with copyright. Although piracy still occurs, it shows a step in trying to tackle it. Furthermore, the music industry also tackled the issue by reducing their CD prices and production and increasing the prices of tour tickets to make up for lost sales and ensure monetization.


Overall, I have taken these aspects into consideration for my artist. I have to make sure that my music video is appropriate and family-friendly in order to to have it able to broadcast to a mass audience. Furthermore, I need to create other merch and feature a tour page on my website. They will act as a means for my artist to make revenue in light of the piracy trend and maximise the profit made for Sony.

Post 2. The role of the internet in the music industry

The internet has played a large part in helping artists go worldwide, therefore, I decided to research on how artists used it in order to incorporate it into my own artist's website and social media.

The internet is trans-border and so it can help spread information and news about artists across countries instantly helping them go viral and giving them access to a larger potential fanbase. Furthermore, social media on the Internet increases the amount of interactivity between the artist and the fanbase. Therefore, compared to earlier artists, current artists can form more personal bonds with their fanbase who interact a lot more with them. Fans are now able to directly comment on artists posts or tweets and keep up with the artist's events or daily life or find out their artist's views, attitudes and beliefs, all on their personal phones. Fans can also choose to follow different artists and see their posts integrated within their personal feed which helps to increase the familiarity of the artist. Therefore, the artist-fan relationship has become a lot more personable and proactive (therefore more loyal) than before and many artists are now seen as 'friends' in comparison to before where artists were seen as untouchably famous.

Most artists have an easy to navigate website that is eye-catching and filled to the brim with extra content. Although a lesser amount of the fanbase will go onto the website, in comparison to social media, the experience is worth it due to the exclusive content that you would only find on the websites. Content such as interviews, cross-brand promotions and competitions and sign-ups.

Furthermore, artists also tend to cross-promote their platforms and sites. Most artist websites will promote their social media and streaming services and vice versa. In addition, they will have a consistent aesthetic or brand image that is promoted through all the platform to create synergy, such as Ariana Grande's vintage-style aesthetic.
Most often, this is done through the colour palette.

Overall, by looking at how other artists have used the internet, I found that it was extremely important that my artist had to have a strong colour palette as well as remembering to cross-promote.

Post 1: The UK Music Industry

I wanted to research the UK music industry before planning anything. I found out that Sony BMG is seen to be one of the 'Big Three' recording labels which dominate the UK scene, alongside Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. My fictional artist has been assigned to Sony UK (CEOed by Jason Iley since 2014) in the set brief and so I wanted to find out how Sony worked and it's beliefs.

Sony is a massive conglomerate that is vertically and horizontally integrated (owned by Japanese company SME) and is home to some of the worlds biggest artists. Artists such as Mariah Carey, The Jackson 5, One Direction and Camilla Cabello. It has a total net worth of $7.27million and owns many smaller labels such as Columbia Records and Ministry of Sound.

As Sony is both vertically and horizontally integrated, it means that it owns it's own in house production and recording studio. This allows them to maximise their profits as they don't need to go pay another company to help them produce or record.

Sony also has many subsidiaries within the company which specialise in different genres of music which help ensure that the quality of music that is bought out will be at a high.

 Artists that sign onto record companies are usually signed onto an exclusive contract. This contract will usually last either 3, 7 or 10 years where the artist would work exclusively under the company and get a certain percentage of their total earnings whilst the majority of it goes to the company.

Sony's contract shows that their artists earn about 10% of the royalties that they make. This is common in many contracts, however, Sony has come under fire for abusing this contract and has been dubbed to give out 'slave contracts'.

Artists such as Ke$ha have come out to say that Sony has wrongfully mistreated her, overworked her and underpaid her, disillusioning many to the supposed easy life of a superstar.

Despite this, Sony still remains as one of the largest records and is proliferate in the UK music scene. They are particularly successful in pop where they took up 29% of the top 100 and 34% of the top 40 in the 2017 UK charts.




By looking at Sony and understanding how it worked, not only in comparison to its competitors but also its relationship with its artists, I was better able to create a vision of my artist. I understand that Sony has a massive catalogue of artists and was able to provide a good budget for my artist, however, I needed to ensure that my artist would be unique and have longevity and a mass appeal, due to the genre of pop stated in the brief, but also as Sony would be keen on making profit through my artist brand image. Therefore, I decided that I would use stop motion as my USP for my music video and that for my actual artist, I would make their gender and sexuality unknown. This is due to the fact that a persons gender and identity and become a large topic of debate lately and many youths have difficulty in understanding themselves and their identity. Furthermore, although gender and sexuality shouldn't cause different perceptions to be held on people, they often do, especially in music where labels may exploit an artists sexuality and gender (for example the sexualisation of women in music). By making my artist's gender and sexuality unknown and play it down, it can help include a lot more people who aren't represent in the media whilst also reflecting Sony's agenda of being home to a wide range of unique and inclusive artists.