Taylor Swift and Apple - BFFs after all

Way back at the dawn of time, Apple Music time that is, Taylor Swift had a beef with Apple Music.   This wasn't her first run in with a big corporation.  She had previously taken on Spotify and withdrawn her music from their service because she felt what they paid the artists for the music devalued it.  Her battle with Apple was a similar one and eventually forced them to change their policy.  They now pay artists for tracks played during a user's three month free trial period of using Apple Music.   Now that Apple have bowed to her demands, Taylor Swift's music is streamed exclusively on Apple Music - forcing fans to sign up to the service if they want to stream her music. On top of this, if fans want to watch video of her most recent tour, they will also have to sign up to Apple Music.  Her 'DVD' of her 1989 tour is being exclusively streamed on the service.

What does all this show? The power of the artist?  The power of the institution?  A reduction in consumer choice?

Is Jay-Z the musicians' champion or Universal's heavy hitter?

Lots of intriguing stuff around Jay-Z, Universal, Taylor Swift and others happening recently.  It all began a few weeks ago when one of the Jay-Z's companies bought Aspiro, a Swedish music streaming company that runs the streTidal.  Flashback further and we remember that Taylor Swift removed all her music from Spotify, claiming that it didn't place enough value on music.  There was lots of speculation around why else she may have done this, including rumours that it was an effort to increase sales of her 1989 (which it did) and that her music would appear on Google's new streaming service, Youtube Music Key. 

This week her back catalogue (her previously recorded music) has turned up on Tidal, which should make the service much more appealing to consumers.  It needs to be given the competition that now exists on the streaming market.  As well as market leader Spotify, we now have Pandora, Youtube Music Key and Apple's soon to re-launch Beats Music.  Tidal is also banking on audiences being drawn to the better quality audio of its service - CD quality, HD sound.  It's monthly subscription is £10 more expensive than Spotify's so the content has to be better.  They seem to be trying offer the audience a more immersive experience as well with music videos and exclusive interviews also available.

What makes this all the more interesting is a big meeting held around the time of the Grammys.  Jay-Z gathered together some of the biggest music artists to discuss a way forward for the music industry.  According to this Forbes article, they may have discussed artists taking control without record labels. It could be that Tidal is a service that would allow artists to do so. The reason artist make so little from services like Spoitify is because the record label takes such a big cut.  Alternatively, he may have just been helping out Universal as all the artists there, bar Madonna, are Universal artists and Jay-Z is also a Universal artists (the label he controls, Roc-a-Fella, is a subsidiary of Universal).  The Forbes article is well worth a read - all two pages!

AS Evaluation

Click on the title of this post to see some suggestions for how you can present your ideas for each of the evaluation questions.  These are just ideas and you don't have to present them in these ways.  However, they are suggestions made by the chief examiner so are well worth thinking about.
The exam board has posted examples of AS blogs with an examiner's commentary here.  You should look closely at these before planning your evaluation.

So we are clear the 7 questions you must answer individually are:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

4.  Who would be the audience for your media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Famous Copyright Cases From The Music Industry

Sky News has usefully compiled a brief summary of some of the most famous musical copyright cases.  Check it out here

How Much Do Artists Make From Spotify?

Time Magazine has created an interesting Spotify earnings calculator where you can see how much major artists earn through being streamed on Spotify.  It's well worth looking at as evidence for the debate over whether streaming is really the future of music distribution. As we know Taylor Swift removed her music from Spotify, claiming that the amount paid doesn't place enough value on her music.  In the past the musician Billy Bragg has claimed that the problem isn't with how much Spotify pays per stream ($0.06 - $0.84 according to Time) but the percentage that the record company takes before the artist gets paid.

Pun Alert: The Blurred Lines Between Inspiration and Copyright Infringement

A court in America made a massive decision in relation to copyright infringement last night.  It ruled that the Robin Thicke and Pharell Williams track 'Blurred Lines' (a Universal release) infringed the copyright of soul legend Marvin Gaye's 'Got To Give It Up'.  Listening to the two tracks, there is a definite similarity in the bass line.  See what you think by listening to the two tracks (below).   This interview has a quite a good explanation of how the ruling raises questions about what counts as inspiration and what counts as infringement.  It also sets out some of the potential problems for musicians as a result of the ruling, including how open they might be about their musical inspirations.
You can read more about the case in this BBC New article.

Of course, the controversy around the message of Blurred Lines is an entirely different matter that deserves a debate of its own.

Behold the great Saul Bass

Look before you make. In particular, look closely at the wonderful title sequences of the great Saul Bass. Look here

The Ten Commandments of Typography

Take heed and do not sin!

Trailer Help

There's no doubt that making a trailer is a hard thing to do, especially when you don't have an actual film to work from.  So the best thing you can do is keep looking at real trailers to inspire you and help you structure the thing.  Just had a look at this trailer for a new British drama and think it contains lots of useful reminders of what you should be trying to achieve.  Pay close attention to the structural devices - the dialogue as voiceover, the slates etc.  Most importantly look at how few sequences there are and how, where present, they're no more than three or four shots.  The script really does the job.  Dialogue is minimal, one line here and there that sums up the narrative thrust, e.g "we're not kids any more" telling the audience about genre and narrative. 
What this tells us is that you need to aim to 'strike and run' with your shots.  They should grab the audience and then you move on to the next one that grabs them and so on.

Creativity

Dolly Zoom - a visual explanation

Evolution of the Dolly Zoom from Vashi Nedomansky on Vimeo.
If you want to disorient your audience you might want to use a dolly zoom.  As you can see from the examples given above, it offers other possible effects.  Read more about how to achieve the effect here.

Great Trailer Resources

Click on the links below for some great resources to help you make your trailers the best they can be:
http://filmmakermagazine.com/37093-first-impressions/#.VDt2UNItAdU
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/editing-a-film-trailer/
http://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video-editing/how-to-edit-film-trailers/

Some really important tips from trailer editor, Ross Evison:

1) Remember to keep building the trailer, make the story move forward, running on the spot is a waste of time. The 3 act structure, like the majority of story telling, works great. Set up you place and characters at the beginning, have some fun in the middle then push the turning point into the final act where you either have your final promise of what’s going to happen or throw in some jeopardy. Escalate, escalate, escalate then stop!

2) Don’t let shots and moments out stay their welcome. The perfectly constructed moment you created in your film CAN be trimmed right down in the trailer, don’t worry it doesn’t ruin your film. It will always be perfect in the film.

3) The trailer doesn’t have to be as linear as
the film – often better if it isn’t.

Will Competition Make or Break Streaming?

There are some great stats in this article.  With Google and Apple about to launch streaming services, it's interesting to note how none of the existing services make a profit and that very few of the potential users actually pay for the services.  An argument is that the cost of a subscription puts users off paying it and that, with Apple and Google entering the market, the increased competition will force down the price of subscription and encourage more people to sign up and pay for services.  However, what would be the eventual consequence of this?  When prices are forced down some services will inevitably be forced to close because they don't have the scale of business to cope.  This often leads to a near monopoly situation where just the big companies are left and less choice is available to the consumer.  Of course, this could also impact on the artists as one or two companies dominating the streaming market will mean that they can force record labels to accept lower payments per play on the streaming services.  On the flip side of course, this might be the bitter pill that the industry and consumer will have to swallow if they want to see streaming services continue.  Investors will only support Spotify and Pandora for so long before they want to see a profit.

Has technology improved music production?

http://www.thebeatles.com/photo-album/
early-recording-sessions-abbey-road

Theoretically digital technologies can speed up the production process and make it more accessible.  But what effect do they have in practice.  Paul McCartney (for the Kanye West fans amongst you, he's one the last two remaining Beatles) reminds us that the restrictions of the pre-digital era helped to make musicians more focused:

"We would record four tracks in a day - which is unheard of now - and those four tracks still sell more than most contemporary records. So obviously the system was pretty good. It was very simple, you had to just be very disciplined... we knew we had to play great," he said.
"Whereas now you know you go: 'We'll do another take or we'll get it in the mix, we'll just take that bum note out, we'll stick it on Pro-Tools, we'll fix it.' But it gives you, I think, too many options.
"It's great, it's very luxurious, but I don't think it helps the process."
Read more of what he said on the BBC News site.