Research - Censorship

Censorship

Censorship within media is something that comes up and is always tested. In the music industry censorship can be pushed to its limits as it can be seen as hard for artist and audience to find the line between freedom of speech and expression also known as 'art' and what is seen as inappropriate. 

If explicit content is mentioned or seen in a music video or soundtrack it is usually followed up with the 'Parental Advisory' symbol. This symbol is used to notify the public of its explicit content and that it is up to the parent or guardian's consent that any person under 18 can be exposed to this. 

Genres that have been known to carry the 'Parental Advisory' symbol:

• Hip-Hop - Violent, sexual and drug abusive content.
• R&B - Sexual content within lyrics. 
• Rock - Violent and drug abusive content.

There are 14 topics that have the right to be censored if presented in either a sound track or a music video, these are:

1. Shock - Footage that the audience could find traumatic and disturbing.
2. Violence - Scenes too violent can also be deemed inappropriate. 
3. Graphic Representation - If scenes are considered as to graphic (gory or explicit) the can be censored. 
4. Language - Explicit language may be found as inappropriate by the audience.  
5. Sexual Violence - Sexual Violence is a topic that could make viewers very disturbed and uncomfortable. 
6. Domestic Abuse - Scenes of domestic abuse and violence could possibly upset the viewers. 
7. True Events - Using true stories and events is a very sensitive subject as people that where possibly affected by these events could find it upsetting or offensive. 
8. Culture - If culture is shown in the wrong way it can be seen as offensive by others which is why it gets censored. 
9. Race - Racial misinterpretation can also be seen as offensive.
10. Class - Like racial interpretation social classes can also find misinterpretation offensive.
11. Corrupting the young - Corrupting children and youth (underage) can lead them to do things such as copy what they see or be influenced by things they do not fully understand which is potentially dangerous for them to do so. 
12. Political Controversy - Political controversy has the right to be censored as it could slander a  political figures reputation and change the peoples political views which could lead to problems such as rioting and disruption within society.  
13. Nudity & Sex - Sex and nudity can be seen as inappropriate in the eyes of young children hence the reason why it is censored. 
14. Drug Abuse - Drug abuse is an illegal activity which is why it is not often shown and is censored. 

All 14 topics can be censored because a large group of people can come to disagree with what is shown and might find whatever is shown as offensive,upsetting or inappropriate for viewing, hence the reason why is can be censored. 


Examples of Censorship in music videos:

In this music video, "I Don't Fuck With You" by Big Sean, the language is extremely explicit. With the word "Fuck" in the title gives a clear insight into what the rest of the song may be about. The language in this may be offensive to the younger audience which is why the swear words were censored in order to be released on the TV or radio stations.

In this music video "Bitch Better Have My Money" by Rihanna contain extremely violent scenes of abuse and kidnapping. This music video is censored in order to protect the public from distressing and harmful scenes and also protect children from the inappropriate scenes. As well as violence, there is also nudity shown and taboo language being used.

In this censored version of "Loyal" lyric censorship has taken place. Repeating occurs when the lyrics state "I'm the shit oooh" however, the censored version states "I'm the, I'm the oooh". Disc Scratching occurs every time the artist says "nigga", "bitch" or "hoe". This is done in order to protect the public from the explicit lyrics and is able to play on the radio without offending the audience under the age of 18.

Cut and banned:

When a music video is cut, it means that the music video is edited or the lyrics are bleeped out in order to make sure the content or lyrics are not in any more harmful or distressing. However, when a music video is banned, the video is not allowed to be shown on TV or banned from listening to it on the radio due to the lyrics.

                Advantages and disadvantages of censorship

Advantages:

• Protects children, as they are easily influenced and may copy.
• Protects emotional/physical reaction.
• Promotes a politically correct world.
• Prevents disrespect in individuals or community.
• Shields social morals.
• Restricts obscenity.
• Restricts violence as this may be easily imitated.

Disadvantages:

• Less views.
• Freedom of speech is compromised.
• Restricts idea/creativity.
• Compromise entertainment.
• Create a 'hype' which may make people want to create a music video that is explicit.
• Control industry, there is no freedom.
• Individual taste.

My understanding of censorship has been beneficial because it is something that me and my group have to consider because not only does our music video have a censored and an explicit version, but there are also themes of drugs and violence within  the music videos narrative which viewers could potentially find upsetting which means that we need to be care what we show to the people when filming the music video.

Explicit version compared to censored version: 

Explicit version

Censored version




My groups song choice music video:


In this music video the music video itself does not breach any rules of censorship for any scenes of it to be censored out  as it is not an explicit music video, however the sound track contains diluted explicit lyrical content (very few swear words) and the N word which is said twice by artist two (Youngs Teflon) which would offend our viewers, it is for this reason why we have planned to censor out the lyrics of the soundtrack and blur artist lip sync within the music video. 

Overall, from researching into censorship it is clear that this is a significant part in the production of a music video. This needs to be considered because this is how the public is protected which is why artist's should abide by this in order to not get any of their music video's or lyrics censored. The song I am planning to use will not have any harmful lyrics and I will not be making a music video which may have to be censored. Although, this bring controversy I would prefer to keep my music video suitable for all audiences.

Research and Planning - Creative brief of advert

Creative brief for advert...

Who are they and why they are collaborating?

The artist we have created go by the name of Sweeney and MD who are both R&B/ Hip Hop artists who are now releasing their new collaboration album 'YingYang'. They recently just came off their individual tours around Europe which sold out immediately in most places including London, France, Germany and Belgium. Both Sweeney and MD's tours have allowed their names to stardom into fame, placing their top singles at the top of the charts worldwide. The demand for both artists to collaborating has been hyped immensely on social media which for both artists, is another great opportunity to gain more success. Their loyal fan bases have been trying and worked together for quite some time to finally convince the two artist to collaborate. This album will hopefully please each artists fan base and satisfy their demand for this star combination.

Album concept

The two artists both being at the top of their careers means that this album must create no controversy between the ''favoritism'' that could possibly shown within their album Ying&Ying. Therefore we will produce the two artists with a 50/50 split ratio throughout the album. We will do this by consistently showing clear opposites between the two artists by: in music videos we will have one artist dressed in white and the other in black, on the album cover, one artist will be represented in white and the other in black.

Comparable products

These two artists are a due who go by the name of Ying Yang Twins which immediately grabs the theme of ying and yang. There albums follow a similar idea of ours as they are also represented as 'opposites' through the use of color within the the of the digipak and also their clothing in which they also consistently follow their black vs white them throughout their campaign. Although their idea is very much like ours we will portray the concept of Ying and Yang to a further extent as we will include this in our music videos.

Audience

The two artists both being at the top of their careers means that this album must create no controversy between the ''favouritism'' that could possibly shown within their album Ying&Ying. This is taken into consideration as there are many stereotypes within collaborations between two artists. One of the main ones being audiences will tend to favor one artist more whereas some audiences would favor the other, therefore conflict and controversy would occur if artists are 'better' that the other artist on the album. 

Launch days

Album Release: 30th January 2016

Press campaign: 9th January 2016

TV Launch: 13th January 2016

Conclusion

By researching into existing products and analysing key conventions within music adverts I now understand what can and needs to be included within an advert. This will benefit me and my group as we can implement some existing ideas and generic conventions with our own original idea in order to create an audience engaging advertisement.

Research and planning – Digipak: Identifying conventions and analysing existing digipa

Planning: Digipak analysis

Me and my group analysed exiting artists digipaks with similar representations artist representations to our artists. By analyzing existing products by successful artists we consider and implement some good key points that are in their work which could help apply a similar structure to that of ours. 

For our digipak analysis we choose to look at:
The End Of The Beginning - Skrapz

Blueprint - Jay-Z

General findings:

• Bold outstanding colours.
• The title of the album is also labeled in quite a big bold outstanding sized font.
• Artist image is apparent however it is slightly being lost in the darker lighting.
• Parental advisory symbol is present.

From this research here is some key factors that I am looking for in my project:

• We want a close up shot of both of our artists, in in order to best present star image.
• Lighting will also be brighter in order to enhance the star image of both artists.
• We will be using contrasting colors throughout the digipak (white for 1 artist black for another) this will again make our artists stand out within the digipak equally. 
• Facial expressions that will be used we be quite serious to present the themes of professionals being in their element which helps to build the anticipation of the digipak visually as it must be considered as the visual interpretation of the albums tracks.

Overall, I believe that the digipak is extremely important when promoting an artist as it is considered as the face of the album and the entire musical campaign to an extent. This is why we must create a visually satisfying logo of the album to attract and engage both artists target audience to best capture the primary themes of the album.

Research and planning – advert: Identifying conventions and analysing existing adverts

 Research into conventions for the advert

Intro:
The purpose of the advert is to:
- Make the audience aware of key information such as the release date etc.
- Simply promote the artist and their album
- Reminds the audience of an artists status in the music industry, whether they are regularly seen by the public or not.
- Selling an album can also be personal to an artists e.g. if they have been negatively portrayed within the media, displaying themselves positively outside the album can attract viewers.

Which two you looked at and why?

Me and my group looked at two artists, Jay Z and Skepta that portray similar artist representations that we wanted to portray within our two performers. The main representation were young black artists coming from a ghetto background however instead of portraying the stereotypical and negatively viewed black artist we wanted to portray artist that will be a positive influence on their audiences. 

Our two artists 'Sweeney' and 'MD' will 

This is sketch of the type of advert design we would like to create. My music video concept being 'ying and yang' showing complete opposites between the two performers is the same idea we want to portray within the advert. This sketch is close up shot of both performers heads edited and cut in half to be morphed together as one head. With the ying and yang logo as our background both faces will be edited to show a clear dividing in half in between the logo.; Sweeney being on the white half of the Ying & Yang logo and MD on the black half of the logo. The main idea is to show a clear 50/50 ratio between the two artist. Our idea is very similar to an existing collaboration album by Chris Brown and Trey Songz.

The conventions I would like to apply as a result of this research activity are...

• Album title (placed at the top of the poster)
• Artist name (Color coordinated with the design
• Artist image (clear 50/50 ratio of the showing of both artists) 
• Production company (will always be next to the album name to show who owns the album)
• Where the album is available e.g iTunes, 'In Stores Now', Amazon etc. (placed at the bottom of the poster, with the brand logos of the apps/companies you can purchase the album from.)
• Main singles from album (Can be listed next to the brief details of the album which gives teasers to the audience, attracting them to the album with known, top of the chart singles.)
• Parental advisory log if required. (if needed, the logo will be placed 

Overall, this research has been helpful to our planning because... 

This research has been beneficial to my group as it has given us a clear idea of how adverts should be portrayed to an audience and what are the key conventions of adverts. My research has also allowed us to know what needs to be included within an advert to make it an effective form of synergy to help sell the artist to an audience. As we are very aware of the importance that this is a form of synergy, it allows us to advertise the our artists album to fit our needs and receive ultimate success.

Planning - Shot List

CAMERA SHOT LIST

Production Title:KAJE

Director: Joshua/Amani

Location: Ponders End

Sheet No. 1

Date: 20/11/15

Scene: Performance of both artists 

Research and Planning - Advertisement Information

Planning: Advertisement Information

For our music campaign it is key that we have an advertisement because, not only does this raise the awareness of the album to the fans and people in general but it also to help build and establish a connection from the artists to their fans.

First of all we had to do research on advertisements for albums, me and my group came up with the advertisement for 'The End Of The Beginning' by Skrapz and 'The Blue Print' by Jay-Z and this is what we had managed to analyse. 

The common conventions that we had found out that appears in many of the advertisements was:

• Release date.
• Album title.
• Artist name.
• Where you can purchase and download the product from.
• Artist image.
• Hit singles to be placed on the advertisement.
• Parental advisory symbol (if needed).

For that reason we will have the following information placed on my album's advertisement.

Image: Artist image of MD & SWEENEY with their faces merged in a 50/50 split.

Cinematography: For the advertisement we will be using a closeup shot to get the head and shoulders of our artists, enough to see the colour of their clothes for when we merge their faces together showing the contrast in clothing between the 2 artists.

Costume hair and makeup: White and black costume contrasting each other.

Lighting & colour: White and black lighting and colour used due to the influential colours  of the Ying and Yang theme. 

Settings: For this there will be no settings as we will take the picture in front of a green screen, to better the effect of the black and white background when editing the advertisement.

Body language and facial expression: Due to the fact that our artists are already meant to be established artists within our project they will have stern, focused and quite serious expressions.

Persuasive language used: We will announce it as 'The most anticipated collaboration of this year' as the two artists are already meant to be big names within the industry and their genres of music.

Information: As for the additional information that we been seen on our advertisements are:

• Release date of album.
• Key songs on the album for example 'Like Me' which is the song we are performing in our music video.
• Where the Album can be purchased.

Layout: For our advertisement seeing as my group have decided that because our project is a joint collaboration album we will have both of the  star artists in the advertisement, however we will distribute the layout of the page 50/50 between the two artists as this will help them to better attract and merge their individual fan base which is similar to that of the Trey Songz and Chris Brown collaboration album titled 'TRGA X BRZY' (image below) as you can see both artists faces have been merged together. Our advertisement will have a similar layout as we will be going for contrasting shots because our album is influenced by the Ying and Yang theme.

Theories used in advertisement:

Dyer (star image) - Star image is used as our artists will be placed on the front cover of the advertisement.

Goodwin (enhanced star image) - Goodwin's theory of enhanced star image will be used in our advertisement our cinematography will be close up shots of both our artists and they will be the center of attention which helps to enhance their star image as they are already highly famous and will known, also because the background is just white and black colours this means that there isn't much else to look at besides the artists face, which enhances their star image and shows how important they are as nothing else is shown.   

Adorno (pop culture) - Our front cover will show a slight aspect of pop culture as the clothing worn is considered to be popular and conventional to artists that come from our artists genres.