Ministry Of Sound London, referred to as simply Ministry Of Sound or MoS is a record label but also as a nightclub based in London. Ministry Of Sound has a network of international offices in Australia, Germany and the United States. Its record label was first established in 1995 with the release of 'The Annual'. The Annual went onto sell over 160,000 copies and paved the way for a now-global label with over 50 million dance albums and singles sold to date. Ministry Of Sound remains an independent label, and continues to deliver albums and singles. In January 2006, the company purchased record label Hed Kandi from The Guardian Media Group and plans to continue maintaining the group. The logo for Ministry Of Sound gives of a British vibe because of the crown on the top, this also gives the logo a more official and governmental effect.
The way the logo is set up is very modern, I like the way the 3D gate looking feature in the middle is the main focus of the logo. The writing around the outside is in a black background to make the white text stand out against it, the text is in capital letters which makes it stand out more. The logo has been created in many different colour schemes, each album has been had a different logo on it, they change the effects and the colours, I think this is a good way to ensure each album they release looks more interesting and appealing to the target audience. I will be using this record label to support my artist because of its heavy link to dance music, which is close to the house music genre.
Dyer states that "stars" are constructed and are artificial images, even if they are represented as being real people', experiencing real emotions. It helps if their image contains a designed audience so that they can be copied to the interests of that audience. Their image may be made over a single item or characteristic e.g. Katy Perry’s ever changing bright hair colouring. Pop stars have the advantage over film stars in that their constructed image may be much more consistent over a period of time and is not dependent on the films they choose as star vehicles.
Dyer proposes that “A star is an image not a real person that is constructed out of a range of materials”.
Stars provide audiences with a focus for ideas of what people are supposed to be like (e.g for women, thin/beautiful) they may support hegemony by conforming to it (thin/beautiful) or providing difference (fat/still lovable). Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and promote a certain ideology. Audience interest in these values enhances their ‘star quality’ and it is through conveying beliefs ideas and opinions outside music that performers help create their star persona. A star may initiate a fashion trend, with several fans copying their hairstyle and clothing, for example when Rihanna dyed her hair red in 2012, there was a sudden phase or normal girls following in her footsteps.
This theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are constructed by institutions for financial reasons and are built to target a specific audience or group of people. Dyer’s theory can be broken down into 3 sections:
Audience and Institutions
Constructions
Hegemony
Audience and Institutions – Stars are made to make money for that purpose alone. Increasing the brand identity benefits the institution as they become a household name increasing sales in all of the media platforms they are in. The institution then models the artist around the target audience they choose. For example Rihanna, according to Dyer, was modelled around fashion forward people so the audience can relate to her as a person and also her music.
Constructions – This part of the theory states that the star is built for an audience and is not an actual person, specifically with someone signature to them that differentiates them from other stars, for example Miley Cyrus' provocative, skimpy styling.
Hegemony – We relate the the star because they have a feature that we admire or share with them. This develops from an admiration into an idolization. Some people may attempt to replicate what they like about the star, but this can be negative as even though stars are seen as role models, some abuse hard drugs and alcohol which can lead to people who worship these stars copying their actions.
I have researched into a range of different music video directors, but focused mainly on house music themed videos to keep a close link between all of my research. Through my research I found a variety of different directors with a wide range of uniquely styled music videos, these include:
Michel Gondry
Gondry is a French director whom started his work in 1988 continues to do so to the present day, he is well known for his visual style and use of Mise-en-scene in his work. Gondry is famous for being both a music video director and film director, having directing films such as 2001 film 'Human Nature' and 2004 film 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' which was hugely popular and went on to win an Oscar. As well as music videos including Around the world - Daft Punk, Mad world - Michael Andrews and Gary Jules and Fell in love with a girl - The white stripes.
The most influential video for me is Gondry's work with The Chemical Brothers - Star guitar, which highly inspired me because of its simple, yet so effective, continuous shot of the train journey for one destination to another. The video has been edited precisely to the beat of the song which I think makes it look so effective and iconic, and although there are no lyrics within the track the video still presents a visual representation of what is being heard.
Ryan Staake
Another director that inspired me was Ryan Staake; Ryan is a new music video director and is responsible for directing the video for hit single 'My love' but route 94 featuring Jess Glynne, as well as Major Lazor - Sweat and A-track & Tommy Trash - Tuna Melt. Staakes videos are very typical to the house music genre, the shots included are very eccentric and unusual, with lots of negative and luminous edited lighting effects. I plan to use shots like this in my own video, to create the same quirky effect.
The Major Lazer video is partially performance based, but instead of with instruments with speakers and dancers; this works well because of the house style of the song, which would of been made up digitally with an arrangement of repeated loops and beats instead of typical instruments; so still incorporating an element of performance in the video was a difficult task but Staake executed extremely well, he also managed to still link it with the club and rave vibe of the song by using luminous paints on the dancers to act as their sweat, suggesting the beat of the music is inside them and the colour of this is as vibrant as the track. Evidently this links with the name of the song; sweat.
Huse Monfaradi
Huse is new music video directing, he started off his career at MTV UK before entering the
world of promos with music videos for artists such as Snow Patrol, Arctic
Monkeys and Eric Prydz on the iconic video "Call On Me" which won The
people’s choice award. A commercials career soon followed with spots for
Cadburys, Samsung and Nike.In 2011 he directed his first feature film
through Partizan, a documentary about the DJ & Producer David Guetta, then
in 2012 he shot the campaign for the BBC Hackney Weekend, which featured a
range of high profile celebrities. Huse has been nominated for a
number of music related awards such as best new director, best international director
and best rock video director.
One of Huse’s famous projects is David Guetta – Nothing but the beat film, I particularly liked the short teaser trailer he created for this which was shot and edited very much like a music video. I liked the style in which this was filmed with a number of extreme close ups, clean cut edited in short, snappy shots, sots of the crowds gathered to hear is music and luminous club lighting used in-sync with the beat of music clip overlapping the video. I plan to use similar shots in my music video as this clip has highly inspired me.
I needed to pick someone to play Alex Fiction within my music video, for this roll I chose one of my peers Liam. I felt Liam had the right look for the character I wanted to create, with casual dress dense meant I didn't need to style him when I was filming him which helped a lot as it meant I had one less thing to plan.
Liam is the only person starring in my video as I want to follow the conventions of house music videos as much as I can, and usually this genre of music only stars the artist as the main protagonist other than people in clubs if the video is performance based.
As part of my planning, I created a shot roughly 30 second preliminary task to test out my editing skills on lip syncing; i filmed this in order to gain practice when editing songs to fit the movement of the person acting as the singer. I feel I constructed this well but will be cleaner and more precise on the editing on my final product, this helped me immensely as it gave me a platform to work up from when eventually filming sand editing my music video.
After some consideration I have finally decided on the plot of my music video; I have no real narrative to my video. just a collection of clips. Although there will be a clear a link between the visuals and music to link to Goodwins theory. I aim to link my music video as closely to the house music genre as possible using fast pace editing, adding edits and filter to create unorthodoxappearance to the scenes. The first few scenes I plan to use will include shots of me walking in a range of locations, these will be edited to the beat to keep a link between the visuals and the music, to link to the expectations of music videos stated in Goodwins theory. The next few clips I aim to use will include shots of a clock to play on the lyrics of the song, displaying that the time continued to change even if nothing else does which is suggesting the lyrics 'nothing really seems to make a change' As the pace of the song builds up I plan to build the pace of the editing on the shots to fit with this, I plan on using a variety of edits and filters in this section to break the shots up, this will also give the effect of quicker shots. I also plan to use snippets of lip syncing from the protagonist in my song, to allow the audience to familiarise themselves with the artist. However I don't plan to show the full face of my artist as i want a sense of mystery to remain around him, this is very typical for males in house music videos as it builds a sense of suspension. Toward the end of the song I will start to show a bit more of the artist to make the audience feel as if they are a little closer to knowing their identity, again I plan to use edits and filters in order to conform to the house music genre.
Ministry Of Sound London, referred to as simply Ministry Of Sound or MoS is a record label but also as a nightclub based in London. Ministry Of Sound has a network of international offices in Australia, Germany and the United States. Its record label was first established in 1995 with the release of 'The Annual'. The Annual went onto sell over 160,000 copies and paved the way for a now-global label with over 50 million dance albums and singles sold to date. Ministry Of Sound remains an independent label, and continues to deliver albums and singles. In January 2006, the company purchased record label Hed Kandi from The Guardian Media Group and plans to continue maintaining the group. The logo for Ministry Of Sound gives of a British vibe because of the crown on the top, this also gives the logo a more official and governmental effect. 
