NEWSFLASH:

Taylor Swift has just released a snippet from her new album (1989) from the song 'Welcome to New York'. Apart from the fact that I'm crazy-in-love with it. I realised how important it is to self-promote when releasing a new album or song.As my project brief is to create a digipak, it is good to look at current artists who are going through a similar process. Taylor Swift has done various things to involve her target audience within her work. Such as PhotoShoots, magazine covers, releasing album art... etc. Therefore, I think that it would be useful if I were to follow in the same path. Although I am not the artist and am only creating the product, I think that by putting my feet in an artist's shoes, I'll be able to get more of an idea to how I would like the portray my work within the general conscientious. Taylor Swift releases her album on the 27th October this year which includes 13 polaroid pictures within the CD digipak. I think that this is a really good idea as it matches her album art and single art (all framed within a polaroid photo). For my digipak, I think it would be a good idea to incorporate something like this. Therefore, making my packaging more appealing for my audience, making them want to listen to the song I created a music video for. Just like Taylor Swift's 'Shake it Off' had its own 'single art' in the form of a polaroid photograph. The mise-en-scene within this polaroid photo followed the conventions of the music video, i.e. having a

good time, dancing, being free - "Shaking it Off". Therefore, with all this in mind, I think that it would be cool if I followed suite a little bit with releasing 'snippets'. So, when my first, real draft of my music video is completed, I could 'pretend' to release small amounts of it to my target audience and they can give me feedback on what they liked most about the section/snippet and what they would change. Therefore, giving me a whole different perspective on making my music video better and more profitable if it were an actual industry product. This will be useful when discussing why I made changes to certain aspects and the process I went through to come to that conclusion. I plan to ask my audience on the aspects of cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing and sound within the short clips of film. I think that it would be conventional for the type of music video I want to create because of the abstract theme/elements I want to incorporate. Therefore, only showing sections won't matter because it will be the audience's interpretation - almost speaking for itself like an art piece. I want to create something that could stand alone as an interesting form of media, even if the soundtrack were muted.

 The video on the left is also something I would
 like to incorporate within my work. In this video,  Taylor Swift is talking about the song 'Welcome to  New York' in which she earlier released an extract  of. She talks about what emotions and feelings she  had when she wrote the song and what inspired her  most. I think that I could use this idea when talking  about different aspects of mise-en-scene - for  example, what inspired me to use a certain props,  location or costumes? What emotions created my  piece as a whole and whether or not the lyrics  within my trap remix are meaningful to the  abstract connotations within the video. I want to be  able to portray my own feelings and emotions  towards the visual imagery I use when creating different settings and scenes. Whereas Taylor Swift talks about her lyrical analysis, my videos would focus on  more of the visual connotations and what I, personally feel they represent. But as I plan to make an abstract video, for my audience, it could mean anything. Just as lyrics to a song can mean different things to different people.    

Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis #1

Taylor Swift - The Story of Us

Genre - Country with pop elements 

This music video is based around the trials and tribulations of a tough relationship break-up. The music video is primarily story-based and the lyrics cohesively match what is going on visually. Like the song-title, the visual layout of the music video is set out like an old storybook. 

This is the music video followed by my textual analysis:

A History of Music Videos

This Prezi shows the adaptation of Music Videos over the course of a long period. Within this slideshow, it discusses how Music Videos came about and the effects it has had on the music industry ever since.

Companies and by-products of the invention of music videos are:

• YouTube
• VEVO
• Top of the Pops (Primarily for live performance but Music Videos were later incorporated.)
• MTV (Music Television.)

If Music Videos did not exist, most successful singles such as 'Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody' would have never been as successful. However, this does not mean to say it is true for every hit single but it does help when promoting new music. 

For example:

• Taylor Swift is going to release her new album '1989' on the 27th of October, 11 days from now.
• To first promote her album, to get her audience interested, she released her single 'Shake it Off' AND released a music video on YouTube for it at the same time.
• This promoted her single to a mass audience as millions of people use YouTube everyday.
• Therefore, this made her single her second #1 since her single 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." 
• Two days ago, due to her success with 'Shake it Off', as the closing date for her new album nears, she released another song 'Out of the Woods' - but did not release a video. 
• This meaning, that her publicity was so successful, that she didn't need to.
• Her two songs 'Shake it Off' and 'Out of the Woods' are currently #1 and #2 on iTunes.