McFly Through The Ages...

Mcfly were formed in 2002 and gained most of their following from touring with Busted in 2004.

Busted (2004) - Awh look how cute they are 

 

2004 brought possibly McFly's most famous song of all time, 5 Colours in her Hair, which was bright and colourful, showing the boys youth and innocence. They were shown to be typical teenagers, being boisterous on stage with their friends. At this point their target audience was between the ages of 7 - 14, which was represented in the music video. This song went to number one for 12 weeks and was one of their most successful singles ever released. As a seven year old girl this was my favourite song of all time, so it appears they were hitting their target audience.

A year later and the band had decided to grow up a little bit. The music video I'll Be Ok showed the boys in suits and ties, and singing a more serious song. Their target audience had grown up with them, now McFly were aiming at 15 - 17 year old girls. The boys were very successful this year, All About You and You've Got A Friend both stayed at no. 1 in the charts for 13 weeks, and I'll Be Ok was No. 1 for 9 weeks. Whatever they were doing, it was obviously working, i was still a dedicated fan girl.

In 2006 is when they truly settled into their fame and started to show their individual personalities in their music videos. Transylvania, showed the boys dressing up as girls, and generally not taking themselves too seriously. This is what the fans had been waiting for, we finally got to know what the boys were like and could feel a sort of connection to them that we had not previously had in other videos.

The target audience stayed in the same age bracket for a few years as the boys started to find out who they were and what they wanted to become. This year they had 3 songs in the charts; two No. 1's and one No. 3. This was also the year of stargirl, the official video shows the boys in Danny's garden building a rocket for Dougie so that he can go to space!! The entire video was filmed on a handheld camera and is a typicals 'boys will be boys' video. Version 2 of the video is also the boys being silly, and having fun, exactly what the fans want to see from the boys.

The introduction of narrative videos came in 2008 with Do Ya, and with it came the decreased in popularity. They were growing up and changing, maybe too fast for the fans. However, the music video is funny, with a performance and narrative side. There is a christmas theme because the song was released at christmas.

2010 McFly dropped the boyish charm and became a man band!! Party Girl showed they boys in a vampire strip club, with a girl pole dancing and Harry getting involved in a VERY steamy sex scene. Their target audience was given a chance to grow up, and now the band aimed to target 18 - 25 year olds, slightly older than myself, but the dedicated fans will be slightly younger...!

On the 11th of November Love Is Easy was released, and brought the bands biggest change in the history of McFly. Through various problems in 2011, (Dougie Poynters tragic fall; his battle with drink and drugs, his attempted suicide and his relationship with Frankie Sandford), the band had to go through big changes and re-establish their image, Dougie went off to rehab, and found himself a new girlfriend, Harry won Strictly Come Dancing, Dougie won I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and was crowned the  King of the Jungle, Danny participated in Pop Star To Opera Star and Tom participated on the game show The Cube.

Tom Fletcher

Danny Jones

Dougie Poynter

Harry Judd

 

The music video for Love Is Easy is a tribute video to the past ten years of McFly and has references to their past favourite music videos that they have done. For example, they recreate their past album covers:

 



The bands popularity was largely helped this year by Tom's wedding speech video going viral on Yotube, and getting 10,346,406 views (21/06/13).

Super cute, awh

 



 

 

 

 

 



McFly - 5 Colours In Her Hair

What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?
The main character of the video has five colours in her hair.... Like the song says. She is also shown to be different to her family, maybe not fitting into society.

What is the relationship between music and visuals?
The music is cut to the beat of the song, especially when the band are doing the performance section of the video. There is a lot various camera angles around the room, focussing on each band member. When the music slows down there is an empashis on the concept section of the video, where three of the band members have gone to the girls house to 'rescue' her from her parents. The takes are longer and the focus is on each band member distracting the family.

Are there close ups of the artist or star image motifs?
The emphasis in this video is on the band and the fact that they actually play their own instruments, the majority of the video is watching them perform. The band are shown to be fun and interesting, which is shown by all the bright colours and dancing people around them. The band are all wearing colourful clothes and playing colourful insturments, for example Harry's drum kit is electric blue. The song was written based on a television show at the time, and so the video reflects that in its style.
The girls are not particularly sexualised as the target audience is probably younger girls, parents would not allow their kids to buy a song where the girl is sexualised.

Is there reference to the notion of looking?
The main character, the girl with five colours in her hair, is shown to be watching tv which is showing the band at  a concert where people are watching the band perform. The band are still fairly young at this time, because of this it is clear that they want the emphasis to be on the music, although they are aware that they still have to be know individually, which is represented by the title credits at the start of the video where Danny and Dougies names are swapped around.

Are there intertextual references?
Although the song was written about a television show, it was not made for the show, so it mimicks the style of that show, which would become clear if you knew the programme, but it does not use any clips or actors.

The video is mostly performace based but also includes narrative parts.

Mcfly (2000)

 

Mcfly (2013)

We The Kings - Say You Like Me

I really like the concept of this video and the way it was shot. The basic idea is that the band members are all trying to protect a girl from 'bad guys' but it is all in a video game style. The 'Bad Guys' are all cartoon, but the band members play themselves.

I like this because it is a fairly common concept (boy saving girl), but it is done in a really original way. There is a lot going on, and it does not get boring to watch, which means that people will be prepared to watch it more than once - the basic aim of a music video.

Movie Music

Making music for a movie can do a lot for a musician, for example Adele won an Oscar for her song Skyfall, giving her even more success as everyone knows how prestigious Oscars are. It meant that the older generation, who maybe had not heard of Adele but would go out to watch a Skyfall would be intorduced to her music.
 

Artists use movies as a way to make themselves known by more people. Paramore joined with the makers of Twilight with the song Decode. This meant that all the teenage girls who were fans of the film were introduced to a new band. Although, this had an affect on the bands image. Pre-Twilight, Paramore were well known for their angry, pop-rock music, but 5 years later the band have turned in a completely different direction. They released Still Into You which is completely opposite to their past successes such as Misery Business.

 

They realised that they no longer had an older fan base (due to their Twilight adventure) and so had to adapt to succeed. In Still Into You, Hayley Williams keeps her rebellious side, riding round the house on a bike, but tones down her anger and rockstar attitude that used to be what defined paramore.

Functions of a Music Video

Before thinking about making my music video it was important to think about what the function of a music video is. They are mainly used for promotion, a good music video will create hype which means that more people will know about it and therefore want to buy the song. For example, Psy - Gangnam Style went viral, mostly due to the dance move. The music video quickly broke records, reaching over 1 million views on Youtube.

Some music videos can be used to help add meaning to the song, or show the songs meaning. For example, Ed Sheeran - Small Bump shows the artist Ed Sheeran, sat in a hospital waiting room, using lots of aethetically pleasing camera work until the end of the song, which focuses on Ed's face with a girl in the background as he sings the crucial lyrics of the song,

"'Cause you were just a small bump unborn for four months then torn from life.
Maybe you were needed up there but we're still unaware as why."

 

Micheal Jackson's videos are renowned for showing his persona and style as an artist. His videos, much like his character, were extravagant and theatrical. Thriller was the first video to be produced with a budget over £1 million and is well known for its unusual length. The full video is over 13 minutes and tells the story of a young couple. It was iconic at the time, as the make up and concept was very extravagant for 1982.

 

Music videos can also be useful to confirm the genre of the song or music artist. In 1986 RUN-DMC got together with Aerosmith and created Walk This Way which was ground breaking at the time, as they were both two completely opposite genres, and in the past people would like only one genre of music.

 

This is useful because it shows me that i have to look at the little things, such as the artists style and persona. It also means that i have to think carefully about what song i choose to do and make sure that the music video fits the genre, and if its a song that tells a clear story or has a message to make that the main concept of the video.

 

 

Introduction

My name is Katie, and for our media coursework we will have to plan, produce and direct a music video for a song of our choice. Im really excited for this project because producing is something ive always wanted to try and this will give me the opportunity to see my ideas come to life. Since we were told ive been listening to songs and thinking through ideas that i would like to do. So far ive had a lot of big and extravagant ideas that would probably not be possible. To start off i will watch music T.V channels, such as MTV, and watch videos online to get a basic idea of what sort of video i want to make. Im excited!