Approval From Our Artist

In order to get approval from our chosen artist The Jacques, so that we could use one of their songs to make a music video, one of our group members who knows the band, messaged the lead singer on Facebook. 

Artist Background Research

The Jacques 

Our chosen artist to make a music video for is The Jacques, an indie rock band, from the Bristol area, who formed in early 2014. The band is made up of two sets of brothers, who have played at many venues including at the Dot to Dot Festival and Glastonbury Festival as well as being a sport act for The Libertines at Hyde Park. The band was signed at Hyde Park by the drummer from The Libertines, Gary Powell. 

We decided to use this band as they were a friend of one of our group members so we knew we could easily get permission to use one of their songs for our coursework. They also go to university fairly locally and when they aren't at uni they are only as far away as Bristol, so it should be fairly easy to negotiate a time when we could meet and record with them.

Audience Research 2

Who are the specific audiences for particular products?

For this part of our research we decided to look at what kinds of videos are shown on MTV Rocks, the institution most likely to show a music video from a band which we have been looking at, and their audience demographic. This channel mostly plays songs with the genres indie and rock. They are described as having a target audience aged 16-24.

The most common artists/bands which appear on MTV Rocks include The 1975, Twenty One Pilots, Arctic Monkeys, Bring Me The Horizon and Catfish & The Bottlemen. These artists could all be described as producing more 'alternative' music which fits with what you would expect to find on MTV rocks- indie and rock bands. The target audience of these bands range from young teens up to middle aged people, as the bands are generally quite well known. Also the genres indie and rock are more likely to appeal to a wider audience as they are becoming more and more mainstream. 

Audience Research 1

What do real audiences consume?

After looking at and analysing some music videos to try and find conventions which they followed as well as looking at the types of shots they used and how different styles of music video are structured (narrative, performance, concept). We have now decided to look at popular music videos to try and see patterns in what audiences like to consume.

When searching up the most popular music videos of 2015 we found that the most popular videos were 'See You Again' by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth, 'Hello' by Adele, 'Lean On' by Major Lazer and DJ Snake and 'Sugar' by Maroon 5. These were all very big mainstream tracks. The most viewed track of all time is Gangnam Style by PSY with around 2.5 billion views followed by See You Again by Wiz Khalifa with around 1.5 billion views. Both of these videos were not famous because of the song itself. Gangnam Style is so famous because of the slightly rediculous music video and the dance which they made to go with the song. Whereas See You Again is from the sound track of a very famous movie sieries, Fast and Furious, and the song was written in memory of one of the cast members who died.

Analysing Music Video Directors- Mark Romanek

Mark Romanek

Mark Romanek is an American film maker who also directs music videos and commercials. He has been directing music videos since 1985 and has worked with a variety of artists throughout his time directing including Madonna and Michael Jackson. He was awarded his first grammy award for his video for 'Scream' by Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson which is one of the most expensive videos made costing around seven million dollars to make. In his more recent videos, he has worked with Taylor Swift  in making her video for 'Shake it off' and Jay-Z's '99 Problems'.

Analysing Music Video Directors- Director X

Director X

Director X (Julien Christian Lutz) is a Canadian music video director. Some of his most successful videos include 'Fancy' by Iggy Azalea, 'Yeah' by Usher and 'Black Magic' by Little Mix. He has also worked with artists such as Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber and The Wanted.




He has been directing music videos since 1998, and since then has always worked with very popular and well known artists. In his music videos, he often uses the black 'letterbox' bars on the top and bottom of the video, which would open and close at the beginning and end of his music videos. This can be seen in Usher's 'Yeah'.

Analysing Music Video Directors- Hype Willams

Hype Williams

Harold 'Hype' Williams is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and music video director. Throughout his time directing, he has won many awards for his music videos. For example in 1996 he won the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the Year. As well as this he has also been recognised for his work in making Will Smith's video 'Gettin' Jiggy wit it' as well as TLC's 'No Scrubs' and Kanye West's 'Gold Digger'. He has worked a lot with Kanye West creating a total of twenty music videos for him. 



Hype Williams is known for his use of the fish eye lens, which contorts the central focus of his videos. This technique is used in his video 'Gimme Some More' by Busta Rhymes. 



Another style which several of his videos employs is splitting a shot and putting the two parts of the shot above and below the main video. He has used this technique on many of his videos, including 'So Sick' by Ne-Yo and 'Check on it' by Beyonce.